Chapter 28 - Goodbye Gaikotsu

"I thought this would give information but…" Arata's fright stood out like a black dot on a sheet of paper, "…this is worse than I expected,"

Misao of course showed no signs of shock or care as her face was blank, but even though she didn't visually show it, it was evident in her words that the gamechanging knowledge she gained from the book had an effect on her, as she agreed with Takumi's idea to depart from the Gaikotsu base earlier than planned.

"Haruka…" Misao audibly contacted the sun dragon emperor , "do you think you can broadcast all we just read to every dragon host that's directly involved in this fight?" Haruka, who had just recovered from the pain of finding out what happened all those years ago, was on board.

She sent out the message in the form of a precise summary of the notes to Aegis, Aiko and Lancelot, since they were the only ones yet to be informed.

"No time to lose, let's go." Takumi bellowed at Misao to get packing.

Ichika, taking on the form of a cat once more was sitting a top her roof when Takumi and Misao ran by, followed by Arata scurrying to keep up. Misao shouted the matter to her and she hopped off, following them to the arions to prepare for the departure.

Luna and Aiko who had just arrived in the village were brought up to date with the happenings and gathered around, Aiko was a bit distraught over what she had just heard but it wasn't serious.

As for Ichika and Takumi, they still hadn't said a word to each other.

The camphouse in the forest was taken apart and the luggage they brought was packed on the arions once more, their departure was at hand.

"Before you go…" Arata spoke with a half-raised arm as the team boarded the steed, "Takumi…I have somewhat of a parting gift for you."

He directed Takumi to the meteorite, "you've gone without your dragon force for quite a while now," he stated, "and your body is well trained so this should work." Takumi's face bore a sceptical expression when he was told to place his hand on the meteorite.

Nevertheless he did as he was told and laid his right hand on the rock, Arata then instructed him to have Kage return the dragon force that was taken from him in the beginning phase of his training.

By now the rest of the crew had gathered around him to observe, Takumi didn't even get to properly ask when his dragon force was returned to him.

The meteorite shone with a purple light as Takumi's moon dragon mark bore the markings of the moon's domain elements: water and earth wrapping around it. The light was subtle until it's radiance increased tenfold and a massive burst of energy erupted, Takumi flinched but refused to move his hand. His dragon mark seemed to be constantly shifting between more pronounced markings which could only mean one thing: the weeks of going without dragon force plus the intense training and the raw power that came from the meteorite caused Takumi to have a mass break through, as Arata explained shouting above the whooshing sound of surging energy.

Takumi's water and earth dragon force went all the way to the fifth scale, he unlocked the protection scale of earth and water that the absence almost cost his life a few weeks back along with the earth's summoning scale, the water's bodily enhancement scale and the other, less pronounced scales. He even broke through the difficult to cultivate moon force, reaching the [Moon Dragon | Third Scale: Spacial Reign] which allowed him to manipulate the very space around him.

He reached the cultivation bottleneck again and was prompted to remove his hand, doing so caused the blinding light from both the meteorite and his dragon mark to disappear, along with the excited extra markings. Takumi fell to his knees panting and small streaks of steam flowed out his back, "Some parting gift Arata," he joked as he regained his stamina.

Misao felt even more pleased with herself as she congratulated her pupil on catching up with the rest of his crew in terms of dragon force, even Ichika commended him (discretely though).

Now they were ready to leave and Arata opened the dimensional gate, leading the arions out they waved at the village and at Arata who waved back with a smile. They were almost out when Luna ran back to Arata, hugging him, "goodbye again…father," after that touching father and daughter moment, accompanied by Arata going crazy from his daughter complex kicking in, they set out once more.

The oasis disappeared and they were once again in the desert, "let's go get the carriage then we'll take a shortcut here and we should get back to the village in less than a couple hours," Aiko pointed to an area on her map that came a few yards in front of the canyon.

They backtracked through the canyon and came upon the carriage, sitting unprovoked in the Hallow Plains. Rejoining the arions to the harnesses and unloading the baggage they made a beeline for the carriage, but upon reaching the entrance they were greeted with a surprise which left them dumbfounded.

In the carriage laid an unconscious young woman, with dry lips, a fleshy face along with short, turquoise hair with split bangs and blue ends reaching her shoulders, she was barely breathing, showing almost no signs of life. Her body was covered revealingly in a white garb that seemed to be fitting tightly on her rather large breasts, thighs and hips; her pale, skin with green vines running across it which revealed her species to be a dryad was covered in long gashes which seemed to be inflicted not too long ago.

The eerie silence was broken by Aiko, "I need to heal her quickly!" she pointed out the lime-green hue of the dryad's skin which was gradually getting darker, which was explained to be a signal for when a dryad was about to die.

Aiko quickly took one of the many flasks of water they had brought along and opened it. Pouring a small amount on her hands, her well known healing scale was activated and with the same light Aiko gently swayed her hands over the young lady and not too long after, it's effects were seen.

The dryad came to with a groan, her skin remained pale but the green colour vanished and she was fully recovered after her wounds had closed, Aiko returned the remaining liquid to the flask and peered at the woman who just sat up silently, "Got any food?" her expression definitely didn't coincide with her looks, her deadpan response shocked the entire crew.

"Well?" her low voice made the air feel dead as she asked once more for food, Luna left her seat at the reins and entered the carriage, giving her a piece of bread, "So…what's your name?" she asked as the dryad bit into the loaf.

"Oh…I'm Kirika," she responded after she quickly swallowed. The air went silent once more and only the faint sound of her chewing was heard, "What? Is there some on my face?" Kirika noticed their staring and rubbed her hand over the small beauty spot which sat on her right cheek, looking for crumbs.

Luna and Ichika gave up trying to get anymore information and with Ichika going back to the top of the carriage and Luna returning to the reins and cracking them, the carriage moved in the direction of the village.

After reaching the shortcut Aiko had described, which was a rocky path that gave the occupants some bumps but wasn't detrimental to the carriage's durability; Ichika tried to learn more about their new passenger, who had silently consented to being taken to the village. Hanging upside down she looked through the opening in the door at Kirika. "So let's get to know you better," she asked cheerfully and Takumi was happy to see her in a good mood…even if she still refused to speak to him.

"Well…let's see…" Kirika began her introduction, "My full name is Kirika Zuten. I'm a dryad. I'm 19 years old annd…oh yeah… I've been weak all my life, so much so that I get injured really easily and I'm only able to manipulate insects and small plants."

Her dull explanation which might have been touching if more expression was put into it just registered in everyone's mind as additional information and as such the rest of the journey was silent.

In almost an hour they entered the village once more. Disembarking the carriage, Misao was tasked with taking Kirika to see Lancelot. Takumi left the others to finish unpacking the carriage as he walked over to Aegis who he saw on an open area in the east of the village with her new found army. "Greetings!" he laid a hand on her shoulder, "What's going on?"

Aegis explained that what he saw before him was the solution the the demon problem. "I see, may I ask who these beauties are?" Takumi strolled towards the line of elves as he was attracted by their alluring beauty and figure.

"I don't think you'll like them," Aegis giggled as she stopped the charmer from making a pass at one of the elves, "They only look female but they have both sexual organs…and their sexual practices are somewhat…extreme…sooo…" she whispered in his ear about their physical nature and this made Takumi somewhat glad that he was harshly ignored beforehand.

"*Ahem* Moving on…" Takumi hurried Aegis along as he was brought into the know of what would happen when the demons decide to invade.

Soon after, Aegis neared the ending of her explanation, "I think this plan is fool proof, I can feel it!" At that very moment, as Aegis was readying her army of almost fifty soldiers, the demon queen Urusla was preparing her army of over three hundred demons and soon after they uttered the exact words:

"I'm ready!"