CHAPTER 83: CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE: SUMMONING POWERS FROM A BOOK.

"Should we conduct a seance?"

"He’s not dead you dummy!"

"He’s been that way for a long time now you fool."

"It’s only been three days in the human world. It’s not that big a deal."

"It’s been two months already! Two freaking months!"

Lio rolled his eyes at the bickering Elyria in shock. He hadn’t known he had been away for that long. Time passed differently in their space so it was hard to know unless they actually visit earth to confirm.

"Whether it’s been two months or three days, it doesn’t matter. We have to help him."

Lio just remained quiet, staring at his collapsed body. After he walked out of the building to study the book, they hadn’t heard a word from him. Elyria, though angry at the indirect insult hurled at her sister, lazily strolled to the back of the house just to see what he’s been up to.

To her utter dismay, she met him on the floor with a ripped shirt and an angry dragon glaring wildly from his back. She fell to the ground and screamed Lio’s name with every ounce of power she had.

Lio had come in rushing with a dagger, looking around frantically for any kind of conflict. Ever since this man entered their world, that hasn’t become a stranger to them.

Lio hurled him over his shoulder and strode into the house while Elyria followed suit right behind him.

Once inside, he dropped Damien on the couch in a way that brought his back directly in front of him.

"What do we do?! What...what is it this time?!" Elyria didn’t know whether her worry was out of genuine fear for this hottie’s life or because she might have just lost her last opportunity to reunite with her sibling.

"Calm down." Lio said harshly. "He slumped while reading the book which means he must have gotten the last Chapter."

Elyria looked at him like he just claimed the moon was actually made of cheese. "And what is that suppose to mean?" she asked defiantly.

Lioren traced his eyes over the dragon tattoo on his back. He had to admit it, it was quite large and well done for a thousand, blind ant-like creatures.

"Get the book." he said calmly, gesturing to her to leave.

Elyria bit her lip for a second then ran outside to fetch the ancient book he had been reading. She brought it to Lio who instantly flipped it to the last page.

True enough, it still couldn’t be open.

The book was more of an ancient artifact than just a regular, old book. The language and symbols of the book was lost thousands of years ago to an agonizing plague that had overshadowed their people. From that period till now, not one soul apart from the dragons in Kesath could read that book. And even though they could, they could never read the last page. This was because that was the last page belonging to the longest living dragon who got caught up in the war.

According to mythology, he was the only elder dragon whose body was never found till this day. The book was once packed with millions of pages that were specially guarded by the Veris, a collection of dragons charged to maintain order in their world.

Long ago, dragons and humans lived in peace with one another. Conflict, strife or other forms of fight never existed during those times. All creatures whether great or small lived in perfect harmony with one another. That was of course until The Specie war that changed the course of life forever.

That war had wiped out a very good portion of the dragon population because a particular king felt they were becoming too powerful and would one day revolt.

Because of this, the dragons who constantly visited the human world to play, were forced back to Kesath where they had remained till this day.

Ten pages left, ten dragons left.

Ten pages of the book supposed to mean that there were ten dragons left. But that wasn’t the case. Thousands of pages of the book had been lost due to the war that had forced them back to their world.

More leaves of the book were lost even after the war because the ones who guarded it weren’t around to perform the ritual that kept it alive. There were three instances where a dragon’s page would disappear: if his page in the book was taken out through a ritual, if he died from natural causes or if he was missing from the pack. The last page that refused to open when looked at closer, seemed to have other pages stuck to it. It was just an unproven theory but Lio and Elyria didn’t care.

As long as there was the slightest chance of it being true, they would hold onto it firmly.

It just meant they weren’t all dead. Just missing and it was enough reason to regain hope for their lost world again. Who knew? Anything could happen.

"Maybe we should take him to the other dragons." Elyria suggested.

"They are already calm and have more knowledge than we do."

"They see him as a threat, Elyria. We have to be careful until they can fully accept him. Till then, it’s best if all they know is that he’s here."

As they were speaking, the dragon tattoo on Damien’s back began to twitch.

Once.

Twice.

Five times.

All of a sudden, the tattoo began to separate. The millions of ant-like creatures began to scatter all over his back like falling rocks.

In a few seconds of their dispersal, Damien turned over and woke up.

"Oh my... you’re awake!" Elyria screamed, throwing her self on his bare chest. This time, Damien didn’t push her away. He just laid there perfectly still until Lio had to drag her away from his body.

He crouched down to the height of the sofa with a serious face. "Are you good?"

Damien cracked his neck to look at him. A blank, rather sad expression clouded his entire face. He had just seen his entire childhood right before his eyes. The one he only had specific, vague memories of.

He had seen it all and now knew everything that had been wiped from his memory.

His mother, his beautiful mother had laid down her life for him.

And Cassian... Cassian was also just...

A single tear fell down his left eye onto Lio’s hand making him jerk back in shock. Damien’s sorrow sank heavily into his system, sending aching sensations all over him. This was how it felt like. This was what he had felt when she left him.

It was too excruciating to describe.

Elyria moved closer to him. "Why are you—"

But before Elyria could finish, the book, out of nowhere, shot up in the air. In the same second, Damien was pulled from the sofa, meeting the ancient book in the opposite direction. In what looked like half a second, he was in the air, dangling lifelessly in front of the ancient, open book.

The air grew thicker and thicker with each passing second as dark, creeping shadows appeared once again.

"Oh no not again!" Lio exclaimed. If the other dragons sensed this one, they might really think he was there to attack them.

As the ancient book hovered menacingly in mid-air, it fluttered between the pages with an otherworldly energy.

Damien’s limp body dangled before it like a puppet on a string. The shadows deepened, creeping across the walls like dark, insidious tendrils, as if summoned by the book’s dark magic.

The atmosphere pulsed with an electric tension, and the very air was charged with the raw energy of the unknown. Elyria’s eyes widened in horror as she watched, her hands instinctively rising to her mouth as if to stifle a scream.

The book began to glow with an eerie, pulsating light and suddenly, its energy rippled out of it, straight into Damien’s chest.

Damien’s body started to twitch, his muscles spasming as if responding to some unseen force. His eyes flickered open, revealing pupils that had turned a fiery, otherworldly gold, burning with an intensity that seemed almost divine.

The other dragons, sensing the disturbance immediately arrived at the scene again. But this time, they didn’t attack them instead, they took human forms and walked through the open door.

Admist the chaos, Lio still noticed their entrance. He turned around to find the seven other dragons standing right inside his house, looking grimmer than the grim reaper. His attention momentarily shifted to them and he bowed his head in greeting but they didn’t answer.

They barely cast him a glance. All their concentration was directed towards the one man who was channeling energy from the book.

A tremor rippled through the chamber,

making the entire structure groan under the pressure. The dark energy, uninterrupted by anything, continued rushing undisturbed into his body.

Sparks of light burst from the open book, spiraling upward like silver comets, while shadows danced wildly against the walls, twisting into grotesque shapes that slithered and dissolved into smoke.

A loud, barbaric yawp echoed out of Damien’s throat bringing a massive explosion of darkness along with it.

True enough, the other seven sensed it.

By the time the wind and dark particles cleared, Damien was standing straight with the book in his hand.

But everyone’s eyes weren’t of the book, they were fixed in awe at the pair of long, dark green wings that had just appeared behind his back.