Slight tremors rippling through Aragon's bubble woke Liam up.
'What's going on?' he jumped to his feet. It hadn't been that long since he slept. About 30 minutes at most, he figured.
Whether that was really the case, though remained to be seen, not that it mattered at the moment.
A tremor swept through the energy bubble once more. Liam's feet were unsteady for a moment. He almost fell over, but he managed to remain standing. There was a speck of light in the distance.
He looked over, the energy bubble had been moving through the darkness of the void at a slow and smooth pace this entire time.
The closer he got to the light, though the faster the energy bubble moved. It was subtle, but with his new senses, he could pick up on it. And then its speed increased again and again once more. The bubble moved akin to a rock rolling down the hill.
The bubble's speed reached such a point that had to have been moving over a 100km/h.
The force propelled Liam off his feet. His inertia being pushed back.
For a moment, panic settled in his heart.
"No!" the words barely left his lips when he slammed into something hard.
He coughed, feeling the wind knocked out of him. His brain swirled within his skull, making it difficult to gather his thoughts for moment. The swirling finally stopped and he could finally think again.
His eyes soaked in the surroundings. He was no longer moving through the void, instead, he was moving through what he could only describe as a tunnel with speeding spots of white moving past him.
Despite his situation, stuck on the wall of the energy bubble, awe struck at his heart.
It was beautiful.
'They are stars,' he realized at that moment. It was different from the gloomy atmosphere that had been in Aragon's Prison.
An ache couldn't help appear in his heart. It felt like someone had pierced a small, inconsequential needle into it, the pain being small and simultaneously being the most painful thing he had ever experienced in his life.
It was a puzzling feeling.
The incredible sight in front of him dimmed a little. Losing its splendor. Aragon's voice echoed in his mind.
"You need to get strong, always seek improvement, assimilate more of my blood, nurture your soul seed and most of all embrace your concept"
That was all Aragon had told him. But he really didn't know how to go about it. There were essentially three things he had to do.
Integrate his dragon essence.
Nurture his soul seed.
Embrace his concept.
He had no idea how he was going to integrate the dragon essence. Apart from the initial changes he had felt to his body, he didn't feel anything else that suggested Aragon's dragon essence flowed through his blood. However, it was certainly there.
Then there was the issue of nurturing his soul seed. He didn't think it was a good idea for him to help it advance just yet. He needed to strengthen his body, and for that, he needed to integrate more dragon essence.
As for his concept, he had no idea what that was at all.
The light in the tunnel got sharper now, pulling him out of his thought. The path ahead seemed to open up to a light that got brighter and brighter the closer he got to it.
The light got so blinding that Liam had to close his eyes, but he felt the energy bubble tear through a membrane before it came to a stop.
Liam opened his eyes. His eyes wide. The orange glare of the sun greeted him. He looked around.
The energy bubble was floating above dense clouds below him. There were dark and gave off the illusion of being tangible. He caught a faint flash of blue within them, but he couldn't be sure what it was.
He took a breath to calm himself. He wasn't sure where he was but he certainly wasn't in the void or the tunnel anymore.
Just where had that tunnel led him.
He barely had the thought before fractures appeared on the surface of the energy bubble.
"Dammit not now"
The energy bubble burst into flickers of orange that would have been certainly been a sight to behold. However, his mind was occupied by more pressing matters.
The orange energy bubble that had protected him was gone. Raging chilly winds buffeted him. His foothold disappeared, and gravity did its work.
Liam barely had time to scream before he fell.
…
The wind howled in his ears and slapped his face. It whipped around him, the winds were so strong that as they slapped against his body felt like lashes from a bamboo stick.
He winced, his face twisting into a grimace as his entire world spun. The sun was gone, replaced by blankets of dark clouds. His nose twitched. There was a salty smell coming from somewhere.
"What the hell…"
There was a flash of light. Followed immediately by a clap of thunder. It was loud to the point Liam's ears ached. His vision blurred slightly. His body doing uncoordinated flips throughout his entire freefall.
He was getting dizzy, and it was becoming really, really hard to form any cohesive thoughts.
His heart was doing flips in his chest.
"What am I supposed to do now!?" he couldn't help but scream out in frustration.
A part of him wanted to scream his lungs out as he fell towards what could only be his imminent death.
Another part of him, though…
He grit his teeth.
'Lets not panic…yet,' he fought to calm himself. 'First let's get some balance'
He spread out his arms and legs. His body taking on a star shape. The winds tried to knock him back into his directionless tumbled but he fought to regain a semblance of balance. His body wasn't thrashing about wildly, at least for now.
Still, that did nothing to stop his descent.
There was another clap of thunder, and streak of lightning passed just a few meters away from him.
Liam turned his head, but the lightning had already passed. It travelled at the speed of light after all.
Another flash passed by.
It felt as though the heavens themselves were aiming for him, but missed with every shot. Liam's jaw tightened, frustration boiling within him. It would have one thing if he were just falling to have the very world against him.
Where was the fairness?
'The world has never been fair,' the response echoed in his mind almost immediately. It felt ominous. And yet, his blood boiled as though it was responding to him. To his budding will. '…that doesn't mean I'll just let it roll all over me though'
A warmth swept over him. A nourishment of some kind taking over his bloodstream. He felt his heart beat strongly and his bones creak slightly.
It took a moment for Liam to realize what this sensation was.
'My dragon essence integration just went up to 1.3%'
How Liam knew that probably only Aragon would know, but for now he just tied it up to instinct.
A heavy cascade of liquid washed over him at that moment, snapping him out of his thoughts. At that point, he was no longer surrounded by dense, dark clouds. That meant he was getting closer to the ground now.
He looked up. All around him was a cascade of heavy rainfall, accompanied by harsh winds and the occasion flash of lightning and thunder. The salty smell had gotten stronger, too. It was coming from the land beneath him.
He looked down, the gloom over his heart growing once more.
When he looked down, he had expected to find land. What he found instead were the high tides of a sea or an ocean? He couldn't tell. What he could tell, though, was that there was nothing but darkened waters and roaring waves as far as the eye to see.
There was no land in sight at all.