*CRRASSSSHHHHH*

On a remote mountain far away from where Wei Ning lay in the town of Xi’an, a massive explosion of dirt and trees scatters all over the surrounding area.

The reason for this explosion is the mysterious woman who Zao Ning sent flying like a cut with its strings cut.

She is slow to get up and catch her breath. Her mind is fuzzy and her consciousness is shaky.

‘Just what have I awoken? He says he is that woman’s son but there is no way. Someone who is this powerful has to be thousands of years old, and she is only 20 something. What sort of pot of luck his the Archmage’s daughter stumbled upon?!’

The woman tries to continue her inner monologue but cuts it short. The reason for that is the shooting star flying through the sky directly towards her.

The speed of the star is immeasurable as it is nearly going faster than the woman’s trained eyes can see.

The woman grinds her teeth in despair and anger. She has the ability to leave harm’s way in an instant but she will fail her mission.

Unfortunately, that is unacceptable at the moment.

As Zao Ning is nearly upon the woman, she makes a conviction within herself.

“I will defeat you!” The woman yells at Zao Ning. The yell is to motivate herself more than it is to put fear in Zao Ning.

Surprisingly though, Zao Ning stops in an instant and floats a couple thousand feet from the woman.

The woman is surprised and smirks a little as she thinks she can bluff her way out of this situation.

The silver dragon-human hybrid simply shakes his head and chuckles when seeing the devilish smirk.

“Don’t mistake me as being afraid of you weakling. I merely am laughing at how humans think so confidently even in the face of death. Admirable really.”

The woman goes to rebuke this statement but quickly turns pale at Zao Ning’s actions.

Zao Ning’s tail swish back and forth as he begins to open his snout slowly.

Within the mouth of Zao Ning, a ball of destruction and pain starts to form. This is made out of pure Dragon Lightning Ki and exudes an aura of indomitability.

His lightning from before was simply an azure color and resembled speed, but now that he has absorbed his old blood, the Lightning Ki has transformed to its original self.

It is now the color of Titanium White with a Jet Black outline.

The woman is quick to respond and pulls out a book that has a look of being over 10,000 years old.

The yellow pages rapidly turn and soon stop on the point that the woman is looking for. Words flow from the woman’s mouth as the weird power from before flows from her body.

“Dance. Dance Earth Fairies. Dance to your heart content as you create life and laughter around you.”

Zao Ning is charging while the woman continues with her chant. At this point it is a race against time to see who can complete their attack or defense first.

Zao Ning is slow to charge for him unfortunately. This body doesn’t have a firm grasp on how to completely control his destructive new powers.

“I call upon you, Mother of Fairies to join a dance with me. Help me as I create my own life and laughter.”

As the woman finishes the second part of her chant, Zao Ning is 95% done charging his attack and is anxious to fire it. The woman sees this and slightly hurries up the last part of her spell.

“Tier 7 spell, Mother of Fairies Dance!”

The woman finishes her chant, and as she does so the power that was building up inside of her releases. The power forms the body of a giant fairy around her. The fairy’s body is translucent and seems to be made of pure power.

Zao Ning finishes his build up and sends his explosive beam of Lightning Ki hurling straight towards the fairy’s body.

The fairy raises its hands confident as the dragon shoots what seems to be a white laser beam at it from its mouth.

However, this proves to be a mistake.

As the lighting ki beam hits the fairy’s arm, a destructive force erupts from within the lightning.

Though the fairy is able to hold it back, the lightning beam eats away at the fairy’s arm, causing irreparable damage as if something within the lightning beam wishes to destroy all life.

The fairy moans in pain but continues to follow the orders of its summoner.

The woman looks down at her wrist and sees that the bracelet that was once there crumbles into dust and disappears.

Zao Ning on the other hand is confident on the inside.

Inside of his body, his soul smiles as it believes it has the obvious victory as soon the weird creature protecting this woman will soon be murdered by his voracious lightning.

Back to the woman, she takes something out of what seems to be nowhere and breaks it in half. The item she broke looked like a feather of a bird, but radiated with strong power.

“KIIIIYAAAHHHHH!”

The screech of a bird-like creature pierces the air. Zao Ning’s eyes shift to his right and sees a curious looking creature to his side, coming towards him with its claws poised to attack.

Zao Ning’s eyes then become full of ridicule at this worthless attempt of an attack.

Continuing to shoot the beam, Zao Ning turns his head 360 degrees counterclockwise.

With the turn of his head, the beam followed. The beam is quick to cut the creature Zao Ning is unfamiliar with in half, and the creature turns into dust.

Without missing a beat, Zao Ning slayed this new summon and is already back to putting pressure on the fairy.

The woman clicks her tongue as she had hoped the gryphon would have at least given her 5 seconds to think about what is worth sacrificing her.

With the beam still putting the ever presence of death above her head, the woman is unable to think every action of hers fully.

Zao Ning decides he wishes to finish this sooner than later and starts to fly towards the woman while still shooting this laser from within his mouth.

The reason he wishes to end this soon is because the stress that this attacks puts his Lightning Ki Dragon.

The Lightning Ki Dragon with the notable scar on its eye seems to be getting fainter by the second, yet surprisingly it stands tall and is willing to give its life away for its master to win with this attack.

Zao Ning is used to these Ki worms, no Ki Dragons of his being somewhat cowardly, yet in this situation one of this stands tall and is willing to sacrifice its existence for Zao Ning.

As Zao Ning flies closer to the fairy and its summoner, the output from the beam increases dramatically.

It increases to the point in which the fairy is unable to last much longer and falls to one knee. Its arm has turned into a knub and soon its existence will vanish.

The woman in response extends her hand and a broom appears from nothing.

Getting on the broom, the woman flies away from the fairy at a speed that surprises Zao Ning.

Fortunately, the fairy cannot hold on any longer and falls prey to Zao Ning’s lightning beam.

Zao Ning closes his mouth and his beam attack ends as the fairy falls.

He decides to watch and see what the woman is planning as his plans an attack of his own.

The woman sees Zao Ning no longer is attacking and is currently not moving. All he is doing is watching him with his azure colored eyes.

She breathes out in relief as she can finally retaliate as she assumes Zao Ning needs to recharge in between beams.

‘This might be a waste since it is my second most powerful item, but I’d rather use it than lose my life. I am merely not stronger than this being.’

A look of defeat flashes through the woman’s face as she pulls out a cross from nowhere like before.

Zao Ning watches the strange item and how the woman interacts with it.

The cross has a sharp point at its bottom and the woman non-hesitantingly stabs it into her stomach.

Zao Ning raises his scaly eyebrow in surprise at this move and readies himself for whatever is to come.

A dark power comes from within the cross as it tastes the blood of the woman. Her skin turns deep black and horns grow from the woman’s forehead as the power flows into her body.

The woman chuckles deeply yet it sounds like another voice is coming from within her as well.

The woman is unmoving at first but then flies towards Zao Ning on her broom at high speeds.

Zao Ning starts to laugh, yet still has his mouth closed. The woman notices this and decides to taunt Zao Ning as she is assured victory is hers no matter what.

“What’s so funny?” the two voices say.

A voice erupts from Zao Ning without him opening his mouth, which surprises the woman.

“Woman, if you think coming at me with brute force is your way to win, you’re sorely mistaken.” Zao Ning finishes his sentence as the woman gets within 200 feet of him.

He then opens his mouth and a ball of pure darkness resides within it. The woman puts down her head and decides to take the brunt of whatever attack Zao Ning throws at her.

Unfortunately for her, this isn’t Zao Ning’s attack.

The ball of darkness explodes from within Zao Ning’s mouth and makes the area within 500 feet turn into pure darkness.

The woman blinks her eyes as she stops as quickly as she can.

No matter how much she blinks though, the darkness does not dissipate. She grinds her teeth and tries to sense Zao Ning but it seems the darkness is impeding all of her senses.

Zao Ning is not impeded at all though and flies towards the woman. When he reaches her, he throws out his hand and grasps the neck of the woman.

The woman is completely caught off guard and tries to pry Zao Ning’s claws off of her throat but is unable to do so.

Zao Ning closes his hand and smashes the neck of the woman. That is, he only did this after hearing the breaking of glass.

As the neck of the woman is crushed, the force from her throat collapsing sends air out of her mouth. Inside of her mouth was a small hourglass with sand inside of it, which she broke with her teeth right before Zao Ning crushed the woman’s throat.

This force from Zao Ning crushing her throat sends the sand from within the broken hourglass to blow into Zao Ning’s face.

He pays it no attention at first and drops the woman’s lifeless body. As the body falls from the sky, Zao Ning starts to feel the effects of the sand.

The places in which the sand touched start to turn into stone.

It isn’t a few seconds before Zao Ning’s whole head turns into stone, and his body quickly follows.

…

…

…

A stone dragon falls from within a cloud of darkness and lands on the ground with a massive thud.

Roars of anger can be heard coming out from within the stone dragon, yet it stands unmoving.

Not far from the dragon, the dead body of a dark colored woman starts to turn pale again. The darkness that once was inside of it disappears and both of her horns break.

The woman’s first breath back is a sigh of relief as she has survived this battle to the death with a dragon man who seemed like an unstoppable force.

“Fortunately for me, these cultivator trash only know how to use brute force power and hardly ever use items. If it wasn’t for my master, I would be dead. I guess I need to thank him when I get back.” she says aloud, to no one in particular.

She then claps and remembers what she came here for. A broom flies from far away and lands in her hand.

Mounting it, the witch named Morgana looks back once more towards the dragon man who put her in dire straits.

‘If only I could bring him to our side… Too bad he had to die in this dump of a place.’

The witch rides off into the distance, back towards Xi’an to claim her prize.

The stone dragon continues to roar furiously from within, implying that there is something still alive inside, yet it seems to be stuck…

End of Book 1: The Beginning.