The Broken Villagers

Aura's legs stomped on the floor in the aerial-view throne room. She headed towards the golden door, her hands clasped close to her hips while being tightened. She bit her lips, and her heart hammered against her ribs as her eyes lingered on the black specks drifting in the air ahead.

With each step she took, she got closer and closer to them, the image of the owner gluing to her mind like vines climbing around pergolas.

She breathed shakily.

"Right now, I just hope it hasn't occurred yet," she mumbled, her voice drenched in anxiety and doubt. "I should fetch him back. Punishment for his action can't possibly have located him yet. A creation of one can't be cruel to destroy one because of a single mistake…"

But deep down, she knew this couldn't be a mistake. The dragon emperor she knew would never have been that careless – unless there was something else to it.

----

The air roared like a wolf. Stillness settled in, hanging like a pendulum.

Zmey's eyes narrowed. He waited after casting the spell. As far as he knew, for now, when one casts a spell, they feel an immediate shiver and surge as if a river were flowing through them. However, he felt nothing. He waited for a split second. He made himself vulnerable to be surprised by any reaction that would signal that his spell was acting.

But there was nothing. Zmey turned around the back of his arm and rubbed the back of his neck – they had either shined dully under the snowy air or felt oily to the touch.

'Transform me already! Why is this taking too long?'

Instincts kicked in; perhaps, morphing one's form takes a longer time than actually forming spells into magical effects. There could be rules guiding the rapidness of magic cultivation, differentiating one from the other based on the time length needed to yield.

But does it make sense, though? Zmey had been waiting on his knees for over two minutes, biting his lips in anxiety to at least sense his skin forming a hexagon chain.

Does magic have to be this hard to get? As the notion made no sense when considering time, so was it when weighing its effect on real-life situations, too. Zmey imagined the veritable dragon to be the one here. And he easily drew the attention of the exorcists around.

They would at will wield their magic, but what if the dragon could only fight back in his actual form? Then this kind of shit occurred again? After being exorcised, what was the point of being an invincible master of flames?

There couldn't possibly be such a weird magic rule. Could there be another cause for it?!

Zmey's heart pounded.

"I can always try the spell again. Maybe I made a mistake," he assumed bitterly. Taking a deep breath, he recited again, "Ancient blood, awaken and rise by claws that rend and flames that burn. Let my bones break, my flesh churn. Wings of wrath, scales of night. Grant me the fury of draconic might!"

He would have assumed luck just located him if not realised he just shivered because of the chilly atmosphere. But his hope didn't waver. He recited it repeatedly, his voice loud enough to draw the villagers' attention. They opened their windows one after the other in wonder.

Their eyes glued on Zmey, but he didn't mind them. Worry and anxiety grew on their faces; as a matter of fact, some family heads were already picking up stuff. They had drawn the rest of the family away from the window.

And would be a standby watcher, keeping a close watch on the weird guy kneeling in their territory. Not only was he weird, and strange, but the words in his statement were enough to suspend uneasiness in their internal crimson liquid.

At a moment, Zmey's fists gravelled into the snowy surface. The soft flakes brushed his hands gently, but debris embedded underneath caused him to sting. He gritted his teeth, hammering the ground relentlessly with his fists.

"Not working! What's the damned reason I can't get transformed?!" He yelled at the snows. And as if nature understood his situation, the air suddenly grew warm. Over seconds, less snow fell from the sky.

From the house flanking Zmey directly on the right side, a middle-aged man with a weathered face and hints of grey in his unkept beard, looked between Zmey and the long thick stick in his hand. Much like a cudgel. A scar cut across his brows, shadowing his sharp green eyes, wearing a worn, faded cloak.

"Those words…. I'm damn very sure he's actually one of them!" his mind raced, hands gripping the stick firmer.

His heart did pound, and with his experience, striking immediately without another thought, could have been his next course of action. But weren't his fellow villagers and witnesses of that same tragedy the same people still hesitating in striking?

That was just how humane and not-fast-to-judge they were. Their common motto was humanity prevails over all misfortunes. What they experienced didn't wash away their senses, too.

But it at least took something.

'If I can't transform, then it's the same thing again. Loved one's lucky card, or suicide!'

Zmey yelled inwardly, his face paler and corneas faintly reddened from forced tears. Though they won't come. Not even one bit.

He tried to incinerate the close-to-ash woods of a bonfire nearby with mere thoughts, just like he had summoned the oath's dagger and transported it here. But it remained as dormant as it had been. Even a similar magic he had wielded recently was inactive, either!

It didn't work either?!

Zmey gasped. His chest tightened, oppressive weights weighing down on his shoulders. Realisation hit him like a physical slap, his sight and brain going numb for some seconds.

'I can't… I can't wield a minor magic now, either. I lost the dragon's power! It's the end for me!' His fingernails dug into the ground. Heat rose from his lower to his upper body. His eyes shut, his eye shield pressing down against the floor of the eyes. It forced a hint of tears out. "Ahhh!"

Zmey's shout echoed through the clearing.

The villagers exchanged confused looks at one another almost instantaneously. They barely had to speak. One might have tilted his or her head towards the stranger, while the other would have shrugged or raised their eyebrows.

"She acted somehow off when I was planning to descend to Earth! She had definitely known this would happen, yet she kept it to herself!"

Simultaneously, Zmey uttering that statement, the villagers exchanged glances rapidly. Some had theirs glued on the speaker, while they either were agape or staring in any way that exhibited just how shocked they were about something. As a matter of fact, some of them gulped.

Tension hung in the air. Silence stretched, safe from the howling of the wind or the sounds made by the strange guy. The one who just uttered he wasn't originally from Earth – that was the most correct interpretation of what he said, wasn't it?!

"I thought she would prevent anything from happening to her best friend! Didn't know she was just different – she intentionally kept silent for her own good. Maybe the Beast Tamers would apprehend the dragon emperor! Maybe he'd end up being dead in the exorcists' hands.

If she would get to stay long on the throne as the empress of the Infernosphere, I AM… Zmey Ashbane is the first and only person she would want gone. And that's just what she did!

All of them are just the same. Whether in the past, present, or future, they're indifferent."

"Infernosphere?!" the middle-aged man said out loud, every syllable stressed in a way that showed anxiety, wonder, and confusion. "Isn't… is that not the realm of fire beasts? Answer me! Who are you?"

To them, this was just another realm of maniacal beasts that plague the world. Others of its same nature but different creatures were Abyssal Waters (hydromantic creatures), haunted dimension of entirely dark magic beasts (Noctisveil), Terramagma for Earth creatures, and Aerostorm Peaks for aeromantic creatures.

"History relays their leader to be an old dragon that has aged over a decade. I'm certain of it! It's also said in that book I read it from that he's able to transform into a human shape just like a small percentage of beasts in other beast realms. He might just be that emperor!

This bastard kneeling in proximity to the safety of ours and our family could be the ruthless red Western dragon that massacred the Eldengrove kingdom years ago and killed over five thousand people," a woman with abruptly light skin said, her voice slackening slightly. But maybe… being together with others built some confidence within her?

"Don't tell me… he's the dragon that solely attacked the most powerful kingdom back then? My grandfather told me back then, and he also heard from my great-grandaddy," a man with an entirely unkempt grey beard and a very pale skin with wrinkles on his face, added.

He widened his eyeballs as if they would dissociate from his yellowed corneas and the socket entirely. His throat dried up, but he pushed himself to at least warn everyone,

"The rumoured terrible beast is around us! We should run. Our lives are at stake…"

"I'm the dragon Transformer, Zmey Ashbane," Zmey's voice, much like a gentle groan, interposed. The man not only paused, but his mouth widened even more when he saw the legendary beast rise to his feet.

Zmey kept his head down, as though ashamed, as though exhausted from something. A hush fell through the clearing, everyone's breathing almost synchronising while they watched the revered beast's lips closely.

However, for some of them, the unyielding attitude was there. They either had gripped their 'weapons' tighter when others loosened them or had a frank expression unsimilar to most trepid ones. Among these few varieties was the middle-aged man staged on Zmey's right side.

'We have had enough of the evil beings tempting us all this while,' the right side thought. He squeezed the stick in his hand. 'We stay indoors for the fear of them all! They can move around our kingdom, but we can't.

But I won't let a godforsaken beast dictate my life for me, either. If we have to fight through thick and thin, to protect ourselves and our family… to at least face off one beast if we can't do the same to the beings of darkness that've for long plagued us… it's worth it. Tell me about it, beast!'