CHAPTER 31: CHOSEN ONE

’I did it. I slayed a dragon! This is just like a video game.’

Growing up playing video games, especially if you played RPG’s, slaying dragons was one of fhe most sought after things to do.

Jack collapsed to his knees gasping for breath.

[Congratulations you have slain your first Disaster Class Monster!]

[Congratulations you have slain a Disaster Class Monster!]

[Congratulations you have slain your first named enemy!]

[Congratulations on slaying your first dragon!]

[Congratulations you have completed a hidden quest!]

[Congratulations you have completed a quest!]

[Congratulations you have obtained a Disater Core!]

[Reward: 200 Skill Points]

[Reward: 150,000 EXP]

[Reward: 100,000 Reputation Points.]

[Reward: Title | Dragon Slayer: all damage to dragon increased by 30%.]

[Slay Spiralus. Completed. Reward: Black Box.]

[Reward: 2,500 EXP]

[Congratulations you have leveled up!]

[You are now Level 18!]

There was notification after notification, but Jack missed all of it. The moment the white lightning left his hand, the divine protection he had vanished.

[Pain is turned back on.]

In an instant, pain unlike anything Jack had experienced in either lifetime assaulted him.

It felt as if he was being stabbed by a super heated knife. If a blade is heated to the correct temperature, it could cut and cauterize at the same time.

He nearly screamed out loud as he felt every ounce of lightning leaving his body.

He tightly clenched his fists, teeth gritting fiercely as he resisted the urge to scream.

An intense surge of mana erupted instantly from his body. Waves of vibrant powerful, mana flowed out of him and onto the battfield.

A human could barely handle a normal pain, but here he was dealing with hundred times that.

[Pain has stacked and being relased at once, Damage is multiplied by hundred fold.]

Alaric, Finn, Adrian, and Cassius all watched in horror as Jack was going through pain.

"Hang on Jack." Finn whispered.

"No! What’s happening to him!" Alaric screamed out as he tried to get to Jack, but before he could get there Finn pulled him back.

"Get off of me! I’ll kill you Finn!!"

"If you go near him, you’ll die Alaric!" His words sunk in like a dagger. It felt like he was losing his son all over again. "He made his choice, now he has to pay the toll...."

"Come on Jack." Alaric whispered as a single tear went down his face.

The mana grew more dense, more aggressive as it ripped through Jack’s system.

BOOM!!

BOOM!!

BOOM!!

A series of explosions went off before Jack started to fall to the ground.

Jack lost consciousness, Alaric ran ho his son as fast as his injured body let him.

Before he could make it there, someone grabbed Jack and picked him up, putting him over his shoulder.

He was tall and lean, dressed in blue armor. It looked very light, but an experienced eye could tell how intricate it was.

His face was ageless, in a way that experienced mages were. He could have been thirty or three-hundred.

"Alaric Kaiser!" The stranger called out. His words echoed across the battlefield. "Your son might quite the impression today. Such beautiful destructive power."

Alaric, battered and bleeding from the fight with the dragon, stumbled forward on uneasy legs. "Who are you?? What do you want with my son!"

"I am Aurelius, first chosen one of King Eric. What I want is simple. I want to meet the boy who killed the dragon with a single strike. Its not every day you find a dragon slayer in the kingdom."

"My son is not a weapon for the crown!!"

Adrian stepped foward, his greatsword still clutched in his bloody hands. "The young master earned his power through courage and sacrifice..."

"Silence, dog." Aurelius’s respectful tone vanished entirely as he glared at the captain. With a quick wave of his hand, Adrian’s mouth was sealed shut by golden energy. "The adults are talking now."

Cassius urged his wounded wyvern forward, light magic gathering weakly around his hands. "Aurelius, even the king’s authority has limits..."

Aurelius nodded respectfully to the noble. "Lord Sunblade, your concern is understandable. But this boy just demonstrated the ability to kill disaster class threats single handedly. The crown must act in its best interests."

Finn spat blood onto the ground. "You always were a bastard, Aurelius. Some things never change."

"Ah, Finn the Blind Prophet speaks!" Aurelius’s voice dripped with contempt. "How lovely that you’re here. Did you foresee this moment, old friend? Did your divine sight show you how thoroughly you’d fail to protect the boy?"

Finn’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing.

"No witty retorts? No cryptic warnings about the future?" Aurelius sneered. "Prison has made you dull, Finn. You used to be so entertaining before the gods took your eye and left you broken."

Aurelius looked back to Allaric Kaiser.

"Did you think power of this magnitude would go unnoticed? Did you think you could hide this boy from King Eric forever?"

He adjusted his grip on jack’s unconscious body, and for a moment his expression softened into something that might have been admiration.

"I was going to see the King within the month!" Alaric pleaded.

"I care not for what you had planned." Aurelius smiled wide and laughed uncontrollably. " Your son is a chosen one, he is a force of nature that you cannot hide. He’ll be returning with me to King Eric.

It’s not everyday you mean a chosen one that can chant his gods blessing and live. He is truly remarkable and I have decided I shall take him."

"No! You can’t take him!"

With what little mana Alaric had left he swung his sword as fast as he could.

"Dark Cloaked Slash!" Alaric screamed out in fury.

Aurelius pointed his finger in the shape of a gun and released a small bullet of light mana. This simple shot destroyed the dark blade of mana Alaric shot out.

Aurelius slowly began to glow a vibrant golden light. "Your boy belongs to the kingdom now. If you disagree you have seven days to appear before fhe King."

"You can’t do this! You have no right!" Alaric shouted.

"I am the King’s chosen, Lord Kaiser. I can do whatever is in the king’s best interest."

Slowly his body became translucent disappearing like a fog. "Consider this your formal invitation, I hope you dont disappoint me."

With those words Aurelius disappeared from view, taking Jack along with him.

The silence that followed was deafening. Now there was only the gentle hiss of cooling glass and the distant groans of wounded soldiers.

Alaric collapsed to his knees beside the massive corpse of Spiralus, his hands pressed against the dragon’s scales. Even in death, the dragon stretched nearly thirty meters from snout to tail, its wings spread wide enough to cast shadows over half the battlefield.

Typhoon’s gem, once blazing red in the dragon’s chest, had gone dark as coal, but still radiated large amounts of heat.

"My boy..." Alaric whispered, his voice cracking. "My son..."

Adrian staggered over with a squad of his remaining soldiers, their boots crunching on debris scattered around the crater. "Search the body," he ordered hoarsely, his voice still rough from Aurelius’s magic. "Dragon cores are worth a fortune."

"Captain!" one of the soldiers called out, his voice echoing strangely across the battlefield. "There’s... there’s nothing here, sir!"

Adrian limped over to where the soldier was pointing. A massive cavity had been carved through the dragon’s chest. The edges of the wound were burned smooth, as if something had reached inside and simply... taken what it wanted.

"The core’s gone," Adrian reported grimly, wiping blood from his mouth. "Someone or something got to it before us."