Kael Cor: A Vampire's Awakening Chapter 319 Journey XII : The Final Essence, Dracula's Reveal

Going past the bottomless pit more than six dozen kilometers long and wide was child's play, especially when I had to it in a rather stealthy manner. At first I just wanted to barge into the village and go on a killing spree, however that would not be wise, in fact it would be the most stupid mistake I can make in a situation like this. But there was a way to get through, it was an even faster way to travel than normal, and that's by using the shadow realm.

But that was not without it's risks, the shadow realm was a mirror dimension of the my current plane of existence. Thanks could travel through it, and even draw power from it too, but staying too long in the shadow realm is like asking for death. And that was because the shadow realm had it's own denizens. And while they would always ignore you for the most part, if you stay long enough you would definitely attract the attention of eldritch and dark creatures, with a very, very black heart.

So for now I used the shadow realm to sneak into the village, but I could not really remain in the shadow realm for long. Thankfully the Shadow realm was not the only ace I had up my sleeves, it becomes incredibly hard for anyone to notice you when you're nothing more than an inconspicuous fly minding it's business and just buzzing around leisurely. Though the way I perceived the world was quite different in such a small form, it kept me out of sight from the members of this village.

Jakande was a large village, but apart from its really weird residents, there was nothing out of place with it, not unless you wanted to include the weird looking shrine in the middle of the village. And at the moment, that shrine was my current target, the third shard of Kali's essence of divinity was sure go be in there, now I just had to sneak in and sneak out with it, my ploys for revenge can happen another day.

The village was a less lively than the mast time I was here, there was an air of despair and sadness, and it wasn't too difficult for me to know why, after all there was a massive hole located not too far away from the village, and in the process of chasing me, who knew how many members of the village has had to die. It stands to reason that there wouldn't be any sort of fanfare within the village, only sadness and tears. And it was because of that I knew that no one would be paying attention to a fly.

I stuck close to the shadows of the building, though if I had to be honest I would say I d didn't need to do so, but being this small made me a little apprehensive about flying out in the open, who knew when someone might feel the urge to swat a fly, of course said person might probably loose and arm, but still better safe than sorry.

I slipped into the shrine and almost screamed like a girl as I came face to face with a lot of nose hairs, and a very strong updraft that threatened to suck me into the terrifying nasal canal that was staring right at me. As it stands I rather die or have all my wing clipped than to go through that kind of horror. Fortunately the man, who I assume to be the guard for the shrine, was already at his limit for breathing in, and in that second just before he breathed out, I got out of his blast range, and flew a bit higher to have a proper view of the shrine.

Contrary to my belief, the shrine was not circular but rather triangular, it seems like it had an extra wall built around it's original form. But then again, the place was practically empty, there was just a metal grate over a hole in the middle of the shrine, of course that's an obvious 'the secrets to immortality lies this way' hole. And like every thief….err explorer before me, I went through the hole in grate, down into the belly of the beast.

Now as a fly my senses are not as sharp as my normal form, I really didn't get the whole rule behind the transformation ability, but apparently it seems none of my abilities would bleed into a form I was not familiar with. If I was a bat then I wouldn't be having too much of a problem, but the fly was just something I decided to change into on a whim, and since turning into a dragon and back seemed to have strengthened a lot of my abilities, it was a lot easier to do so than I thought. Unfortunately I guess I didn't read the fine print.

The hole was obviously a well, it was about ten meters deep with metal rungs on the side, stretching from the left to the right, creating a sort of ladder. Of course this was weird ladder, the rungs were stabbed into the wall itself, so rather than having a ladder placed on the wall of the well, you might as well say that the well was it's own ladder. I followed it down until I came up into a tunnel, based on it's composition alone I could tell that this was an old pipeline.

Making this the first contradiction to what Dracula had told me, he had said that the village was built on a mass burial ground. And so far I'm not seeing any graves, much less dead bodies. I looked behind me to see that the tunnel stretched far and wide into the darkness, and my beady tiny fly eyes couldn't really see far enough to know how long it was, or what exactly lay at the end.

But straight ahead the tunnel ended after sixteen or so meters, with a golden glow flickering at it's end. I followed the light, and came out of the tunnel onto a wide yet circular platform. The platform was made from stone and seemed ancient, with weird and archaic symbols drawn on it, a few of them I actually recognized as spell circles and wards, and right in the middle of the platform was the essence of divinity, it was in an amber like crystal, that was slotted into the platform.

Taking a closer look at the platform I noticed lines of light, hundreds if not thousands of them, stretching from the essence of divinity to every corner of the platform, before crawling up and down the wall, into man shaped cocoons that were hanging from the wall itself. From what I could see there were hundred of such cocoons, but that was just the tip of the iceberg, the stone platform was actually a wheel, or to be more precise two wheels spinning counter clockwise from each other.

Though they were spinning really slow, when they spun enough to the point where they became aligned, I realized a few points. One, the platform itself was floating off the ground, two there was a bottomless pit underneath the platform, and on the walls were thousands upon thousands of those cocoons, stretching down as far as I could see and far beyond that. I had no idea what was in those cocoons, and trying to find out would probably get me exposed, so I would rather avoid that, besides they had nothing to do with me, and they weren't really a threat. I'm sort of in a hurry here.

I buzzed my way over the amber crystal like form of the essence of divinity, touched it for a second, and then unceremoniously dumped it in my pocket dimension, right next to the others. Funny thing though, as soon as the essence was taken away, the wheel like platform actually sped up, and it happened in an instant, not giving me time to prepare as I was blown upwards, a slave to the power up draft. I don't really think yelling would help, but the supreme and deliriousness of having my small form thrown around made me scream my head off, until the wind pushed me through another grate on the ceiling.

I was blown through a series of vent, leaving quite a few dents on most of them, before being spat out like trash out a formerly concealed grate at the edge of the village. To be honest it hurt a bit, I was pelted by dust and what I could have sworn was dried animal dung, or was it human feces? I couldn't tell, so without a doubt I would say it belonged to an animal, even though I perfectly knew that wildlife was quite scarce in Transylvania.

The whole thing caused a commotion in the village, forcing every able bodied warrior to assemble. I hung around for a little while and noticed quite a few of them go into the shrine with the only old guy in the village, unlike the rest who looked like they were in the prime of their lives, this guy looked like even a simple gust of wind would blow him to pieces. But as he was about to go in, he turned and looked right at me, safe to say that freaked me out, and without a doubt told me it was time to go.

Just as he was raising an alarm, I opened a gate to the shadow realm, and just to spite them for capturing me and Soren( though some might say I've already had enough revenge for one day), I shifted back into my normal form, gave them a smooth bow and jumped into the shadow realm, escaping from them and completely out of their reach.

Now I would have stayed just a bit and watched from the shadow realm to see how they handled the situation, but not long ago, I was in a fight with a couple of people who could actually pull me out of the shadow realm, and prevent me from accessing it. I rather not take my chances, both with a village of freaks like this. So I bit the road, traveling great distances in mere seconds as time within the shadow realm flowed by at least 2 seconds faster than the real world.

Pushing my speed to the maximum I ran south for almost an hour before I met up with Soren. I came out of the shadow realm just in time to meet Dracula floating 8 feet above Soren, while the golden lion sat on his haunches and acting like the god wasn't even around.

"You've been holding out on me boy, that's not a very wise thing to do when you're dealing with a god." He said to me with an amused tone in his voice.

"Well for one, I don't owe you anything, and after all the shit you pulled, I doubt I ever will. Now what the fuck do you want." I asked him, sounding as rude as I felt.

"Well I can't say I don't deserve that, there's only so much push you can give to a person before that person snaps, and it seems I might have gone a little too far. As it stands I'm afraid a situation has come up, and I would not be able to train you anymore, so as such I would like us to dissolve our agreement. You don't have to build me a temple of worship anymore ok."

To be honest I was happy he backed out of the deal, I hated his guts and I would have found a way to avoid doing what he asked for. I really have changed to become a lot more petty and antagonistic than I imagined it was like being two different people in the same body, but I had no idea which was which.

"But as an apology for backing out of our deal, I will be handing out a gift to you, something that is one of it's kind in the entirety of our universe." As soon as he said that, a silver orb appeared in his hands, and then the world went still.

The orb seemed to suck the light around it, just so that it could give off it's on glow, and it's light was soft and kind and soothing. It felt both familiar and foreign to me, but that was because I was seeing it in this form for the first time. But I couldn't help but have this feeling of Déjà vu, that I've seen that orb before, and that I have been close to it, intimately.

"What's that?" I asked Dracula as I took the orb into my hand.

"The full and complete divine essence of a goddess, a goddess that I might add your quite familiar with. What you hold on your hands is the sum of you wife's real power, memories, duties and identities. I guess you could say that's her real spirit, soul and body in your hands, while the person you know is just a cheap copy. But you should know if you choose to give it to her, the woman you know now, the mother of your children and the queen of your kingdom, would be gone forever, you will loose her. Plus if you choose not to give it to her, you'll still loose her, because she would be dying soon, I believe in just a year or maybe less.

Which means she'll be reincarnated again, her soul scrubbed clean of all oaths, bonds, love and memories. Heck she might be a butterfly this time, or maybe a demon, or a goat. Giving her that would prevent that, at the cost of loosing her forever rather than waiting a few hundred years for her to be born again. Because of the target on her back, even if Saleil chooses to stay with you and be your wife, the other gods would come for you and your children. So she has no other choice but to leave, to go away from you, and back into my arms. Yes! I guess the story was true, the moon goddess and I were lovers, let's see how you solve this dilemma young king."

And then he was gone, and I felt like my whole life was about to fall apart.

Chapter end