The Dragon of Dreams

Chapter 338: The First Flame

N/A - N/A : Within the Void

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*hummm* Two weeks trapped in a black space with nothing but a colorful flower blooming out of a pool of mana in front of you. To some creatures, that amount of time would have driven them to insanity, but for me, it seemed to pass in an instant.

In my free time, while I wasn't dealing with the sleep lily and its constant demands, I advanced many of my more complex and theoretical sciences an incredible amount, from the binds of time and mana to more simple topics of how to get the Acardi Laboratory powered again.

Thanks to the scene that played in my mind when I accidentally created a miniature mana supernova, my understanding of mana across the board increased exponentially, with my newfound understanding of divinity only compounding it. I even managed to figure out some techniques that helped minimize the mental static when reading my aura by essentially controlling how much of my aura was being converted to space mana like how I used to thicken and thin the walls of my reserve, but more so dealing with converting the space mana into other attributes.

However, it was still a work in progress and continued to give me more trouble than I would have liked. -I think it's a step in the right direction though...-

Idly looking up, my gaze landed on a beautifully symmetric six-leaf lily with petals of crystallized mana, a stem of mythril, and a black swirling ovule at its center composed of liquid divinity.

To put it bluntly, it was a mesmerizing flower, even if you ignored the ethereal white cloud that hung around its petals. -But it looks totally different from the one I ate...- Compared to the water lotus-like sleep lily I had eaten as a child, the flower in front of me looked more like a traditional lily.

However, both of them, while differing in appearance and even species, were undoubtedly sleep lilies, and that was because of the simple fact that a sleep lily wasn't a species of flower but rather just something that evolved to function similarly to the Tree of Prayer, accumulating soul fragments, and slowly cleaning them with mana and forming divinity over time. -It makes me wonder if the Tree of Prayer is technically just one massive sleep lily by that standard.. though maybe it gets disqualified because of the rune...-

*vwoom-splash* Slowly standing up, I looked down at the lily with a quizzical gaze before finally dispelling the fabric and grabbing it with my aura.

From what I could tell, it had matured. With its more than abundant supply of mana, it had formed quite a bit of divinity and stabilized its soul to the point that it was more defined than the likes of human gods. Unfortunately, with only the dirty soul fragments of the Valkyries and ancients being the only soul fragments in the vicinity, it couldn't absorb other fragments to grow its soul.

But in theory, that worked to my benefit. -Since we don't need to necessarily grow his soul much, this should hopefully supplement the added stability he needs...-

But as I took the lily and jumped through a gate back into reality, the reality of what I was about to do started to really set in, and a wave of anxiety and nervousness hit.

"Hooh..." Even a heavy breath couldn't save me from it. "I got it... Will this be enough?"

Grace immediately turned back to face me, setting her eyes on my draconic form before lowering her gaze to the glistening lily in front of me. However, her expression quickly turned to one of awe before she spoke with a stutter. "~Y-Yes! I think...~" Quickly motioning me over, she floated to the side and motioned toward the open cavity in Father's chest.

Just the sight of it made me feel sick, but now was not the time I could stammer. "So, how will this work? I assume if we try to integrate it as is, the lily will be what absorbs his soul, rather than the other way around..."

She instantly became nervous. "~That would be the right assumption. To my knowledge, when a dragon consumes a sleep lily, they essentially destroy the lily itself in their stomach, detaching the lily's soul from its body, and allowing it to be absorbed by the soul which does have a tie to the body... The issue is his soul doesn't have that tie right now, and if you touch the lily's soul after getting rid of its body, you will absorb it...~"

"That's not an issue." -I can just move it with space mana since it has a core...- Walking up closer to Father, my mind raced to try and deduce the timings of everything that needed to happen before I finally took the leap of faith.

*vwoom-crackle* Disintegrating the body of the lily, the crystalline mana it used for its petals quickly rushed outward before immediately trying to accumulate around the divinity again as if to form another reserve.

But by the time it could do much of anything, nothing of its body remained, and with a light nudge, I pushed it toward Father's soul. In its current state, it was essentially a can of gasoline that could light a fire from even the smallest spark.

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"Hooh..." -Now to create that spark...- Honing my focus on Father's soul as the lily slowly neared it, I let out a quick breath before forming hundreds and hundreds of gentle 'compression rings' with space mana around his soul before rapid firing them one after the other.

*vwowowowowowooom* Each ring rippled space, warping light and bending atoms while consecutively converging on Father's soul, causing it to swirl and begin gathering the thick mana from the air around us and pulling on the mana surrounding the sleep lily, causing it to slowly suck in the lily as if it were a whirlpool.

But this all took time. With my massively increased pool of divinity sped up as much as I could manage, I took things very slowly, ensuring I only took one step at a time while being extremely cautious of the field of landmines that laid beneath me.

However, things seemed to be progressing smoothly.

With occasional guidance from Grace whenever she noticed something, Father's soul eventually managed to start forming its reserve and absorb the sleep lily, stabilizing his concerningly unstable soul and allowing it to create a much larger and more stable reserve, closer to what one would see on a young ancient.

Of course, the process wasn't without its scares, but thankfully things managed to work out. Thankfully, his body which was close to its dragon sleep naturally, seemed to take the helm whenever things got out of hand and managed to get his body back on track, destroying and rebuilding everything in an endless cycle until the bumpier roads were behind us.

After what felt like an eternity, his soul eventually settled into his new reserve, now strengthened by the divinity from the sleep lily, and his body reached a point where all it needed was mana and time in order to reconstruct itself.

"HAAH..." *vwowowoom-FWOOOOSH* A huge wave of air blasted over me as I let out a very heavy breath and released the control on my divinity, sending a searing pain through my body. "Ack..." -Shit.. that was more exhausting than I thought it'd be...-

After my last talk with Hera, discussing how my mind was essentially converting itself to use divinity, I genuinely wondered if I could ever get mentally fatigued. -But it seems I can...-

Giving Grace a quick glance, I hung my head down for a moment to try and let it rest. Needless to say, having my own Father's life at the tip of my fingers, where one wrong step could eradicate his soul, took its toll on my mind. -And we still don't know if he will come out the same...-

But thankfully, Grace had some confidence. "~With you preserving his mind, even through the soul merges, I expect that his mind will take priority over the new fragments... So, in theory, nothing should change with his personality.~"

-Right...- "I just hope the changes to his body won't alter his mind too much..." -It shouldn't.. but it still makes me uneasy...-

Grace stared at me in silence for a moment, noticing my fatigue before speaking softly. "~So, what are your plans now..? Are you going to speed up his sleep in a gate where you can monitor him?~"

I immediately shook my head. "I can't right now." Unfortunately, while I wanted to, I simply needed too much divinity for it. "I could fast forward the time of the lily because it's small, yet I still needed a ton of divinity to stretch the aura of influence out enough to encompass it... I can't imagine how much I need to encompass him..."

The long and short of it was that I simply didn't have enough mana in my reserve, even if it was full, to create such an immense volume of it. -But over time, my body creates it.. so if I start holding onto what it creates, eventually, I may have enough.-

"Although it wouldn't be a bad idea to have Lief set up a prayer." -It would certainly shorten the amount of time I'll need to accumulate that much divinity...- "But regardless, I can't speed up his sleep now..."

It had only been a few hours since I originally got to the dungeon, but so much happened that I had nearly forgotten what I was even doing there.

"For the time being, either you or Skuld needs to watch over him while I'm not here. I don't plan to lollygag, but I need to make sure to hand off the fleet up north to Siratha as prisoners of war, establish some protections and restrictions for this area, warn Lief and the nearby cities about the monster wave, and somehow explain to my mother and sister what happened..." It was an abrupt but inevitable change of plans from what I had originally come to do, and was a change that really weighed on my mind. -Mom might really kill me this time...-

But while a part of me was genuinely worried how she would react, the rest of me remained focused on the tasks at hand.

The spark of war had already lit a match between Siratha and the Holy Kingdom, and now my family and I were caught in the middle of it. -If Odin and Frigg are really locked in the Holy Kingdom like Grace says they are, I should be able to manage, but nothing is preventing the Valkyries, Eir, Baldur, and Höðr from making their moves...- And being just one creature who couldn't be everywhere at once, I was worried.

It was the eve of a new era, for not just Siratha and the Holy Kingdom, but for dragons, gods, and the rest of the world.

But it was a fire that would take its time to spread, slowly burning everything in its path, sneaking up on many so silently that their homes would catch fire before they could react.

It was all just a matter of time...

But for the first time, I wasn't completely alone...

As I frantically flew around, attempting to tame the flames of destruction that were sparked in Siratha, Hera was planning for her return, and halfway around the world, another dragon was finally about to open its eyes.. after eight long years...

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