244 Dragons I : Into The Dragon's Den prison

"Do you really have to go with her? Alone?" Asha asked me, as I whispered goodbye to Cassiel and Michael.

"She's right you know, I don't trust that Dracula, not one bit." Xaseah said to me, lending her support to Asha's case.

I gave my kids a kiss on their foreheads and looked up at their mothers, I shook my head and released a soft smile as I answered them.

"Is it because you think is dangerous or your worried we've been spending too much time together, and that something is going on between the two of us?" I asked Xaseah, precisely voicing out her current thoughts.

"That's cheating!" Asha complained.

"Wait! So you guys are allowed to read my mind and use my thoughts against me, but when I do the same it's cheating! Why?" I asked sounding offended.

"Because you're a man and the husband, and you're married to two women who are completely unreasonable in all that they do. I guess it's your fate to be outmatched, besides I agree with them big brother, you should be careful around that Dracula chick." Rhea spoke up as she came close with her weapons case hanging on her back.

"Thanks for having my back little sister, they best sister of the year award goes to you." I said to her with as much sarcasm as I could muster.

"Awwnn thank you, I'm so touched. But on a more serious note, is it really necessary for you to go alone, and with her. Forgive us, but that seems incredibly fishy and weird." Rhea said to me.

"I won't be alone, I'll be going with Soren, and none of you have to worry. I have a good feeling about this, and if not for anything, but the sheer fact that I feel that it's my destiny to go on this quest. At this point in time Ming Bae Ki happens to be my destined partner on this quest, so don't worry about anything, we'll be fine or in this case I'll be fine." I said to them, in an effort to calm them all.

"Well we don't like it, but I guess we'll take your word for it. Just hurry back, this mountain falling apart and being exposed to the sun scenario had us worried." Asha said to me.

I gave them a nod and deep kisses before saying goodbye and getting on Soren. I guess it's about time I went on my way. I rode Soren all the way to the entrance of the pit where, Baeki was waiting for me with Queen in tow.I narrowed my eyes as I looked down at them from my perch on top of Soren.

"I thought we agreed that it's just going to be the two of us?" I asked Baeki.

"Of course it's just going to be the two of us. Queen just escorted me here, She'll be heading back now."

Queen gave Baeki a bow, and left, heading back into the pit, to do whatever the heck it is she was going to be doing during the time her, mistress is away. Baeki got on top of Soren, sitting behind me as she pointed forward with a rather comical look on her face.

"Onwards and forwards my good man!" she yelled out.

"Seriously?"

"what?"

She was too much headache to deal with right now, so I urged Soren forward. We moved down the tunnel for almost an hour before we came to the intersection that branched into the three remaining prisons. The moment we got there, almost immediately, Baeki and I took a deep breath as a wave of power washed over us, pulling and tugging at our souls and hearts like nothing we've ever experienced.

"Lets get this over with." I said to her, as I urged Soren down the tunnel that led to the den.

The moment we went into the tunnel, what we were willing became amplified by almost a hundred times. It was such an intense feeling, that I was also feeling terribly anxious and worried, like some sort of addict. I couldn't get through this tunnel fast enough, but with how frantic I was, the tunnel seemed to get longer and longer and had no end to it.

Soon enough the tunnel began to spread and grow wider, the walls started glowing green, purple and red, and little specks of white dots were on it. Then suddenly the tunnel ended, and we weren't in a tunnel under the cover of bioluminescent rocks, rather we were outside, the sun was shining, and a huge mountain range and forest lay in front of us, stretching for as long and as far as our eyes could see.

The forest was about three to four hundred meters away from us, before it was an open grass plain, and it and stretched all over the mountain, almost as if the mountain was made up of the forest itself, but it's rocky peaks could be seen hidden within the clouds.

"So this is how they actually trapped the dragons, ingenious if I do say so. This is a pocket dimension, or you could say an entirely new world connected to Shearath and functioning with the same laws, except for a few slight difference. To find our dragons we have to follow the feelings or the calls they're sending out, and from what I can see and feel, it seems our dragons are in two complete opposite directions. So which means we have to split up." Baeki said to me.

I was a little worried by the sudden change, but I didn't say anything. I could feel her dragon all the way at the eastern part of the mountain and forest. There was a burning feeling coming from that direction, though it didn't help that there was a volcano belching flames in that direction. As for me, my path was straight ahead, directly into the thickest part of the forest.

"Very well Baeki, let's meet back here, alive! We have no idea what we're dealing with here so we have to be careful and not take an unnecessary risks. The dragons are known as the most powerful race in existence, yet they're locked up here. So there's definitely something keeping them here, and I'm not sure I want to find out what. So please be careful."

She raised and spread her index and middle fingers, giving me the peace sign with both her hands and placing them over her eyes, before jumping into the air and flying away with a sonic boom. While I was besides myself with jealousy about her ability to fly, I reaffirmed my impression of her, as I accepted without a doubt, that Baeki had more than a few screws loose in her head.

She was eccentric no doubt, and full of exuberance. But all of those traits were nestled with someone who had achieved amazing control over the element of fire. Without a doubt, as soon as she finds her dragon, it's going to be the birth of freaking Pyromaniac. I'm really scared for the world right now, and the man who marries her.

[Somewhere on a floating Desert Island, a young man fighting a dungeon suddenly sneezes in the face of an orc.]

But either way, I guess everything would turn out fine in the end. I urged Soren forward as we ran straight into the forest. It was like a whole new world in here, as everything was so green and bright. Some of the trees were flowering trees, and they had beautiful flowers with petals of varying colors and patterns.

The wildlife seemed a little sparse, as all I could see were butterflies with rather weird anatomy and wing patterns. They were colorful, but some of them had horns, and were freaking huge, the biggest I saw was the size of a car, and it was flying through the forest with a lot more ease than I expected a creature of a size to have, in a place as constrained as this.

Either way Soren couldn't run around anymore, he had to walk or at least lightly run around the forest. And that's what we were doing for about an hour, before we came upon a clearing in the middle of the forest, the clearing was rather peculiar as the way forward seemed to shimmer, like some sort of mirage.

Everything about this place felt wrong, so I turned Soren around, it was better if we went around this clearing rather than through it. It was giving me all sort of vibes, and not the good kind, so it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Well what do we have here? An elf? No, a fairy? No that's not it. It's strange, you have the breath of nature allover you, but yet, the half life and the half death clings to you like the bark on a tree.Hmmmm, a hybrid perhaps, ahh! So that's what you are, a vampire and nature spirit half breed. But what kind of nature spirit, I wonder......I bet you'll be delicious!"

I shuddered, that voice was so eerie, and creepy that for a moment my entire body froze in fright. I wanted to be anywhere but this clearing, but yet, I felt caged by a power I couldn't understand or fathom. And the fact that said voice was talking about eating me, well you could say I really, really wanted to get the fuck out of here.

"Ummmm? I'm sorry, we just sort of lost our way. So forgive us for disturbing your.....err...…whatever it is you were doing. We'll be going now." I said to the voice, whose owner I still couldn't see.

"If you take one more step, I'll suck you dry where you stand!"

Okay?......what? Suck me dry. Anyhow you looked at it, that phrase had a couple of weird meanings, and could be interpreted in a variety of ways that I didn't even want to imagine right now. And then the clearing shook, and the shimmering tree line turned into massive green wings, and the clearing itself became a head, with horns and a ridged skin hood like the neck of an iguana.

Well you could say I was looking at an Iguana, a big giant iguana the size of a presidential airplane. It had a white underbelly, and deep green scales all over it's body. Spikes grew from the top it's head, all the way to the tip of it's tail, that was just as long as it's body, and incredibly thick looking.

"You're a...…. You're......you are a dragon." I said, as I swallowed a hard lump.

"What an astute observation, give the kid a prize! But in the end, I don't think it matters because you're going to be dinner." The dragon replied as he raised himself up to his full height, completely dwarfing me, and standing at almost 15 meters tall.

"Wait! I'm here on a noble quest to find the...…."

"Oh please not another one of those noble hero on a quest to either slay a dragon, rescue a princess or save a kingdom bullshit. I've had enough of you guys and your prissy way of speaking, so please do me a favor and die!"

And then the dragon inhaled, and as he did so, everything green around us began to decay and wilt at a rapid pace. And then he pointed his open maw at me, gathering a green beam of energy as a spell circle appeared over his jaws, and then he roared.

ROOOOOOOAAAARRRRRRRR!!!

It shook me to my very bones, and I was like a deer frozen in headlights. Soren on the other hand wad not even affected as he gathered lightening all over his body and shifted so fast to the left, it was almost as if he teleported.

The dragon's roar blasted into the trees behind me, completely draining them of whatever life they had, drying the trees until they were dead husks of themselves and looked nothing like trees, but rather dried twigs. Such a sight was enough to drag me out of my stupor, as I urged Soren to turn tail and run.

I've faced a lot of things before, but dragon's are not simple. Of course I can't really know how strong it is, unless I fight it, but come on! It's a freaking dragon! Soren ran through the forest, but even with his intense speed, the dragon was keeping up with us, and it was not even flying. Looking back I saw that his wings was a lot more weaker and thinner than normal, which means he couldn't fly. But obviously he could run, and he had no qualms about knocking down trees to get to me.

I saw the Dragon open his jaws again, and took a deep breath, causing a terribly powerful suction force that actually halted mine and Soren's advance. It was like Soren was running on a treadmill as he couldn't move forward, and then the suctioning stopped, but I knew what came next, and it had me really worried.

So I pulled out my shield, called out my soul energy and weaved on it. A massive golden barrier sprung up, and just in time as the life sucking beam from the green, Iguana lizard dragon thing......just the green dragon is better. The beam slammed into the shield, and for the first time since I got my weaving abilities, there was actually cracks! On my shield.

The dragon's roar was so powerful that it threw me an Soren through a couple of trees, causing an untold amount of destructionas we brought every piece of nature around us to the ground, turning trees to firewood, and uprooting flowers and grasses. And then it just stopped.

"Oww!" I cried out in pain.

[Master I think I broke something] Soren said to me, as he moved his body back into and upright position.

Even as a vampire, everything in my body currently hurt like a bitch, and at this moment, I felt aches in places I never thought I could feel pain from. Then I turned to face the dragon, calling out my sword and shield as my soul energy gathered around me. But my enemy was lying face first on the ground, and shaking like a leaf.

"Please forgive your majesty, I didn't recognize it was you. Please have mercy on this lowly one,and spare my soul please!"

"Uhhh! What the fuck just happened?"