Chapter 11 - The Art Of Creation

Chapter 11 – The Art Of Creation

The new dawn vastly approached the northern part of the Wisteria kingdom, Nonius, was awoken with a fit of petrifying screams that buzzed far and wide even into the ‘Acred Forest’ behind Leo’s former home.

The litters of bloodied corpses on the lane of Nonius triggered certain emotions in almost all the villagers as they cried in agony to the dozens of individuals, some of them being good friends, and others relatives, lying in a shred of their own flesh and blood.

It did not take long and Thomas arrived at the scene, looking devastated and scared to the core.

“Is this now going to be a daily routine for that dragon,”

As he thought out loud, a huge cart transported by a few horses appeared in the area and the guards immediately began to throw the disgusting remains of the corpse into the deep cart.

“Only the heavens know what will before the village today.”

Amidst his thoughts, a masculine voice thundered into his ears as he abruptly returned his attention to the surrounding.

“Thomas! What is this nonsense, litter… litter of dead bodies?”

The somewhat deep and raging voice echoed from the lips of Klaus, the assigned elder to take responsibility over Nonius in a due time.

He stood tall before Thomas with a height ranging above 5’0 foot. Klaus looked majestic in his golden robe that had multiple mesmerizing patterns on it.

One could have mistaken him as the king of Redia with his royal aura, but unfortunately, his oval head that accommodated a pair of deep narrow, green eyes, a small nose, and a fairly big-sized mouth completely differed from that of the King.

“When I told you all that… that a dragon is terrorizing the village, you all thought I only brought up silly complaints for attention. Hope you’ve seen its handwork with your naked eyes!”

Klaus’s eyes keened at the cart that gradually contained the pile of corpses. After what seemed to be an entire minute, he turned his gaze to Thomas with a confused frown.

“I think it’s vivid that these bodies look ripped apart, and not burnt! And we all know that if it was a… dragon.” Klaus drew his last words being a ‘dragon’, therefore expressing the undeniable doubt of his statement, “There will be no puddle of blood or bloodied corpse on the ground, instead they would’ve all burn to ash.”

Thomas glared at Klaus with a questioning look that instantly created a flood of misconceptions in his head.

Klaus then said with a careless look, “All these lives wasted due to your carelessness, and the laziness of your so-called guards.”

“You would have known that a predator is hiding within the village, yet, you went ahead to blubber nonsensical topic before the king.” He added with a sigh that corresponded to his dejected expression.

Thomas on the other hand began to sob uncontrollably as the words easily tore through his heart, “But… you can ask the villagers, they all saw…”

Klaus rolled his eyes and quickly interrupted his words, “Stop the dragon talk, Thomas! You sound crazy… I’ll inform the king about this, and maybe he’ll send some guards to help your village.”

“Oh…kay, thank… thank you.” Thomas quickly walked out of the area, his head bowed to the ground, leaving all the other responsibilities for Klaus to handle.

****

In a lit cave vivid to be the tainted lair, Leo lies on his back to a pile of gold as he sleeps comfortably like a kid resting from work.

A loud voice thundered in front of him and he immediately jerked awake, revealing his brown eyes that looked soar with eye bags that destroyed his once handsome face.

“Where were you last night.”

Leo flickered his eyes open with the question and he glanced at Bel before staring into a random direction, “Probably an obvious place.”

“Till when will this go on, like... It’s becoming exhausting.”

Leo sat upright and stared into Bel’s eyes, ignoring the deadly feeling that pierced out of his eyes.

“And… I just remembered!” Bel exclaimed a few seconds after his last words and he immediately sat on the pale marbled ground of the lair, “Leo… I thought you could confirm if my long-thought suspicion is correct!”

“I’m listening.” Leo’s nonchalant voice echoed in the lair and Bel immediately began to explain,

“So, I was thinking… Have you ever tried to create a beast from your imagination?”

Bel expected an intrigued look from Leo, but unfortunately, he looked normal as usual.

He replied after standing up from the ground with a light yawn, “It’s my ability, I’ve tried it out some years ago, and all my attempts were fruitless… I thought you were going to say something more appealing.”

Leo immediately pulled the dirty leather clothes from his somewhat scarred skin, leaving him pale naked.

“You’ve been fire-graded you know!” Bel looked unconcerned with the view before him, “Your ability’s potency has increased dozen upon dozen fold. You should check it out once again!”

“I should take a shower before we conclude the conversation.”

Leo walked out of the lair into the waterfall outside the cave. Only a matter of minutes later, Leo returned to the lair and wore back his clothes.

“So you were saying… I can create a monster.”

“Just try it out, you will most definitely be blown off your feet.” Bel looked enthusiastic as Leo sat on the ground like he was ready to try out the predicted discovery.

“What are the steps…”

“I thought you said you’ve tried doing it in the past.”

Leo rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh that revealed his unconcerned feeling, “I was just a mix-up of different body parts through my imagination... And it should be vivid that that move is invalid, there need to be a more realistic way to create them?”

“Just let your imagination work, it won’t be easy but at least, you’ll be able to achieve something!”

Leo exhaled loudly and closed his eyes. While he gradually fell into a trance of imagination, Bel sneaked into his lair for an unknown cause.

Thirty minutes later, Leo still sat silently, lost in his trance. Bel now sat impatiently beside him with a slight frown as he desperately tried to contain the urge to push Leo awake.

A glow illuminated Leo’s palm after some more minutes and a dark and thick smoke began to flow out of his palm, within a few seconds, a shadow-like beast hovered above his palm.

Bel felt restless at the sight of the small shadow beast and he jumped on his feet with a surge of excitement.

“I was right!”