Koren rushed towards the encampment, he placed all of his strength on his two legs, including all of his remaining wind power. However, just as he was about to reach the encampment, he suddenly felt an intense pain coursing through his body, his little body fell with a thud and rolled on the sand."Ahhhhh" Koren screamed with agony, his eyes were completely bloodshot and his head felt like it could burst at any moment. The wind started to vibrate in pulses around him, turning Koren"s surroundings into a little sand tornado.
Koren continued to scream in pain for a whole minute, before finally pa.s.sing out. A few minutes later a man suddenly appeared next to Koren, this man looked at Koren, and then looked around for anyone else. As he knelt down to pick Koren up, he noticed the sword on his back and his expression changed. He hid the sword on himself before carrying Koren and moving towards the encampment.
************
"I DON"T KNOW!!" Ken Screamed as his torturer brought the flame closer to his face. The torturer smirked, he was amused by the pitiful screams of the human. "As chief, you should know what will happen to your people if I don"t get what I want, give up human, and tell me where you hid it." Said the draconian commander Uther, as he brought a dark sizzling flame and put it on kens face.
"Ahhh" Screamed ken before biting down as soon as possible. The commander"s face was bitter, he had tortured this human for hour"s, yet he kept hearing the same words again and again. "How many more of your people have to die, the artifact is of no use to your people, surrender it and I will set you free" said Uther with some hesitation. Ken, who at this point had half his face filled with a dark scar, looked up. "I DON"T KNOW!!, haha haha" Said Ken before starting to laugh hysterically. "d.a.m.n It!!" shouted Uther as he hit ken squarely on the head, making him shut up.
Uther was the Commander of the 12th battalion of the Draco Kingdom. Unlike most draconian"s who either have strong physical prowess or elemental prowess, Uther was blessed with a Unique element, The Dark Flame. His dark flame was not only far hotter than regular flames but was also corrosive and extremely difficult to get rid of. Such gifts were extremely rare among the Upper echelons of the Draco Kingdom, however Uther"s father was a former prince, and carried the royal bloodline.
Uther walked out of the tent, his deputy Andre quickly approached him "Sir, the prince received our report and sent a wind raven back" said Andre with a parchment in his hands. "Give it to me!" shouted Uther as he grabbed the parchment from Andre"s grip.
"I will read it in my quarters, no one is to disturb me" Said Commander Uther as he made his way to a tent in the center of the camp.
As Uther walked in, his large draconian body started to get smaller, his tail, scales and even his horns started to retreat. This was the normal form of a draconian citizen. Most draconian"s looked similar to humans, with the only distinguishing factors being the gla.s.sy scales on their necks, under eyelids and along their cheeks , as well as the slight stubs on the location of their horns. However, even in their normal form, the strength they carried was 5 times that of an average human.
Even though the transformation took effort to maintain, Uther preferred it, as it helped him reinforce his authority Infront of his battalion troops. As a carrier of royal blood, Uther was blessed with dark Azure scales, and was the envy of many lesser royals. However, Uther knew that his father was only the youngest brother of the former king, and was not slaughtered like his other siblings by posing as a r.e.t.a.r.d. As such, Uther himself didn"t have any right to fight for the throne. He had to wag his tail around the 4th Prince just to stay close to the royal circle.
Uther made his way to his study desk and sat on a chair, he looked at the parchment in his hands and removed the wax seal. As he started to read, his pupils went wide like a snake, and his breathing became heavy. Dark flames started to erupt all over his body, and his frame started to get larger again, he was back in his draconian form. "Ahhh, that b.a.s.t.a.r.d, I"ll kill him, how dare he!!." Shouted Uther as the flames consumed his whole tent.
Andre who was waiting outside was not surprised, he had already heard about the friction between the Commander and the 4th Prince.
Uther was incensed, flames were erupting from his nostrils.
"Dearest Cousin, if you push me too far, you might not like it" said Uther while looking at the burning parchment in his hand.
In the letter, the 4th Prince, his royal highness Rekim Draco, berated Uther for his incompetence, and informed him of his demotion, as well as the fact that the prince himself will be arriving to continue the search for the artifact.
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Uther, still covered in dark flames, came out of the burning tent. Andre immediately ran over and knelt down with his spear in tow. "Sir, what are your orders" said Andre in an orderly manner fitting an officer.
Uther"s brows twitched, he looked at the kneeling Andre and breathed. "Send the prisoners to the mines, and inform the troops that I will no longer be their commander. Also start preparations to receive his royal highness The 4th Prince." Said Uther in a calm voice.
************
Koren found himself in the dark nothingness once more, he was wearing the same strange clothes from before, and just like last time, could only see himself. "I"m here again" thought Koren as he looked at his clothing.
"Yep, you sure are, and believe me it took a lot of effort on my part" Said a voice behind Koren. Koren turned around, expecting to see nothing, just like before. However, In front of him stood a woman. This woman wore clothing similar to Koren, which can only be described as a decked out uniform from a postmodern military. She had jet black hair, flowing all the way down to her ankles with streaks of white in between, her light caramel skin that seemed to shine even in the vast nothingness and dark brown eyes with a ting of Gold around the pupils. Koren had never seen someone with such beauty, and charm.
Koren realized that he had been staring, and started to blush. "Um, big sis, are you Hope." Said Koren after getting some composure back.
"Tadaaa, that"s right, it"s me. Honestly I didn"t think we would meet again this early." Said Hope with a slight sigh.
"I thought I would have to wait for you to become at least 13 years old, but thankfully you were able to procure a power source to jump start the network." Said Hope as a small earthen yellow shard appeared in her hand.
"The spiritual shard" said Koren with clear astonishment in his eyes. "Yes, this shard can be regarded as a type of power source, although the conversion is still dodgy." Said Hope as she held up the shard and raised her eyebrow.
"Big Sis hope, who are you, what is this place, what is happening to me, why did the" said Koren but was interrupted with Hope"s index finger on his lip. "shush kid, I"m getting to it, give the lady a minute will ya" said Hope as she removed her hand from shushing Koren.
"Koren, I know you have a lot of questions, and I will answer them to the best of my ability, so just sit down and listen." Said Hope, and with her words the dark nothingness retreated.
Koren suddenly found himself in a tent much like the ones in his village. He looked around, shocked. For a moment he thought that he was back home, but then Hope appeared and he knew he was still in her illusory world.
"I"m sorry Koren, I brought you here since I thought it would make you more comfortable." Said hope after noticing Koren"s change in expression.
"Its fine big sis, please continue" said Koren looking straight at hope.
"My name is Hope, and I am an artificial Intelligence, modeled after my engineer Dr. Clair Escanor." Said Hope in one breath looking at Koren with wide open eyes, expecting a response.
Koren"s eyes flashed with a hint of understanding. "AI, an abbreviation of artificial Intelligence, so you were created through the use of technology… wait what, how do I know this??" said Koren with confidence followed by confusion again.
"haha, I was right, the network link is working. Don"t worry koren, the network is there to help you learn faster and grow stronger. It will allow you to understand everything I say, and store any new knowledge you acquire in your gene repository. It is one of the biggest technological breakthroughs of the human race." Said Hope with clear pride in her voice.
"We humans, are a very powerful race in the Terran Universe, our home world is called "Earth", and the source of our power, is Knowledge" said Hope with gleaming eyes.
"For several thousands of years, humans continued to spread throughout the galaxy, we pushed the borders of possibility and terraformed worlds, tamed entire systems by building mega structures around stars, we were invincible." Said Hope with enthusiasm, however, her face which had been gleaming at this point, suddenly turned dire.
"And that"s when we encountered, Them. A race just as accomplished as ours but their technology was so Wrong." Said Hope with a look of disgust on her face.
"We called them The G.o.dless, as their technology resembled much of what we saw in our worlds myths and legends . They demanded our complete surrender, and ordered us to hand over all of our knowledge and technology in exchange for their protection." said Hope.
"And so the war began, entire worlds abandoned, star systems destroyed, chaos and destruction everywhere, with no end in sight. Their technology was so alien to us, it almost looked like magic, and after recovering one of their vessels intact, we found that it was indeed a type of magic. Turns out, Magic is just a form of energy that behaves differently from ordinary matter, it literally bends the laws of physics, and incorporates itself with our materials, it was, in every sense of the word, miraculous. After centuries of war we finally cracked the source of their magic." Said hope with a slight grin while looking at the entranced Koren.
"A Stable Dimensional crack. The G.o.dless actually evolved on a world with a Stable dimensional crack, connecting them to unlimited power from the very inception of their race, how lucky." Said Hope with clear envy.
"But so what, We humans never had any advantage, so we pursued knowledge, step by step, we created technologies that allowed us to stand and fight the G.o.dless." Said Hope with all traces of envy gone.
"We are Humans Koren, we are Creators, and that"s exactly what we did, we created a miracle. We created YOU!" Said Hope with her index finger poking Koren straight on his forehead.