Chapter 11 - Resentment and Redemption

Within Jack's body there is an internal struggle between two different superior beast race powers, respectively the arrogant and domineering dragon qi and the majestic yet unyielding phoenix qi. These two races have battled for supremacy within the beast race hegemony for their entire existence. This battle is continuing within Jack's body, within his dantian the two qi are fighting to suppress the other.

Jack is unaware of the changes happening within his body as his consciousness has been transferred to a strange white tower, almost looking like a traditional English castle spire but much larger. His gaze taking in all the surroundings from the top of this tall spire but seeing nothing beyond a barren landscape.

*SCREECH*

A cry resounds in the distance, Jack narrows his eyes as he tries to remember where he has heard this sound before. He remembers hearing something similar before appearing in this place but he is unable to identify what it belongs to.

*ROARRRR*

A dragon cry can be heard coming from Jack's body as energy starts to gather around him, slowly becoming visible. The energy emitting a bright white light as it solidifies around Jack, becoming a protective barrier and further increasing in size.

*SCCCREEEEEECH*

Another cry resounds, this time much closer but he's still unable to see anything. The energy surrounding him has increased to over 1000m in diameter. Jack's vision is unimpeded by this energy barrier as though he has a new pair of eyes as he surveys the surroundings further trying to identify where the sound is coming from.

His vision notices a shadow on the ground, moving incredibly quickly towards him and getting larger. His eyes go wide and he raises his arms to block. An image of a dragon appears above him, it's an eastern style White Dragon with its body twined around Jack's body replacing the energy sphere that was gathered.

The dragon peers into the sky and lets out another roar, a screech can be heard as a reply much closer than earlier.

*BOOM*

A shockwave can be heard in the sky as a gigantic bird can be seen descending rapidly from the heavens, it's a multi coloured fiery bird roughly 30,000m big much bigger than anything Jack has ever seen before. The dragon seems tiny in comparison, as though it's a worm fighting an eagle.

The bird appears above the dragon and reaches out a talon to grab the dragon.

The dragon releases its protective barrier to which the bird attempts to squeeze. Energy starts to gather around Jack again and it quickly overwhelms him causing his body to become partially dragonified, his pupils appearing reptilian and scales appearing on his skin. He impulsively lets out a dragon's roar from his mouth.

The dragon holding back the bird's talon can feel this energy welling up from within it and starts to grow larger. The bird can sense the changes and attempts to fly off while squeezing the dragon within the protective barrier.

The energy barrier suddenly disappears and the dragon quickly slips out of the grip of the bird, its size is quickly catching up to the bird.

The bird chases after the dragon that is now getting larger and faster. The bird has an advantage still and catches up to the slower dragon, its wing makes contact with the dragon which lets out a pained cry swiping out its claws.

This causes both animals to tumble, the dragon tumbling straight down while the bird continues far into the distance due to momentum. Both animals are just about to hit the ground when they manage to pause above the ground and remain hovering.

Jack's mind has been infected by the dragonification and wants to rip this bird to shreds, how dare it challenge the mighty dragon race.

*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT*

An energy beam appears from the distance, the dragon is now the same size as the bird at roughly 30,000m and is able to easily block this beam with its energy barrier. Several more beams come from the distance from different directions, annoying the dragon.

The dragon starts to gather energy in its mouth and releases its own energy beam, it's much wider and spreads further than the focused beams from the bird, covering almost 20% of the sky in a single beam.

Numerous energy beams are intercepted by the massive attack from the Dragon and a pained cry can be heard in the distance. The bird is now stationary covered with its own energy barrier, its eyes filled with hatred towards the dragon.

The bird starts to gather energy as massive energy balls appear around it, 10, 20, 100, 1000. Over 9,000 energy balls of fire appear surrounding it. The energy is so massive that it can be felt by Jack within the protective cover.

The dragon sees this and makes a mad dash to the bird, the bird releases the energy balls.

The dragon is able to dodge most of the energy balls but gets hit by many of them, its body becoming battered and bloody, the protective barrier producing many cracks.

It reaches roughly 10km away from the bird which releases all the remaining energy balls, the dragon lets out its mighty breath to suppress the energy balls. It's roughly 5km away from the bird now and almost within bite range.

The bird emits its own beam of energy, this is different to the many focused beams earlier this one is pure fire energy, filled with the unique trait of its species that is able to slightly suppress the dragon might contained with the breath.

These two beams collide while the two creatures are only 2km from each other.

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOM*

A massive explosion engulfs the two creatures and the surrounding thousands of km of landscape as the two creatures tumble to the ground, both of them covered in blood and their protective barriers collapsing.

The giant creatures both land on the ground, 2km away from each other with their massive bodies sprawling over the landscape. Slowly their forms both shrink and two human sized figured are revealed.

The human figures are both covered with an energy barrier and are unable to see each other's true forms, they both struggle to their feet. Jack's mind still infected with the dragonified thoughts, he wants to rush over there and tear open this stupid birds' throat with his teeth and nails.

Jack is unsteady on his feet and slowly steps towards the other person, his hands are turning into a set of claws as his whole arm develops scales.

The other persons can see Jack stepping closer, barely able to stand up glaring containing untold hatred and pain.

Jack is roughly 100m away from the other person now when suddenly, they start a mad dash towards Jack while their body is glowing. Jack's eyes narrow as he raises his hand, which is now a set of claws, to intercept them.

Jack is about to strike when the other person's energy barrier collapses.

It's a female, a battered and bloodied female who is covered with a yellowy red light. They trip as the energy barrier collapses but Jack's mind goes blank because…

It's those familiar eyes, the teary wide-eyed girl from the orphanage.

Her eyes are now filled with bitterness and hatred but he'll never forget those eyes as he decided to protect her in the trial.

Jack's mind recovers from dragonification as his body reverts to normal and the energy barrier collapses revealing his form. He reaches out to catch the woman mid-fall. She struggles while her body is glowing brighter and brighter.

She stops struggling and looks at the face of the person who is now holding her, tears develop in the sides of her eyes as she says.

"You said you'd protect me, I waited for you and you never came back!" she says almost wailing.

Jack's mind doesn't know how to process what's happening, he just holds her tighter but can feel her body getting increasingly hot.

"Now it's too late, the fires of nirvana have started…." She says as her body starts to catch on fire.

Jack can feel her body starting to become lighter, he doesn't know what to do but he wants to stop this. His mind starts racing when a thought enters his mind, kiss her.

Jack has no time to process this information and quickly does as it says, he lowers his head and plants a kiss on her lips. Her eyes go wide and then close to accept the kiss, Jacks hold on her loosens up while hers gets stronger.

Jack can feel energy entering his body, mixing and changing it. The dragon qi that was rampaging in his body is slowly coming under control of this previously yellow energy that has now turned white. The two energies start to revolve around each other as their kiss continues for what feels like eons.

"I'm... sorry…." Jack says not knowing what else to say.

Her body starts to dim and lower in temperature, Jack's body starts to heat up as the two energies start to combine within his dantian, revolving in a stably around each other.

A loud dragon roar and bird screech can be heard but instead of being one of hatred and anger, this is one of pride and joy. Their kiss finally ends and Jack smiles at the woman who now has her eyes closed.

Her body disappears and then Jack's vision returns back to his body, he is being cradled by Jessica.

In the sky, the two giant creatures transform into energy and shoot directly into the city heart.

'WARNING – Holy White Dragon Empire City Heart is undergoing mutation from outside influences'

'NOTICE – Holy White Dragon Empire City Heart has been influenced by qi from the local area – Unknown changes are happening'

'WARNING – Holy White Dragon Empire City Heart has mutated into Holy White Dragon – Phoenix Empire City Heart'

'NOTICE – Unlocking the unique legacy of the Dragon – Phoenix Empire has upgraded the City Heart into emitting Dragon – Phoenix qi, this will result in changes in the surrounding area…'

A whole lot of other prompts appeared which Jack doesn't have time to go through, he is staring at the city heart watching the two black and white colours slowly balance into a familiar Yin – Yang formation.

The revolving only last a few moments when an energy pulse is emitted from the city heart, it contains both dragon qi and phoenix qi causing everything in the surrounding 100km to undergo a baptism.

Sleipner's bloodline gets upgraded, it still remains the same King rank beast but it now has a stronger Qilin bloodline and is likely to evolve into a Qilin without much difficult in the future.

The other smaller horses grow larger and also grow a horn allowing them to also utilise the lightning power that Sleipner has shown previously.

Fenrir under goes a massive change from absorbing dragon qi, its colour turns jet black instead of grey, its eyes turn red and almost reptilian. It grows much larger, almost tripling in size and its species also changes from Common Grey Wolf into Hellfire Wolf.

The other wolves around also get influenced by the dragon qi but not as much, with their sizes changing to become larger but their species remaining the same as Common Grey Wolf.

Countless other animals in the surrounding plains area and water undergo the baptism too, a lot of birds now have Phoenix qi with some even acquiring flame abilities. The fish that were able to survive in the poisonous water have developed arms appearing quite odd.

Jessica whom is still cradling Jack but she is massively influenced by the Phoenix qi which gathers within her body, causing it to become hotter and hotter. She suppresses the feeling and how much it hurts so as to not disturb Jack.

Jack can feel all these changes going on around him but he wants to inspect his body and stands up.

They both help each other up and take a look at the surroundings not knowing where to start, they both start laughing over the absurd situation but as Jack looks towards Jessica, he can see the familiar yellow glow on her body.

His eyes going wide he rushes to Jessica and holds her; she doesn't know what's going on but as soon as she can feel Jack's touch her body starts heating up ridiculously. She starts to hiss in pain while Jack tries to hug her ignoring the heat building up from her body.

Jessica starts to scream in pain, Jack just holds her tighter while both of their clothes end up burning away, Jessica's skin starts to boil. She tries to scratch away parts of her skin but Jack just holds her tighter and makes a decision.

He lowers his head to kiss her, Jessica is shocked by this but is too distracted by pain to do anything about it and just accepts it. She can feel energy entering her body from her mouth that is settling down the rampaging energy.

The two of them are standing there in a tight hug kissing quite passionately without any clothes on, they hold this for several minutes after which Jessica's body returns to normal. Jack doesn't notice this and continues the kiss.

Jessica's body not undergoing massive pain anymore starts to enjoy the kiss and they continue to hold each other. This continues for a few more minutes after which Sleipner makes a loud snorting noise drawing the two of them back to reality.

They're both red-faced and out of breath but don't back away from each other.

Jessica starts to squirm as she feels something moving around on her lower body, she hasn't experienced adult relationships before in her 19 years old age so isn't sure what to do and reaches her hand down.

Her hand reaches where their stomachs are pushed against one another's, she can feel a noodle-like thing which she grabs, it feels hard and warm but also wiggling a lot.

"Jack, not yet…." Jessica mutters while.

Jack's mind returns to the situation away from the bliss and notices what she's doing but he's confused as… that's not where that thing should be.

He releases her from the hug and they step away, not minding they're both without clothes. Jessica's hands contain a small white snake that is wriggling trying to get free of her grip, looking like it wants to go to Jack.

"Uhh, I think it wants to go to you" Jessica says and hands the snake to him.

He accepts it and it crawls into his hand, it looks at him with big eyes and a happy expression on its face, it nuzzles against his palm and crawls up his arm. Wrapping around his bicep, Jack just lets it do as it wants where the snake quickly falls asleep peacefully around his arm.

"What's going on….." Jack mutters to himself and takes in the surroundings, massive changes have happened to literally everything. The long grasses are swaying without any wind and in many different colours. The several trees have grown 100s of metres. The animals look very different with most of them increasing in size, Fenrir looks incredibly mean now.

Jessica's skin has become more beautiful, her long black her has changed into a red-blonde colour with a typical phoenix brow. She looks as though her body has been through many years of beauty treatments, Jack would rate her within the top 5 of beautiful people he has ever seen before.

He taking in all the sights but Jessica quickly blushes from his looks and turns around, Jack bitterly laughs but also checks out her rear. While he's staring at it, his eyes attain a purple tinge and his hand reaches out and gives one of her rear cheeks a squeeze.

This is met with, "Jack…." As Jessica quickly runs away to hide behind a tree, he laughs at himself and wonders why he would do that. He walks over to Sleipner and grabs some spare clothes they had and looks at all the changes.