Chapter 17: Terror.

"Once there was and once there wasn't, in the long distant days of yore, at the dawn of the age of the Eternal Dragons, when the lands where nothing more than an empty shell whose only inhabitants were the dragons themselves, the Source came into existence and with it, all else came as a consequence.

Time and space, life and death, heat and cold, light and darkness.

And it was from that light and from that darkness, that the first beings came into existence.

Those beings were without conflict, beings of peace, the sons of the source had what we now call souls.

But that era of peace ended soon after.

The sons of the source grew corrupted, they grew greedy.

They didn't want to live below the Eternal Dragons anymore, they wanted to own the world, so, the war started.

The war lasted an untold amount of time, those beings having inside of them an untold amount of power, tearing apart the lands every time they battled.

But that wasn't enough, far from it.

The scales of the dragons were impervious from all damage, their claws the greatest weapons of all, their breath the hottest and their horns the sharpest.

But all changed when the four gods acquired the powers of their Grand Runes.

They became the mightiest of all, unstoppable machines of death, the beings that brought despair to the dragons.

The Great Lich Raelinn, Originator of all that is Dead, but doesn't want to remain so, She, the one who emerged from the Deepest Abyss, spread her deadly miasma to the dragons foolish enough to get near her, causing them to rot from the inside out.

The Witch of Winter, Lady Gytha, Goddess of all that is Cold, first born in the highest of peaks, the coldest of glaciers, her mere presence froze even the blood of the mightiest of dragons, transforming them into eternal statues that would never melt.

The Warrior, Sir Urron the Destroyer, tearing through his enemies with his hands as no weapon could handle the wrath with which he attacked his enemies while melting their flesh with his sea of fiery magma.

And finally, the mightiest of them all, the God of Light, Lord Ordgar, he, who singlehandedly gave hope to all by distributing his golden light to his allies and with his sword ripped the indestructible scales of their enemies, putting an end to the Eternal beings.

In the end, the dragons were no more and a new age began, the Age of the Gods."

Those were the words uttered by the being that was by far the weirdest, scariest and most powerful that I had ever seen to that point.

The moment I passed through the magical fog, I found myself in front of what I could call a room, the walls looked like they had been forcefully torn in the shape they were currently in, the thing that created the crated in front of me, clearly embedded in the wall.

It wasn't naturally formed, that was for sure.

I looked behind me after taking a few steps, the fog was no more and the entrance was sealed with the stone.

I tried to open a way, but it was useless, nothing I did could change even the smallest of stones in the cave.

I could feel the mana in the air, hundreds of times more concentrated than anything I had ever felt in time in the Wild Lands.

While I kept looking around, to remove my thoughts from the crushing fear caused by the existence embedded in the wall in front of me, it was looking at me with its hollow eye sockets.

"Look at me." it ordered, I could do nothing but accept the beings orders, after all, I had lost the ability to move my body.

The being, if it could even be called that, was a head, nothing more, nothing less.

I had no idea how a head could talk, especially with the way it looked.

Its skin was more wrinkled than any tree I had seen, grey in color, clearly lacking blood, its cheeks were sunken from an extreme lack of hydration.

Its eyes, or more aptly, its eye sockets, were hollow, but around them a veiny pattern could be seen, completely black in color.

Its mouth moved and the words it said could be understood without any problem for some reason, even if it used the most grating and gravelly voice that I had ever heard, but it lacked any of the teeth that would have been necessary for such a thing.

Its nose crooked, looking completely broken and smashed in a thousand pieces and its hair were a number of times longer than my body, they were white and looked rougher than any broom's.

"W-who are y-you?" I somehow managed to mutter.

The immense and crushing magical pressure I felt eased up a bit after the thing started talking once again.

"I am Edric, the Star Seeking Scholar, I am he who was consumed by hubris and challenged a God for its throne, here I resided for thousands of years, paying for my sin."

Looking back, I can feel the deepest of regret in its voice, but at the time I was too terrified to take it in, after all, even if it eased, its magical pressure was many times more scary than even standing against thousands of beasts at the same time.

"I challenged Sir Urron himself, I thought myself better than the others, smarter, more powerful, more beautiful, but in the end, what you are seeing is all that remains of me after a single one of his attacks, quite pitiful, isn't it?" It said with as wry a smile as he could with the line like lips the head had.

'More beautiful, really? I'll probably have nightmares for months because of your appearance!' But obviously, I didn't say those words out loud, I was still extremely terrified even if I was doing everything in my power to not show it.

But yes, it was a pitiful tale indeed, from a mighty person to nothing more than a head embedded in a wall.

"Why did the fog call for me?" I gathered all of my courage and pride and asked to the head, this question had been clouding my mind ever since I started feeling the call and my confusion only got stronger after meeting this thing.

Why would a being so powerful that I trembled just by standing in front of it, so ancient that I couldn't even fathom what it felt like living that long want from me?

"Because you're exactly what I was waiting for, a person just like me."

"What do you mean by like you?"

It chuckled, as horrifying as this thing's chuckle could be, it sounded like steel scratching steel, "You want power, you want freedom, don't let hubris be your downfall, as it was mine."

That didn't explain a lot, but it sounded like a really good piece of advice.

"It is time, young soul, you are the one who shall inherit my rune, finally granting me the freedom in the warm embrace of death."

"What?"

"I lived for far too long in this prison of mine, unable to die, thank you."

Before I could understand what those words meant, a red light emerged from the middle of its forehead and shot to mine in less than the time it took to blink.

And just like that, I lost consciousness, albeit briefly.

"…Avys! Avys!"

"Five more minutes…" I mumbled.

I heard a sigh, the person who was shacking me very vigorously finally stopped.

"If she's fine enough to say dumb things then I think she'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"

"No, moron, wake her up!"

"Then don't stop me in the first place, stupid old man!"

"Who are you calling a stupid old man, you brat!"

Why were those idiots fighting over my unconscious, -well, semi unconscious, but it didn't hange much,- body?

I grew irritated, I was having a great sleep immersed in a comfortable feeling, these two old man just had to ruin it.

"Shut up." I mumbled, causing my own magical pressure to fall on the shoulders of two people who were so dear to me, something that I had never even thought possible before.

It was absolutely inferior to Edric's, in every single way, it wasn't as heavy, as large or as fear inducing, but it could still cause discomfort in those who felt it.

I could feel the hands that were holding me tremble slightly, only then I opened my eyes.

"Avys, thank god you're fine!" Said my father as he hugged me tightly.

"What happened?" I asked, my head was in a complete disarray, every single thing inside of my mind was conflicting with the others.

I couldn't move normally, I couldn't stand still without falling, talking was already taking a lot of effort on my part.

"Avys, you passed through the fog, but the wall closed behind you as soon as you went through, a few minutes later it opened up and we saw you laying on the ground, what happened?"

As he recounted his side of the story the memories that I was suppressing came back like a flood, causing my eyes to dart to were Edric's head had been resting, embedded in the wall for thousand of years.

And there it was, a rock, completely black, I could still barely see the features of the old head, the empty sockets, the wrinkly skin, the mouth was gone as were its long hair.

The previous crushing mana in the surrounding had disappeared as if it was only a dream, I had hoped that it was, but the once-head remaining in the wall told me otherwise.

I had so many more questions than I had answers, first of all, what was that story?

Why did Edric tell me a fairy tale about gods and dragons first thing after I entered the cave?

What did it mean by just like him?

But most of all, what was the thing that left its head to enter inside mine?

Those were all extremely good questions, but I didn't have the means to answer them at all.

My absentminded expression was worrying both of my guar… family members, but soon enough I came back to my senses, "I have absolutely no idea what just happened, I want to go home."

As go home we did, but still only after I passed out once more.

I woke up the next morning, in the middle of my mother and father's embrace in a single big bed, which I recognized wasn't mine, but my parents, as soon as I opened my eyes to see their room instead of mine.

I yawned, but as soon as that happened I remembered Edric and everything that happened the day before, the fear had now subsided, I was now panicking about whatever it had sent into my head.

Was that some spell to take over my body? Was it something poisonous? Did it curse me?

While panic was about to overcome me, I heard the people on my sides moving.

"Morning Avys, are you alright?"

"Yes mom."

"Can we talk about what happened?" asked my father from the other side.

"Yes, but I need to eat now." I was very hungry.