Chapter 9: Pendragon the Ancient Dragon

PART 1

I slowly woke up after my sleep yawning with my hand over my mouth, after awakening I could see around me all sorts of creatures... so this is what happened?

"The hell—"

The same species of Hellhounds I fought, to the same gray demons with their fly-like eyes of an insect. There were even other demonic species laying around my camp all killed and mutilated...

"Providence? Where are you providence?"

I yelled for her name as I stood up grabbing... nothing

"Where's my sword?"

I looked down to the ground seeing it was gone. I kept my blade next to me in case I had to wake up and fight, but now it was missing — I hadn't a clue to what was going on.

Looking around me was no sign of it anywhere, but in that moment when hope seemed to leave my soul I had heard a voice—

"Sethhhh!"

It sounded like Providence, was she in trouble? Wasting no time I ran towards the voice in the woods, jumping over my fire and falling into a pile of spiky bushes — the pain I felt when colliding with the spikes had drawn blood all over my arms and my neck.

"Damnit... providence I'm coming!"

I got back up and ran faster than I've ever ran in my life, carrying myself forward I slammed into a few trees from not watching where I was going, making sure I was heading into the right direction—

"Seeethhhhhh!"

Providence voice seemed even closer than before, now I could outline a figure in front of me floating not too far away, it was providence... I could tell from their shape.

"Providence!"

I reached out to her and eventually could map out a large head inside of the mist of the forest, the head looked like the face of a dragon... it's long jaw, it's mouth opening with pointy teeth, it's appearance alone made me stop in my tracks, fear took over my body now.

"W-W-What in the world..."

I was a few feet behind Providence, but once my eyes made contact with her again she seemed to not be the slightest bit of worry.

"Is that a—"

"Dragon? Yes, actually I know him."

"Eh—"

The fear surrounding my body seemed to slowly leave from my pores and release from my body.

"A dragon is your friend? You have to be kidding me..."

"Nay, she is naught a liar young man. My name is Pendragon, I am an ancient dragon of legend, carried from the old age of Arthur Pendragon."

"From the age of Arthur pendragon? You mean to tell me you have correlation with Arthur Pendragon?"

Long ago there was a man named Arthur pendragon, in the ancient land of Shinshui, the king existed there and had even slayed the traitor Merlin. It's said that Shinshui cannot be traveled to under normal circumstances, due to an unknown divine intervention.

In front of me was an actual dragon, something I wouldn't believe to be real unless I come face to face with one myself. And here I was.

"Yes. I come from Shinshui, all dragons fled from Shinshui due to the evil Mage Merlin."

Providence seemed to be so comfortable with the dragon in front of her that she even flew towards it and laid her small body on its nose.

"I've heard stories of them, from Merlin to her betrayal, to even Arthur damaging the legendary dragon Tiamat. Please Pendragon, tell me what there is to know about Shinshui, I am curious myself..."

Providence had her hand underneath her chin, kicking her legs up into the air back and forth, she seemed so relaxed—

"Seriously, child of mortality? You wanna know about Shinshui out of all things? You know Pendragon is a very busy Dragon, he doesn't have time giving stories to mortals like yoursel—"

"Very well, I shall tell you, young traveler."

"Hey! Don't ignore me you two!"

PART 2

Pendragon finally began to discuss ancient legend everyone was curious about, and me myself I needed to know the strength of the Ancient King, and understand history of such ancient creatures called dragons.

Pendragon finally spoke the legends of Shinshui. In Shinshui there are also Demons, and all sorts of creatures. These creatures from the east, destroyed the samurai armies of the Emperor Musashi and Arthur Pendragon. Since then, the nation of Shinshui has kept itself in isolation from the outside world. The samurai clans and Knights of Arthur Pendragon managed to maintain order even as a dark pollution called 'Deformities' moved in from the east.

Those born with a Deformity possess many strange abilities that warp the world around them but cause damage to themselves and those around them. Between the Deformity's from the east, and to the west, and rumors of the Demons rising again, it has been decided that a Eastern-Expedition shall take place to travel to defeat the demons once and for all with abilities called 'Deformities'.

In Shinshui it was a land of ancient magic, samurai's and knights that can cleave mountains, and reality warping Deformity's. The Eastern Expedition of Samurai's and Knights eventually defeated the demons, but they ended up falling into the hands of Merlin.

Shinshui had clans of samurais and rulings of knights and Arthur Pendragon, though the samurai's only followed one master by the name of Musashi, however they no longer have Musashi as she left to battle kojiro 20 years ago in which they both died in their battle, this in return left the samurais of Shinshui without guidance until they all had no choice but to follow under the orders of Arthur Pendragon.

Soon as Arthur had control over the samurai clan and his own order of knights, he had been betrayed by his most trusted, by the name of Merlin. The evil wizard merlin betrayed Arthur and summoned the Legendary Dragon Tiamat, who's purpose was to set a fate to the world from the summoners command. It was more like a wish. Merlin wished that Arthur would lose power once the world began to have separate countries and discover new lands, have something called 'presidents' and have a 'government' in which they didn't have until near future.

The King Arthur rebelled, hearing this after waking up, Tiamat covered the entire sky from her presence. The wish was heard by all in Shinshui, thus Arthur took action, battling against Merlin, she stood no chance... however she was still happy that she could enact her wish, saying that this world needs to perish from the amount of evil that exists within it, and that they must bring a new and more peaceful world and eliminate Sin. Merlin was angry that Arthur stood with mortals who were so cruel, and the mortals were called humans.

Arthur denied her words and said he could make Shinshui a better place since he's the one ruling it, and thus he killed Merlin and even damaging Tiamat in his battle from excalibur. Her death was known to everyone in Shinshui as she was a big figure to the country.

King Arthur was now set to lose his position from the fate of the dragon, he had no way out of his fate from Tiamat, however that didn't stop him from turning to faith, praying that he could find a way out of this, he asked Buddha out of all the Celestial gods for help... unable to do anything about his fate, Buddha answered his prayers since Arthur was the biggest and most charismatic influence in all of the mortal world.

Buddha denied his fate by not destroying the dragons wish but by another action. He had surrounded all of Shinshui to be disconnected from the entire world and in its own 'Pocket Timeline'. Shinshui was separated from the entire world and remained in old medieval periods of time now, while the outside world as we are in now grew over 20 years, making deformity's and such limited to only civilians of Shinshui and Arthur's legend to only stay inside of Shinshui, however it still carried on into the outside world.

Pendragon spoke to me the entire story, and told me everything from first to last details.

PART 2

"That is everything there is to know about King Arthur and Shinshui."

He finally finished speaking, but one thing remained unknown to me...

"Why did the dragons leave Shinshui then? Didn't dragons originate from there? What did Merlin do to make your entire species to flee?"

I asked while sitting down on a small boulder located right next to a bundle of bushes.

"In order to summon the Ancient dragon Tiamat, Merlin had to sacrifice over hundreds of dragons to complete the ritual. The Dragons were too weak to challenge her, thus they fled, however it was far too late as she collected enough for the ritual to be set in stone."

"Oh... I see, I'm sorry you had to go through that, Pendragon."

"There's no need to apologize young traveler. If there's anyone that should be apologizing it should be me, I was the one she didn't target, instead she went after my brothers and sisters."

I looked up at him with a curious expression.

"Why not you?"

"I am the first dragon of the Mortal worlds entirety. The Pendragon family has named themselves after me, and kept me as their trump card in any battle. If me and Merlin were to battle, I would've won without doubt, however I fled Shinshui to leave with my brethren, and we traveled to Ofriedan. Revenge wasn't on my mind, it was simply taking care of my brethren..."

Pendragon was respectful, this dragon has been through a lot... I could tell from his stories. I couldn't help but smile listening to this all in the middle of the most dangerous location in the world.

"I see, so dragons exist within Ofriedan?"

"Indeed young traveler they do. We live within the Devil Zone, it may be dangerous but it's out of the area of humans. The only humans who live here are those with devil contracts, corrupted and evil..."

Indeed, pendragon was right. There was so much evil in the devil zone, I couldn't help but get chills.

"I can feel the evil of it crawling up my back, this place is horrible, but the dragons can live outside of the devil zone, why stay here?"

Pendragon bowed its large head before his wings extended upwards. I couldn't see Pendragon's body nor his entire set of wings due to the thick heavy fog, but once his wings extended, it blown away a massive chunk of the fog, clearing the entire area in at least miles upon miles away.

"Humans were the reason we live here. Once we came to Ofriedan they tried to hunt us from their nature, and wanted power over us, so we decided to move somewhere where they won't bother us, and that is in the Devil Zone of Ofriedan."

This made sense, us humans were greedy and always trying to take over something for more power and fame. It was disgusting, but I was also a human after all, I just couldn't hate everything we do, but this was something I despised within the core of my soul.

"Then, why don't the demons here bother the Dragons?"

"Why? Ahahahahaha! We are free because we don't have Sin."

Wait what? I stood up from the boulder staring at pendragon who now slowly stood up from the ground, being massive in its height—

"What do you mean? Does Sin have something to do with demons and humans?"

"Indeed it does, a demon is attracted to Sin, and all mortals have Sin but cannot utilize it in some occasions, however humans are the only race of mortals with the power to use their Sin energy, and it's the only thing that can kill demons of purgatory."

PART 3

I realized what he had meant. Once I entered the devil zone I was spotted from demons who were hundreds of meters away — it didn't make it any better from the fact that I have the most Sin energy in the world alongside Cain and Abel.

"You can't kill a demon without anything else?"

I asked in a eccentric tone of voice.

"Nay, you cannot. Even if you were to use conceptual attacks such as Conceptual magic of ancient times, they would still come back and destroy you. Only Sin energy can kill a demon."

"I see..."

Then if I had the most potential of Sin energy next to my brothers, maybe I could manage in the Devil Zone.

"Alright you two that's enough talking! Seth, Pendragon came here for a reason you know!"

I look up at Providence who slowly levitated off of Pendragons nose, pointing over at the dragon with a stern look on her face.

"It's an upgrade! Give him the blade Pendragon!"

Providence crossed her arms soon after and started to kick the side of Pendragons mouth.

"Ai, I almost forgotten. My apologies, Providence has traveled towards my location in order to ask for a favor, it is a favor to grant you the most powerful weapon known to mankind, it is said that this weapon was also formed from a Spirit by the name of Hephaestus. Are you ready to receive it, young traveler?"

I looked at the two of them wondering what they were talking about. Me getting a weapon of ancient legend...? I didn't know how to respond at first, but if Providence had so much faith in me to give me this weapon, then who am I to turn it down?

"I see... yes, I am ready to receive it. In order to carry out my wish, I need much power as I can get."

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