Alexis was frozen in place as he saw the monster tear through the house and into the large village with a huge population of almost ten thousand. It was still early in the morning, so people were only getting ready for work after breakfast.
Countless screams of horror ensued in the city and the alarm bell rang from all the four towers on each corner of the village. Knights quickly armed up and came to confront the monster.
As the village was surrounded by a small forest on all sides, the monster attacks were frequent, and they were experienced.
Alexis and Liyana were kind towards all of the villagers despite their hard times, and so the villagers always treated them with kindness. So Alexis decided to try and convince them to stop attacking the monster.
But he was wrong about people, nothing he did convinced them that Liyana was not a monster. They even tried to convince him to let go of her since she had turned into one, and that they understood his pain.
He watched in horror as they coordinated their attack against the monster, he rushed to her aid, he could not accept that she had turned into a monster.
When he saw them attacking her relentlessly, he tried to defend her. After being hit with a pretty forceful hit, he fell to the ground. But determined to protect her, he tried to block the next attack with his body.
He jumped in between the attack and his lover, but before he was hit. The attack was received by the monster Liyana who moved in front of him, there was a blood-covered silver weapon that had pierced her chest, her torso had turned into that of a human, and her eyes had lost their luster.
Alexis watched as she died in his arms, protecting her world even after turning into a mindless monster, he did not know how much days he had cried for, and he still carries it as a resentment, why did he insist on curing her?
Alexis woke up from his nightmare, he looked at the clothes that would have already dried up. He watched the clouds, reminiscing about his only love. Today was her birthday... his heart tightened. He gave a self-deprecating smile.
"Happy birthday, young master." It was the head of a knight family of the drakonis house, he was the final guest to provide Judge with gifts. Judge sank into his chair and gave a sigh of relief as the arduous part was over.
In the huge Empire of Eldris, there existed countless races with vastly varying forms, cultures, languages, and many others.
There were also things that were common between all the races. On was a single language that belonged to no race but was used by every race. It was a language widely used in the Capital, and was taught by every race to their children.
Second was the ruling system, each race had one lord, and the house of the lord was the face of that race. But an entire race was not possible to be controlled by a single lord, especially since not every race lives together in a single place.
So, knight families are assigned by the lords to every place where their race lives in a group. A knight family head would take on an oath in front of Veritas, the god of light and truth. Any oath or promise taken in the name of the god of truth was followed with diligence.
Both knights and the lords were called nobles, but the hierarchy was clear. Nobles were named as such as they were the noble protectors of people.
Judge closed his book and blew out the candles as he finished his research for the day, tomorrow, he was supposed to take classes for swordsmanship tomorrow, and there were also classes on how to use ether and ether principles.
So basically speaking, his schedule went from mostly free to 'working extra time on your nine to five.'
He passed out as soon as he hit the bed, the red velvet cushions sucking him into a deep sleep. He dreamt of himself, when he was just a child attending his mother's funeral.
He wore black clothes and the people around were all trying to console him, telling him that they would all be with him whenever he wanted. They told him that he could rely on them.
But these very reliable people all left him when he had nothing left, these were not the greatest of backstabbers, but they laid a foundation for his ideals of life.
Not trusting anyone came with a great cost, it was called loneliness. And Judge always longed for someone to trust while still being unable to trust someone.
But Clio had proved him wrong, she was just like him, lonely and longing to meet someone. But unlike him, she did not have anyone around her, the only person she talked to comfortably was Judge, and now that he was gone, he could feel her loneliness.
Of course, she could summon other dead souls like himself, but he could somehow tell that he was special to her, it was as if he could feel her emotions when she saw him. He did not feel them then.
These thoughts soon gave way to his sweet dreams, he dreamt of a great grassland, It stretched to ends as far as his eyes could see. There was a single tree that provided him shade, he was lying on Clio's legs, and she slowly caressed his head.
The sweet dream ended abruptly as if the universe was telling him to 'stop dreaming', like... literally.
He looked around, it was already morning, and his sleepiness was gone. He did not know if this was another part of being a dragon, but after getting a couple of hours of sleep, he would wake up refreshed and could not fall asleep again without tiring himself first.
He could not hear the timely knocking on the door, 'Guess I was awake early huh?'
He got up from his bed and even before changing from his night clothes, he sat on his desk and started his work on the artifact.
Today he would look at a new collection, his grandfather had only recently heard about his artifact collection and had gifted him a few prized artifacts.
Maybe it was time to do research on the active ones instead. the ones without catalysts were just the starting point in his big journey to uncover the secrets of artifacts. Which would, hopefully, give him a clue on attaining divinity.