Ice Queen Shard?

Not bad! John nodded to himself as he felt the firebat matriarch's essence flow into him. The solar beam disintegrated her down into threads of light that funneled into various parts of his body, temporarily making his scales glow gold.

Though, as John came to realize more than ever with his stomach still growling, absorbing essence with his solar beam did not satisfy his physical hunger.

"Let's go find those iced up bats," said John.

"A mighty appetite you have, my friend," remarked Hemet.

"Eat big to get big," said John, remembering the common workout phrase.

"Ah, another poetic draconic quote, is it?" said Hemet.

"Yep," said John without hesitation at this point. He had come to realize that as the last dragon, he might as well have a monopoly over the language. He waved his tail out for Hemet to hop onto. "Now let's get to eating some lunch."

==

John zipped above the forest, sniffing out the scent of the three fallen firebats with his treasure smell, and eventually got to gathering all of them. They were shattered pieces of ice at this point, and he snapped them up like popsicles, crunching up the ice and meat inside.

>>>

*Essence Obtained: 3 x Firebat = 200 + 200 + 200 = 600*

Essence Level: 2650/10,000 > 3250/10,000

Next Evolutionary Stage: Greater Wyrmling

>>>

Great! Already a full third of the way to the next stage!

Afterwards, John followed Hemet's directions towards the Gate they were supposed to go through with the Gravship until it had very much inconveniently blown up. Flying made travel easy, and John realized how awesome it was just to be able to soar around.

Beat walking by a long shot, that was for sure, especially down in the forest where there were trees, uneven ground, and monsters to watch for.

Comparatively speaking, the airspace above the forest was tame.

Firebats nesting in the trees below only ever moved during the day when they sensed energy surges, so as long as John did not start blasting his solar beam everywhere, he should be fine.

"What is that, by the way?" asked John as he flew forwards, trees passing by beneath him.

Hemet checked what looked to be an apple sized snowflake in his pale blue hand. The snowflake was made of ice, but curiously, did not melt. Instead, the pointy ends of the snowflake rotated around as John moved in a way reminiscent of a compass.

"This tracks the Ice Queen Shard's location," said Hemet. "We are close, very close. Ah, there it is! The gate!"

Hemet pointed his clawed finger in the sky, and John saw a blip of barely noticeable distorted space high up. It was like a ripple in the surface of the water, except this time the ripple was in space itself, and as John flapped his wings and steered himself up towards it, the ripple grew bigger, as if awaiting John.

"This is the Gate, right?" asked John.

"Yes, yes, it is!" said Hemet excitedly.

He reached into the bag of holding and took out the Passage Seal which Hemet had explained during John's lunch break allowed someone to pass through gates made by the Alliance, a united front of the weaker races that included Humans, Werefolk, Dwarves, and Elves.

The Passage Seal also functioned as a kind of passport, allowing you to get into Alliance cities and settlements with no issue.

"We won't just get sucked into the portal and crushed if something goes wrong, right?" said John as he neared the Gate.

"Ah, if the Passage Seal is defunct, we will be cast away into the Void, a space between dimensions where there is said to be only infinite darkness and no escape," said Hemet.

"You sound awfully calm about that possibility," said John.

"Because it is an impossibility," said Hemet. "Passage Seals never fail."

"Please, do NOT put up flags like that," said John.

"Flags?" asked Hemet.

"It's like – nevermind, let's just get through this portal." With that, John flapped his wings once more, and shot through the Gate.

As John entered the ripple in space, it felt almost like he had crashed into a pond of water. He felt cold trickle against him, the flow of what felt like water stream past his scales, and he for a moment, he saw nothing but darkness.

Then, before John could worry more, the darkness faded, and he found himself hovering in the air, in a totally different location.

John shivered. It was cold here. The winds howled and carried snow and ice with them. The clouds above were thick and dark, blocking out the light of the sun and making John feel weaker.

There were forests below, but they had lost all their leaves, turning into a graveyard of barren, ashen white branches frozen over and piled with snow.

"Where are we?" said John.

"Other side of Pluton," said Hemet. "Where winter has already struck. Or rather, the part of this Wild World that lies in eternal winter."

John felt surging winds buffet against him, casting him off balance in the air. The winds did not look like they were ever going to stop soon, and if Hemet was right, then they never would due to the whole 'eternal winter' inconvenience.

"I can't fly for long through this," said John. He felt the thin membrane of his dragon wings start to freeze up and grow numb. "I need to stop to warm myself up. Plus this place feels a lot more dangerous than before. The monsters here are stronger, I can smell it."

"Take your time, my young dragon friend," said Hemet. "For the treasure is near."

==

John flew around for ten minutes before he had to land on the forest floor and warm himself up. Hemet had a veritable survival kit in his bag of holding, and now he took out a magical red rock that, when he struck on a mass of branches, created thick sparks that made a strong fire.

The fire would not burn out as long as the rock was inside of it to fuel it further, even with the wind, and around this John warmed himself.

"You got cut off before," said John. "What's so good about this Ice Queen shard anyway?"

"Ahh, my friend, the Ice Queen shard is a Mythic-class artifact, the highest grade there is. Mythic artifacts can change the fate of entire worlds, of entire civilizations," said Hemet.

"Yeah, you already said that," said John.

"Forgive me, I get rather excited speaking of it," said Hemet. "To know of its significance, I will tell you a little of demonic history.

Our planet, Blaz, is one encased half by flame, half by ice. Thus, there are demons of fire, and demons of ice. For thousands of years, we have never truly gotten along, but we have kept maintained the distance of neutrality for we were evenly matched.

Between the Flame Emperor Zoll and the half Demon, half fallen Angel Ice Queen Cyrillia, there was no true victor, and a battle between the two was far too costly for either side to ever consider.

Until the Finalis was announced.

Then, it became a matter of supremacy, for the flame demons and the ice demons have always been opposed in our beliefs.

The flame demons believe in chaos and destruction, and the ice demons believe in creation and stillness.

Were the flame demons to secure the Finalis, they would enforce great destruction and enslavement upon all, to the extent the Angels would allow them.

Were the ice demons to win, we would have caused a ceasefire of all tensions, for the victor of the Finalis may even rewrite fundamental laws of reality. It is entirely possible to simply prevent any war or conflict from ever occurring again.

Opposed so drastically, the flame demons and my kind, the ice demons, finally engaged in brutal civil war known as the Shibboleth when the Finalis was made known."

"War? But weren't the Angels there to stop any conflicts? Through the Sabbath or whatever it is?" said John.

"Conflicts between Majoris races," said Hemet. "Not within a race itself."

"What?" said John. "So civil war is totally fine? As for as it concerns me, war, any war, is brutal, and not exactly a place where life does well. In fact, civil war might even be worse, because there's nothing worse than seeing neighbors that waved at you be the ones that knock your door down."

The Angels truly did seem somewhat incompetent at their job is protecting all life was their goal, but then again, as John personally knew, the 'Supreme Father' Deus was just a lazy old man, and his Angels really did not seem to care too much about their jobs.

Was this what happened when you left the fate of 100 planets to a senile grandpa and his nurses?

"There are many that see the flaws in the way of the Angels, in their inaction or, when they do take action, its misguided direction," said Hemet. "That is why the Fallen Angels emerged, breaking off from their vows of neutrality to form a faction of their own, believing that their kind did not intervene enough."

John remembered what Sarael had said to him when she had granted him her seal. She had said for him not to mention its origin, for it might cause her trouble. Likely, it was because it went against her vows of neutrality.

But if Fallen Angels existed that had independence to do what they wanted, did that matter for John as much? Probably there was a cost to breaking their vow of 'neutrality', though as of now, he did not know what that entailed.

"In the end, the Flame Emperor triumphed and assumed full control over the world," continued Hemet. "Our Queen was felled, but before her death, she, using remnants of her Angelic power, split her soul into twelve shards spread across the Realm."

The imp closed his fist in determination. "Gathering all twelve shards will bring her back, and with her, the vision of peace she desired so."