Chương 34: a old tale

Vale rose from his hospital bed but did not stand immediately. Instead, he sat still for a few quiet seconds, eyes half-lidded, focusing intensely on his surroundings. He could feel it. The energy he had sensed in Rose and Evelyn earlier, dense, bright, unmistakable, was not limited to them. It filled the entire room, embedded in the walls, humming softly in the air like invisible mist. But something about it felt… wrong. Or incomplete.

When Vale turned his attention inward, he sensed four distinct wells of that same energy within himself: Ember, perched beside him; his metallic right arm; the armor that clung to him like a second skin; and the bone-like implant embedded into his left arm. Yet each source felt restrained, sealed, as if they were prevented from accessing their full potential. His gaze shifted to Ember.

The small wyvern held only a faint amount of energy within its body, but the world around it seemed to respond, energy naturally gathered toward the creature like moths to a flame. It was not inherent power Ember possessed; he was absorbing it, drinking in the ambient force as though born to do so. As Vale focused deeper, both women noticed the distant look on his face. Rose gently tapped his shoulder.

"Are you ready to go?" she asked. Vale blinked, returning to the present, and nodded.

"Yeah. Sure." He smiled lightly at the two women and rose to his full height. He towered over them. His armor, black leather reinforced with dark metal, had reappeared on his body as though woven from the air itself, yet it carried no weight. The same was true of his metallic arm. Despite its size and complexity, it felt lighter than his flesh, as if crafted for effortless movement. Rose and Evelyn began walking out of the hospital room, and Vale followed. The hallway outside was long, built of faded white stone.

Staff in crisp white uniforms moved briskly through the corridor, tending to their duties with practiced efficiency. One woman in particular drew Vale's attention. She sat behind a cluttered desk, black hair streaked with darker strands, a cigarette dangling lazily from her lips, despite clearly being indoors. She looked exhausted, deep bags beneath her eyes, but her beauty remained sharp even through her fatigue. It took her a moment to notice the three of them. When she did, she jolted upright, eyes widening.

She hurriedly crushed the cigarette, tossed it into a bin, and reached beneath her desk with frantic hands.

"Miss Rose! I, I'm sorry, I didn't expect you back so soon. I thought Vale would need more time to recover." Her pale fingers sifted through piles of documents.

"I'll get his paperwork immediately. Just, one moment." Rose chuckled softly.

"Don't worry too much, Bianca. Even I didn't expect Vale to recover this quickly. There's no rush." She leaned on the counter.

"How are your kids? They settling well at the academy?" Bianca nodded as she searched through the papers.

"Yes. Korin and Maelis are doing very well. Korin especially, he's finally learning to control his connection thanks to the academy's instructors." She paused as her fingers landed on a folder.

"Truly… thank you again. Without that academy, my children, and many others, would likely…" Her voice thinned.

"…they would likely die due to their own instability." She bowed her head. Vale frowned slightly.

'Die due to their own instability?' The idea unsettled him, but given how little he knew about this world, it wasn't something he could dismiss. Rose took the documents from Bianca with a grateful nod and a warm smile. Then she turned to Vale and handed the stack to him as they continued walking. He accepted them, raising a brow.

"What are these?" Surprisingly, Evelyn answered instead of Rose.

"Your medical documents. Bianca has an ability that lets her sense the internal structure of a person's body. Somehow, it worked on you as well." Her voice softened slightly.

"She studied your anatomy the entire night while you were asleep and spent the rest of it writing everything down. You should probably thank her later. She did it out of pity for your situation." Vale's eyes widened. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. He looked down at the crisp white documents with his name neatly printed at the top. Everything about them felt professional and thorough. He wasn't sure why she pitied him, he didn't feel miserable.

He had lost his memories, yes, but he wasn't grieving. Then again… most people would be. As they continued walking, Vale skimmed the titles on the five papers. Each section focused on different aspects of his physiology. But something else soon caught his attention. They passed a large golden statue. Vale stopped. The sculpture towered above them, an exquisite, haunting piece depicting a world held in the claws of a massive dragon.

Bloody rivers carved across the planet's surface as the dragon breathed fire upon its people, devouring them without remorse. Vale stared at it, breath caught in his throat. The craftsmanship was immaculate. Terrifyingly Beautiful. A moment later, Rose's quiet voice reached him.

"Would you like to know the story behind this statue?" Her tone was somber, almost reverent. Vale turned toward her and nodded slowly. A faint, sorrowful smile formed on Rose's lips as she stepped beside him. She drew in a breath. And then she began to speak.

"Long ago, about five hundred years, give or take, there lived a single man who stood as humanity's final beacon of hope," Rose began quietly. Her voice carried through the hallway with a steady, mournful resonance.

"In that era, the Spawn were invading our world with terrifying speed. Gates, rifts, fractures, whatever you wish to call them, were tearing open everywhere. And out of those tears came monsters so powerful that even our strongest warriors could barely scratch them." She paused, exhaling slowly.

"The fractures were constant. Day after day, night after night… humanity had no rest. The Spawn killed anything in their path, and the stronger ones appeared faster than the world could defend itself. Even the greatest dynasties collapsed in mere weeks." Vale followed silently. He didn't understand every term she used, but the tone, the heaviness in her voice, made the meaning unmistakable. Humanity had once been on the verge of extinction.

"But in humanity's darkest hour," Rose continued, "a single man rose above the ruin. Dagon." Her eyes flickered toward the statue as they walked past it.

"A man whose power defied logic. He commanded storms as if they were merely extensions of his own limbs. And his Visorian form… he could transform into a colossal dragon, wreathed in lightning, breathing flames that didn't just burn, flames that could erase the very essence of the Spawn." There was admiration in her tone, but also deep sorrow.

"With his leadership, humanity began to recover. For a time… we even believed we would win." She fell silent for several seconds. Vale waited patiently. Something in the air felt heavier, charged.

"But power," she whispered, "has a way of revealing weaknesses we never knew existed." Evelyn's expression had grown darker. Even Ember, perched quietly on Vale's shoulder, tilted its head as if sensing the somber atmosphere.

"One day, a gate appeared, one unlike anything recorded in history before or after. Its energy was overwhelming. Too much for anyone but Dagon. Knowing the limits of his people, he went in alone." Rose clasped her hands together slowly.

"He vanished for three years." Vale blinked.

'Three years inside one of those… things?'

"When he finally returned," Rose said softly, "he was barely alive. His body was torn apart, chunks of flesh missing, wounds refusing to regenerate as if something was devouring the life from him. But worse than that… there was a madness in his eyes. A look no one could ever forget. He kept repeating the same phrase, over and over: 'They are waiting. They can't escape.'" A shudder slipped into her voice.

"We should have stopped him there," she whispered.

"We should have seen it." Evelyn's jaw tightened, her steps slowing for a brief moment.

"At first, people assumed the trauma had shaken him. As time passed, though… it became clear something inside him had shattered. His insanity grew until it became a storm of its own." Rose inhaled sharply, steadying herself before continuing.

"And then, one terrible day… he lost himself completely." Vale's eyes shifted back toward the statue as she spoke.

"Dagon, our savior, became our greatest nightmare. He transformed into his dragon form and burned half the world in a matter of hours. Entire continents vanished under lightning storms and searing flames. By the end of that single day… half of all humanity was dead." She closed her eyes briefly, as if trying not to remember.

"And when his rampage ended, a gate opened beneath him, instantly and unnaturally. He stepped into it… and vanished. Nobody has seen him since." Silence returned, thick and heavy. Rose lowered her head, her voice trembling just slightly under the weight of history. Then, as if forcing herself back to the present, she bit her lip and raised her face with a strained smile. Vale stared at the golden statue again, a world drenched in blood, a dragon burning its people. Now the sculpture made sense. Not just a monument…

but a warning. A reminder that even the greatest heroes could become monsters. Before he could speak, Evelyn cut through the silence with a sharp, almost brittle tone.

"Let's go." Rose nodded faintly.

"Yes… let's." She glanced at Vale and motioned forward.

"Come on. We still have someone you need to meet." Vale gave a slow, silent nod. Together they resumed walking through the old hallways, their footsteps echoing faintly between the worn white walls. A series of tall windows lined the corridor. When Vale passed one, he glanced outside, and his breath caught. A vast stretch of greenland lay beyond the hospital. Grasslands rolling endlessly toward the horizon, broken by clusters of ancient stones and towering structures that cast long shadows over the fields.

And at the far end, beyond everything, was a beach, a wide, sweeping expanse of pale sand meeting an ocean that shimmered under the sun like liquid crystal. Their path was leading directly toward it. Toward the leviathan. The being who saved him the moment he arrived in this world. A faint, genuine smile touched Vale's lips as anticipation stirred in his chest. Whoever, or whatever, that leviathan was, he was finally about to find out.