Heaven's Darkness (Book 2)

Chapter 1 - Ashura

I rubbed my throbbing head and groaned. "What the hell just happened? I feel like my fire magic burned my brain to ashes."

Slowly, my weak, exhausted eyes mustered enough strength to open. Two battered and beaten faces were peering down at my cloaked lump of a body, concern ridden within their eyes. It was obviously Red and Quint, my fellow teammates.

Red massaged his temples, extremely dark circles under his eyes. "Thank the dragons you finally woke up! You've been out for three long days."

It took my brain a moment to register his information. Three days? That was an even longer time than when I was unconscious from the dragon encounter back in Greenwood.

At those words, I used all the strength I had left to try and sit up from my laying position. My muscles were completely fatigued, aching with overuse, forcing me to drop back down on my back. I heaved a huge, exasperated sigh.

"Do you guys have any idea what happened to me?" I irritably asked with a huff. "The last thing I remember is crossing the border of Venenatus into unmarked territory." I took a moment to turn my attention to the surface I was laying upon, only to find it to be dried dirt and dust. I guess we were still outside Venenatus after all.

Suddenly, the sound of boots scraping rough dirt echoed from behind me. A person was approaching. A massive squeal of relief emitted from the oncoming person, following by a rushing of footsteps.

"She's finally awake!" Nama exclaimed, shoving her own bruised, smiling face into my upturned view. The dark circles under her sea green eyes were incredibly deep, even deeper than Red's. She also had a black eye accompanying her exhausted façade.

Red audibly groaned and collapsed to my left, assuming a sleeping position. He threw an arm over his eyes to avoid having to stare up into the sheer brightness of the sun's rays, groaning again. "Who wants the liberty of explaining everything that happened to us three days ago?"

Nobody spoke up.

Red let out a more aggravated, painful groan this time. "Fine, I'll fill her in," he grumbled, refusing to move from his resting state. "Would you like to hear the brief version, or the whole story?"

The warm sunlight and the sleepy tone of my comrades made me grow drowsier every minute. The only thing that kept me awake was the aching of my muscles and the huge headache panging throughout my skull. The fact that everyone else had injuries themselves made me really curious as to what happened.

"Give me the whole story," I croaked, surprised at my groggy voice.

Red released a massive sigh and rubbed his left shoulder as he spoke. "I'm sure it'll come back to you after I explain it all. So-" he paused, wincing a little at his shoulder injury, "-here it is. We passed the border and travelled along for a few hours. We were trying to be extremely cautious, considering the chances of encountering an insanely powerful dragon or a battle were pretty high. What happened to us, was an attacked dragon flying through the air like a shooting star landing before our eyes and raising its own private dust storm. It was crying in pain, blood pooling from its wounds. The scene was devastating."

I opened my mouth to say something, but Red was too fast.

"We were all shocked, too stunned to even move. Meanwhile, the aggressor was in hot pursuit of his prey and quickly approached us at nearly the same speed the injured dragon had. This new aggressor was another dragon, coming to finish its job and kill it. We watched the dragon die without being able to help.

"Before we knew it, the battlefield of the war increased tenfold just with that one outlier of a duel. Dragons began flying and surrounding us, contaminating the atmosphere with all kinds of pollutants that result from wars. The difference here, was that all of those dangerous pollutants were all kinds of magical. It was a lethal situation, to say the least. The fact that we got out as unscathed as we are is a godly blessing."