38 An Opportunity
Their way through the underground city had been easy, and Arthur was already thinking something was wrong. The moment an invisible monster attacked him, he knew it had started.
“Fuck!”
Without looking back, Arthur launched an elbow to whatever was behind him. There was nothing behind him.
“Did you see anything?” said Arthur.
He hoped that Sully or Kai had seen something, but it was useless. Whatever attacked him was completely invisible. How could such overpowered skill exist? It had to have a weakness for them to exploit.
“What can I do? What can I do? Maybe?”
Arthur noticed that the enemy had pulled out the knife after stabbing him, and the knife turned invisible as well, but only after a second or so, which meant there was a delay he could exploit.
The senses Arthur had as a dragon came to use as he closed both of his eyes. He focused everything on his hearing and his sixth sense. It did not attack him at first, but after Arthur waited for 5 minutes, it came.
“From the front? No, I sense nothing suspicious. Behind? No, it shouldn’t attack the same place twice. A diagonal attack? That’s it.”
Arthur knew it was impossible to upfront block the attack, even with his senses, but when he felt the attack was close, he did something else instead. He pierced the stabbed wound with his hand and threw blood toward the directions he assumed the attack would come.
When he looked back, he noticed for a split second the blood stayed in thin air, so he knew it had hit something. Without time to lose, Arthur’s nails turned into claws, and he pierced whatever it was.
Green blood spurted everywhere, and a small creature fell. The monster who gave Arthur that much problem was a freaking goblin.
“A goblin? Aren’t these supposed to be weak? How this thing can turn invisible?”
He saw the level of this goblin, 14. It was weak, and the only troublesome ability was this invisible thing. Arthur could not understand how this goblin learned this thing?
“Lord, I can sense something familiar inside this goblin, as if he is a mutated creature.” Sully said.
“Really? Like what the mage who locked you did in that cave?”
“Exactly.”
“But why are they here, of all places?”
The mage who locked Sully seemed like a madman to Arthur and he thought those experiments had led to nothing, but now wasn’t the case. Was that mage part of a group who were trying to mutate beasts? But for what reason?
Arthur had no answers for any of those questions, and it wasn’t the time to be thinking about it. More invisible goblins could come to attack them, and there was also The Doom Order who weren’t exactly friendly.
They kept moving throughout the palace’s halls. At first, Kai could not help but to worry about Arthur’s wound, but it healed in less than 10 minutes.
~~~~
“Look at these dead beasts. Whoever is inside this underground city is not weak.”
“Yeah, but we are in 7 here, so it shouldn’t be a problem.”
The leader pointed at the palace and said, “That place is probably their destination. This is where the treasures are supposed to be, so let’s not waste time.”
It was a fact that The Doom Order knew more about this place than everyone else. They knew how to enter it, and also knew where the treasures were. Claridge, the person who invited Arthur to go with him, only knew about the island’s location.
Speaking of Claridge, he also had a hard time overcoming the trap.
“5 seconds? Fuck, it is too short!”
“It is doable if we work together. Anyone have any suggestions?”
Some of them had some ideas, and Claridge listened to each one of them.
~~~~
The underground city was not a place for the weak. Arthur and Sully had to fight all kinds of magical beasts and mutated beasts along the way, and the palace seemed to not have an end.
Kai was not happy with all things were going. He felt useless for not helping them and promised himself he would work hard after they left to not be a burden anymore.
As they proceeded further inside the palace, the mysterious voice kept screaming inside their heads.
“Despicable humans, leave now. This isn’t a place for you!”
They did not know who or what it was, but leaving after reaching so far would be just dumb.
Footsteps echoed through the halls, and the mysterious voice seemed to get more and more restless, as if Arthur was getting somewhere he shouldn’t. Kai couldn’t stop scratching his body, visibly anxious about what might happen.
Arthur walked up to him, tapped him on the shoulder, and said, “Relax, Kai. Did you see how we killed every enemy in our path? Whoever owns that voice will meet the same fate.”
That calmed him down a bit, and they kept walking, heading towards the voice.
Soon, something they had never seen before was right in front of their eyes. A door, but not just any door. It was of an unknown material, and even after Arthur used all of his strength, he couldn’t move it.
Arthur, being very close to the door, could notice a strange mechanism. It looked like a trumpet, and he couldn’t understand its function, but Arthur was sure that was what would open the door.
Luckily for them, the mysterious voice that had bothered them throughout their exploration of the palace spoke more than it should have.
“I told you humans can’t enter here, hahaha. This place belongs to the superior race.”
“Lucky me, I’m not human anymore.” thought Arthur.
With that thought in mind, Arthur activated his Draconic Transformation, causing his body to change.
Kai had never seen it before. Arthur was still hiding some things from him.
Now transformed, Arthur went to the trumpet at the door, and used the ability he had in his draconic form, Dragon’s Breath.
Arthur’s mouth grew in size, and then a scorching fire shot out of it, right into that trumpet.
The door moved after that, and in less than 1 minute, it was wide open.
What was on the other side was a room filled with gold, and a creature was lying in the middle of the room, and it seemed it couldn’t move.
“That is impossible. The door can only be opened by me, a Wyvern, descendant of the majestic dragons. How is that possible?”
As soon as the Wyvern looked at Arthur, he understood what was happening.
“It’s not possible. A dragon? No, it can’t be. They all died a long time ago. What kind of magic are you using?”
Of all things behind that door, a Wyvern. Arthur had never expected that, and as he scanned the Wyvern more and more, he could not understand how it ended that way.
The Wyvern was malnourished, paralyzed, and both of its eyes were life-less. The once majestic scales were not colorless and were already falling into pieces.
“What the hell happened to you? Aren’t you supposed to be strong?”
“I-I, you don’t understand. You couldn’t win against them, so what could us Wyverns do?”
“They killed all of you thousands of years ago, and now they are hunting us Wyverns too, afraid that someday we can become dragons again.”
“We tried so hard, but it is impossible to win against them.”
“Against who? Humans?” said Arthur.
“Humans? What a joke. They might look like humans, but are far beyond their power. Do you really think humans could wipe us? Wipe the dragons?”
Arthur was curious about what the wyvern was talking about. It was clear he was not in his right mind anymore and was on the brink of death.
“We don’t know who they are. Maybe there’s information about them in the long lost Sky City, but no one knows where this place is anymore.”
“Oh, mighty dragon. If you survived, then we may still return to our past glory. I’m almost dying, and the only thing that kept me going was the hope of someday finding someone worthy of my help.”
“You can keep all the treasures inside this room. But the most precious gift I can’t give to you, but I can give it to your friends.”
The money problem was solved, but what was this precious gift the wyvern talked about?
“What gift?”
“My blood. It is not comparable to yours, but it is still something anyone would kill for. I can tell that even if you tried to give your blood to your friends, they would both die, incapable of enduring it,”
“So what do you say?”
He looked at Kai, and saw the sparkles in his eyes, and his desire for power.
“I’ll do it. Anything to get stronger.”
Kai gazed at Arthur and said, “I don’t know who these people are, but if they killed your kind, Arthur, I’ll help you against them!”
“I can also give my blood to your beast friend. In a few years they might turn into wyverns too.”
“I’ll do it, lord.”
Sully knew it was a chance he couldn’t miss. As both of them accepted, and the wyvern was ready to pass on his bloodline, someone else entered the room.
“These bastards, damn it.”