Chapter 202 - The Dragon Within

The gorger grinned at Hump with an ivory smile, its mouth dark and hollow at the back. It peered at him through pitted bronze eyes, and Hump sensed the twisted pleasure even on its alien face. This was what it had been waiting for—a chance. Chains pulled Hump up by his wrists until he could stand only on the ends of his toes. Walls surrounded them on all sides, dully illuminated by a red glow.

Once, Hump would have been terrified. This was his nightmare—the same nightmare that he’d suffered for months since his time in the Remnant Realm ended—however he was surprised to realise he was not afraid as he stared up at the gorger. He knew the creature for what it was: a fragment of its former self. And this was all in Hump’s mind. Eliana had done something to him. He’d seen her, he was sure of it, and she had pushed him into this state of subconsciousness. Now he just had to figure out how to break her spell.

“I told you there was no escaping me,” the gorger said, its voice like gravel. “You have exhausted yourself, and now you will be mine.”

“No.” Hump met the gorger’s gaze calmly. “You are nothing but a ghost that haunts me. I faced you when you were whole, I am not afraid of some parasite that cannot survive alone.”

“You should be.” It stepped closer, slowly resting a cold, stone hand against Hump’s chest. “You are correct, I am but a piece of what I once was. You will change that, wizard.”

“Straight to the point then,” Hump said. “No Lucile this time?”

The gorger’s form shifted, melting like wax. A moment later and Lucile was before him, though she looked nothing like the adventurer Hump had rescued from the gorger’s den. A sick smile was on her mouth, and her eyes had the same emptiness as the gorger.

“We are one and the same,” the gorger said in her voice now. “I know every intricate detail of her mind, just as I will yours.”

Its hand brushed down Hump’s chest, nails scratching at him just enough to hurt. Its power erupted, piercing Hump’s chest like shards of ice. Hump grunted, recoiling from the pain, swinging back on clanking chains.

“I will ravage your soul, and then I shall claim what is left of it as my own. Your flesh, your mind, and your soul—it shall all be mine.”

Hump pushed back against it with his will, slowing the gorger’s invasion to a crawl. It was difficult. In his current state, he didn’t have any strength to spare. He was exhausted, and the essence elixir hadn’t done much but push back the worst of the cold of essence use. He tried to think of a way out. Last time he’d been trapped in his mind, he’d burned his way out using White Flame. Right now, he didn’t have the strength.

There was one spark of warmth, however, the dragon imprint that lurked at the edge of his core. He could sense it more strongly than ever now, and the well of power contained within. The power of a dragon. He tried to reach for it, but there was a boundary he could not cross. Power leaked in from the other side, lending him its aid, but never going further.

The icy tendrils wormed deeper, and Hump fought not to scream against the pain. He pressed back with his will, calling upon whatever essence he had left. Throwing everything into a barrier around his soul. The gorger continued onward, finding cracks, and wedging itself into Hump’s core, slowly stirring him up. If he let it, it would turn him into its puppet.

And then an idea came to Hump. If the gorger could pierce his barrier, then why not give it an easier path. He guided it in, luring it along cracks in his barrier, giving it a taste of his core but never letting it go further. The gorger followed eagerly, Lucile’s face morphing until it was part gorger once more, a half human, half monster grin on its face. It didn’t take long for it to find that spark of warmth. When the dragon’s roar echoed through the darkness, Hump smirked up at it.

The gorger had touched something it shouldn’t have. It reared back, the pressure on Hump’s chest relinquishing immediately, and fear filling the gorger’s face.

A wave of heat rushed through Hump before he could process it further. The gorger’s den faded, and he was back in the void he was accustomed to. The place within himself where his soul and the essence of the world mixed. There, in the darkness, the dragon stared at him with shining purple eyes. Hump felt the same warmth in them that he’d felt each time she’d leant him her power in the past. All this time, he’d feared her imprint, but seeing her here now he knew that Bud had been right. She’d helped him before, and she was helping him now.

Hump felt something in his mind and an image appeared—the egg safe beneath her curled body in the dungeon. He felt her love and desire to protect. Desire powerful enough that it had created a dungeon. Hump held onto that image tightly, and thought of his own experiences with its egg, envisioning it along their journey, safe in his pouch, or the glimpse of it through the shell that Sir Isaac had given him back at the academy. The thoughts the baby dragon had shared, and its excitement at the things Hump had shown it.

“I’ll take good care of your hatchling,” Hump said.

Essence rose from the dragon, filling the void with a storm of power, surrounding them. She held his gaze, and Hump realised what he had to do. She was offering him her power freely, and it was up to him to take it. He didn’t know what would happen to him if he did this. How much of him would change once he took this step toward being a warlock? Would he become like Anthony, twisted by the many souls he’d absorbed for power? Did it matter? There was no other way. More than that, he trusted that she would not try to harm his soul.

Hump reached for it, and the storm leapt toward him. His core jolted, and heat coursed through him.  He was back in the gorger’s den, the creature before him in its half-Lucile form.

“No,” the gorger stammered, stepping back from the power building around Hump.

“You did this,” Hump said. “You hardened my soul with your will. Strengthened it. Moulded it into something that would not bend.”

Hump felt the dragon’s power rising around him, an aura of purple essence.

“No!” the gorger shouted as the walls shook. The red light flickered, its eyes flared brightly, essence shining brightly beneath its skin. It pressed another hand to Hump’s chest, its intent a storm against Hump’s will, smashing at his barrier of will with furious hate and corruption. Yet it could not pierce it.

Hump found himself smiling as the creature raged. Its attacks started to slow, and a mixture of confusion and fear appeared on its face as it realised it could not break him.

“This is my soul,” Hump said, “and none of this is real.”

He pulled his arms down, his body feeling strong from the dragon’s power. The chains broke,  and the ceiling crumbled where they were joined above, spreading to the surrounding walls. The gorger screamed as its body disintegrated before Hump’s essence, vanishing entirely.

Hump was moving once more. One moment he was in a field, the next a city, the next by a campfire. There was a strange familiarity to these places, and the vague sense that these were his memories, but they roared past with too much speed for him to fully comprehend. Even if he’d had the time, he wasn’t sure it would have come to him anyway. His mind felt focused, yet not entirely his own.

The world came back to him, and he was in the House of Stone once more. Power coursed through him, burning hot, and unable to be contained in his own body. It filled the air with the same purple essence. His breathing was heavy, and his heart pounded in his ears. He searched around him in a fury as the situation came back to him, his eyes finding Eliana. Her illusion had failed now. She was on the ground and scrambling back, her eyes fixed on him and terrified. In her hands she held his spellbook.

Hump didn’t think. He stepped toward her, his footsteps heavy. Fury and strength raged within him. He felt like he could smash walls, break bones. Every muscle was strained to its peak, bugling as essence fuelled them.

“That is mine!” His voice came out as a snarl.

“You’re a warlock,” Eliana said quickly. “You… what happened to you?”

She wasn’t staring directly at Hump. Instead, her eyes looked above him, at the power that manifested around him. The domineering aura of a dragon that filled every fibre of Hump’s being.

Hump stepped closer and Eliana’s breathing quickened.

“Vivienne called you her friend,” Hump said. “She said you were a good person. Why do this?”

Eliana let out a nervous laugh. “You have no idea what this is, do you?” Eliana hugged the spellbook to her chest. “How precious it truly is.”

“I know it’s mine and that you can’t have it.”

“It is the key to unlocking the magic of legends,” Eliana said. “The magic wielded by ancient wizards.”

“How do you know this?”

“My master told me,” she snarled, staring at him defiantly. “It was his dream to restore practitioners to what they once were, instead of the weak wielders of scrap magic that we are now.”

Something clicked in Hump’s mind. “He was the one that tried to kill my master and steal the book when he was at Elenvine Academy. The one that damaged his soul.”

“He didn’t try to steal it. He offered Seth a place in our ranks, and Seth killed him. Murdered him in cold blood. Like that half-wit could have killed my master any other way.”

Hump felt a growl escape him—feral and against his will. “Lies.”

Fury filled him that this woman dared to speak ill of his master. That she dared to challenge him. He felt his power welling in his chest, and forced himself to calm down and control it, resisting the tug of the dragon imprint. He needed answers.

“It’s true,” she shouted.

“Who was he?” Hump asked. “How did he know about the book? Are you with the warlocks?”

She shook her head, disgust in her eyes. “I’m no warlock.”

“Yet you hunted down my master anyway. You killed him.”

She didn’t answer, but Hump didn’t need an answer. He had all he needed from the look in her eyes. She was guilty, and for that, he’d kill her too. The thought alone made the power in his chest swell. His body felt powerful, and that feeling surged through him, urging him on. He wanted to pounce and swipe, to wield his hands like talons.

Suddenly, Eliana moved, reaching into a pocket and pulling out a vial—the warlock powder. Hump rushed forward, trying to stop her from breathing it in, only…

“Burst,” she whispered.

The cantrip shattered the glass and sent a cloud of powder into Hump’s face. He blinked and coughed, stumbling back as the powder poured down his throat and filled his lungs. His eyes bulged, essence building in his head, in his chest, exploding everywhere.

Pain lanced through him and he fell back, hunching over and clutching at his chest with both hands. He couldn’t stop the flow of essence. It rushed through him, rampaging through his channels, tearing at his soul until he feared it might fade away. He felt the cold, hard touch of the floor. He rolled around, screaming in agony. It didn’t end. Time seemed to slow down as his suffering reached its peak. Every inch of himself felt as if it would tear itself apart.

He felt the gorger’s cold touch within him, the dragon’s mighty roar, the residual essence of the dungeon, phoenix, the essence elixir, and the warlock powder he had just breathed in. It all fought against each other. Each with its own intent. He couldn’t contain it.

Eliana tried to run while he was distracted, but Hump followed her with his eyes. A dragon roared in his head, and Hump was upon her. He felt a thrill, he was a predator chasing prey. He slammed a fist into Eliana’s face and her nose crunched beneath it, sending her screaming back to the ground. Hump felt strength rush through him. Essence filled him, overwhelming him with power.

He stood up, staring down at a beaten Eliana victoriously, a sense of power and bliss filling him.

Perhaps the warlocks were on to something after all.