Michael

The two wyverns descended with an ear-shattering roar, forcing the harpies to take flight and scatter.

Just a few meters above ground the scaled beasts began beating their wings and, stopping their fall, unleashed a storm wind causing Michael to be knocked against a stone, his escort to hunker down, and the harpies to fly around confused with many crashing back into the group from the pressure.

Geron was in front of Michael a moment later, sheltering the boy from the wind with his own body.

High-pitched screeching of the harpies joined in with the growling of the wyverns in a cacophony that threatened to rip Michael’s ears apart, he couldn't help but press his hands on his ears to protect them.

The harpies tried to scatter once more after they had reoriented themselves, but the scaled beasts didn't give them time to breathe. Michael saw a harpy being ripped in half by the mighty jaws of one of the wyverns while another was helplessly being carried in its claws.

The other wyvern was continually beating its wings to keep the harpies from flying away with the air pressure but none of them seemed to have much interest in the humans that were taking cover between the rocks.

Raging for a few moments more the swarm of harpies was nearly cut in half before the wyvern seemed to have had enough and allowed the remaining harpies to flee.

Michael stared at the beasts as they both landed and turned toward the humans; he could see the details much better now that they weren't a flurry of death and blood.

They looked much like the drawings he had seen of them before with their sharp snout and horns that adorn their head like a slanted crown. The bigger of the two was covered in light brown scales while the other was more grayish, but both of their eyes were the color of amber and had a slit like a cat's eye.

They used their wings as additional limbs to balance themselves on the rock and their tail moved slowly from side to side as they watched the humans with curious eyes.

“They look at us like their next dinner,” Silas growled and readjusted his grip on his spear which now looked pitifully short against the nearly six-meter-high and fifteen-meter-long wyverns.

“What are they waiting for,” Erhen pushed out between his teeth while pointing an arrow at the grey wyvern.

Michael wasn't as fazed by the beasts as the rest for some reason and his eyes were fixated on the eyes of the bigger one, a feeling of safety pushed into his mind.

[Follow them,] the rumbling voice that he had heard many times before appeared in his mind. [They will bring you to the answer.]

The young lord didn't react at first, was he to trust the voice in this situation? They might just lead him into a nest and feed him and his compatriots to their offspring.

[Have faith, young human. I haven't helped you this far just to have you become lunch,] the voice said with amusement ringing clearly.

Michael frowned for a moment, he wasn't a fan of not even having his thoughts to himself when dealing with the voices but resigned himself to the situation with a sigh, he had come all the way up here trusting that he would find something worthwhile, he wouldn't stand down now.

“Put down your weapons,” he declared loudly, “These are our guides.”

The situation was eerily silent for a moment as heads turned his way and the wyvern cocked their heads like puppies before a sheer barrage of frantic shouts and exclamations made it hard to understand any single person.

“STOP,” Michael shouted, causing everyone to shut up and look at him with big eyes.

“I will leave it open to any one of you to go back down the mountain, but I will keep going up until I find what I am looking for and I am going with those two,” he pointed at the still curious wyverns.

“Milord, this is madness. You can't seriously think that these beasts are here to help us. They will attack the moment we show them our backs,” Geron began to talk with an urgent tone.

“Then go down the mountain,” Michael stared the man down. “I have my reasons to trust them and if you can't trust my judgment then you don't have to follow me on this quest.”

His words hit the knight like a hammer strike and Michael felt bad the moment he had spoken them but he wouldn't be able to convince them with words, no matter how hard he tried.

“I will never abandon my duty, not even when I think that this path is folly,” Geron growled and took a step back.

“And I never expected you to, but I mean it, I will not hold it against anyone if you don't want to be part of this,” he turned to the rest of his escort, but their faces hardened the moment he did and determination replaced the uncertainty, no one would back out on this day.

Michael nodded, turned back to the two-winged beasts, and said, “We are ready to go.” The bigger one cocked his head again and continued looking at him.

He doesn't understand me, of course, Michael thought to himself and simply began walking up the mountain. The wyverns seemed to understand and also started stomping up the rocky surface showing surprising skill in scaling the uneven terrain for something that can fly.

As they continued up the mountain, Michael could still feel the tension and hostility of his entourage until Sola stepped up next to him and started talking.

“Michael? What exactly is happening here? This is beyond strange.”

Michael wasn't happy about all of this either, before he could have explained everything by saying that he felt the mana or something, Kiran and Sola might not have believed him but everyone else would. Now with the wyvern escorting them and him not knowing what to say, it was understandable that everyone was confused and eager to know what exactly was happening.

“I can't really tell you; I just have a feeling that this is the right way and that we will find answers once we reach our destination,” he replied and hoped that the priestess would accept this vague explanation which of course she did not.

“You have a feeling? How does it feel?”

“I can't tell you,” he repeated. “I feel like I have seen this all before and that I have walked this path already,” he mixed his lie with the truth to sound as convincing as possible.

Sola walked in silence, next to him for a few seconds while seemingly trying to muster some courage before speaking up again, “Could it be that you are being manipulated?”

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She had unknowingly hit very close to the truth and cut right into the chink that Michael had also been battling with for years now, was the voice one of a demon? Did Father Albion see the truth all these years ago? Michael continued to refuse to believe this to be true but that didn't stop him from wondering.

“Would you believe me if I said that Idas was guiding me,” he said in an attempt to get her off this path with humor.

She wasn't amused though. “Are you trying to pull me into a theological discussion to distract me from my question?”

“I don't want to think about it,” Michael relented and just stared ahead.

The priestess looked at him with a sad expression, she was the first one to be there for him. When his mother was always busy and only really paid much attention when she could dress him up or they had visitors, his father thought him weak, rightfully so in Michael's opinion, and the twins were beating down on him without anyone protecting him, she came into his life.

Sola had basically raised him, even with the other teachers Michael had, she was the one who was there for him from the beginning. It wasn't something that was often praised, people talked about his talent with the sword, his magical abilities, or all the knowledge he had accumulated in his young years, but Sola was the one who had built him into a good person.

He could feel her warm mana press against his as she walked next to him, but she didn't say another word while staying at his side.

Like so they continued their march, seeing herds of horse-sized goats roaming the land and keeping their distance to the wyvern until they finally reached the huge tunnel entrance. It was at least five meters high and wide, and its walls were sparkling with different metallic shines.

“We are here. This is the place,” Michael said while gazing into the dark.

“I can't help but agree,” Kiran added, feeling the abundance of mana flowing out from this opening.

The two wyverns took position on a large ledge to the right of the entrance and laid down, closing their eyes quickly.

[Enter alone,] the rumbling voice sounded in Michael's head again and he jumped a little bit which thankfully no one noticed.

[Hells no,] he answered in his thoughts aggressively, still having his conversation with Sola in mind, [How stupid do you think I am? I am not gonna walk into a cave on the suggestion of a disembodied voice that I have only moderate trust in without any kind of protection.]

After a short pause, it answered, [Very well, do as you wish.]

Michael began walking into the tunnel and was surprised that no one protested but was quickly overtaken by Geron and Eydis who took the position in the vanguard.

The darkness threatened to drown them but Sola's magic burst into life, causing the walls to explode in their true beauty. White, purple, red, green, blue, and a myriad of other colors filled the tunnel as the light in Sola's hand got reflected by the metals and gems in the walls.

Everyone stared at the beautiful spectacle and Geron mumbled barely audible, “Well, no one can say that this expedition wasn't worth it now.”

“Heh, one day in here and you won't ever have to work again,” Erhen added with a certain gleam in his eyes.

No one commented on this, but they managed to focus more while continuing down the tunnel. The mana got thicker as they did, and the amount began to flow freely into the humans.

“Is this another dungeon,” Lance suggested but Kiran shook his head. “The upper region would be swarmed by monsters with an open dungeon like this. It must be a mana refuge or something.”

They walked past at least a few hundred meters of similarly stacked walls, maybe even shinier than before until they finally stepped out into a huge cave. A hint of sunlight fell through a massive hole a hundred meters or more above them, but it was only a little. They had taken hours to get to this point and the sun had long passed its zenith.

The cave wasn't dark by any means though, not only the walls but also the ground was covered in crystalline structures that hummed with power and shed just the faintest amounts of light.

Michael could feel them pull in mana just before releasing it again, it was like the crystals were breathing.

“These must be the reason for the high mana concentration here,” he said out loud. “They are drawing in massive amounts of mana from all around and releasing it again.”

“But wouldn't the mountains around here be starved of mana if these crystals pull in the mana,” Sola replied and Michael was stumped for a moment, she was completely right.

Kiran stepped over to one of the larger crystals and put his hand on it while talking, “You are both not wrong, these crystals are extruding much more mana than they are taking in.” He stood there for a moment and then turned back with a fire in his eyes that Michael had not seen before. “They pull mana up from down below and release it up here. How is this even possible?”

Michael frowned as he looked around, there were hundreds of these crystals here and the mana was thicker than it had been in the dungeon, nearly oppressively so, so why was it that there was not a single monster anywhere?

The whole cavern was suspiciously empty apart from the crystals all around, just ragged stone and minerals filling the walls and the little hill close to the center of the cave, giving them a metallic shine in the light of Sola's magic and the light of the crystals.

Why are we here, Michael wondered. This is quite the marvel and the wealth that can be found here is great but the only question that is answered is the higher mana density in the mountains and that knowledge gives us little.

[You have finally arrived,] the thundering voice sounded in Michael's mind again. His escort jumped surprised; it seemed like the voice was talking to all of them this time around.

Before Michael could answer a tremble went through the cavern and even the mana began to shake as if some kind of quake went through it. In the center of the open space, what Michael had identified as a hill or large boulder began to move.

Wings were pulled back, a thick tail scraped over the ground like a serpent, legs thicker than tree trunks smashed into the ground and finally, a huge head with fangs like swords and eyes made out of ice blue swung around to them. The scales that covered this behemoth were metallic grey, the color of unpolished iron to be precise, and the aura that it extruded made Michael stumble back.

The whole beast rose to its feet, easily three times larger than the wyvern they had seen outside, and Michael could feel mana hum in resonance to the power of the beast, it was so far out of their league that it was nearly comedic.

Michael's shocked expression was mirrored tenfold on the faces of every human present as they stared at the armored creature finally settling down again to face them.

“It's a dragon,” Lance said, being the first to mutter anything at all.

[Correct, young knight. I am Ferrekxan, the earth dragon.]

Michael frowned when he heard the name, something was familiar about it and the dragon's gaze swung over to him when he felt his question.

“Why is your name so familiar,” Michael asked it out loud nonetheless for the benefit of his companions.

[Interesting, your dwarven teacher seems to have taught you of their beginnings in great detail,] the dragon sounded more intrigued than anything and with his words, Michael finally realized where he knew the name from.

“You are the Ferrekxan, one of the ancient earth dragons that guided the dwarves when they first came into this world, the Iron Dragons,” he said with wide eyes.

[I am. I just wonder what version of the story your teacher has told you.]

“The Iron Dragons took the dwarves under their wings and taught them everything about mining and working with what they mined. In the end, the dwarves and dragons began to fight over the treasures because of greed from both sides, and the two races split apart,” Michael recalled the lesson about dwarven history.

[I am surprised that the dwarf actually admitted that it was their fault as well. Hm, our races have indeed been at odds to say lightly since then, wounds have been made that can never be mended and both us and the dwarves have long memories.] The dragon extruded an aura of regret that resonated through this strange mental connection.

“Excuse me, great dragon,” Kiran interjected into the conversation. “I don't want to interrupt but I am ... how do I say it, a tad curious how a literal dragon is able to exist in these times and how in the thirteen hells, Lord Rowan came to know of your existence.” He sounded a little bit hysteric as he slightly flailed his hands around pointing at everything.

His hysteria was mirrored in every man and woman present with most of them being frozen in place, Sola mumbling prayers of protection, and Eydis sizing the beast up and then looking back to the tunnel, trying to judge if they could make it out of here before the dragon murdered them all.

A rumbling laugh rolled through their minds which was mirrored by a throaty sound coming from Ferrekxan. Everyone froze once more at the sound until the dragon spoke once more.

[Did you think we would just die out because of a cataclysm? It wasn’t my first and won’t be my last! But it seems like there is a lot to talk about, little ones. Be assured you are in no danger.]

“It doesn't really matter. There would be nothing we could do against you anyway,” Silas replied with a dry chuckle.

Michael agreed but the magical creature didn't faze him as much as the rest, it might have been his contact with it over the years or the sense of safety it gave him. What could possibly harm him with an ancient dragon watching over him, one of the most powerful magical beings in recorded history? If it wanted him dead, why even worry?

“Then let's talk,” Michael simply said with a smile and looked into the dragon's eyes.