Supreme Magus

Chapter 4066: Alone in the Dark (Part 1)

Lith respected Ajatar’s wishes and never so much as spoke to him.

Aran and Leria visited the Drake together with Lith, yet they had ambivalent feelings about what they saw. On the one hand, they admired Ajatar’s resolve and found it exciting to witness his progressive transformation into a Dragon.

On the other hand, seeing their friend alone and trapped in a glass tube was upsetting at best and creepy at worst. Aran and Leria wanted to support Ajatar, but they had no idea how.

"Is that really necessary, Uncle Lith?" Leria asked. "Isn’t there an easier way?"

"No Lesser Dragon ever became a Divine Beast, Leria, so there’s no way at all." Lith replied. "That’s why the answer to your first question is yes, Leria. Whenever you choose to walk a path no one has ever trodden before, you have to take many risks and make as many sacrifices as needed."

"But at least it will be worth it. Isn’t that right, Big Brother?" Aran said. "Once Uncle Ajatar gets out of that thing, he’ll be a Dragon."

"No." Lith shook his head. "He’ll still be a Drake. Everything he is doing in there will allow him to take a single step forward. Maybe more, if he’s lucky, but right now it’s impossible to tell."

"Did you ever do something similar, Uncle?" Leria stared at him, hoping for a no.

"Plenty of times." Lith thought back to the time he had repaired Protector’s core, when he had struggled to control the Void, then the blue flames, and then to the long procedure that had saved Zoreth’s life. "Sorry, kids, but in life nothing worth having comes easy."

"Is there something we can do for him?" Aran asked.

"Yes." Lith replied. "When Ajatar comes out, he’ll be cranky, and his temper might flare easily. Yet I want you to treat him as always and contact me as soon as he does or says anything that worries you. Do I have your word?"

"Yes." They both nodded.

***

During his stay in the gene-tank, Ajatar received regular infusions of Life Maelstrom from Valeron the Second, which he used to stimulate the still-unknown areas of his life force.

He discovered more imperfections and atrophied mana organs, triggering the activation of the latter multiple times, each in a different order, to identify the most stable path to Dragonhood.

Once repeating the experiments no longer provided new information, and the device warned him that further modifications would compromise his life force, Ajatar reversed the process.

It took him days to go back to being an Emperor Beast, and every minute of it was torture. As the Origin Flames died, a deadly cold made him shiver despite the warm liquid in which he was immersed.

As the Dragon Eyes faded, things that had been glaring and obvious became complex and abstruse. He felt as if his brain were slowly withering. His thought process slowed down, and many brilliant ideas slipped out of his grasp like grains of sand.

As his body weakened and his energy faded, Ajatar understood why so many Hydras had chosen death after experiencing full Dragonhood just for a few days. Being a Drake was akin to being alone in a dark cave.

Mogar had much more to offer, but as the proverbial frog in the well, Ajatar knew nothing about it and was content with his life. Now, the frog had been brought out into the light.

He had experienced colors, the warmth of the sun, and the taste of many delicacies he had never suspected existed. After experiencing so many blessings, he was forced to return to his dark little cave.

It wasn’t the darkness or the cold that pained him so much as the absence of light. The void the experience left in him was unbearable. Ajatar knew there was a whole world outside of his cave waiting for him, but he was surrounded by darkness and couldn’t find the exit.

"Unless I’m dying, please, leave me alone." Those were his first words when he found Faluel and the Tiamat waiting for him outside the gene tank.

The pain in his voice and the despair in his eyes were palpable. It was the reason why they turned around and sat down instead, refusing to leave his side.

"It’s fine. Take all the time you need." The Hydra said.

At first, their stubbornness angered Ajatar.

’What’s so hard about giving me some space? I need to decompress, it’s not like I’m going to-’ Then, the thought of everything he had lost and might never get back hit him like a truck.

Despair replaced Ajatar’s anger, and he found himself on the verge of tears.

’I’m not going to do anything stupid, but the gods know if I want to.’ He thought. ’I knew this would be hard, but not this hard. It’s like someone turned off the sun and tainted every good memory I have.

’All my past achievements, everything I was proud of, now feel hollow. All I can think about is getting back inside the tank and being a quasi-Dragon just for one more second.’

Amid the storm of his inner turmoil, only two things kept his rationality afloat. The awareness that the slightest mistake in his research would cost him his life and that his failure would affect countless lives.

Ajatar and Faluel had progressed slowly in their quest for Dragonhood, not because they lacked talent, but because they had learned from the mistakes of the Fallen races of the past.

Even when an evolutionary process appeared safe, further analysis showed that it would lead to a progressive deterioration of its direct subjects or that adverse reactions would arise after a few generations.

Some of the atrophied mana organs had a similar structure to imperfections, while others were adjacent to them.

Ajatar’s experiments aimed to ensure that the former mana organs didn’t carry a latent instability that would manifest later and that awakening the latter wouldn’t also stimulate the nearby imperfections, causing him or his future descendants to Fall.

Moreover, Ajatar’s failure would affect Faluel, Fyrwal, and the very survival of the beast Council.

’If I die, Faluel will have to sort out my mess and waste time studying my papers to understand where things went wrong. All the while Fyrwal’s rivals in the Council oppose her candidacy and delay the election of the next representative.

’The Hydras can survive being ostracized for a while, but I doubt that Narchat will wait for our squabble to end before attacking the Kingdom again. Without a clear line of command, the beast Council is unreliable.

’The Guardians don’t interfere in the matters of the mortals and the undead Awakened are insane. It leaves the human Council alone and exposed to a potential betrayal from the plant folk.

’Fae don’t care about right or wrong, only about power. Too many plant folk have already joined Narchat’s cause, lured by the promise of attaining the might of a Divine Beast.

’Yet the number of traitors would have been much greater if Narchat weren’t so untrustworthy. If the Awakened Council shows signs of weakness, the plant folk won’t hesitate to switch sides.

’At that point, the beasts’ stupidity might bring the Dead King to the Kingdom’s throne.’ Ajatar needed to take several slow, deep breaths to find his balance.