*Gulp*

Hao Xuan swallowed his saliva that just didn't want to go down.

"It can't be him...right?" he asked staring in the direction where the screams came from.

Jin Wang quickly shook his head, "No way. There is no way he himself came here and no one found out about it."

"Alright, you go first then," Hao Xuan patted Jin Wang's shoulder, making him frown in disgust.

"Kiss my a*s. I'm injured, you go first," Jin Wang slapped away his hand and stepped back.

"Tch, b*tch," unwittingly, Hao Xuan took the lead. He waved his hand and once again summoned the Glaive. The armor was already on him so he simply proceeded further in.

The sound of his footsteps and breathing was the only thing he could hear. Neither the screams nor the monstrous roars came afterward. About a minute or so of walking later they entered a much larger area.

He, of course, couldn't see how big it was because of the darkness but it didn't feel as congested as before. And soon after they found the person that was begging for mercy.

Another one of the vanguards. His entire lower body was missing along with half his head. They could tell how recent all those wounds were because of the purple blood that was pouring out from his chest.

Hao Xuan bent down to examine it in more detail. The man was lying in a pool of black sludge which was actually dissolving his body at an alarming rate. He frowned upon feeling the presence of a strange energy inside the sludge but before he could do anything else, the sludge started moving on its own like it was alive and went straight into the depth of the cave.

"It's alive?" Hao Xuan mumbled with a deep frown.

"No, otherwise it would have reacted it to us. It looks like it was being called by something," Jin Wang clarified.

"Follow?" Hao Xuan swiveled his head towards Jin Wang with a questioning gaze, getting a nod in return, "Follow!"

Even though the sludge was in a semi-liquid state, it wasn't leaving behind any tracks whatsoever which one would expect from it. It was like it was never there.

Hao Xuan and Jin Wang followed it closely, passing by more than 40 other Orc corpses with similar wounds. Every now and then another blob of black sludge would join it, increasing in size.

In less than 10 minutes it grew from a half meter to more than 8 meters, but its speed only kept increasing. It seemed like it knew exactly which path to follow as it expertly navigated the network of pitch dark tunnels, going deeper and deeper into the ground.

*Huff*Huff*

"Oi, I don't think this way leads to the outside," Hao Xuan said after about 30 minutes of sprinting at full speed behind the sludge blob.

"You don't say?" Jin Wang retorted sarcastically.

"I don't think I can keep up this speed for much longer," Jin Wang followed up. His wound still hadn't closed up and he was exhausted from before.

"Shhh," Hao Xuan suddenly lowered his speed. He closed his eyes and listened carefully.

"I can hear flowing water, not too far ahead."

"Fine, might as well I guess. I have lived a good life," Jin Wang patted his chest and passed Hao Xuan.

30 seconds later they finally saw a faint light coming from a stone doorway, an actual doorway all the way down here. It was huge, at least 50 meters in length. There were hundreds of tunnels all around the doorway, all coming down from above, leading to this place.

It seemed like this was the very bottom of this entire area.

They slowed down as they got closer. The sludge slowed down as well but not as much. Without any hesitation whatsoever it went straight through the stone doorway to the other side.

Hao Xuan hesitated at first but Jin Wang just went past him and followed right after the sludge, making Hao Xuan go in as well.

The first thing Hao Xuan saw was the sparkling purple river just a few feet from the entrance. There were two massive holes in the left and the right side of this area from which the purple liquid was gushing out.

In the middle of the room was a wide stone platform, about 80 meters in size. It was in the middle of the river and the purple liquid was swirling around it. He saw the black sludge jump into the river and come out in the middle on the stone platform.

But it was the thing already on top of the platform that made Hao Xuan take a few steps back in shock. His eyes opened wide.

"Holy sh- umpf!" before he could finish, a hand suddenly appeared from behind and stopped him from speaking. It was Jin Wang.

"Shh," he placed his index finger in front of his mouth, gesturing for Hao Xuan to stop. Hao Xuan nodded.

Jin Wang slowly walked back out as carefully as he possibly could and gestured for Hao Xuan to do the same.

When they were more than 10 meters away from the doorway Jin Wang let out the air he had been holding in.

"Holy shit, it's real, it is actually fucking real!" he mumbled while breathing heavily.

Hao Xuan stared at the doorway with twinkling eyes.

"Is it really him?"

"No, not him, one of the others."

"His enemy?"

"Most probably."

"I'm gonna take another look."

"Careful! Don't get too close," Jin Wang warned.

Hao Xuan waved him away and walked back to the doorway with soft steps, but this time he didn't go in and just peeked in from the outside.

On the stone platform laid a bony creature. The black sludge that had come out of the river went up to the creature and entered its body through one of the hundreds of open wounds.

The creature itself was not in very good condition. It had more than 30 black chains going in and out of its body, connecting it with the river underneath. The purple liquid would go up these chains and into the creature, and come out from one of the other wounds.

But it was the creature itself that was the most shocking thing here. It had 4 legs, two wings, and an extremely long tail. Its entire body was covered with razor-sharp scales from top to bottom.

On its massive head were 5 horns, three on the left, and two on the right. It had 3 eyes that were closed shut. (Image in Author's notes).

It was an actual dragon! A real-life dragon from the legends and myths.

****

Authors Notes:

The Dragon: https://urlzs.com/k8uPD

Full link: http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie..net/finalfantasy/images/f/fe/First-brood_Nidhogg.png/revision/latest?cb=20150624065957

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