The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 70

My teeth were clenched the whole time as I willed a hole in the earth below us. Carefully placing Alea’s cold, lifeless body into the center, I slowly covered her, using her weapon as a makeshift gravestone.

I couldn’t even laugh at the sick irony that this dungeon happened to be named the Widow’s Crypt...

Wordlessly, I spent some time burying each of Alea’s fallen comrades. The once beautiful cave layered with a glossy bed of grass and a pond that glittered like shattered glass now looked like a national landmark of the fallen; the crude mounds of dirt and weapons for grave markers gave this place an eerie ambiance.

After finishing up the makeshift graves, I dragged my not-so-willing legs back to where I buried Alea. Kneeling, I placed my hand on the mound of dirt covering the once famous lance. She was considered the pinnacle of power here, no doubt respected and feared by many. However, to me, she was simply a girl—a lonely girl, regretful of the fact that she never had someone to love and someone to love her back.

As I looked at her in her final moments, a sense of dread dawned on me. She was almost exactly the same as I was from my past life, except she wouldn’t be reborn into a different world. With my immediate reincarnation after my previous life ended, I didn’t have the chance to even reflect on how I had lived. In Alea’s last breaths, she had broken down and sobbed, crying that she didn’t want to die like this.

"Damn it..."

I rubbed my eyes as tears unknowingly began streaming down my face, indignant in her stead at how her life came to an end.

Sending out another mental transmission to Sylvie, I sighed in defeat when I didn’t hear a reply. Slumping back down against the jagged walls Alea and I had leaned against, I recalled everything the fallen lance had informed me of. From the information she was able to gather, there were a couple of speculations I could make.

One, there was more than just one black-horned demon. How many, I wasn’t sure. My only hope was that there wouldn’t be many. If one of them could easily kill a lance or gravely injure a dragon like Sylvia, then I was out of my league.

Two, they were definitely after something. I wasn’t sure what, but my mind kept wandering back to the egg Sylvie had come from that the demon had called a "gem." If they really were after Sylvie, then avoiding them indefinitely wasn’t going to be possible. _{ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com}

Three, there was going to be a war in Dicathen. This continent would be in danger and we definitely weren’t prepared. When the demon told Alea that there would be a war, though, I felt the underlying explanation that the black-horned demons weren’t from this continent. Was the new continent that we just uncovered filled with these demons? I shuddered at that thought. Hopefully that scenario wouldn’t come true.

However, the more I contemplated, the more certain I became that there probably weren’t that many black-horned demons. If there truly was a race filled with super-powered demons, then they would’ve already annihilated this continent with ease instead of sneaking around different dungeons and infecting the beasts. They were obviously uncertain of whether they could take on this whole continent so they were going about it discreetly, at least for now.

What bugged me was trying to figure out when the war would be. There was no marked calendar and no way to guess. Was waiting the only thing I could do... what we could do?

A sharp pain in my hands made me realize how hard I was clenching my fists, leaving me to watch the drops of blood running down my forearm.

What I was slowly learning, and what Alea’s death reinforced, was the realization of how valuable the relationships I had with my families, with Tess, and with my friends, were. What I didn’t have in my past life were loved ones I would give my life to protect. I had that now, but I don’t have the strength to protect them; not for what was about to come.

For the amount of potential I had, I was getting complacent. That needed to change.

I recalled Sylvia’s message for me after she teleported me into Elshire Forest. Her message still rang clearly in my head; her voice echoing that I would hear from her again once my core reached past the white stage.

That was the most certain method I currently knew of to be able to get some reliable answers on what was going on. I was still unable to break from the threshold of dark yellow stage though. After yellow was silver, and then white. I still have a bit to go.

A ferocious roar sounded, echoing off the cavern walls. ’Papa!’

My head perked up as I heard a loud crash soon after from the direction of where I fell. Picking myself up, I dashed towards Sylvie’s voice.stopping in front of a cloud of dust and calling out to her.

I’m here, Sylv, are you okay? I covered my face with my arms as the cloud of dust instantly blew away, revealing my precious bond in her full glory.

My heart thumped in excitement as I saw my dragon come into view.

Sylvie had become even more fearsome than when I saw her at the Dire Tombs. Her scales weren’t glossy anymore like before—instead, they were now a dignified matte black. Her two horns had grown even longer, going past her snout, and another pair of horns protruded underneath them. If she looked crudely fierce back then, the feeling I got now was more akin to awe. She appeared as majestic as she did deadly. The spikes she had running down her back were no longer there and rather, because of that, she seemed more refined. Her gem-like iridescent yellow eyes pierced through me, making me doubt that she was the one who had just called me Papa.

’Papa! You’re okay!’

Distilling all of the bewilderment that had kept me from approaching my bond, she, once again, lifted me up from the ground with the force of her lick.

"Haha! You got bigger again, Sylv!" I beamed a childish smile. Hugging the snout of my dragon, Sylvie let out a deep purr as she rubbed herself against me, and just for a moment, I was able to forget everything I’d just been through.

Lifting me off the ground with her snout, she placed me on her muscular broad back.

’Hold on, Papa! Let’s get out of here.’ With a powerful snap of her wings, a raging gust formed underneath us and we were instantly propelled into the air. For some reason, the sudden force didn’t affect my body as I comfortably rode on the back of my ten-meter long dragon.

During the flight back up, my bond and I caught up on everything that happened while we were separated. She didn’t really understand everything about the demons and the upcoming war but she did get the sense that whatever was about to happen wasn’t good.

’Don’t worry. Whatever happens, I’ll be with you!’ Sylvie’s innocent response left me chuckling.