Omega's Rebirth-Chapter 778: A Sinister Purpose ()
"What do you think?" The sorcerer hissed darkly, still glowering down at him. "Now, neither you nor I have much time, so you may want to begin, scribe dragon."
Garron sighed. "I do not have what you need. Aren’t you allied with the Fae? You may have better luck asking her. Runes are not a dragon’s specialty."
"That is not the answer I’m looking to hear." The sorcerer was getting visibly frustrated.
"An uneasy alliance then..." Garron surmised, nodding in understanding. "That’s really the best you can expect from the Fae. You can never be certain where you stand with their kind."
"These tomes...they date back many centuries. How many, exactly?" He interrupted, stalking over to the makeshift workspace Garron had created.
Garron’s eyes trailed the sorcerer, brows furrowed slightly. "Depends. They each were written in a different time period."
"The least should be at least...500 years old?" The sorcerer guessed. "Older, perhaps?"
"I can’t say." Garron’s response was stiff as the sorcerer picked up an open tome, flipping through it.
"They must be really important. Each of them...treasures in the halls of history." He continued. "Especially with the limited information available in these times about runes and the likes."
"They are important, certainly." Garron agreed, his eyes narrowed as the sorcerer casually walked over to the edge of the gorge, hovering the tome above it.
"But dragons have no interest in magic business." He carried on, "You have no use for these then."
Without another word, he let go of his hold on the tome and the book disappeared into the abyss that was the gorge.
Garron’s brows were now fixed in a permanent frown, his eyes glinting with a deathly promise.
"Now, I know better than to torture a Dragon Lord." The sorcerer murmured, grinning sinisterly. "Your kind has an astonishing tolerance for pain. You might even enjoy it."
"But to torment a Firedrake... that, I have mastered well." He continued. "If you do not give me what I want, I will make certain everyone and everything you care about... ends up just like that."
Garron studied the sorcerer in silence for a long moment, rage churning within him. He could tell the sorcerer meant every word he had just said, and he was quickly losing his patience.
"Bold of you to assume you can threaten or intimidate me into doing anything you want." Garron said, his tone just audible enough for the sorcerer to hear his words.
"If I knew about some lost sorcery rune, I have no reason to tell you. It just so happens I have no idea about it...but you can make your own judgement, so to speak."
"And I believe it is you who does not understand the severity of your situation." Garron continued after a brief silence.
"You are nothing more than a lost soul...a remnant of an age long past, the last of a long dead race, a people that will never walk these lands again." His tone was deathly cold.
"I can smell your weakness. It took you centuries to dare show your face before us, and you lost half of your magic to keep your life after the uprising. You lost even more, pulling that split soul retreat at Mount Edar...my advice? You should do that less, or there’ll be nothing left of your soul to split soon." Garron trailed off.
"What I’m trying to say is, you barely have enough magic within you to maintain your strongest form. So you are forced to keep this young body...you know well enough that you cannot withstand a direct onslaught from a dragon, so you make sure to get me alone,"
"You are clearly avoiding the King’s guard. But what you fail to realise is, if they could track you halfway across the stronghold... they won’t be far behind you, even now." Garron laughed quietly.
"So, everything and everyone I care about... you don’t need to go looking for them, because they’re already coming for you." He finished, smirking.
"Tell me how they’re tracking me!" The sorcerer snarled, a sharp gust of wind unsettled the forest. The ground trembled in response to his rage and dark energy crackled at his fingertips.
A wave of dark magic struck the tree Garron leaned against, and it dissolved into a pitch black mist, like it never even existed.
The enchanted cuffs restraining him pulsed, emitting an excruciating shock wave that ripped through Garron. Garron gritted his teeth, maintaining his grin as he reached within, the familiar warmth churning right beneath his fingertips, waiting for his call.
Garron felt the effect of the heat surging through his veins, like his blood had become lava, the metal clasp of the cuff around his wrists disintegrated.
It clattered to the ground and Garron hissed in relief, twisting his wrists.
"If I were you, I’d get a headstart." Garron muttered and then he let the flames out.
________________
The already lifeless forest had become a wide expanse of scorched earth. Garron hissed as he tugged on the cuff around his neck with enough force to break it in two, effectively cutting himself in the process.
Blood trailed down the sides of his neck, disappearing beneath his tunic, but Garron barely acknowledged it, rage still churning through his veins.
The outburst of flames had been enough to warn the dark sorcerer off. Garron knew it was not because his flames rivalled the magic of a former member of the dark lord’s council, but because the sorcerer was still in a state of recovery and could not afford to utilize too much magic, not if he still valued his life. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦
And then, there was the fact that time was not on his side. Menarx and Kirgan would return at any moment now, they must have sensed Garron’s flames from wherever they had flown out to.
But Garron knew this would not be the last of the sorcerer they would be seeing. He was powerful, disturbingly so. And in no distant time, he would recover and then it would not be so easy to force him to retreat.
Not that he was not already a big concern, making gorges everywhere.
As if on cue, Menarx landed with a silent thud, his gaze narrowed as he scanned the place. His eyes then moved to Garron,
"He was here." Menarx gathered immediately.
"Not for long. He has my notebook." Garron relayed. "And anything else he may have snatched before I burned it all."
"What does he want with it?" Menarx asked with a frown.
"He seems to be missing a rune. To complete whatever spell he is in the process of creating." Garron replied. "Where’s Kirgan?"
"We found another gorge much like this one not far from here. But then... the trail led back. I had him handle things there and made the flight back." Menarx explained.
"Do you know what kind of rune?"
Garron pursed his lips, "I have a decent idea."
"I couldn’t figure it out initially, but it all makes sense now. When he mentioned the missing rune, I recalled something I had read a long time back...before the volumes were committed to the hidden archives."
"These hybrid runes, they are not meant to create a new shadow army. They are dimension runes... and I’m certain because I’ve seen one only recently!" Garron murmured, pacing along the length of the gorge, the only thing left unchanged by the flames.
"Dimension... like, the one Jian is stuck in?" Menarx asked warily.
"Yes! Exactly!" Garron hissed. "I don’t know why I didn’t figure it out at first glance. These runes, they’re just like the rune Veah found in Asrig’s writings. Like different variations of it. This...thing he’s working on with the Fae, it all links back to My Liege!"
"These runes require a strong magic source to be fully potent, the gorge and the shadow toxin provides that, keeping the runes active until they achieve their purpose!" He said quickly, his mind working faster than he could put into words.
"And what is this purpose?" Menarx asked.
"When Veah sent me the information from Asrig’s writings, we were able to discover that the dimension is set to shut down in a particular period. I made it clear My Liege has to return before the shut down, or it will only get more difficult."
"The sorcerer knows it too, that the dimension is going to shut down. Before a dimension shuts down, the barriers holding it grow extremely weak. When the anchoring rune is completed, it will release a wave of magic potent enough to restore Fort Blazed."
"At that moment, the barriers holding the dimension will be at its weakest. If someone...knows the origin runes used to create the dimension in the first place, and has sufficient magic source to power these runes, and also knows My Liege will be sure to complete the anchoring rune. They can take advantage of this fragile moment, they can make the dimension completely collapse." Garron said seriously.
"What is the difference between it shutting down on its own... and it collapsing by external influence?" Menarx asked slowly.
"The first will just make the dimension inaccessible for an indefinite amount of time. The second...it will destroy the dimension completely, releasing everything locked up within..." Garron trailed off.
"The forlorn beasts will be unleashed on the stronghold."
