While I was making my way to the area where Lord Carves lived before he was murdered, I noticed that the fusion did not just enhance my magic power I also noticed that the world around me was moving by more rapidly.
This told me that I had also enhanced both my speed and psychical prowess.
The world around me was beginning to look more familiar as I approached the woods in which I had gone so long ago to find my beast to tame.
I saw that the entire forest was now frozen. The trees were broken but not to any kind of weather change. It was most definitely caused by ice magic. The entire forest seemed dead to me as I crunched the leaves under my feet.
All the trees were broken from the inside of it telling me that whoever destroyed the forest started from the inside.
When I looked in the cave where I had found my blood dragon, I saw that the entire cave was marked with cold streaks where it was attacked. All over the floor I saw that there were shattered eggs all over the ground in a bunch of tiny pieces as if someone had stepped on them in a rage.
As I walked towards the back of the cave, I saw that there was only one creature that was barely alive. It was the mother of my blood dragon. She was barely able to breathe and it seemed to take a lot of energy to simply move.
I was drawn to her as if she was my mother. That must have been a side effect of the fusion. There was more to this then just multiplying my spell power. It seems that I was acting like my dragon because of how I was drawn to the only dragon that was left alive.
"Are you still alive mother?" I asked the dragon in a deep voice that sounded as though it was coming from deep inside of me.
"Y…Yes but, I do not have very long left. I w…was killed by the ice sorcerer that killed our last true dark lord". She said in a deep voice that sounding as if she was fading from this world.
"I will offer you a chance to become my blood dragon through a blood contract. If you are willing to accept this you will be reborn in a since." I said to the dragon as I walked up to her and started to touch her.
The dragon just laid there on the ground and did not even flinch at what I had offered, but I did not think that she did not have any choice.
I pricked my right wrist and used the fresh dripping blood to make a massive Ardivole magic circle to ensure the success as well as the strength of the blood contract.
This circle had three pentagrams placed at every forty-five-degree angles. These were to strengthen the circle so that I could bind a stronger creature to this contract.
"I Zenith the blood mage offers a bit of my blood as a means to bind this creature as my second familiar."
As I spoke these words of the contract the magical circle began to glow and pulse waves o red magical energy. Then a few seconds later the magical circle shattered and the dragon died as I failed.
At the sight of my failure a let a roar from deep within myself. I had failed to save her, and I had lost a possible asset that could have help me in the fight that I was about to do. Have I lost the since of love and compassion that would make me normal on this journey to the top. If so than that must be something that must be sacrificed as you claw you way to the top of this brutal and dark world.
Since I had failed to save the blood dragon there was only one thing that I could do I grabbed one of my empty bottles and filled it with her blood so that she could serve a purpose in my rise to power even in death.
I rushed over to the castle and as I got closer to it, I noticed that the forest changed the ground was all covered in ice that seemed to get colder the closer that I got to the castle.
The last bit of the forest was replaced with bushes of ice roses. Ice roses only thrived in the coldest environments. They were a sharp as a fresh steel blade when you touched them and if you were not careful you could get frostbitten.
When I made to the castle it looked so different from what I remember it looking like. There was an entire group of snow elves and demonic creatures that were guarding the castle instead of the two large statues like before. There also was a massive balcony that overlooked the area where the guards patrolled.
In the balcony I could see a tall and slim female Dark elf that was wearing white robes that flowed down her body as if it were naturally made for her. She was sitting at a table drinking tea.
She stood up and placed her tea down before I noticed that she turned towards me.
"I can sense your magical aura. You can not hide from me. Just reveal yourself and save me the trouble off having my men kill you. I would rather deal with you all by myself." I heard her say to me as I was looking around to see what about the castle was different then what I remembered it being.
Since I knew that revealing myself to her was the fastest way to begin the battle that was going to be the pivotal point that will begin the next phase of my journey to the top of this twisted and corrupt world.
"All that I have to say is that you are not going to be getting any lucky sneak off on me like you did to demon lord Carvis." I said as I walked out of the woods and into the open.
She then cast an ice spell that made a bridge made purely out of ice from the balcony to the ground below.
I used this bridge to get up to her level.
As I walked up to the top of the bridge, she stared at me and began to laugh at what she had seen.
"I can not believe who it is. The fact that the bitch who was going to marry the former demon lord. What are the odds that she would willing come to my house?"
The fact that she knew who I was surprised me because I do not ever remember seeing her at all during my time in the dark realm.
"It would make sense that you do not know me because we have never met before today, but I know all about you." She said to me as she started to walk into her castle with a gesture for me to follow her.
I followed her into the castle despite how unlikely the possibly survive because the only things that were going through my mind was revenge and power.
"Yes, you were the bride to be that he would never stop bringing up when all of the dark lords would gather together for a meeting to discuss the state of the dark realm and the possibility of war against the divine realm." She said to me in an enraged tone. "Because of how weak you were making him I had to kill him to purge our ranks of all the weakness that he was spreading like a virus.
You see I started noticing it happened to him in small amounts where he was a little bit happier with every word. Then it was not long until he was so filled with joy that it seemed to spread to the dark lords around him. It did not only affect the men but the women as well.
It was after they had all agreed to start opening peace and possibly unification talks with the people of the divine realm that I knew there was only one way to stop this madness. That was to kill him myself and take all that he owned.
I had honestly thought that I would have to attack his castle directly, but as luck would have it his new bride to be had to go through the challenges to prove herself worthy of being married to one of the dark lords. It was during that time that I struck while he was alone and vulnerable. I must thank you because if it were not for you I would have remained a mere servant to one of the dark lords." She said to me as we made it to the end of a very long hallway that led to a massive set of double doors.
"Are you telling me that is my fault that he is dead?" I asked in a depressed tone.
The thought of being the reason that he died enveloped me in an aura of depression that seemed to get heavier with passing second.
As I was thinking about it I knew that the only way to get over was to confront the female who killed him. Ending her existence would not only bring me peace of mind but also fulfill the contract that I had made with the former dark lord of the castle's brother. This meant that I had to focus all of t=my enery on whtever challenges that she was going to put me through.
"So, you did all of that just to ensure war always remained active." I said to her in a surprised tone. "That just seems like a very stupid reason if you ask me." I said to her as I pushed open the doors.
"I do not expect a blood elf that is not from our region to understand why I do what I do."
The room that she had walked me to was clearly a kind of armory because there were a large variety of weapons and armors hanging on wall racks around the room. In the center of it I saw a glowing magical circle.
"Why did you bring me here?"
"I Brought you here because I know that you are wanting to kill me. If we are going to kill each other we do not hold anything back and I do not want you to use any kind of excuses when I execute you to maintain my power as a dark lord.
After you choose what items that you want to attempt your defeat of me with then we can both step into the magical circle and we will be teleported to the location of our fight.
As I looked around, I did not see anything that appealed to me, but I felt a strong to something that was buried within a pile of junk armor and weapons that looked ancient in the back of the room.
I walked to the pile of junk and grabbed a large box that was so heavy that it took all my strength to move it away from the pile and into the open.
"I can take whatever I want; even the items in this box?"
"Yes, you can, but I have not been able to open it ever since I claimed this castle as my own. So, I do not see how you could gain access to whatever lies inside of it". she said to my in an anger tone telling me that she had tried to open this on many occasions and failed.
When I looked at the chest in the light, I saw elven markings that glowed along the lock making it impossible for anyone who was not either a rune mage or a blood elf to open it.
As I used the edge of the lock to prick my finger and the blood began to fill up the opening in the lock the runes started to glow. Then I started to move the blood around which caused to the making to shatter and fade followed by the box opening.
"How did you do that? I have been trying for moths!" she yelled at me as soon as I opened the chest.
"The reason you could not open it was because you do not possess the skill to open this type of lock. It was reinforced with elven markings which are only visible to my kind or someone who is an expert in rune magic which I know that your so-called superior race abandoned such a type of magic. Your culture probably thought of it as an inferior form of magic.
You should not always think that your ways are superior to the ancient ways pf this world."
I knew that whatever was in this chest would be something that I would need to kill her in this upcoming duel.