4 The mysterious stone figure

After spending nearly a month in this place, Thorian's eyes had adapted to this vast blue space, so he had no difficulty navigating through it.

He spent an unknown amount of time exploring the layout of this place, and his steps finally halted at a cave with a strange appearance.

Next to the entrance, there was a kind of inscription that Thorian couldn't understand, but he decided to enter anyway, and when he did, he saw a stone structure of an ancient animal, with the body of a lion and the head and body of an eagle. This creature was a legendary one that had disappeared long ago.

"Incredible..." Thorian slid his hand over the head of this sculpture, but suddenly cracks began to appear all over its body.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

As Thorian took a few steps back, the entire stone body fell to the ground, revealing the legendary mythical creature roaring so loudly that it left him stunned.

Rroooaaaarrr!!!

"Calm down; I didn't mean to wake you from your slumber." Thorian, facing a creature as legendary as this one, would prefer not to engage in battle, not out of fear but out of respect and because he wasn't yet ready to know how strong it was.

He had been training for the past few weeks, subsisting on raw fish whenever he was hungry and drinking water from the surroundings without any problem. However, knowing how strong he was with this last month of training was a whole different matter; he only learned what he could from the inscriptions he found on the ceiling.

But just when Thorian thought that the creature would only attack, he felt familiarity with this creature, and at the same time, he fell silent shortly after feeling the presence it was leaving behind.

"Now I'll leave. I would have liked to leave you a fish, but I don't think it would be to your liking." Thorian, after much thought, began to slowly leave the cave without turning his back on that huge creature.

This place was very strange; not only were fighting styles engraved on the walls, but there was also a way to combine fire with water to create powerful attacks never before seen.

In addition to that, there were many corpses with truly ancient treasures, and many of them Thorian didn't know in what language they were written.

Cuaah!

The black Griffin observed Thorian's strange behavior and tilted its head to the side, walking towards him step by step, trying to understand what he was doing.

"Wait, wait, I'm sure it's this." Thorian, with a little pain on his face, threw a huge fish he had been keeping in a woolen bag towards that huge griffin.

When the Griffin saw the huge fish under its feet, it jumped with joy backward and began to eat the fish. But the moment it saw Thorian silently moving away, it shouted to get his attention, ran towards him, and pulled him by the clothing towards the cave from which he had come out.

"Oh, it's okay, I can walk alone." Thorian felt no malicious intention in this Griffin, and after being alone all this time, he felt less threatened speaking to someone who seemed to understand him a little.

When Thorian entered this cave, his eyes narrowed when he saw that it was dark, so raising his hand so that the Griffin wouldn't be frightened, he waved his right hand, generating some bright blue flames that began to illuminate this cave.

Rrrr!

The Griffin released Thorian, moved a few meters away, and looked at those strange flames in the hands of the little boy standing in front of him, wondering if he wasn't burning himself.

Thorian turned to the Griffin, and seeing how its eyes focused on the blue fire in his hand, he smiled. "This is fire; I can control it so I don't burn myself."

At that moment, looking around, he decided to throw a fireball into the sky, and when it touched the ceiling, it spread to the walls, but this time it was brighter. The inscriptions that were drawn on the wall showed the Griffin that was next to him being ridden, and when its rider died, it turned into stone.

"That means I'm your new rider; are you called Doki, or is that the name of the person who used to ride you?" Thorian didn't understand anything about what was happening, but seeing the Griffin's strange behavior, he thought that its name was actually Doki.

Knowing that he knew something about that legendary Griffin, he thought of his parents and how they would love to know this, but they're not here.

"Well, Doki, you're not obliged to accompany me because I'll do very bad things when I leave here... Do you understand? I'm going to kill people; I don't want to involve a legendary creature like you in something so dangerous." Thorian thought that the idea of being able to ride a legendary Griffin was something that wouldn't happen.

Not for lack of confidence; he knew that if he dared to ride this Griffin, he might be recognized as the mount of a future killer, and his life would be in danger.

But Doki, the Griffin, didn't care about this; he understood Thorian's emotions perfectly, so he lowered his head, and at that moment, blue rays appeared all over his body; these rays seemed to charge up and were forcefully launched against the ice wall, generating cracks.

Boom!

The powerful electric explosion made Thorian take a step back from the shock; he refocused his attention on Doki and thought, "The only one here who needs to take care of himself should be me."

Co! Co! Co!

"Are you a rooster?" Thorian looked again at this place and, seeing a type of wooden tube between the rocks, knew that with this, the man in the paintings called Doki to come to his side.

Taking it, he kept it and walked towards the exit to return to the main place where the movements were, where a silhouette controlled the ice with such power that it could cause massive destruction.

On his way back, Doki didn't leave his side; he folded his wings to not expose his body and looked curiously at all these places. There was a moment when he licked a wall when he saw it was a different color, just to get stuck to the ice, and if it weren't for Thorian, who knows how he would have freed himself?

"Now that I've learned a lot in this place, I must learn to get out of here; I need a sign." Thorian looked again at the movements that the figure made above his head and decided to imitate them, but this time using ice.

When he closed his eyes, a chilling frost was released from his body, slowly surrounding him, and as he slid his right foot on the flat ground, ice spikes emerged forcefully from the ground.

Feeling that aura grow within him, he raised his right hand, but with his palm open, and the ice spikes shot out, impacting forcefully against the walls.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Opening his eyes and feeling that power, Thorian waved his left hand, and this time, a curtain of frost generated a powerful wave of ice that raised large ice spikes, and then, moving both hands upwards, they shot out at an impressive speed.

"Hoo..." Exhaling thoughtfully, Thorian looked at his arms covered in ice and wondered if there was any reason other than killing to use this technique.

Feeling all that power that he could unleash, he placed both hands on the ground, and as if the air froze, an intense ice structure was created in a few seconds, impacting against the ceiling.

Thorian raised his right hand open towards the sky, and at that moment, several ice spears formed behind him. When he closed his hand, these ice spears were shot out, managing to pierce the ceiling where they were.

Seeing how the ice structures above his head collapsed, Thorian looked at Doki, who was panicking, and shouted to him, "Doki, come to my side!"

Doki spread his wings and moved swiftly towards where Thorian was, watching as the blocks of ice fell on their heads. But unlike any other person, Thorian didn't panic; he unsheathed his sword from his back and swung it forcefully, splitting the falling blocks into smaller ones.

Rooaaarrrr!!!

Hearing Doki's call, Thorian mounted his back, and knowing that they were above him, he waved his huge wings, generating large gusts of wind.

Boom!

In a moment, when the blocks of ice were falling behind those that Thorian had split, Doki shot out at great speed, dodging the obstacles above his head.

"Aaaaahhhhhh!!!" Thorian screamed, feeling all that icy wind sweep over his face and knowing that if they were hit now, all that desire for revenge that he had hidden inside would disappear completely.

But he had underestimated Doki's flying ability; in the blink of an eye, they were flying over the place where they were, and looking down, Thorian could see that they were actually on a floating ice glacier not far from where his village was.

"Let's go to that place." Thorian sheathed his sword, looked into the distance at that huge pit where his village had been before, and his eyes cooled as he remembered all those past events.