CHAPTER 459: THE VOICES IN THE HEAD.

‎"Are you sure about this?" Sanya asked, watching Aristoria standing at the edge of a giant hole of ice. "If you failed to contain in, this is going to be the end for all of us," she stared at Aristoria’s back that looked so small and fragile, and yet that woman was the strongest Aristoria that she had ever seen.

‎"When was the last time you were doubting me?" Aristoria asked, staring into the dark hole with her striking blue eyes that never showed any doubt. "I’ll be fine. I was brought here, called by this thing for a reason," she muttered, tucking her hair behind her ear.

‎"Only prey that approached a predator’s lair, Aris. You’re here not because it want you to have it, you’re here because it want to consume you," Sanya said, and yet her expression showed no concern or fear.

‎Aristoria hummed, knowing that already and knowing the risk and consequences of it. She kept staring into the hole, listening to faint whispers that only she could hear. The whispers were gibberish, but it sounded like someone or something was suffering and wished to be found.

‎"I’ll be right back," Aristoria looked over her shoulder with a gentle smile on her face before she jumped into the hole, leaving Sanya behind.

‎Sanya stood on the edge, looking down and wanting to join Aristoria. The problem was if she joined Aristoria down there, she would only become a burden. She decided to wait patiently, and if something bad happened, she would have prepared for it.

Aristoria had been free-falling for more than a minute before she began to feel anxious. She decided to grab onto the wall of ice and stop herself from falling even further where the bottom was nowhere to be seen. She looked down into the pitch black of an abyss as the whispers grew clearer and louder inside her skull.

"You’re desperate, aren’t you? Whatever it is down there..." Aristoria muttered as she was hanging onto the ice wall and stared down. "Be quiet or I’ll make sure that nobody can find you down here," she said loud enough that her voice echoed.

In an instant, the whispers inside her head went silent. Aristoria was mildly surprised that it listened to her, and that was enough to tell that whatever was down there was truly desperate. She slowly loosened her grip on the ice wall and began to fall again without any fear or hesitation.

After free-falling for more than five minutes, Aristoria finally reached the bottom. It was extremely cold even for her, and she felt weak for some reason that she couldn’t properly clench her fists. She couldn’t see anything but darkness around her, and when she used her draconic eyes, that was when she was stunned by what she saw.

A tunnel of ice and what was inside the ice were hundreds of preserved bodies of dragons, any type of dragons. She looked at those dragons and they all were in the same position, curling up in a peaceful and comfortable way. In that moment, Aristoria realized those whispers were coming from those dragons, their trapped souls. However, what surprised her the most was the fact that they weren’t asking her to free her, but rather to ask her to help something else that resided deep in that tunnel.

"You want me to save something else?" Aristoria asked as she looked at all the frozen dragons inside the ice walls. "Lead me to it," she ordered.

The whispers guided her toward where they wanted her to be. The walk took longer than she had expected, and the more she walked, the more dragons were preserved inside the ice walls. If she could count, there should be at least a thousand of them. She wondered why they were willing to be frozen deep inside this world, but then she remembered what she saw in the Dragon’s Maw where the remains of True Dragons lied.

"All of you sought protection down here where all the True Dragons fought to their deaths," Aristoria spoke to those dragons, an inferior being from a True Dragon.

The whispers told her that they were powerless, losing their power when the sun appeared from the west. They lost their ability to fly and their powers when they were exposed to sunlight that felt different. The True Dragons also lost a big chunk of their powers, weakened by the sun. When the Overlord spoke, the Overlord ordered all dragons to hide near the Summit of the Frostbitten. They revealed that when all the dragons hid on the mountain of the Frostbitten, the Overlord used its power and swallowed the whole mountain, turning it into the sea of ice.

Aristoria was shocked when she found out that this tunnel, the whole massive place was used to be a mountain, and it got buried by ice. She realized as to why it took her so long to reach the bottom of that hole earlier. She wondered how powerful that Overlord was, and how it could swallow even a whole mountain in just a blink of an eye. But she remembered the myth, the ruler of all dragons, an Ice Dragon.

After walking for hours, Aristoria finally saw the end of the tunnel in the far distance. She listened to the whispers pleading to her, pleading to save their ruler, the Overlord. When she reached the end of the tunnel, she saw a massive pure white dragon curling and looked like it was in a slumber, however, she knew that that dragon wasn’t alive. She stood in front of it, and her body was a third of its single scale size. The claw was twenty times bigger than its scale, making her look like an ant in the face of an elephant, a woman in front of a mountain.

"Is this the Overlord?" Aristoria asked.

"Nea..." A deep voice appeared inside her skull that made her whole body shake and almost lost her balance.

"No? You’re the one speaking to me right now?" Aristoria stared at the white dragon in front of her.

The white dragon spoke in gibberish, a dragon language. However, Aristoria could only understand pieces of what the dragon was saying since the dragon spoke unclearly. However, she understood that it wasn’t the Overlord, but rather a servant that served the Overlord. It was protecting the essence of the Overlord, and it wanted Aristoria to cut its body in half because it knew that she wasn’t strong enough to move even its tail.

"If that’s what you want..." Aristoria pulled out her sword out of thin air.

Aristoria swung her sword down vertically, and it took a whole second before the shockwave was released. The shockwave cracked the ice walls and it reached all the way outside the hole where Sanya was standing. It startled Sanya when she got hit by that shockwave and made her fly away quite far. Sanya knew it was Aristoria’s attack because she could see her energy coming from it.

"What did you find down there..." Sanya muttered, floating above the hole.

Aristoria sighed as she looked at the dragon in front of her that had been cut in half. She was dizzy because she used everything she got in that weakened state, and she could barely manage to cut the dragon in half. Then the dragon whispered to her the location of the Overlord’s essence, which was right in the middle between its belly, front legs, back legs, and below the wing.

Aristoria walked through the gap she made until she suddenly saw the brightest light she had ever seen, a bright blue light ahead of her. The more she got exposed to the light, the weaker she became. The moment she was only a few meters away from it, she collapsed to her knees, panting and her eyes were barely open.

"I know you’re worthy beause you can reach this far..." The white dragon whispered. "But you’re not the one that the Overlord wants."

Aristoria crawled and leaned against the dragon’s leg, trying to maintain her energy within her so it wouldn’t get absorbed by that light. She tried to calm down and regained her composure.

"That’s good to hear..." Aristoria answered while she was out of breath.

"The Overlord wants that Dark Spirit that you keep inside you, the one that you nurture. The Overlord wants to use that as the new vessel," the White Dragon said. "It’s from us, for us, to us..."

"Her? No chance..." Aristoria shook her head weakly. "She’s mine. I found it, and I want to raise it as my own," she kept shaking her head, resisting the whispers in her head.

Aristoria slowly began to get used to the feeling, and her energy began to refuse to be devoured by that light. The white dragon was surprised that there was a being that could resist the power of the Overlord.

"Tell me, why am I worthy but not the one the Overlord wants?" Aristoria asked as she slowly stood up while leaning against the dragon’s leg. "If I’m strong enough to be worthy, why bother to take this Dark Spirit of mine?" She added.

"Because the Overlord knows that you can no longer grow, you have reached your peak as an Orthias. Although you’re extraordinary, it’s not enough," the white dragon answered, conveying the Overlord’s words. "That Dark Spirit within you, it has no limitation."

Aristoria began to walk toward the light with her eyes narrowed. She was only a meter away from it, and the moment her eyes got used to the blinding light, she saw it, the essence of the Overlord. A crystal clear, the clearest thing in the whole world, it was so clear that it was transparent like nothing and capable of emitting such energy and light.

"Why the Overlord wants her?" Aristoria asked, standing an arm-length away from reaching the essence of the Overlord.

"Same as yours, to prevent something similar from happening to this world. The Dark Spirit is capable of facing it," the white dragon answered. "The Overlord knows everything about you. You are correct, you are not capable of stopping it when it comes. You are insignificant to that being, who has wiped off every living being in this world. You are not needed," the white dragon explained.

Aristoria glanced to the side, listening to the words of the white dragon about her. She didn’t feel inferior, she didn’t feel like being mocked, but she never thought that her doubt and fear were true.

"But I’ll not giving her to the Overlord, no matter what," Aristoria stared at the essence of the Overlord.

"That is unfortunate..." The white dragon whispered.

"But I want to propose something else. Would you listen?" Aristoria asked with her brows raised, her eyes never leaving the clearest object in the world.