Ch-11

[ 15 Years Later ]

I am now a 100 years old, I have managed to reach a length of 18 meters and I am still healthy meaning I can live even further.

An entire century has passed since I was reborn as a serpent but now im something much more then a mere snake as my body is changing towards an undetermined goal. Why I am thinking like this well that because the greatest change happened just after I became 100 years old and shedded my old skin.

My forehead tingled as the glowing scale fell down but didn't lost its shine and fully resembled a jewel. A new even brighter jewel like scale was revealed underneath my forehead from where the previous one fell.

Then the great metamorphosis happened, I could feel a wave of energy rising from my spine and slowly heading towards my forehead. It was probably my kundlini energy and its movement inside my body made my body warmer as if some volcano was about to explode. I coiled up my body with by head straight up and my hood flared up along with my crest.

This helped spreading out the internal energy evenly along my body and the warm sensation was slowed down by a bit but eventually it regained its original momentum.

The moment the energy reached my forehead, my jewel which I call nag mani or you can saw the serpent's jewel glowed like a torch. Then I lost all sensation in my body and finally for the first time in a 100 years my eyes closed as if I had regained my eyelids.

I opened my eyes and could feel my eye lids move but the problem was I didn't had any eyelids before. Instinctively I touched my face with my heands....

Wait

I have hands?

Then I saw two clawed scaley hands which I ran across my face and again felt scales on my face. Immediately I rushed out of my lair and climbed ashore to check my reflection in the river.

What started back at me was looking like the same creatures I saw while having the out of body experience. My lower body was serpent like but my torso was human like but covered in scales along with my head which also looked Serpentine and had 2 slits where my nose was supposed to be. I had my jewel on my forehead as well as I had my jet black hair running down my lower back with a complete absense of ears. I stood 3 meters tall not including my sepernt tale which I use to move.

I suddenly recalled an ancient indian legend which states that when a king cobra reaches a 100 years of age it becomes a iccha dhari naag or a wish granting serpent/ shape shifting serpent.

The same logic could be applied to my current situation. I returned to my lair to avoid being seen by Giaia or any other goliath and experimented for the next few days.

After my experiments I learnt that I could switch between my half serpent and fully serpent form as well as shrink and grow in size but I can't grow more then my original size and can't shrink below 5 meters.

It seems that I might be able to assume other forms with practise as well as a fully human form but I left that thought behind as there was no need for me to assume a human form.

I can also talk after shifting into my half sepernt form and could communicate with Giaia but I left that idea behind as I didn't really felt like there was any need to communicate with her. Although a whole new world has opened its door to me due to my newly acquired abilities I didn't felt lile crossing that door because it was simply to bothersome and I am just extremely accustomed to my lazy lifestyle.

The moment I started speaking Giaia would ask questions after questions and the goliath tribe would ask me to lead them which I just don't want to bother with.

I assumed my regular giant serpent form and picked the newly shedded serpent jewel with my mouth and headed towards the shrine.

There Giaia who now stood at 2.8 meters tall was cutting a recently caught water buffalo. She immediately stopped what she was doing and knelt towards me respectfully.

The thing is that 15 years ago when Giaia saw how easily I can kill eat eat goliaths bigger then her she is showing me even more respect then she previously did and now it was clear from her body language that she was afraid of me. She no longer sun bathed with me or stroked my head, she was now tense and stiff around me compared to her previous jolly and relaxed behavior.

I could fell her heart beating faster as I reached closer to her. Poor girl was afraid that I would eat her, she had been like this for the past 15 years and I no longer try to get close to her which has now resulted in out bond being weakened. I spat out my jewel which accidentally fell right on her head and left the area.

Giaia stared at the beautiful jewel which her saviour had gifted. She recalled those days when she sat along with him near the river bed and talked all day without having any idea that the old snake could actually understand her. She knows how they had drifted apart in the past 15 years, she wanted to tell her saviour that how much she missed spending time with him. But she could never forget the horror of that fateful day when she realised that her saviour could easily become her end as she witnessed the cruelty that laid bare in his eyes. She saw how his mere gaze incapacitated the goliath which was even larger then her, she knew he had done that to save her but she simply couldn't get over the fear.

She stretched her hands towards the jewel and the moment she picked it up an unnatural sense of calmness washed over her very being as if there was nothing to worry about in this world and that there was no disease that could make her sick, something about this jewel was peculiar as it was not only for decoration but had other properties as well. Properties that could turn brother against brother, make kings and queen mad in order to possess it.

Unbeknownst to Jarkhon that he had given Giaia something that would change her very nature.