Kael Cor: A Vampire's Awakening Chapter 307 The Forest Dungeon VI : Aftermath

My entire body felt heavy, and so too did my mind. I felt like had picked up a mountain and threw that mountain into a sea, and then I had to jump into that sea to pull that mountain back out. It was hard to explain, but the exhaustion was quite comfortable, I was stuck in a position that made me feel like unlike myself, like I w as stuck in between a deep sleep and waking up. And in that threshold, I had no idea who I was, or where I was, it was just peaceful.

But all good and weird things have to come to an end. I woke up to a brightly lit sky, though the sun was still missing, the red skies of Transylvania and it's ominous looking clouds stared right back at me. I could feel Soren resting beside me, and also a second presence, a familiar one; Dracula.

I ignored him and just chose to focus on the sky above me, I was determined to hold on to my moment of peace and bliss, no matter how short it is. Plus it didn't help that I still felt tired, so there was nothing much to be done, and not talking or moving seemed to best cause of action for me. Besides, the sky of Transylvania had a beauty to it that was oddly intoxicating.

"There's nothing to be seen in that sky Kael, it's not real. So what could you possibly be looking for up there?" Dracula asked as he sat on the ground with his back resting against a tree.

"I don't really know." I answered back.

"Well you can't expect a sky made from the blood essences of my enemies to give you any answer. All it would do is show you death, and leave you feeling high, maybe a little hungry. But that's okay, sometimes the answers we seek come from the least expected places, that's just how life works."

I didn't say anything else, I just laid there, watching aimlessly as the red sky slowly got dark, and stars began to paint it's morose form gleefully. Soren had woken up, and just like before he was a white wary of Dracula; who for some reason was amused by Soren's reactions to him, and began to entertain himself by throwing twigs and dried sticks at Soren like he was some sort of common or caged animal. I ignored them both, it did not seem to lucrative to get involved in this game of theirs, at least not until Dracula called out to me.

"Enough wallowing Kael, it's time to move on to your next location."

I didn't bother asking him how is it, that he knew I had to travel to different locations, but he was right. I still had quite a few things to do, and lying down here is not helping anyone. I got back up to my feet and dusted myself, I purposely ignored the massive crater just ten meters away from me as I stretched. And then I turned and faced it, looking at the mark of destruction I had left in my wake.

To be honest I felt a little scared, having power was something I don't needed, and I wouldn't deny that I loved being powerful. But seeing this, this great amount of destruction and carnage; it shook me. Because I knew better than anyone power corrupts, and I refuse to imagine what might happen if I lose my way and give in to the pleasure of being so powerful, I'm pretty sure I would do a lot worse than this.

I went down into the crater, using my Aura to fly around as I made my way back to the place where I had seen the twin melded dungeon cores. It was hard to find and locate anything with this rubble, so it took me a while to search allover. I came here looking for clues that would lead me to the city of Idah, but as it stands, it seems my coming here was a complete dead end. A dead end of my own making none the less, so I couldn't complain much about the state of things.

What I really wanted to do right now though, was to find the dungeon cores or core seeing as they're combined into one entity, and hope that it would have the clues I need to find the city, or at least take me to the next clue. It took me almost three hours before I finally found something beneath all these pile of rocks and concrete and dead monsters. However it was not the dungeon cores I was looking for, but rather a transparent crystal with a golden flame trapped within.

It was pretty to look at, but the Aura of death and evil coming from it left the hairs on my body standing on end. I didn't need to any questions to know exactly what was in my hand. This was a piece of divinity, Kali's divinity, and I was holding it right in my hands. To be honest I was surprised that this little crystal is part of what makes a god, which is to say I'm practically holding crystallized godhood. Weird.

"You might want to keep that away before you draw ever power sensitive demonic vampire to your side. Kali is no minor goddess, even in a crystal as small as that the power she commands is intense." Dracula said to me.

He threw bag to me, a bag I recognized as mine. I had no idea when I dropped it or how, but none the less real I dropped the crystal into the bag and took out a flask of blood to have a drink. It was only then I realized that said flask was empty, and Dracula was sheepishly looking at the side with a dignified look on his face. But seeing as his entire posture is screaming I'm guilty, I didn't bother asking why he drank my flask of blood, and just searched for a another one. Turns out the second flask was empty, and so was the third, with the fourth only having half it's contents left.

I growled as I downed what was left of it contents, ignoring the embarrassed looking Dracula as I continued my search for the dungeon cores. Perhaps luck was on my side, but I found the humanoid shape of the dungeon core fifteen minutes later. It was smashed to pieces, and all that was left were two black and red crystals the size of a watermelon; Spirit crystals.

Once a dungeon core has been defeated, it looses it's essence and previous consciousness. All that would be left behind, is a spirit crystal that could serve as a template for a future dungeon core, or a spirit just like Nefisat, capable of building and running an entire city on her own. Spirit crystals were rare and expensive, though when Asare got Nefisat's then spirit crystal form for me, I'm sure things weren't too difficult for him, after all prisoner or not I'm still freaking rich. But none the less spirit crystals were not something that normal rich people can afford, and in an age where most dungeons have gone extinct, spirit Crystals really were a rare commodity.

But now what do I do about my missing clues, am I really just going to leave without any sort of clue to where Idah is hidden. To be honest I didn't give a shit about that city, but it was important to my people, a lot of them are holding out hope that they would be able to see the ancestral capital city of the vampires, to see the place that their roots really came from. Which was part of the reason why I'm looking for it, the other being I had to draw all of the bounty hunters coming for me away from Ethernalia Leonis. My last fight with the clone of the demigod Grimgar has let me know that even as powerful as I am, there's still lots of people capable of wiping me out with a thought. I had to prepare for the worst and keep my family safe.

"You do know I built the bloody city you're looking for right, and as such if anyone would know where to find it, it would be yours truly." Dracula said from behind me, bringing me out of my deep thoughts.

I turned around and looked at him with his grinning pretty face that I had to resist the urge to punch if not for the very fact that he could kill me with a sneeze. Now it was my turn to look sheepish and embarrassed, the answers to all my questions was following me all these time, and yet I was still worrying about clues when I could just go to the direct source. I could imagine the look on the faces of the purist vampire faction when they find out that Dracula himself led me to the city we were looking for.

"can you take me there?" I asked him with a hopeful look on my face.

"Well I can, but what's the hurry. We still have to train you, so let's take our time. And to do that we have to visit all the spots marked out on that map of yours. Besides I'm under the impression you have two more shards of Kali's divinity. Let's look for them first while you undergone training. Once we've been to all the locations and retrieved the remaining pieces of her divinity, then we can go find Idah. This is not up for debate young King Kael, it is my will as your god and you will not question it!" he said, not even giving me a chance to complain about his arrangements.

I raised my eyebrow up and looked at him like he was a joke, he knew I wanted to debate, I was definitely going to debate, just not now. Besides having a god as a bodyguard was definitely going to be a deal breaker, especially since I'm pretty sure a plethora of greedy bastards were coming for my expensive head. So maybe this was the best arrangement for now.

"Fine then, I won't debate. But I've completed your first lesson, though I'm not exactly sure what is it I had to learn." I said to Dracula as I made my way out of the crater the size of a large city.

"Your limits! That's the lesson you had to learn. You've never had to push yourself so hard, but now that you've done so, you're now more ready to surpass those limits. However to surpass your limits, you don't need new abilities or a surge of power, what you have to do right now is refine what you've learnt and make it stronger, pushing all your current strengths to the peak of their capabilities. Having to many weapons in your arsenal has always been a problem for you. So now I'll teach you to absorb what is useful, discard what is not, and add what is uniquely your own. You're not a weaver anymore, but rather a rune master. You have to learn how to utilize your greatest strengths and even your weakest, and get rid of what's unnecessary." He said to me as he floated in the air with such ease he was like the wind itself.

"So what is it I have to do first?" I asked him.

"You're a vampire first before anything else. Your racial power and abilities comes from your blood and your heart. I know you're also half dragon, or at least some sort of dragon as you don't feel like the vampire and dragon hybrids I've seen before. But none the less, this is what you are, and it serves as the base of everything else. Your races is the foundation, now it's time to strengthen that foundation. And the first thing you have to do is learn how to shift forms like a proper vampire!"

"Excuse me? Shift forms? Like werewolves?"

"So you do have an idea what I'm talking about, good. Now I don't want to see your draconic form, search inside, look deep down, and bring him out. Search the darkness, and call out the vampire within."

Chapter end