NOVEL NEXT Chapter 60: The Worlds Within the Crest
Lukas continued on through the worlds within the Crest with no real direction in mind, no compass that guided his path through the world of memories that were not his own. The echoes of Vaelrion and Jaren still clung to his body but they were quickly fading with every step he took. The thrill of combat was long gone. And with it came uncertainty of what was ahead.
The world around him shifted endlessly.
Slowly, he was brought to a different world, a different time. One that came after the end of the Monarch's reign. The coronation of Lord Jaren Drakos had been quiet. There was no eruption of horns. No roaring crowd shaking the heavens. Only the steady rhythm of waves brushing against the palace walls, as if the very sea had gone still—watching their new Lord rise to the occasion.
The Monarch had stepped down of his own accord. There had been no rebellion. No revolution. No need to resort to poison in the wine. The old Dragon Lord had simply...disappeared into the deepest depths of the Seas. Retreating to the caves beneath the world, swallowed by silence and sorrow, he passed the crown not to a usurper, but to his son.
To Jaren, his only living child.
Lord Jaren stood alone on the day of his coronation. He had many who loved him but this was one of those moments where solitude was an intentional necessity. And Lukas could feel it. He understood what the young Lord Jaren was feeling in that moment.
The weight of it all. The weight of the vast, open water stretching beyond the horizon. The generations buried beneath it. The lives pulsing through its tides. The millions who would now look to Jaren—not for glory, but for guidance.
And Jaren…did not tremble in the face of this responsibility. The Crown of the Lord was brought to life, the pale halo glowing atop of the young Lord's brow.
"I will not rule like my father," Jaren whispered into the wind. "I will not bend this realm to my will. I will serve it. I will love my people. I will be just. And if the sea must bleed again, let it be me who bleeds instead, not them."
It was a vow.
Then—there was a flash. A resounding strike, like the sound of thunder. The future came far too fast. Lukas stared at Lord Jaren but this was not the same young dragon who had appeared before him just moments ago. He was older now. The ceremonial armour of the Drakos Household he donned was stained with blood, cracks having formed across its once polished surface.
Above him stood the Hero From Another World, eyes cold, blade gleaming with light not of this realm. Jaren didn't beg. He simply stood to face his final foe—placing himself between the Hero and the army of dragons who flew to safety, knowing that Linemall had lost this Great War.
"You'll have to kill me to get to them," he had told the Dragon Slayer.
"I have no need for them. I only need you dead." The Hero whispered back, words that only Jaren could hear.
Lukas watched the Death of Lord Jaren unfold before his eyes, wanting nothing else but to intervene but he knew he was simply watching what had already been occurred.
The vision ended abruptly, the memories tearing away from Lukas like a tide ripping free from shore. Lukas stood in silence for a very long time, heart heavy, chest tight. Lord Jaren had meant every word of his vow. And he had died living through those very words he spoke on the day of his coronation.
One blink and Lukas was transported a whole different dimension. Now, he was standing in a garden beneath the seas. He felt the glow of sunlight filtering through blossoms of lilac and sea-glass. The air sweet with laughter—yet it was laughter that was not from anybody he recognized. There, beneath a sun-dappled archway, stood the Monarch. He was far younger, untouched by the wars that he would eventually wage against the Great Houses of Linemall. He stood there not as a monster. Not as the cold-blooded killer Lukas had fought against. Not as the beast who was defined by only the violence he was able of committing.
No.
He stood there as a father, love and adoration in his eyes. His hands cradled a tiny girl's face, her silver-blue hair bouncing as she giggled. Another child tugged at his robe, demanding attention. And he gave it—gently, endlessly.
A smile carved by warmth, not war.
Lukas watched in stunned silence, dread rising within his gut as he came to the realization that this moment of peace would not last. It never would, no matter how much he wanted it to. He took a step forward. The vision unfolding before his eyes cracked. Darkened.
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A new memory overtook him. The wind screamed as he heard the cries of children. The Monarch's children, ones that he had just seen seconds ago. Two young girls, running barefoot through the burning remains of the same garden—now burned to ash and embers. And from the sky descended the Dragon Lord of the Winds—Serathin of House Sterling, wings of translucent glass and eyes like a gale before landfall.
The dragon did not hesitate even as his eyes laid upon the young offspring of the Monarch, the future of the Drakos Household.
Lord Jaren had never gotten the chance to meet his older sisters.
Blades of vacuum and cyclone tore through the air. In a matter of moments, their deafening screams were silenced.
Lukas staggered, his breath caught in his throat. Again, the scene shifted as he mustered the courage to take another step forward.
He was in a throne room now, silent but thick with treachery.
The Monarch's brothers stood in a half-circle. The Monarch's wife—bound in ethereal chains, blood blooming across her chest. Lukas watched as his whole world was taken away from him. The Monarch didn't scream. He didn't roar. The only thing he could do, as he stared his wife's lifeless body which lay at his feet, was fall to his knees in utter, and everything broke around him.
The sea surged through the walls. The ceiling shattered in a cascade of salt. That grief became wrath. Lukas realized he was watching the day Lord Jaren's father became the Monarch—his name a curse that would darken Linemall for centuries.
As Lukas walked on, the visions still burning behind his eyes, a quiet truth settled in his chest: He would have to to make his own choice when the time came. The choice to let pain define you—or defy it. And if he was to truly lead the Seas of Linemall, it would not purely be through surpassing the might of the Lords who came before him. It would be by understanding the weight they carried—and choosing a different path.
But even so…
Lukas needed more. More trials. More truths. More foes that could force him to the edge, so he could find out what waited beyond it. Not to become stronger than the Monarch. But to ensure he never became him.
As Lukas travelled deeper, the memories he saw no longer felt like a burden that weighed heavy on his mind, a pressure that had once threatened to break his mind. They felt like footsteps. Each memory leading him somewhere deeper, guiding to him where he needed to be. Lukas wandered the Crest's boundless dreamscape, through the splintered histories of dragons and men, seeking not battle, but truth.
He had surpassed the Lords of this age. Now he chased the roots of their strength.
He saw Valerion Drakos. The great dragon stood atop a shoreline cliff, waves crashing below, his body silver-blue like forged myth. Opposite him stood a human, wrapped in flowing robes of deep green. She reached out her hand with great hesitation as Valerion watched on with great fascination. The woman who stood before Valerion was Aurelia Ilagron, first of her house. The ancestor of Velena Ilagron, the Countess who had showed him nothing but kindness.
Lukas watched as dragons and humans walked side by side. Cities were carved into cliffs. Sea routes flourished. Treaties were signed not with blood, but through trust.
It was through Lukas and Velena in which this bond that had formed between Valerion and Auerlia so many years ago was renewed, a bond that the world had long abandoned.
Dragons were not feared during Valerion's time. They were honored.
Lukas saw what was a younger Hero, untarnished by the consequences of time—far from the same man who would one day kill Lord Jaren and his son Rodan, but the one who stood to protect humanity. In fact, he saw the Hero From Another World fighting alongside Valerion against the Cthulu, the Kraken's very own forefathers, whose magic pierced the minds of mortals like spears through flesh and bone. He took in a sharp breath. He...had been here before the Great War. He watched Kingdoms fall and rise in his lifetime. He had already spent centuries in Kairos Castle but Lukas could not yet grasp the scope of how long his father had been here in Hiraeth, how long he'd wanted to return home.
The scene shifted once more.
Lukas stood at the edge of a jagged sea-altar carved into the heart of the world. There, Valerion stood once more—but this time, he was not the focus of this memory. Something greater loomed before him. A silhouette against the stars. A literal mountain made of scale and soul.
Thalarion Drakos. The First of his Name. His voice rumbled like a faultline breaking: "Stay safe, my son."
Valerion bowed his head, his wings shivering in sorrow. "I will return, Father. One day. I promise."
"And when you do," Thalarion whispered, "the sea shall know its heir again."
Then, the Tears fell. Heavy, crystalline drops that glowed with memory and magic. Lukas recognized them. Just like Lady Kaitlyn had said, his tears formed the artifact that had been able to bring Katrina Drakos safely home. The artifact that was meant to guide him—Lukas Drakos—back to Linemall's Seas.
And finally, Lukas saw it as this particular memory faded away. Not another vision, not another memory of times Lukas had never had the chance to live in, but a place outside time. A realm of pressure and darkness, where no current reached. And there, wrapped in coral like a sleeping deity, waited Thalarion Drakos. The first Dragon Lord of the Seas and the final one Lukas had to meet.
His massive form stirred. A single, glowing eye opened like a star in the void.
"So," he said, voice echoing through ocean and marrow, "The Seas have chosen its next Lord. I see that they have chosen well."
Lukas didn't speak. He only bowed for he could barely even fathom going up against Thalarion. Fighting him was not a concept that crossed his mind for Thalarion's presence reminded him of all the immortals he had come across thus far. And the great dragon smiled.
"Come, Lukas Drakos. We have much to discuss."