Chapter 35: In Grim hands
Cold.
It’s cold...
Why do I feel so cold?
Not just that — but around him was silent, disturbingly so. All that could be felt in his being was deep, utter pain, radiating from wounds, scars, and even shattered bones.
Slowly but surely, he began to regain himself, his eyelids weakly opening to see the sights before him. At first, he found everything confusing, blurred by pain and disorientation, but soon enough, he came to terms with what he saw.
He was on the ground, his back rested against the side of a cold, jagged wall, sitting upright and staring directly at the pile of rubble from the collapse of the Crater.
Drake Drakon stared in disbelief at the disaster, finding it hard to comprehend that he had actually survived that.
And more importantly, even after surviving the collapse, he imagined he would have been swarmed by the horde of monsters and torn apart to shreds within a few seconds.
Nonetheless, none of that happened.
"Hmmmph," Drake groaned, shifting his body slightly to adjust away from the jagged wall that seemed to have been impaling his back for a while now.
Still, he was too weak and injured to move much, and eventually fell down to his side, his face landing painfully against the sharp rocks among the rubble.
He groaned at this but never once cursed the situation he was in — for all he knew, he was lucky to be alive at the very least.
Recalling what had happened, Drake gritted his teeth. He had summoned Kyvern at the last moment, and his dragon had torn him off the wall’s grasp, using its flames to blast through several boulders while getting hit by many more. The dragon had taken countless devastating blows but never once faltered in flying Drake out of the collapsing crater.
In the end, the two had crashed into the walls of the crater hard enough to shatter an entire human, given the speed they were moving at. That was when Drake had lost consciousness.
And now, he had woken up — to an empty cavern with no signs of monsters apart from the bodies crushed by the falling rocks and those the cohort had slain earlier.
Given how silent the entire cavern was, it almost seemed as though all the monsters... were gone.
’Well, there’s no way to find out if that’s true until I recover,’ Drake thought, and seemingly, the dreadful question of how long it would take him to recover from broken bones and such fatal injuries crossed his mind — especially with his current draconic body.
For one, who even knew how long he had been out for?
With no other choice left but to wait, Drake at first entertained the thought that another awakened might have survived the crash. But that was unlikely.
’I barely survived and got injured this badly. Other humans wouldn’t be fast enough to escape that, even with a flying ability,’ he established deep within.
Since he was less busy and had no distractions, this was as good a time as any for Drake to check his interface. And so, he did — summoning the system and immediately getting blown away by what he saw.
{Stats}
Name: Drake Drakon
Rank: SSS Rank
Talent: Dragon Necromancy
Level: 10
Soul Core: 23/150
Drake’s eyes grew wide in shock — at least, as wide as they could open.
This was something he had not been expecting, even with how fierce the battle had been. For him to grow five levels through a single battle was extraordinary — probably the reason his strength kept increasing so drastically during the fight.
Still, level ten was a big deal — a massive growth for a mere awakened who had just obtained his talent not so long ago.
Usually, it took the average awakened at least two months to reach this level. Even geniuses could only achieve it in two weeks of constant dungeon hunting.
But he, Drake Drakon — even with the talent of being a summoner — had done this in the span of a few days. This was nothing short of insanely remarkable.
Drake could imagine the look on Headmaster Stoick’s face upon hearing he was at level ten already. ’So priceless.’
Still, those were not the only reasons why reaching level ten so fast was a big deal. Becoming a Knight-Class awakened was possible at level twenty — meaning if Drake’s system was anything similar to the normal interface, he had already gotten halfway there.
Nonetheless, Drake was sure his system was not the same as the ones owned by every awakened. It was better, and it allowed him to grow stronger, faster.
That made one question linger in the young lad’s heart: ’Just where did this system come from?’
Thinking about that did not take him far, as he had little to no evidence to lead him to an answer. So, without wasting more time, he continued reading through his stats.
{Intelligence: 2/30}
{Number of Dragons: 3}
{Army: 5/40}
{Draconic Body: 23}
You have unlocked Draconic Body: Stage 1
{Evolution: None}
This was turning out to be luckier for Drake — maybe too lucky. Not only had he leveled up five times, but his intelligence had increased greatly, his number of summons had grown, and his draconic body stat had risen as well.
All in all, his once useless talent was starting to prove far more useful than anyone had thought.
For now, Drake skipped over the Number of Summons and Army stats, keeping them for later when he recovered, and focused instead on the Draconic Body.
It had increased greatly thanks to the battle, which meant his awakened body was now stronger and would heal faster — shortening the time he needed to recover.
And then, there was the part that intrigued Drake the most:
The system mentioned he had unlocked Draconic Stage One.
What did that even mean? Did it have to do with him getting stronger? Or did it mean there was more to the draconic body stat than he knew?
He was brimming with questions and hurried to find his answers.
Accessing the system for more information, it displayed:
{This form allows user to possess a greater draconic body.}
{Would you like to activate this?}
The description was nothing complicated — nor particularly detailed — so Drake could not see a single bad side to the notification.
Taking his time to think it through, Drake finally chose to accept and—
{Error}
{User cannot use skill until fully healed.}
Just as he expected. Drake sighed, knowing no one ever got that lucky — especially not him.
For now, he just had to let his imagination form the wildest ideas of what the stat could bring him once he recovered.
And for all he knew, that could take a long time. He wasn’t sure if the monsters would stay gone — or come back to end him.
At this moment, his life was left in the grim hands of fate.