Episode 22: The 2nd Life I was Given

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Lough Freed

I lay there, panting and trying my best to recover. The hole on my hip was slowly but surely recovering because of {Regeneration}. However, my arm wasn't regenerating the way I thought it would. It seemed that creating new limbs required a more powerful spell. Sadly, that meant I was without a left arm until I got that skill. I had to complete the path of destruction before I could even consider going down the path of restoration.

I rolled over and pushed myself up onto my side with one remaining arm. I tore a part of my t-shirt off, and using my remaining hand and my mouth, I tied a knot around the bloody stump that had begun to seal up where my left arm had been. I cast {Icicle} to create ice in my hands, allowing me to freeze and subsequently preserve my stump of an appendage.

All in all, it was a shitty situation. I'd lost an arm. I was somewhere unknown. I had literal gods after me, and one of those gods had thrown me into the crippled state I was in right now.

All that aside, however, I was alive and had a chance at redemption. I looked around me and saw mountains, snowy peaks, and landmarks that seemed to resemble dormant volcanoes...

This is the Supaenid Empire of the Eastern region...

I reached out for the connection between me and Orebrul, but to my true and utter despair... I couldn't reach him. "What's going on?!" I shouted in rage as I struggled to make sense of my situation.

I thought hard about what to do. I was in the lands of the Dragonkin, and I didn't know a single place, nor a single person. What made it even worse was that I didn't speak dragon tongue, also known as 'Uequitan'.

I sat down against a nearby rock. I'd been teleported to a valley with a crashing waterfall and quite the nice display resembling a rock garden.

Perhaps someone looks after this place. I thought to myself peacefully.

I thought about the continent as a whole and the best way to get home.

The continent of Indus was split into 5 dominions, also called regions:

To the North was the icy and snowy region of Ycecliff, and within this region was the Ubazar Kingdom, home to the Serpentine.

To the West was the densely forested region of Spiritview, home to the Kapanyth Dynasty and land of the Dryads.

To the East was the mountainous and barren region of Nuhevom, land of the dragonkin and dominion of the Supaenid Empire. This was where I was currently.

To the South resided the prosperous lands of Vorrennath, within it was the Laexanad Empire, my home, and the home of humans. The lands of Vorrennath were a mix of forestry, small mountain ranges, and desert dunes.

However, despite being a mix, none of the features compared to the originals in their respective dominions.

The forests of Spiritview were vast and like a maze. Trees rose close to the clouds, and it had sparkling beauty that no amount of magical decay and pollution could erase.

The imposing mountains of Nuhevom pierced cloud level and rose even higher and higher, the tallest peak reaching the outer atmosphere of the planet.

The icy lands of Ycecliff had no competition when freezing temperatures and graceful ice statues were involved. The elegant nature of the land of the Serpentine had much to be desired in terms of habitatable conditions but far exceeded other lands with its grace and beauty.

But above all that... was the central dominion. A wasteland of nothing but black marshes, ancient ruins, and burned fields. Called 'The Fields of Undoing', it presided underneath a floating city called Sonas Isle.

It was uninhabited, and no one had been up there in centuries. The last time anyone stepped foot up there was when the creation of the nations had been decided. Of course, I wasn't alive then, so that's what the history textbooks told me.

I wanted to see what it looked like. Granted, I could even live to see that view in this condition. I wandered around the makeshift rock garden for a while until I got bored and decided to head to the top of the waterfall.

From the top, I could see over the low hills and see the giant mountains that the dragonkin made their homes out of. I reached out for Orebrul again, hopeful that he might respond, but my heart sank when I got nothing again.

Sighing, I leapt down from the ledge and began the long walk to the mountain range where I could potentially find civilization.

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The lands were barren, and I was getting more and more frustrated with every passing second as I found no traces of life.

I'd heard animals rustling through bushes and birds in the sky. But I hadn't heard any dragonkin or any sounds even remotely close to dragonkin people or Uequitan.

A light flashed in the corner of my eye, and I cast {Icicle}, shooting a small barrage of ice spears at the light. The clash was magnificent. A lightning bolt of red colour struck the ice spears and exploded in a beautiful display of red glittering particles.

"Who's there?!" I shouted. There was a moment of silence before another bolt of red lightning arced towards me. I leapt out the way and retaliated with my own blue lightning bolt.

I heard a couple gasps, and then I knew there were multiple people. I let the cold sense of emotionlessness take over me, and I locked my senses on the multiple people who were probably dragonkin.

Activating {Elemental Body: Lightning}, which I'd now managed to abbreviate to just {Lightning Body}, as had I done to the rest of the elemental spells, I zipped into the direction of the gasps and ended up in the middle of a circle of dragonkin people.

I spun and kicked one to the floor before they could react, punching its head and knocking it unconscious. One reached for a spear, but I stomped their wrist, flinching slightly at the crunching sound. Another thrusted a sword towards me, but I sidestepped and stepped in towards them, landing a lightning clad punch into their stomach.

I almost let out a gasp as the lightning was absorbed into its body, and I was slammed against a nearby tree. I'd immobilised 2 of the 5 dragonkin that were in this group, and I could see them eyeing me warily.

A black scaled and yellow-eyed member of the group with black obsidian horns curling round from the back of its head to its chin whispered something to a red scaled member with equally red eyes and simular obsidian horns but these ones pointed backwards in a straight line.

I couldn't understand them but it didn't matter to me. They attacked me. I was defending myself.

The red scaled one never left my gaze, and it remained fixated on me, locking into a battle of eye contact with me. The Black scaled dragonkin leapt towards me.

How reckless... I thought as I batted away his sword and coated my fist in a sharp coat of ice. I swung my fist and bashed its side with my ice fist, sending it sprawling with a bloody wound on its side. That was 3 down.

I watched as the red one urged for the other, the remaining one to calm down. A yellow scaled dragon with blue eyes, and this one's obsidian horns also pointed in a straight line. Similar to the red one's horns, actually.

A heartbeat passed. Then two. The two dragons were speaking to one another, and I was feeling impatient. They could most probably see my frustration, and they stopped, and the red dragon stepped forward towards me while lowering its weapon, a twin-bladed ruby dagger.

My body was still crackling with blue lightning, and I could see the yellow dragon carefully watching me.

"Wo Los Hi?" It said. I raised a confused brow. I obviously had no idea what it had said to me since I didn't speak Uequitan.

"I don't understand you..." I replied calmly.

"Hi Kod Un Lah?" It answered back.

I shook my head, and the dragon carefully stepped towards me. Holding my breath, I prepared my mana just in case, as I let whatever it was doing happen.

The young dragon pressed a cautious finger to my forehead, and suddenly, my ears muffled, and I could no longer hear anything normally.

"Who are you?" It said again.

"I can understand you?" I replied, confusion laced into my voice as this was not a spell known to humans.

"This is an exclusive spell designed by the elders. We foresaw our inevitable interaction with humans and prepared a means of communication," the dragon replied in a deep and rumbling voice. It was close to a growl, but I assumed it was its normal voice.

"I see. I am Lough Freed. I'm currently stranded here," I said, my eyes closed.

"Very well. We apologise for attacking you. It seems you are very skilled with magic, I'd like to know how it is you are capable of using our arts?" It asked me in a curious tone.

"Your... arts?" I asked. It responded immediately, "Your lightning... how?"

A sudden realisation shot through my head. Do they not have artefacts? If so, then that means...

"I'm a mage. I have an artefact that lets me use magic," I responded honestly.

"An... artefact? We do not have such things here. Can you show me?" It replied.

"Before I do, what is your name? Who are you?" I asked to make sure I knew exactly who I was dealing with. Not that I knew anybody in the Supaenid Empire anyway.

"I am Inozkez, leader of this battle unit. Son of Eothaniss, Lord of Thunder," he said with a nod and a small bow. I returned the gesture, still keeping Inozkez's finger to my forehead so I could communicate.

Weird, I can't copy any skills. Is this because they don't use artefacts?

"Nice to meet you, Inozkez. Could you take me to your..." I thought about the right term, "Home?"

"Yes. That will be possible. However, I must warn and advise against speaking too much. We have lived peacefully through isolation. Not to mention, you, Sir Freed, have injured our soldiers... quite brutally..." Inozkez said with a quick glance at the dragonkin I had defeated and nearly killed.

"I must give my deepest apologies for that. I thought you to be an enemy," I responded with an aplogetic tone in my voice. Inozkez seemed to sense this and nodded politely before removing his finger from my head.

"Bo!" Inozkez shouted at the rest, and they reluctantly got up while shooting me suspicious glares and began to move. I cursed at myself as I looked at the injuries I'd caused. A broken wrist, bludgeoned hip with lingering frostbite, and a dislocated jaw from a single punch. Guilt tinged my heart and threatened to rip my heartstrings apart, but I held an outwardly indifferent demeanour.

On the way to the village, it was mostly silence except for me showing Inozkez my ring and explaining it in the best way I could through the spell that he used to communicate with me.

He seemed fascinated by it, but I could sense his sense of superiority as he clearly didn't need to rely on an object to do what I could. Well, almost everything I could. He explained to me that dragons and dragonkin were born with natural mana and didn't need the help of external factors such as objects. They were all born into a faction, those being: Infernacus, Frostbite, and Storm.

Depending on the faction, it decided their main element. The squad I had nearly defeated was a squad from the Storm faction, in which they were the 2nd division squad.

I listened intently as Inozkez explained their culture to me. 'Dragonkin' was what young dragons were called, whereas the older and more powerful ones were the actual dragons.

There were heads of each faction, too. It surprised me to find out that Inozkez's father, Eothaniss, was the head of the Storm Faction.

The Lord of Thunder, eh? Sounds a lot like being a god... My thoughts turned grim, and I shuddered at the memory of the God stood above me, looking down with its glowing eye, stomping on my arm and removing a chunk of my hip. My hand instinctively moved to my hip, which was dented and had some of its original flesh missing. It had sealed up pretty alright. However, until I had a stronger healing spell, I would have a little deformation. I glanced at the stump where my left arm used to be. It was a constant reminder of how weak I was.

Teeth clenched, I walked alongside the dragonkin, back to their home. The capital of the Supaenid Empire, Khonrigek.

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