Chapter 16 Sadness.
Archer made his way towards the eastern gate after buying a water skin from a vendor near the old man's stall, he's barely drunk anything and only survived by eating hearts.
But he still wanted to eat and drink normal food.
Speaking of normal food he pulled out two wrapped meats and scoffed them down.
When he finished he licked the juice off his fingers while exiting the gate after telling the guards he was going on a quest.
Turning north he started walking, an hour into his journey a pack of wild dogs came across him.
Archer and the dogs stopped walking and stared at each other.
Quickly casting cosmic sword and thunder stepping to each dog slicing their heads off.
Killing all six dogs, he pulled out their hearts but didn't eat them, he stored them alongside the bodies.
Carrying on with his walk until he came across a creepy-looking lake.
Tall trees darkened the area.
The water is flat, empty, devoid of life and there was no movement whatsoever, no birds singing or beasts howling.
A dark forest grew right up to the river bank, branches hanging over the dark waters.
Standing on the bank of the river, he stared into the void-looking water, he got a shiver as he did.
He felt like something was watching him from the river, like a predator waiting to attack.
Archer shook his head and started to look around for any wolf clues.
Looking around he found tuffs of wolf fur, picking it up and smelling it.
His head quickly jerked back as he did.
The nasty smell coming from the fur was that of blood, wet dog, and rubbish that's been sitting in the sun for a year.
But he still sniffed it to see if he could track the wolves, once he took in the nasty smell he threw away the fur and then started smelling the air.
After 10 minutes of sniffing, he smelt the same foul smell coming from a mile away.
He ran towards the smell, it didn't take him long to reach the source of it.
There was a pack of 10 wolves relaxing at the edge of the river, a couple of them were keeping watch, making sure nothing can sneak up on the pack.
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He smiled as he saw the challenge sitting in front of him.
Summoning a cosmic sword as Archer Thunder Stepped into the middle of the pack and startled all the wolves.
He started slashing at the dog's bodies as he danced around, they were scared and tried to bolt away in different directions.
''HAHAHAHAHAHA.''
Archer was laughing as he was killing the wolves with his dance of death, but as he spun around to attack another wolf, his senses tried to warn him but it was too late as a wolf surprised the boy as it pounced on him.
His cosmic sword vanished when it fell from his hand after getting taken down.
The wolf was biting down on Archer's right arm but the white scales blocked most of the teeth, but some teeth from the wolf's lower jaw stabbed into his inner arm making him scream out.
''Ahhhhh.''
The wolf was yanking on his arm, as it used its claws to slash at Archer's chest and stomach, slicing into the areas that didn't have scales protecting them.
Blood squirted all over both of them, as Archer's adrenaline kicked in so he couldn't feel the pain much.
He put his hand on the beast's neck and cast Fire Missile at it.
The beast yelped as it let go of the boy's arm and went to run away but before it got the chance to.
It was struck by a purple beam that tore clean through its body.
The beast dropped to the floor as Archer's hand that was held up fell to the floor.
He had three slashes going down his chest, the blood started to slow down and clot, and he felt a skill level up all of a sudden.
[Regeneration: 1>2]
Archer was laying injured on the floor, as he felt them slowly start to stitch together.
The puncture marks on his inner arm have already closed up and felt better, but the pain didn't go away though.
It felt like someone was pushing hot pokers into his body, after an hour of excruciating pain he felt better.
After recovering for a little while he slowly got up off the ground and cast Cleanse on himself.
It cleaned his whole body and clothes but the spell doesn't repair them.
His sleeve was torn and the chest area was sliced up.
He decided not to change as he only has two pairs of shirts and pants left until he could buy more.
Looking around he saw seven wolf bodies laying around, so three escaped.
Archer looked around and caught the same foul smell coming from the north.
Quickly taking out his knife, he cut out the hearts and stored them along with the wolf bodies.
After that he followed the smell for a few hours, the afternoon sun cooled him down as he found the last three wolves.
He quickly kills them with a Plasma Shot and started to loot them as notices something behind the three wolves.
Dense fog gathered in the center of the terrain.
Surrounded by rolling hills on each side, a desolate and ruined temple stood isolated and abandoned, the fog slowly creeping towards it.
Tendril-like fingers clawed their way closer, slowly smothering the open pathway that lead to the entrance of the temple.
The hazel frame of the door had a corner missing, all splintered and fractured from where the mites had been chewing for decades.
Gravestones that surround the temple outside from all four sides were standing stationary, helpless, and crippled from age.
Each symbolized its life through the gentle glimmer of light that was shining softly from above.
The wind was howling, almost creating sounds like the whispers of those who lay beneath.
No other sounds except those of Archer's footsteps could be heard.
All around, the dead were kept company with statues of mythical dragons, and dragon-kin statues perched comfortably against the old black, wrought fencing covered with old vines.
Stone dragons peering at you as if to keep you away, or perhaps to invite you in.
The temple looked like it was ransacked, statues lay broken on the floor covered by growing plants.
Archer could see through the broken wall that there were burnt tapestries still hanging on the walls.
He approached the building with slow steps, when he arrived at the broken doors he pushed them open with a creak.
Entering the large hall, he saw a massive western dragon statue with four massive limbs, but its head missing.
Getting closer he saw the dragon's head laying on the floor further away from the statue.
Looking at this scene, old memories flooded back to him from the previous Archer.
This is one of the temples of the Dragon Goddess Tiamat, she was the protector of all dragon kind
Decades ago the last Draconic-Human war ended, and the dragons were defeated and vanished from Thrylos.
'Makes sense that Mother was in the Avalon Empire, they are a mixed empire and the people don't care what race you are.
He shifted through all the memories he had filed away in his brain and learned that the God of light Darikha, had hated Tiamat with a passion for some unknown reason and encouraged his followers to go on crusades against all dragon kind.
Over five millennia ago, a catastrophic conflict ravaged the world when the knights of a kingdom, long lost to history committed a heinous act against the dragons.
Deep in the heart of a human kingdom, a group of powerful knights conspired to forcibly take a prized possession of the dragons - the dragon princess.
They believed that the young and innocent princess held magical powers that could help them to take over the kingdom.
The knights kidnapped the princess, taking her away from her family and kingdom.
When the news reached the dragon king, he was consumed with fury and heartbreak.
The princess was his only child and heir to his throne.
He saw it as a direct attack on him.
Overwhelmed with rage, he summoned his mighty dragon armies and set out on a rampage, obliterating everything in his path.
The sky turned red as the dragon king's army burnt and destroyed every human kingdom they came across and burned any human army that dared to challenge them.
The humans soon realized that they had awoken a terrible wrath in the dragons with their actions.
As the rampage continued, the church began to fear that the end was near and soon realized that the abduction had been a great mistake.
This calamitous event marked the beginning of the Draconic-Human wars, a brutal and prolonged struggle that would pit fiery dragons against valiant knights, plunging entire societies into chaos and upheaval.
Years after the kidnapping, many human kingdoms and empires joined the church in their prosecution of dragon kind.
All types of dragons fell in the 1000s over the decades until the dragon race came out victorious.
The Followers Of The Light went into hiding alongside the knights who fled for their kingdoms until 5000 years passed.
When they enacted their revenge and brought the infamous dragons to their knees by raising crusades against them until they finally fell.
The surviving dragon kind fled to the northern wilds to roam as nomads, some adventurous dragon-kin managed to make a place for themselves in different kingdoms thanks to their fighting prowess.
Archer thought that religion was rather simple in this world, there are many gods and goddesses, all representing different things such as love, war, home, and conquest.
There are loads of temples all over the world, where worshippers can pray to their chosen God/Goddesses.
When the war was raging, the God of light ordered all of his followers to destroy the dragon temples.
Archer left the temple with a deep sense of sadness spreading within him.
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