Chapter 60
Dragons of Gaia (2)
Inside the car.
WHISTLE!
Daxia hears a very faint whistle in the distance causing her to stir slightly in her sleep.
There were other noises before the whistle as well but they were all too faint, enough to disturb her sleep but not enough to wake her up.
Suddenly, a bright dazzling green light floods her closed eyes. She springs up and opens her eyes wide to find the source.
She finds twenty two floating gems, each one releasing a bright emerald glow.
The gems are surrounded by a cloud of liquid metal, which she recognizes as the body of the Bulgasari.
‘what the hell are you teaching a beast, Ken?’
Thanks to her eyes, she can see that the gems are activating multiple spells simultaneously. Two of the floating gems maintain the Bulgasari’s body in a liquid state, while another fifteen gems draw metals from ores underground and add them to the liquid metal cloud, finally, the last five gems arrange the metals in the form that the Bulgasai wants to take.
Using this combination of spells together, the Bulgasari is able to skip its metamorphosis stage and immediately change its body to the form and size it desires.
Soon the cloud of metal grows larger than the car and begins to swallow it.
-Wait, we are still inside, stop –
Daxia turns around to wake up Celine but finds her already awake and calmly watching the Bulgasari with her arms crossed.
-you are awake, good, quickly tell it not to swallow us-
Daxia shouts at Celine urgently but the latter remains calm and responds.
-don’t worry, it won’t-
-what? –
-my magic was the vessel Ken used to teach it, remember, I saw the instructions he gave to it, we will be fine but it will be a rough ride –
-why did I have to get involved in this? –
Daxia says with a sigh.
Daxia notices the car getting completely dark as the car gets swallowed by the metal cloud which soon solidifies around them.
ROOOOAAAAR
-you might want to activate the aether shield-
Celine comments as they hear the Bulgasari roar loudly.
Daxia quickly slams her hand on the aether shield button to activate it before the Bulgasari moves. A second later, a powerful sonic boom echoes in the forest as the massive beast rushes to its destination. The aether shield, which works by blocking all external forces, protects the car from the g-forces generated by the Bulgasari’s speed.
-where are we? –
Daxia asks as she notices the beast stops.
- we are inside the Bulgasari’s nasal cavity, I think Ken picked this location since it’s large enough for the car and would give us access to air as the Bulgasari breathes –
Daxia throws up in her mouth as she imagines their surroundings.
-I am so glad there is no light here, also I didn’t need to know this information that’s not what I meant-
-oh, you meant where the Bulgasari went, well we can find out-
Suddenly, within the complete darkness, Celine and Daxia's eyes become illuminated as Celine uses her light magic to bend the light from outside and make it travel up the beast’s nostrils and to their eyes.
-well then, that’s unexpected-
Celine comments calmly while Daxia flinches and stares at the sight outside the Bulgasari.
The two of them see the upper part of a massive neck covered in golden yellow scales, the neck is connected to an equally massive head full of jagged sharp teeth and crowned with four golden horns.
Two slitted eyes stare at the Bulgasari but then they seem to notice Celine's magic and stare directly at the two of them.
The golden dragon opens its mouth and breathes fire at the Bulgasari. The fire looks normal, seemingly having no effect on the Bulgasari as it is not hot enough to melt metals. However, soon the fumes from the fire enter the Bulgasari’s nostrils.
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Daxia notices a weird, pungent smell filling her nose, sharp and earthy with an underlying hint of burning plastic, making her dizzy and disoriented. Immediately, her instincts, honed by years of working as a bounty hunter from a young age, alert her to the potential threat. Her heart races as she quickly uses wind magic to disperse the fumes, but it's too late. The poisonous fumes have already seeped into the Bulgasari's nostrils and into her own lungs.
Time seemingly slows down to a halt. The world around Daxia begins to fragment and distort, as though reality itself is unraveling before her.
The trees outside the Bulgasari’s body appear to grow and shrink in rapid succession, their branches stretch and warp, losing their normal shapes and morphing into strange, otherworldly forms, and the rustling of their leaves morphs and changes into distant whispers and haunting melodies.
bizarre and uncanny creatures materialize around her out of thin air, their faces leering at her with wide, unsettling grins before dissolving into swirling patterns of light and shadow. Suddenly she finds herself staring at her own body as though her body and soul separated. Her limbs elongate and stretch rubber and bend in ways they shouldn’t and she can almost swear she is tasting the metal from the Bulgasari on her tongue.
Her body grows heavy and her movements become slow and laborious as though she is walking through a thick muddy swamp.
Each step she takes feels disconnected from her intention, delayed, and out of sync. Daxia then realizes that if she had acted even a second later, she would have lost the ability to move completely.
Her vision blurs and she perceives her surroundings in fragmented, kaleidoscopic images. Colors become intensely vibrant and shift unpredictably and yet despite all the distortion in her vision and the disconnect between her body and mind, the Evil eyes that were carefully crafted and engineered by her ancient ancestor, don’t miss the light coming out of the golden dragon’s distorted body.
That light would be invisible to the naked eye but not to Evil eyes and Daxia immediately recognizes the light as the light accompanying electricity.
Daxia opens a portal to the outside of the Bulgasari and then crawls with Celine through it. The two girls fall from a portal in the sky and particles of the hail coalesce together to form an ice platform that catches them.
-be careful the breathe releases poisonous fumes -
Daxia shouts as she collapses on the ice platform and watches the golden true dragon electrocute the Bulgasari and then fly away.
The Bulgasari is stunned for a moment but then it moves frantically seemingly fighting invisible enemies as it falls under the same hallucinations the bounty hunter fell into.
_ Vioarr, can you treat them? _
- I can treat the humans but I can’t treat the Bulgasari, its metallic body would prevent the plants from infiltrating it-
Saiko asks and the lyrebird responds before sending multiple tree roots to Daxia and Celine.
Daxia feels multiple needle like projections come out of the tree roots and inject her body before she feels them wiggle and crawl under her skin.
-how foolish of, you brought your friends here to die-
A true dragon with crimson red scales, two curled black horns, and black quills covering the back of her neck and head like hair, comments before opening its mouth.
Daxia watches in awe as dazzling yellow light rushes out of the dragon’s mouth, the light is warm and inviting and it breaks down into various geometrical shapes and beautiful patterns but the warm inviting heating gets hotter and hotter as the light approaches, she immediately panics as she realizes the light was in truth yellow fire.
She rushes to activate another portal but her body doesn’t cooperate, the delay between her intentions and actions will make it so the portal only opens after she is burned to a crisp, the bounty hunter realizes it is too late and accepts her fate. after all it wouldn’t be so bad to die by dragon breath and become one with the beautiful light.
‘Ugh, God damn it, the stupid poison is messing with my thoughts as well’
The bounty hunter curses in her mind tries to think of something but what can she do?
The portal hasn’t even been activated yet, any action she tries to take now will be delayed even more.
Just before the yellow fire reaches Daxia, a wall of ice forms in front of her and blocks the fire. At that moment, the fire and ice collided releasing a strong hissing sound as heat and cold engaged in fierce fight.
Daxia watches the fierce battle in front of her with amazement but then she notices something odd. She can’t really describe or explain it but she can see the hissing sound, it shins like a powerful light whose colors change rapidly. it must be another effect of the poisonous fumes but she can’t help but be drawn to it.
The words of an annoying firey ghost echo in her mind.
‘your next step is to hear light and see sound’
-ssssh, I will handle the beast, ssssh-
The Egitian Seraf, a massive cobra like dragon whose back is covered with gold and white feathers and whose massive wings are adorned with vibrant, colorful feathers, has no horns crowning its head but wears an actual golden crown, informs the white yong before flying toward the Bulgasari.
The dragon opens its jaws and releases a fire that is as colorful as its wings are, shifting between blue and green.
The colorful fire hits the Bulgasari as the beast continues to fight against nonexistent enemies, the fire not enough to cover all of the Bulgasari and is only enough to hit its portion of its massive back.
The portion hit by the fire begins to crumble and erode turning into particles of dust.
Tree roots quickly rise up to protect the Bulgasari.
-what’s happening I thought the Bulgasari is unkilla-
THUNDER
The lyrebird opens its mouth repeating Vioarr’s massage as usual before it’s frozen in fear mid sentence by a massive plasma breath that vaporizes the tree roots.
-you who are one with the forest, Don’t interfere, or else –
The red young says as the last pits of plasma exit its mouth.
~it’s not killing the Bulgasari, it’s changing it, the green portions of that fire are chlorine, it’s reacting with the metal and turning into salt ~
Ken Says while covering his eyes from the bright red light of the plasma, he then uses his aether magic to strengthen the electromagnetic force in the atoms of the Bulgasari’s metal to stop the chemical reaction.
_Ken, buy me some time, I haven’t had the time to memorize this so it will take me a few minutes to do it _
Saiko says as the book knowledge opens in front of her and flips through its pages at a rapid pace.
~you think, I can stall nine freaking dragons ~
_ I know you can _
Ken blinks repeatedly stunned for a moment, then his tense expression softens and his lips curl up into a smile.
~well, I can’t break that trust now, can I? I will do it but what are you going to do ~
The book of knowledge finally stops flipping through its golden pages and the sliver cat reads the first line of the text and then looks up at the white yong with murderous eyes.
_ I will teach those dragons why water is superior _
She says as a massive ball of water forms behind her.