Chapter 111

Lykan

Retaliatory Attacks

The dragon wouldn’t take a hint. Even after he clearly missed the dragon so closely with its own redirect. He remembered well the way psychic dragons were effectively glass cannons. They are able to wield the most powerful single point attacks of any dragon, yet their defenses against their own attacks take time. While they can withstand the attacks of other psychic dragons, there is a brief time period after their initial attack that they are exceptionally vulnerable to attacks.

When Lykan redirected the blast back at the dragon, it was meant as a warning. Yet the dragon would not yield.

“No.” The woman whose voice sounded so familiar called out. But Lykan was already moving, his body instinctively reacting to the perceived threat. He had spent the last seven years looking for Titan made labyrinths. Ironically, or maybe coincidentally enough dragons and other former qi based monsters had an innate attraction to such places. As such Lykan had gotten used to following the trails of dragons to find their nesting grounds. This of course meant that as part of his survival he had to make his way through hunting grounds of dragons. That the most powerful of dragons would make their home at the heart of qi saturated areas. This also meant that many dragons had to be culled in order to perform his task, a task he took very seriously.

“NO!” The woman cried out again.

Hearing her voice, the note of concern in her voice caused a number of things to flash in Lykan’s mind. First it was clear that she cared for the beast. Second, it was clear that she thought the beast wouldn’t stop its attack. This second fact was apparent by the way it was darting forward, ignoring the warning signs all around. To Lykan’s superior senses the dragon appeared to be moving slowly, which when measured against Lykan’s attuned Perfect Body it was.

Then there was the fact that he knew the woman, even though she had aged slightly in their time apart. She had if anything grown more attractive, a fact he had noticed during their initial exchange of blows. His fondness for her and her blossoming beauty caused Lykan to steady his hand. He had held back in their exchanges, not wanting to severely hurt or cripple the woman before him. Now he had to deal with the pet.

The fact that the dragon and the woman were bonded was clearly apparent to Lykan’s enhanced senses. They were bound by thick tethers of spirit energy. Energy that Lykan could somehow see clearly, even though it was only meant to exist in the spiritual realm. The fact that Lykan could pierce the veil between realms was telling of his power, though none other than Lykan realized this fact. Had the little dragon known of such a feat then perhaps it would have stopped its reckless pursuit forward. Held back its claw until a more appropriate time to strike. Still the dragon didn’t know, by all means it couldn’t know about the disparity in strength between the two. Thus, when it lunged forward to strike it felt the thrill of the hunt rolling through its body. It could all but feel its claws rending the flesh of the foul usurper. It knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that it would succeed, it would protect its home.

Thunk!

A loud cracking sound echoed throughout the night sky. Within seconds the beast that had been hurtling forward began to compact, then slowly slide away from the outstretched walking stick. Then time resumed as gravity once again gained control over the dragon’s body and pulled it mercilessly to the ground.

The two ghosts of the north floated for a second, as they both watched the dragon fall to the ground below.

Thud.

The body landed on a soft outcropping of grass. By all accounts the dragon appeared to be fine, its large body able to withstand attacks and falls that would kill a lesser variant of its kind.

Only after the dragon fell to the ground did the two look up to meet each other’s gazes. To Lykan his heart stutter-stopped for a moment.

Badump. Badump.

She was beautiful, age had only highlighted her features letting her blossom into the beauty that was before him. He had made mental notes during their exchanges of her form, but now seeing her floating above the ground brought back memories.

He stared into her golden eyes for what felt like an eternity, but was in fact time enough for his heart to begin to beat properly again. Her skin glowed with the inner light of the great forest spirit, it was clear that she had kept her vows. A quick look below also spoke of how she had managed to spread the influence of the great forest spirit to this area. In all he was impressed. It seemed that the great forest spirit was somehow able to use the ambient qi that was had been left behind by the Titan facility below and convert it. For a moment he wondered if this entire trip had been pointless. If he could have completely skipped this trip to make sure the qi got cleansed from the area.

While Lykan was lost in his own thoughts, Nayali made her move.

“You can fly, again?” She had meant it as a statement, but it came out more of a question.

From the question it was clear that she too had recognized him. He also noticed the way her throat made weird bobbing motions, he remembered this as a particular tick she would do when she was nervous. Seeing the sight caused a nostalgic smile to appear on Lykan’s lips. Then rather than saying something that would be both rude and condescending, he opted for a more congenial tone. He was an interloper here, in lands that had clearly been claimed by a representative of the great forest spirit. To be rude to such a being that he owed so much of his personal success to would be unwise.

“Yes.” A short crisp answer that caused no room for argument or misinterpretation. A part of Lykan wanted this moment to go well, it had been seven years after all. Also last time he didn’t feel quite at ease with the whole situation, he had been her master in a way. A fact that didn’t sit well with him. While slavery and indentured servitude were nothing new to the world, they were still boundaries that Lykan himself did not wish to cross.

The closest he came before this to indentured servitude was with his previous relationship with Octavia. Then he remembered how their last encounter transpired and felt instant regret. Looking back on it he had been foolish to think she too had true feelings for him. He had after all been forced upon her, thus it was only logical that such a person would harbor resentment towards him. He had been foolish to think otherwise.

Realizing he would likely suffer the same fate here, of Nayali trying to wound him permanently, he treads lightly. After a second of thinking Lykan came to a conclusion on what he would do.

“This one seeks to enter your lands to establish a cleansing pillar.” Lykan said while giving a crisp bow.

Due to his position he missed the look of shock that appeared on Nayali’s face. Though his enhanced hearing did pick up on the gasp of surprise that escaped her lips.

Hearing the gasp Lykan looked up, only to see a fully composed Nayali staring at him. Her golden eyes causing a shiver to run down his spine. It had been seven years, but still he found himself still drawn to her exotic beauty. If only she hadn’t been forced upon him. Perhaps they could have been something more.

Given his time in isolation, Lykan had a long time to think about himself and his relationships. He knew he had many missed opportunities in his past. He had Telka who he still cherished his time with, though he felt that if there was to be a relationship between the two of them, there would always be a power imbalance. Despite the accolades and relentless drive that Telka had in improving herself and her healing abilities, she always looked up to Lykan. Same with most others from the Homestead Seven, they all looked up to him. In Lykan’s mind it was hard to create a relationship as equals when one held so much emotional currency over the other to begin with.

In Lykan’s mind such disparity would only build an unbalanced foundation that the entire relationship would be built upon. This was not what Lykan wanted, he knew this now that he had more time to understand himself.

They stood there in silence for a second. Countless thoughts racing in the other’s minds. Then their heightened senses seeing the countless thoughts racing through the minds of the other, which caused even more thoughts to race. Finally, an inquisitive raising of Lykan’s eyebrows let Nayali realize she had been asked a question. That was when the look of flustered confusion hit Nayali’s face for a moment before she had a second to regain her composure. That look brief as it was, was enough to Lykan to realize she was afraid.

“Yes you may.” Nayali said, then with a wave of her hand gestured towards the ground. Lykan looked down to where she had been gesturing to and saw the still unconscious form of the psychic dragon. Seeing the dragon Lykan sighed slightly, this was not the impression he wished to make.

Seeing Lykan’s reaction Nayali first looked confused then looked to where his eyes were looking and realized her faux pas. Grimacing to herself she gestured for slightly farther away, but Lykan was already on his way down to the ground.

From his travels Lykan had improved many of the skills he had gained, none had reached the maximum rating, though his Master Crafting skill was close. It had gone to Sage a few years ago, during the time of his third excavation. That was around the time that he had learned how to create rune lined structures that could collect ambient qi in the air and ground and harness it into a faux-core that could be collected by him later on. These were perfect as it was a way to innately gather cores from the world that could then be used to improve his own body. By this point Lykan didn’t really eat or drink, there was no need for such matters. Instead he filled himself on the power of Qi, a process his entire body had taken to being the new standard. While he still had food and water on his personage, it was no longer the once vital component of his life as it had once been.

Still dropping down he could see a few things wrong with the dragon, first its back leg was broken. Shaking his head, Lykan dropped down to tend to the still unconscious beast.

Seeing him go towards the downed beast Nayali let out a gasp. Looking up Lykan wondered what she was thinking. He looked up to see her covering her mouth with her hand, but otherwise doing nothing to prevent him from performing his inspection.

Seeing the amount of confidence she had in him caused a smile to form on his lips as he nodded his head in appreciation. Then he turned to face his new patient. Had he waited a second longer he would have seen color flush the tanned skin of Nayali. While most wouldn’t be able to notice such a reaction, especially at night, Lykan’s advanced senses would have easily been able to notice the change. Had he more experience with people, he might have even been able to understand what the whole event meant.

As it was, Lykan felt his mind focus to a singular point. He was no healer, at least not by the magical sense of the word. Instead all he had were his skills of Anatomy, Toxicology, and Pharmacy that all let him evaluate the being before him and come up with a proper way to fix the damages. Since dragons were all descendants from qi beasts, Lykan’s options for treatment were much larger than they would be for most regular animals. Also given that the majority of interaction Lykan had with animals was on plant and life forms from qi-based biomes, Lykan was likely the best human to handle the problem before him. Namely how to concoct a mixture that would help the damaged beast.

The first thing Lykan did was set the bones, this was relatively easy as the beast was both unconscious and Lykan’s enhanced physical attributes made moving the large beast easy.

Next came the hard part, concocting a mixture that would not be immediately rejected by the body of the dragon while being potent enough to start the beast’s natural healing processes. Thinking about this for a moment Lykan paused in thought for a moment, before he began pulling out various herbs, meat, and cores that he had found during his travels. Then with a keen eye, he took out his mixing bowl and pestle that he had gathered before he was known as the Ghost Traveler, and before all eyes of the Azani were looking for him.

With his components in hand he sat down, his body instantly entering the meditation position. Then he began to mix the ingredients together naturally.

There were many biomes that Lykan had seen and experienced. In all Lykan realized that there were many different flavors of qi. While the qi that Lykan used was what he considered pure or unmodified qi, there were many different components that could be added to qi to make it take on different forms and attributes. Dragons themselves seemed to be an embodiment of qi attributes taken to the extreme. Each dragon type seemed to correspond to a particular variant of qi. With that in mind mental qi, was the one that Lykan associated most with psychic dragons. That was why, as he began mixing his concoction, he began dissolving one qi core into his mixture, while simultaneously using his own magical abilities for Qi Control and Qi Altering to cause the mixture to take on the components of psychic energy. From there, he slowly blended the energy into the plants and meat that would be most able to absorb the specialized qi. Then from there he was left with a thick sticky paste.

Once complete he did two things with the mixture. First he applied swabs of the thick paste to the different wounds and broken bones. Then he placed the rest on the inside of the dragon’s mouth.

“Huh.” Nayali gasped when Lykan put his hand into the mouth of her dragon.

A quick smile let her know that he knew what he was doing. Once she was calmed down enough, he nodded to her and then went back to treating his patient. Only once the last of the paste was gone did he feel satisfied. Now it is up to time, Lykan thought as he put away his remaining gear and then left to find the perfect place to set up a cleansing pillar.

Nayali just stared at him as he walked off, assured that he could do nothing more. Nayali wanted to call out to him, but she felt a need to stay by her bonded’ s side, to make sure nothing bad happened. That if she needed she could quickly summon forth water to wash away the paste from Florijma’s mouth and body.

Thus she waited.