?Arad lifted his hand, sending a wave of void magic to cover the whole library, "Eris, come back here. I'll suck everything into my stomach, we can read it later,"
"Wait! Did you ask Baltos about it?" She gasped.
"I didn't, but I'm sure he won't want to leave them here unguarded. They only have that little doll outside." He lowered his hand and Eris rushed to hide behind him. "Just be careful not to damage anything,"
Arad's magic extended from his palm all the way across the library, sucking everything into his stomach from bookshelves to old scrolls. Only they could realize how large this library was, far bigger than they expected.
"Let's go back," He turned around, seeing a wall where they came from.
"How do we get out?" Eris asked with a passive face.
"I don't know…" Arad replied, touching the wall, "We're locked here,"
"That stupid doll!" Eris growled looking around for any door that could lead them outside, but she found none. The library is a closed box with no windows or doors, the only way in and out is the magical link created by that stupid doll, and they are now stuck until she opens the door for them again.
Arad turned toward Eris, "Come here," He approached her.
"You'll dig out?" She held his hand and he slowly sucked her into his body. "That's the plan," He said as she faded into his body.
Arad slowly lifted his arms, releasing faint waves of his magic into the walls, sensing where they were exactly. He closed his eyes, feeling the stone engulfing the library. He can extend his magic for 40km, the range of his expansion.
He smiled, taking a stance. [Void Step]
ZON! Arad disappeared in the blink of an eye, landing emerging above the clouds. The library was buried 12 km beneath the ground inside a massive boulder 2 km in diameter, most likely built by an ancient powerful human wizard. Since Arad teleported the maximum distance he could upward, he ended up 28 km above the surface, far above the clouds.
He looked down with a smile, shifting into his draconic form to get the best of his eyes. Even at that distance, he could locate the capital and specifically the castle with ease. "Found it," He took a dive, falling head first with air burning around his wings.
The nuns walking around the church stopped, hearing something above them. One of them looked up, seeing a massive burning dragon parts the clouds as it fell headfirst toward them, turning the sky red. The nun dropped the basket of clothes she carried and pissed herself, terrified that the capital was about to get blasted into ash.
ZON! [Void Step] Arad disappeared, leaving a powerful gust of hot wind to fall on the surface, melting some of the snow and drying the wet walls in the blink of an eye. The nuns looked up, feeling their skin dry from the heat as they searched for the dragon. "Where did it go?!"
"Was I dreaming?" One cried.
CLACK! Arad landed in the castle's basement in his humanoid form with his skin smoking. His glowing purple eyes glared at the doll sitting on a barrel, "YO, I'm back."
"You came on your own?" She glared back at him, "Why go through the hassle,"
"Since you tried to lock us there," Arad said with a passive face. novelbuddy .com
"I didn't try to lock you there, buffoon," The doll stared at him, "Did neither of you think of reading the sign on the wall? It said to Chant [Out, Out, Portal] to teleport you outside,"
"I didn't see it," Arad said, and Eris in his head confirmed that she didn't. "Even so, why didn't you tell us about it?"
"It's been years since I sent someone there, you can't blame me for forgetting to state the obvious. It's like telling a man that he should read the signs on the road to know his direction in the capital." She waved her hand, "Blame yourself,"
Arad looked inside his stomach and he quickly found the sign there. He sucked it into his stomach before they turned around to leave, that is why they didn't see it. If he didn't suck everything, he would've seen it when they tried to leave.
"Fine, it's my mistake," He sighed, scratching his head. "So, what would you do?" Arad looked at the doll.
"Stay here and guard, what else could I do?" She glared at him, "It's my punishment and I can't leave,"
"The capital was destroyed and I emptied the library, you're guarding nothing,"
"You what? Stole everything from there?!" She gasped, standing up, "It's my job to guard it, I can't let you steal the books,"
"We're moving the capital and the library should go with it," He replied with a passive face.
The doll lifted her tiny hands, "It's my job, that's all I need to say," TAP! She put them together.
Arad blinked, staring at her.
[Conjuration's Expansion: Golem's army of the infinite droplets]
As Arad stood there, he could see the area around him disappear as it got replaced by an endless field at sunset. Hundreds of thousands of armored soldiers faced him with all the weapons they had as the sky got engulfed in black clouds, dripping acid, poison, and a bunch more alchemical concoctions. That rain buffed the army by healing and granting them effects, while it only acted to debuff and damage Arad.
"What?" He gasped, finally sensing the magic leaking out of the doll. Alice Dagon had to personally stop her, which means whoever this doll was in life, she wasn't someone that the human kingdom or anyone weaker than Alice could hope to beat easily.
PWE! The doll flew out of nowhere, punching Arad in the forehead and sending him spinning backward at an insane speed. CLAP! Before he could land, an armored knife rushed in with his great shield and smacked Arad back toward the doll.
Arad shifted into his half-dragon form, expanding his wings to slow down, and swung a claw at the doll.
Thud! She jumped over his wrist and kicked him in the face, grabbing him by the hair and throwing him into the sky in the blink of an eye.
The army behind her pulled their bowstrings, firing hundreds of thousands of poison-engulfed arrows at him.
Arad looked down, his vision slightly blurring. ^I'm getting weaker and she's getting stronger, and how come she's this strong? She might be worse than Vlad,^ He pointed his hand forward.
[Barrier Magic] And conjured a massive barrier to block the arrows, "Now you've done it," He shouted with a smile, pointing down with a finger. A ball of light emerged at the tip of his finger, flashing as he fired a powerful beam toward the army.
The soldiers in the army lifted their swords up, wings emerging on their backs as they scattered everywhere like a storm of mosquitoes, completely avoiding Arad's blast.
STAB! As Arad stared at them, he felt something sting the back of his neck, "Judging by that beam, you're a void dragon, aren't you?" The doll had stabbed his neck with a syringe, pushing a strange green liquid into his veins.
Arad tried to swat her with his palm but she flew away, and he only ended up smashing the syringe. "What was that?"
"I already expected that you're a dragon judging by your magic, that's a general-purpose poison to kill draconic creatures. It attacks the nerves first and is tested through hundreds of dragons and half-dragons," She said with a smile, flying away from Arad while keeping an eye on him.
"The poison is nothing," Arad smiled, not feeling anything wrong with his body.
"It's supposed to feel like nothing," She said, seeing as his skin turned purple and his hair began to fall, slowly forcing him into the deformed shape of a humanoid with draconic parts. "It goes beneath the dragon's immune system and slowly eats their brain from the inside. The first symptom is the inability to keep your shapeshift." She smiled, "I don't have anything specific for void dragons, but I'll whip something new just for you, give me a second or two,"
Arad couldn't feel anything strange with his body, he could only watch as his face elongated to that of a dragon. "What?" He gasped, forgetting how to even stay in a human form, something he had done since birth without a thought needed.
"Then I don't need it!" He roared, letting it go and shifting into his draconic form, "What would you gain from forcing me into my strongest form?!" He opened his jaw to fire a breath at her, but he suddenly started falling.
He tried to flap his wings, but no matter what he did, he kept falling.
"It takes a lot of power and precision for a dragon to lift his massive weight only by flapping his wings. The poison messes with your nerves, throwing them out of rhythm and making flight impossible."
Arad tried to fly, but his shaking wings failed to respond to him.
The flying army of soldiers rushed toward him, stabbing him everywhere like a crazed swarm of bees. And even so, he couldn't feel a thing, his sense of pain had already faded.
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