Draconic Awakening

Ragnar gritted his teeth, forcing his body to refuse the urge to move, but no—it did not listen. It simply continued to move, to tip him to place every foot forward.

And he did... each step heavier than the last but at a slow pace.

"Damn you, bitch!" Ragnar, for the first time before the princess, had his calm, collected self break down as he walked out of the shelter of the pillar and towards the rampaging beast. He could not control his direction, but at least he could control the heaviness of his footing—that much he could do.

'Shit! Shit!' He gritted his teeth, cursing at the princess. Her companions, the party—he cursed not killing them in their sleep; he cursed not betraying them earlier than they betrayed him.

As he began walking forward to the beast, Cleaver and Klein, seeing him, emerged from their hiding spot which was not too far from the rampaging terror. Using the noise from the beast knocking down the ice pillars and spikes, the two were able to sneak past the beast and towards the walking Lord.

Ragnar stared at them—the joy in Klein's eyes, he still had that honourable smug on his expression, while Cleaver seemed a little bitter on his end as they began to near each other.

Klein raised his hands to his clothing and patted it a few times with a grin, saying, "Make sure to keep warm in my coat."

His words were not a whisper; instead, they were loud and caught the attention of the beast. The mighty behemoth jerked its head around and, with a deafening roar, began to charge at the three.

Seeing this sight, Ragnar's body moved on instinct. Breaking into an involuntary sprint, he summoned his blade into one hand and, in the other, a ball of fire that burnt prominently in the ice tunnels.

Racing past the two men, Ragnar gritted his teeth and stopped resisting the urge to hold the monster down till they escaped.

"If I can't break free, then I'll just kill you! Scum!" he yelled, leaping forward at the Dreadling—a bold and insane move to make, but clearly stupid.

The monster replied to his leap with an equal retaliation, jarring open its mouth and showing its sharp rows of teeth, ready to snap at Ragnar and kill him in one bite.

Still, this was an opening Ragnar had planned for. Seeing the opened mouth of the beast, he pulled back his hand and threw the ball of fire into its mouth.

His attack was on point and struck the mouth of the beast with a large explosion, making it stagger back, shutting its mouth right in time as Ragnar crashed side-first into the beast's face, pushing himself off it and then landing right below the beast, within its range of attacks.

The king predator shrieked in anger, raising a paw up with its claws extended as it prepared to smash Ragnar into a puddle of blood. However, he was far quicker on his feet.

Ragnar opened his hand and it formed an obsidian spear which he immediately placed vertically up to aim at the exposed body of the king predator. At command, the spear elongated upwards, its tip sticking into the flank of the beast, causing it to lose balance in the last second and miss Ragnar by a mere foot.

This trick seemed to infuriate the beast more, and it did not take a genius to tell Ragnar it wouldn't work twice. In a hurry, he rolled out of the way of the beast, and when he was finally out of its range, he rose to his feet and summoned his spear and blade into his grasp.

Still, something felt wrong—very wrong.

The king predator simply stood there, its face turned to the young Lord, but still it had no reaction. It showed no movement or any more anger, but just simply stood there.

Ragnar, in turn, glared at the beast and opened his mouth to speak, but as he did so, he found blood flowing out of his mouth, and then his legs began to buckle uncontrollably.

"What the hell—" he found himself saying as he dropped his gaze down to his body in mystery at what had happened to him, and finally, he could see it—in his chest, there was a hole. How big the hole was, he could not tell; how far it had gone, he had no idea, but he was bleeding through a hole in his chest.

'Shit, I didn't see it—the tentacle must have stabbed me before I could attack it with my spear.'

It was a surprise he had not noticed being stabbed until now. "How sinister..."

Arya and her party, at the end of the ice cavern, took one last stare at the two tiny specks so far away before they made it out of the place and into the next tunnel.

Cleaver had been the one looking back a lot. It came to him as a shock as to how long Ragnar had lasted up against a ferocious fiend.

'He really ran towards the beast like he had a plan to survive. How insane—the maddest man I ever met,' Cleaver smiled in recognition and shook his head next. "The realm consumes all that is of the realm; only that which is not of the realm lives. Rest well, mad man."

Meanwhile, Ragnar held his shield in one hand and his sword in the other as the Dreadling engaged him in a flurry of attacks.

First, a claw came down at him, which he managed to block, but at that same time, when the claws had swiped, a tentacle curved around his shield aimed at his face, which he avoided by jerking his head away and letting it graze him.

With his eyes, he predicted the last one coming for his throat and managed to block it with his sword, staggering back a few feet to get some space between him and the beast—not that that was something to be considered possible.

The king predator could clearly sense his weakness; it could have killed him a few moments ago but simply played with him, trying to test his struggles, his determination to live, and this infuriated Ragnar.

"Bastard, just kill me already if you have the fucking guts!" Ragnar yelled out, blocking another flurry of attacks—this time, he was not as lucky.

A tentacle had torn into his calf, causing him to almost lose his footing and fall to his back.

At this moment, Ragnar had had enough of this battle. He flung his shield at the monster in anger and, with all the force in his body, screamed, "You scum—"

His words were cut short as the next thing that occurred shook the entire cavern with dread and what many considered brutality.

The king predator had gotten suddenly tired of its prey's ignorance to play and, with its full force as a Dreadling, it swatted Ragnar away like a bug, sending him into the far-off wall of the ice cave, causing massive cracks all over it.

The young Lord's body, standing still plastered to the wall, managed to jar himself from within it to take two steps before falling to his bottom and then reclining his bloody back to it.

'Is this it?' he asked himself as he felt his blood ooze out of his head, the crimson in it tainting the colour of his view, his hands. His flesh, every bone in his body hurt—his body begged for help, or terrifyingly... he begged for death... The great Fang Zhen begged for death.

That sounded absurd—the mighty beast that made nations crumble, towns cower in fear to his presence—the great Fang Zhen had finally run out of luck.

How typical.

Ragnar let out a defeated sigh. 'I— I... I am not Fang Zhen... no, that's not it... I'm Ragnar Rok in this life... The bastard... no, this fiend should hear this...'

Ragnar opened his mouth to speak but was replied to by his own blood, which made him cough for a few seconds. Then he finally said:

"I was the great conqueror, the mighty Fang Zhen, the demonic cultivator that brought the world to its knees. Now I am Ragnar, the bastard of the Rok family, the Faceless Son of Darkness! Who are you to make me a playing toy, beast? To throw me around and make me bleed like I'm some kind of stupid joke to you—is that what you think I am? A dumb joke?"

"Don't be mistaken by the sorry state I am in now, but I have a bad habit of not easily giving in to the clutches of death. So if you are going to finish me, make sure to do it properly, because if I live another day, I will carve your hide out and use it as my clothing."

Ragnar's voice was cold and sinister, like a demon about to be forcefully kicked back to the horrid pits of hell.

"If I am to die today... then so be it... but if I live another day, death be unto all those dogs of society, death to all those that exalt themselves in hierarchy—either man or beast. Hahahahahahahaha..." He coughed out a handful of blood, unable to complete his malevolent speech, and finally placed his attention on the ruthless king predator approaching for the final blow.

This was it—his end.

End of Volume 1