2 Chapter 1 – The Dwarf, the Dragon and the Seed

He woke up with a single thought, he was tired. He couldn't move his body at all, and so he slept again, succumbing to sleep. Unknown amounts of time passed and he woke up again. This time, he had a bit more energy to stay awake and assess his situation. He couldn't see anything, but could hear some muddy sounds. He could move a bit, but was surprised to find that he was wrapped in something. He tried to push and kick the thing that wrapped around him, but with his meager strength, it was futile. After his kicks, he was surprised to hear some delighted laughter from outside the wrapper. "Ah I see. I'm in a womb, and was reborn." He thought with a smile as he fell asleep again.

Time continued to pass and he was in a constant cycle of waking up, kicking and falling asleep. Until one day, he felt the distinct feeling of being pushed. The wrapper was contracting and pushing him out. He didn't struggle and let it push him. Not that he would be able to do anything anyway with him being so weak. He could hear shouts and more pushing, until finally, he felt one final force pushing him out. He was finally out of the womb.

The first thing he noticed was that there was light, and he could breathe. He still couldn't see shapes and the like, but he definitely knew that there was the presence of light. The air felt so cool for him, and the way it goes through his lungs were heavenly.

He tried to make out some words, but all he could make was some blabber with his inflexible tongue. Instinctively, he let out a loud cry. It's as if that crying was the only thing he could do, and so he did. His parents and some other people were at his side. He could feel them touch him but he could barely see their faces. He could hear a deep laugh and a feminine voice.

Through some words that he couldn't understand, his parents were talking. His father, with thick red hair and beard, muscles way too big for his size, and a short stature around five feet walked up to him and carried him up high. He was a dwarf, just like the others in the room and similarly the newborn child. With a deep thought, but with an even deeper voice, his father spoke. "Welcome to the world my son, Belthrum."

Belthrum was the third of the souls who was split and came into this world.

***

In the mountains of Talar, every part of the landscape is eternally blanketed in white snow. The trees, animals, even the very bacterium has adapted in this extreme environment. The tip of Talar mountains was so high up in the sky and filled with so much dangers that the recorded people who have reached the top since history began could be counted on one's fingers. These people are all legends that have earned their spot in history. Even then, these people rarely talk about what they saw at the highest point of the Talar mountains. Because of the refusal of these legendary people to talk about what they saw at the top, multiple rumors and myths have been spread about this mysterious place.

Some rumors say that a precious treasure existed up there that these people who knew about it wanted to take it for themselves and made sure to keep any information from spreading out. This treasure was supposedly the reason why Talar was eternally cold. Others say that a fragment of an ice god resided there. Being happy with the cold energy that existed at the mountain, the ice god left a fragment of itself to bless the mountain and proclaim it as its territory. However most believe that an extremely powerful creature made the tip of Talar its home. So powerful in fact that the experts who reached the top of the mountain refused to talk about it, fearing retribution. Some of these rumors were just nonsense, while some were by coincidence very close to the truth.

In the highest point of the mountains, a mouth of a cave existed. The cave looks ancient and well used, proof that some creature has been residing in the cave. Any creature that is able to make the tip of the mountain its home is assuredly a fearsome creature with overwhelming strength.

Inside the cave laid three huge eggs. The eggs were 10 meters tall and around 7 meters wide. The shell was a pure majestic white, like the snow it was covered on. It had light tints of green and sky blue, particularly at the top.

Suddenly, a crack appeared on the eggs. At first it was a speck, and then it got bigger, the size of a door, until a claw went through in one of the eggs. The other two eggs soon followed, and pushed through the shells. The three reptilians struggled for minutes, until finally, they had enough strength to break through the eggs, completely revealing their bodies.

They had serpentine bodies 15 meters long and three meters tall, grey scales, and green manes that started at their head, and ended at the tip of their tails. They also had four legs with sharp claws that seemed too short for their long bodies, emerald eyes, whiskers at their long snout and long sharp teeth despite just being born.

Two of them immediately ate the shells where they came from, instincts kicking in. However, the other one, particularly the first one that pushed through the shells first, just sat there. Its eyes displayed intelligence far more advanced than his siblings. It observed himself and his unfamiliar body, and then he observed his siblings eating their shells. With a thought, he followed their example, believing that eating the shells would be beneficial to him.

As soon as he finished his first meal, with his newborn body, he struggled to get up and walk to the entrance of the cave. With every stumbling step, it slowly walked and explored. His curious reptilian eyes slowly contracted with the contact of light from outside when he successfully reached the entrance.

At the mouth of the cave, he was stunned to see clouds miles below him. He discovered that they were in a mountain covered in white snow high up above. The wind was very strong and could topple his weak body down. He was scared for a bit that he would fall but a sensation of familiarity came through him, saying that it would protect him from harm. He knew instinctively that this sensation was from his parent, contacting him.

With this, he looked for his parent that wasn't there for his birth. He looked inside the cave, and outside of it, but with no luck. Therefore he decided to contact his parent just like how it contacted him. With trial and error, and some mental exhaustion, he finally asked "Where are you?" For a while, no voice came, as if thinking about what to say. After a few seconds, a voice replied. "You are already looking at me child."

The young reptile frowned, wondering where his parent was. His frown was scary, for his new face doesn't have the same face muscles it used to have. He focused at where he was looking at currently, the snowy mountains of Talar, looking for his parent, until his eyes widened in surprise, horror and excitement. He really was looking at his parent all this time! For the mountain itself was his parent!

The original mountains of Talar was an average mountain, not too tall, and not too short, definitely not as huge as the current legendary mountain that is full of dangers. All that changed when an Ancient Ice Mountain Dragon decided to make this unassuming mountain as its home. Its coiling body was so big that it was many times bigger than the mountain it resided on and became the currently legendary mountains of Talar. Its pure white scales were camouflaged in the snow, hiding its existence. Ice formed built up through thousands of years of slumbering covered its body, showing no evidence that a dragon was the body of the mountain.

The reality was that there was no treasure that was the cause of the eternal ice, for the dragon itself was the one that caused it. There was no ice god fragment, for the dragon itself was akin to an ice god. There was technically a powerful creature at the top of the mountain, however was it still true if the mountain itself was the creature?

The mountain was the dragon, and the dragon was the mountain. For a long time, it hadn't had any children until now, where had three dragon younglings. The intelligent dragon youngling was of course the second soul of the three.

***

In an ancient bloody battlefield where thick overbearing energy resided, red skies and red earth filled the view. Millions of corpses of all races lay there ominously. Humanoids of all kinds could be seen. Humans, elves, dwarves and even the reclusive Giants more than a hundred meters tall were there at the battlefield, all dead. There were also beasts of all kinds. Tigers, giant tortoises, packs of wolves, war elephants, dragons and phoenixes shared the same fate.

There were no living things anywhere near the battlefield for the thick energy of death resided in it. Normally, a place like this would result in several undead forming. However due to the unusually large amount of energy it gives off, any attempted undead ends up collapsing from within in split seconds. Even bacteria dies from the energy of the place, making all the corpses still looking fresh and protected despite being here for hundreds of thousands of years. This was also due to the fact that every individual in the battlefield was a powerful figure and was filled to the brim with mana that they decayed very slowly.

In this place where even the hardiest cockroaches die, a solitary life brewed. It was a plant, currently as tall as a finger. It had grey colored stem and blood red leaves. For all this time, the battlefield remained in isolation and untouched, being a zone of death for all creatures. Yet despite the danger this place possesses, life finds a way. Now, a plant of a new varity has evolved in this ghastly place that possesses extreme survivability specific for the deathly conditions. It was the uncontended king of this place.

The seed of the plant came from multiple dead bodies of elves that were together. There were sun elves, lunar elves, celestial elves, high elves, and even the hated dark elves. Despite these elves hating each other for the most of times, before death, they came together to protect that seed. It was their duty, ingrained in their bones to guard this seed and to make sure it grew. It was the seed of the world tree. Or at least, it had the capacity to be one. It was not assured it would be a world tree. They have made multiple attempts to create a world tree since the world began but they have only ever succeeded once. Adding to the fact that a single seed will only ever be birthed every thousand years, and they would treasure every attempt made.

This world tree seed would normally die in this place despite its brimming life force, but with the protection of the multiple elves before their death, giving up their very life force as a barrier, it gave a possibility for the seed for survival. It held on all these years, allowing a small amount of death energy to seep onto it and try to change in the unwelcoming environment. It was about to fail in the end, but a burst of soul energy suddenly injected into it and gave it the boost it needed to complete its evolution.

This soul energy was the first of the three souls who decided to go into the battlefield of death. It truly was luck, for no soul would normally go into this place as it would just be certain death. But with its higher intelligence, it ignored its instincts and pursued to continue. In the end, its gamble worked for it, allowing it to possess this world tree seed.

Bathed in blood of bodies, the first soul that was now a variant of the world tree, grew hardily.