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The Merge
The Merge – Chapter 21 (DragonBorn) Part-1

The Merge – Chapter 21 (DragonBorn) Part-1

This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL

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Chapter made extra long thank to NopiSoul

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After a night spent wondering about what my next course of action should be, I woke up early the next morning at the sound of birds, competing to know who was the loudest and most annoying one. Today, I needed to go to the village and give Kuyani her daily medicine. I had first feared that Earth's medicines wouldn't work or even be toxic to these people, but their striking resemblance to us had convinced me otherwise.

Two completely different species shouldn't look that similar to each others, which had made me assume that we had common ancestors. These humans were probably ancient humans having been transported to this world from Earth a long time ago, and were therefore separated from us by thousands of years of evolution.

Since we seemed to have the same biological makeup, the medication had very little chance of being poison to them as long as the dosage was scaled down for safety. What I was wondering was whether they had an equivalent of antibiotics in this world. If they did, then I wouldn't need to go back to the village and regularly give some to Kuyani.

The only reason why I still felt the need to go back was because I was afraid of them sacrificing her to whatever spirit they were trying to appease. I kept wondering about what they had said so far, about them calling me forest spirit and them also claiming that Kuyani was meant to be sacrificed to said forest spirit.

Did it mean that there was more than one 'forest spirit', or did it mean that they were trying to sacrifice her to me? Maybe they had felt my presence nearby, and decided to give me a woman in hopes of appeasing me, or some other obscure reasons. If that was the case, then I needed to set things straight with them.

Today's plan was to go give some medication to Kuyani and rush back here to work on my stupid boat. The weather was very hot and dry, but the sky seemed different than usual. Usually, all you could see was blue sky, but today, a dense layer of grey clouds could be seen coming from the north and slowly making their way down to us. These ominous looking clouds were probably announcing the coming of yet another rainy season.

By the look of it, these clouds should be covering the sky by the end of the day, which could potentially mean that I had missed my chance for a safe boat trip. The sea had been very calm so far, but maybe things would change during the rainy season, and force me to remain here for a few months.

I needed to quickly get to work on my boat, and I hoped it wasn't too late. I had spent a few days leaking large amounts of dokari, while eating dragon pills in the hope of attracting one of the dragons from my pack, but it seemed like it wasn't going to work. Maybe they were too far away from me, or maybe the sea blocked dokari from travelling across.

After all, I was on the other side of a sea or an ocean, while they had left for their migratory area which could be on the other side of the planet for all I know. On the other hand, maybe the locals had went nuts with the sacrifice and stuff exactly because they could feel the large amount of dokari being leaked from me.

No matter how I thought about it, my situation was hopeless. This boat was probably my only hope at getting back to the continent I came from. Without something to fly me back there, this stupid boat was all I could think of. When it came to food, I had already eaten most of the fruits in my immediate surroundings and was now almost exclusively relying on fishing to fill my belly.

After eating a delicious fish breakfast, I grabbed Kuyani's medication and headed toward their village once again. This time though, as soon as the village arrived into range of my sensing ability, I instantly noticed that something was different. There were way too many people over there for it to be normal.

I could sense around a thousand people, all gathered together at the same place. Worried, I immediately stopped and jumped in a tree for a quick assessment of the situation. I had heard in some documentaries that before the modern age, the telephone and the internet, that information still managed to spread around to other tribes at amazing speeds. Never underestimate humans' ability to gossip, often said my mother back in the days.

The news of me visiting this village had probably already become the main topic of discussion for all the tribes on this island. I had this sinking feeling deep in my chest, telling me that these people were probably gathering there to catch a glimpse of me if I ever returned.

Annoyed at myself for not considering this possibility, I still decided to sneak closer to get a visual on what was happening. I was still worried about Kuyani after all and hoped they weren't there for her. I stealthily went to the same tree I had often used to spy on the village before, climbed on a big branch and took a peek at the village from a distance. What I saw puzzled me a little bit.

The sandy area around the village, was littered with tents and various temporary shelters, and the entire place was swarming with face painted mini humanoids. Fires were lit everywhere, and the presence of a bunch of other, smaller groups of them could be felt in the surrounding forest all around us.

It was as if the village population had suddenly multiplied by ten and I couldn't help but suspect it to be because of me. The first thing to know was whether they had hostile intentions or not. I didn't have my sniper with me, so I couldn't see exactly who they were but I could at least tell that most of them were warriors.

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Knowing that most of the newcomers were warriors, the chances of them being there to catch or kill me seemed to be highly probable. What I had suspected to be hunting parties in the forest around me, were maybe not hunting for dinner but for my shelter instead. Then, images of Kuyani being tortured to force her to tell them the location of my hideout came rushing into my head and made my blood boil with anger.

If this was the case, then she had probably kept her lips sealed because they hadn't made it to my cave yet. Maybe I was only imagining things, but there was one thing for sure, I needed to meet them again and see what was going on for myself. This time though, I quickly rushed back to my cave and put on all my equipment.

My dragon necklace, my armour, my sniper, my black katana, my pipe bombs and my backpack. This time, I didn't leave anything behind and prepared myself to fight or flight. I finally put my black mask on, ate a few dragon pills to max out my dokari and began the long trek back to the village I had just come from.

Once I was back in the outskirts of the village, I took the time to dust myself, rearranged my hair which was now reaching below my ears and pulled my necklace out to be clearly visible. Feeling like I was ready to rumble, I then made my way toward the village while expelling a constant wave of dokari.

Dokari filled my surroundings and crawled everywhere like an ominous fog leaking out of the forest to announce my arrival. Wanting them to know that I was coming, I then began to knock a few giant trees out of my way and down to the ground, giving the impression that a giant monster was approaching.

When I finally arrived a few steps away from the sandy area, I gathered a massive amount of dokari inside my chest area and concentrated on manipulating it. Just like I had seen the panhak guy do, I focused and tried to shape it out of my body like a tentacle.

It was the same technique I had practised before and called telekinesis, but in fact, it seemed to be more accurately described as 'dokari manipulation' rather than telekinesis. To someone who couldn't see dokari, it looked as if you were using 'the force' from Star Wars.

Having finally managed to form a 4 meters long dokari tentacle, I then began to make it rotate around me. I gradually increased the speed and the length of the tentacle which made it act like a giant lawnmower blade, destroying the surrounding trees and vegetation as I did so.

After only a few seconds, I had already gotten the hang of it and was making it spin up and down and in all directions like a whip, creating something like a giant storm of debris in the process. I steadily continued to walk forward until all the trees separating me and the sandy area were no more and gave me a clear line of sight of the village and the large army of panicking humanoids.

With fury in my eyes, I slowly made my way toward them, one heavy step at a time. I was trying to infuse as much fear in them as I could by doing so and my reason for it was simple. The more they feared me, the less likely they would be to attack me. I knew that feeling, when I had first come across a dragon, my entire body had screamed at me to run away.

The sand I was stepping on was being blown away and swirling into the air like I was a giant leaf-blower or something. The tiny humans were panicking, screaming and running in all directions while some of them seemed to be doing the exact opposite and gathered together in fighting formation.

Among the warriors who seemed ready to fight me were some superior nolvak warrior, but those were not the ones I was worried about. Among these warriors were a few panhak warriors like the bald guy from back then.

Actually some of them seemed to be even higher level than the panhaks. They seemed to have the same face-paint but with even more markings. From what I could tell, the panhak rank was only a superior beginner level leading to these other two superior ranks which were denlong and foorya. So far, the order seemed to go like this; 'New nolvak warrior', 'nolvak warrior', 'superior nolvak warrior', 'imperial panhak', 'imperial denlong' and 'imperial foorya'.

I already knew not to mess with the panhak, but if there were two ranks even higher than that, then they were definitely not to be underestimated. For them to send such powerful people here meant that they had judged my subjugation as priority number one. Of course, this was all speculation, but everything seemed to point toward me being right about it.

“Kuh!* Such power!... It's him! The black faced demon that the Nehobian spoke about!” Yelled one of them with panic in his voice. Hearing this made me wonder who these Nehobian people were? How did they know about me? As I was pondering about it, a sudden realization came to mind. I was not the only powerful being wearing a black mask in this world. These people were most likely talking about the man I had first met when coming to this place.

I was now regretting having made this black mask which had caused these people to think I was him. I also probably couldn't fix this situation by simply taking it off now. Annoyingly enough, my plan to scare them away had most likely worsened my situation instead of helping it.

“What are you waiting for you fools!!! You have angered the draknari-kirishui'shrakum (Dragonkin), KNEEL NOW BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!” Yelled an old man who came running at the scene. Judging by his face-paint, this old man was a shaman but not the same one I had seen a while back.