Chapter Two: The Other Side
Upon clicking into the article, James took a deep breath and closed his eyes to calm himself down. He needed to stop going crazy over something like this, it was happening in another country and had nothing to do with him at the moment. He reopened his eyes and finally started to read the article.
'A frightening new phenomenon has occurred regarding the spatial rift over the city of Kunming. Twelve minutes ago, a ring of blue light rushed out from the portal in all directions, carrying a powerful EMP wave with it. Our devices are still unable to contact the officials in that area, but we do know that the 'explosion' caused minor earthquakes in the city...' The article continued to talk about the details and what people are doing about it, it even showed a photo of the explosion right before the EMP wave hit. James found this genuinely surprising, as the amount of force it took for something to cause earthquakes despite being in the air must have been enormous. Not to mention how powerful that EMP wave must have been to knock out the entire city's electronic devices. Just where had all that power come from? James drew in a sharp breath upon seeing the picture, the explosion was an insane-looking spectacle. If it wasn't so terrifying he would've stopped for longer to appreciate the beauty of the bright blue light, almost like the Northern Lights. He turned off his phone and dropped dead on his bed. This was more than enough excitement for one day. Hell, this was probably the most scared he'd felt in years, but he still didn't know why.
James let his mind wander off, and he slowly drifted to sleep; he'd had more than enough excitement for today.
___
A large mass of both humans and beastly creatures were all running in a single direction to a strange-looking deformation in space that looked infinitesimally small by comparison to this massive army. Behind this hoard of people and monsters alike, there was another large army consisting of the same types of humans and beasts, it was more than obvious that they were being chased. There was a large gap between the two, although the space was small compared to the two armies, it was almost a mile long.
A gigantic, murky-purple dragon that was hundreds of feet long and a muscularly built, middle-aged man dressed in robes both stopped at once. The gigantic dragon shrunk down to a mere dozen feet long as it spoke, "I can't sustain such a large form anymore with all of these damn wounds... Fuck this. Regardless, the portal is open and we will be able to escape through it, but it has to be closed from this end, meaning one of us has to stay he-" The dragon spoke in words that didn't form a language, but directly translated their meaning into the listener's mind. However, he didn't even get to finish his sentence when the bearded man suddenly turned to the dragon with a lowered head and spoke in a grim tone.
"I know, after all, it's my job as a commander of this army and leader of my people, of course, I will be the one to stay behind. But you should go now, as you're even more wounded than I am," The man turned to face the dragon and lifted his head to show a goofy smile on his face. He continued in what was almost a childish voice, "You're such a dumbass, you know that? What made you think that I'd have this any other way? Not to mention that although we're of the same strength, you have a much more impressive inheritance than I do, I just hope you can find a worthy successor amongst someone in our army..." The man's voice trailed off, his lighthearted tone had slipped into a much more sentimental and nostalgic one.
The dragon laughed and turned back to respond with his dialect that could only be called semi-telepathic. "You always tried to lighten the mood with ur goofy attitude." The strong man in robes gave a simple nod and chuckle as his response, before turning to face the army and taking out a sword that emitted scintillating light, one could almost feel how sharp the edge was just by looking at it. The dragon simply turned and left wordlessly, as there was nothing left to say. He had already wasted enough time as it was with his sworn brother and had dashed towards the portal.
When the dragon had reached the portal, there were only a few people left from the previously numerous troop. His army was far smaller by the time they reached the portal than the start of the battle, as this superior army massacred their soldiers any time they tried to resist, so they were only left with the choice of fleeing to a random dimensional plane.
When the last soldier had gone through the portal, the dragon looked back to see his comrade-in-arms swing his sword in a vast horizontal movement, sending a sweeping sword light across enemy lines. The light quickly spread out as it advanced, and when it reached the first line of opponents, it almost covered the width of their entire battalion. Many of the soldiers were cut in half, including a man who wore much nicer armor and had a stronger stature than the rest, he must have been the other sides general.
Although the general had been split in two at the waist, his top half still flew through the air at full speed towards the portal. The dragon saw this and quickly flung his paws up into the air in a grandiose fashion. Following this seemingly absurd motion, a barrier rose up, seemingly congealed from space itself, and it surrounded the portal.
Seeing this, what remained of the opposing general condensed a blood-red spear of light and threw it towards the dragon. It pierced through the air before making contact with the barrier, which it tore through like butter. The barrier that the dragon hastily constructed was literally of no use, with his leftover strength the dragon couldn't have done much no matter what defensive formation he used.
Upon piercing the barrier, the blood-red spear plunged into the dragon's chest, emerging out of the other side like a bullet before dissipating into dim streaks of light. The impact knocked the dragon back into the portal, and the red energy that invaded his body quickly corroded what remained of his flesh so that only a purple and gray ball of light remained where his head one was. The momentum carried this loose ball of light straight through the portal.
The middle-aged man turned his head to see that no one was left on this side of the portal, so he turned back to face the enemy only to dodge and incoming arrow of light which had far surpassed the speed of sound. He then bolted backward and arrived at the portal in a second, and swung his sword diagonally through the portal, slicing it into two. The portal slid apart where it was cut before imploding into dust and light. The middle-aged man in robes gave a sigh of relief before disappearing once more in a flash of light.
___
The dragon's consciousness regained its orientation and it gazed down on this new world, trying to figure out what kind of plane they had fled to. Its body was long dead and destroyed but thankfully, with its high cultivation level, it's consciousness was able to persist for at least some time before dissipating. If it wanted to live on, it had to find a host. It didn't matter whether it shared a symbiotic relationship with its host or took over the body completely, but it needed a physical form to reside in.
Once it realized it's position and got its bearings, the balled of manifestation of the dragon's consciousness finally saw what the scenery was like around him. He saw broken buildings, blood, fire, and dead bodies everywhere, it was almost identical to the wasteland that he had just fled from. He floated over to examine one of the dead bodies, a young girl that couldn't have been more than sixteen years old. The dragon frowned, or at least it would if it still had a face. These were mortals, and his army of cultivators had come and slaughtered them all to try and take over this planet.
It was only now that the dragon had a moment of enlightenment; why was it always this way? He had fought back against his enemy's only because they had threatened him first, why should he go around slaughtering innocent people when there was an alternate solution? When one threatened your life, the only realistic response was to take their life first, this was the law of the martial world, and every fiber of his being knew this; but why should he have to take lives when there were easily many different solutions and compromises? The dragon realized that the war, chaos, and murderous style of life in his previous homeworld had tainted these cultivators. Although it wasn't as if he was blaming them for their actions, this was all the result of the horrible world that they had grown to accept.
The dragon slowly woke from his previous moment of enlightenment and immediately felt a strong pull in a certain direction. He knew that this tug on his consciousness could only mean one thing... A compatible host's soul was resonating with his own! The ball of light that made of the remainder of his being quickly shape-shifted into an arrow and shot in a certain direction. He was running out of time.
___
James awoke with a start and shot up in his bed so that he was sitting upright. He hadn't even remembered what he was dreaming about because he had woken up so abruptly. Cold sweat glistened on the side of his face and reflected the delicate moonlight pouring in from his window. The room was dead silent with the exception of the quiet but heavy breathing coming from James' mouth. He didn't know what was happening, but another cold shiver was sent down his back and the ominous feeling that had been tugging at his mind was many times stronger than when he had fallen asleep.
The urge had gotten to the point where it felt as if there was something physically tugging at him, and right now, it was tugging him towards his window and out into the street. He looked at his clock and it was almost three o'clock in the morning, but he had a feeling that his subconscious wouldn't let him go back to sleep until he figured out what was causing him to feel all of this spiritual pressure.
He uninstalled his window screen, rolled his window out, and climbed out of his first story bedroom and into the quiet, stormy night time. Heavy rain was falling on him and his sweats, but it was as if he didn't even notice. James walked out further into the street and looked in the direction of where this strange pulling sensation was trying to take him. All of a sudden, lightning flashed in the sky but did not dissipate. Instead, the light froze in the sky before condensing into one point, forming a small lightning arrow no more than a couple of inches long. Suddenly, this lightning arrow turned and shot straight towards James!
Upon seeing an unidentified flashing object coming towards him at a really high speed, James was understandably alarmed. With his quick reflexes, he managed to turn and face the lightning arrow instead of it shooting towards his side, but that was all he could manage. All this changed was where the arrow struck him; originally, it was going to pierce through his shoulder and into his heart, but now, it just flew straight into his chest.
"AGGGHHH!!!!...." James cried out in pure agony as the lighting arrow invaded his body. It didn't keep its form and puncture his body, but instead spread out and entered through his pores. Every nerve in his chest was in excruciating pain, how could such a small lightning bolt contain so much pain? It wasn't even a real lightning bolt for fuck's sake! As James was cursing the heavens for all this pain, the electricity reached his heart and he blacked out...