Jerome turned on the viper faster than the man could blink, grabbed him by the throat in the same instant, and slammed him against the rocky extension holding up the cannon, shattering the front part of it. Jerome squeezed, nearly crushing his windpipe as debris fell on them.

  He heard the groaning of metal as the cannon tilted dangerously.

  “I told you to make yourself scarce, Idrel,” Rihal’s father said nonchalantly.

  Idrel grunted and tried to pull Jerome’s arm down but Jerome shrugged him off without much effort. He hit the arm pinning him with both fists but nothing happened. Jerome felt the viper’s gaze harden. Idrel tightened his aura around himself. Jerome had never perceived such a technique before. He would have stopped to admire such a beautiful technique but he was too busy being angry. Idrel blasted the aura out like an explosion. It should have been overwhelming, even to the point of knocking him out but Jerome had faced off against more powerful foes.

  The viper’s aura attack should have been a powerful force to contend with, instead it was as if he was fighting against another Sprout.

  “Weakling!” Jerome hissed in a loud whisper, taunting him. His voice full of the hatred he bore in his heart for the Pillar. His grip tightened some more as he remembered all that the viper had done to him.

  “Don’t kill him,” the First Matron said with a sigh. “We’ll be in trouble if you do.”

  The rocky extension of the tower holding up the cannon finally gave in. Chunks of rock and debris rained down on them but before the cannon could hit the ground, Jerome lifted a hand and everything that was falling slowed. They reversed direction and the rocky extension put itself back together. But this time, sturdier than it was before.

  The sleazy viper tried to use another technique. Jerome sensed his aura coil around itself and stretched into a whip that extended behind him. Now, this one caught his attention. Jerome had only ever fought with more powerful foes who could do things like these but because they were far more powerful than he was, he couldn’t study them. The viper on the other hand was not too advanced for him. He watched as the Pillar straining under him commanded his essence in a unique way, even under stress. The command of aura was not just of essence alone, but essence and mental energy. There was a unique symbiosis between both as if they could connect or even merge, which he had tried to do before as a young Sprout but was never successful at.

  The whip shot forward in a split moment, lashing out at him but again, it had no effect. Jerome leaned in to speak in Idrel’s ear as they both strained their muscles. The viper’s face was red as a beet, and veins were bulging in his temples. But Jerome didn’t let up.

  “It’s no use trying to use an aura attack,” Jerome growled and the ground shook. Everyone stepped back. That growl was quite inhuman — guttural and intense. Even he felt uncomfortable hearing the sound of his own voice.

  He dropped the viper, leaving him wheezing and coughing, and walked a few feet away to pace back and forth.

  “Jerome?” Ash called out to him hesitantly.

  “Stay back, Ash,” he growled again. “Damn it!”

  “What’s happening?” Layla said and Ivar Vorthe cursed.

  “Take a deep breath, Xerae,” Achilleia said. “Your eyes are red and scaring your teammates, just so you know. You’re giving off a very predatory aura right now.”

  Rihal was speaking but Jerome tuned him out. Although, he had said the same thing Achilleia did, trying to calm him down. Ivar Vorthe was speaking to Layla and Idrel but he could care less about any oath the Sage was trying to get them to take. He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. He felt supple flesh press against him in all directions causing him to calm down some more. When he opened his eyes, his teammates were hugging him tightly.

  “Thanks,” he breathed out. Thankfully, his voice was normal again. “You ladies are the best.”

  “How do you feel?” Rihal asked, looking worried.

  Jerome remembered the time when Rihal had reminded him of his out-of-control anger. “Better. Though, I’ll feel even better if I don’t have to be wary of it lurking, waiting patiently for me to slip up or make a mistake.”

  “Fascinating!” Ivar Vorthe said, looking at him like a new toy. “I wish I had brought out a memory crystal.”

  The First Matron chuckled, then threw and caught a memory crystal in her hand before tucking it into her storage ring. “Way ahead of you, Ivar,” she said, then turned to address Jerome. “When the Sovereign made mention of it, I thought it could not be possible. But here you are, suppressing it like it’s nothing. You should be wary of it though… always. That thing inside you has been the cause for much horror for ages. And I’m sure the Darkness is already calling…?”

  Jerome looked north. The beast inside him stirred again, with longing. It seemed to want to push him in that direction, urging him towards the mountains of the north but Jerome reined it in.

  “Part of what I’ve learned to do is to control it along with its desires.” Jerome took another deep breath. “At least when it doesn’t catch me off guard.”

  “What do you mean you thought it could not be possible, godmother?” Sheela asked, still holding onto him protectively.

  The Matron smiled at her, glancing briefly at her goddaughter’s arms around him. “No Fated has ever suppressed it. It usually awakens when they reach the Spirit Realm, and once it does, it never goes back to sleep.”

  “Then how did he do it?”

  The Matron shrugged, smiling at him. “I guess Jerome is special, because from my perspective, it should not have been possible.”

  Jerome grunted in disapproval. “I’m right here, you know? Stop talking about me as though I’m not.”

  But everyone turned to look at him like he was a unicorn. Except for Sheela; she was looking at him like a piece of delicious steak she wanted to wolf down. The sexual hunger in her eyes was almost overwhelming.

  “Don’t look at me like that.” He broke away from the group hug, heading toward the parapet. Jerome didn’t want them analyzing him like a monster — or even someone special. It made him vulnerable that they could all see him for what he was.

  “And what is… ‘it’?” Layla asked. He glanced her way but the look in her eyes made him look away with a frown. There was a mix of emotions in her eyes, like she had no idea how to respond to him. But the most prominent one was fear — at least it wasn’t pity. He didn’t want to be pitied. All this would have not happened if it wasn’t for the sleazebag poking his nose where it didn’t belong.

  “There’s no time for such an explanation, Little Layla,” Ivar Vorthe said. “Suffice it to say that Jerome was born with something… monstrous.” Jerome glared at him for his description but he just shrugged. “You have a battle to fight.”

  Ivar touched the gem in Layla’s shoulder, nodding approvingly to himself. The computation gem was hidden by her leather cuirass and gave off no essence but he still knew its location. Even if it lit up, the leather wouldn’t let light pass through it, and there was no bulge showing to give away its position. Jerome shook his head. Sages were a mystery. The more he found out about their abilities, the more mysterious they became.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  “I hope the oath this one took comes with devastating consequences,” Nyx said, glaring at Idrel and standing over him. The viper was looking everywhere but at her, his fear of her evident for all to see. He hadn’t had the chance to stand up since Jerome nearly choked the life out of him.

  “Oh, it does,” Ivar Vorthe answered. “Since my instructions to stay away seem insignificant to him, he will not have me as protection from anything that comes his way. The master of shadows would be very cross.”

  It was comical. The man that fashioned himself above all, and all others beneath him, was squirming in fear under the gaze of another, unable to meet her eyes. Nyx scoffed and walked away. Ivar had made it sound like she could do whatever she wanted with him but also mentioned the master of shadows to subdue her wrath, a mysterious unknown he didn’t know about.

  “The Messengers are closer, everyone,” the Matron said. “You best stop them before they come too close to the city. Remember the powers that be in the world are watching.”

  Jerome rose into the air and his team followed him.

  ~~~

  “Do you think he can win against the Golden Boy, Mother?”

  “It is yet to be seen,” her mother answered. Technically she was speaking to a clone of herself who raised her, even though she loved to think of this variant of Zatira as Mother. Which made her a variant of the Dragon Matriarch herself. “The Chosen of Ilyrrah is… shrouded. The more power he gains, the harder it is to predict his fate. When he takes up his mantle in the northern mountains, he may just as well become equal in power to me.”

  “You don’t believe that, Mother. He’s just a Sprout.”

  “For now.”

  They said nothing for a while as they waited. She took the time to daydream about that moment with Jerome.

  “You are in love with him, aren’t you?” Her mother’s piercing silver gaze was so intense, she seemed to be looking directly at her soul and the deep intents of her heart. “Your pheromones have been very active in the past few days since you met him.”

  She looked away, rubbing at her arm. When she caught herself, she stopped. She had picked up a lot of human habits over her short lifetime, some of which she was coming to find she didn’t like.

  “I am glad,” her mother continued. “Does this mean you shared blood with him?”

  She nodded. Her mother was silent for a while just gazing at her. It was intensely uncomfortable being gazed at like that.

  “Well, I do hope he feels the same.”

  “Oh, he does,” she answered. If there was anything she was sure of, it was that Jerome burned for her just as she did for him when they shared blood. Oh, what she would give to experience it again. Such passion! Nothing had prepared her for the feelings she had felt. Which reminded her… “Mother, the stories you passed onto me… the one’s about… our males. Were those really true?”

  “Of course, they were.” Her mother’s gaze was back on her again. “Does he feel like that?”

  She didn’t have to look at her mother’s eyes to know the hunger she felt at that moment. Transcendents were very powerful — too powerful — to the extent that their feelings and emotions could command their surroundings. And if they weren’t careful a spike of anger could turn everything and everyone around them to dust, or paste. The hunger her mother was feeling at that moment consumed her. She fell on her knees, to the platform holding them in the air and nodded weakly. Her mother took a step toward her and the last strand of strength left her. She crumpled to the platform.

  They were hovering in the air, miles away from Alvion, and facing its direction in expectation of the battle between Jerome and the Church’s Messengers, including the Judge they sent.

  She couldn’t speak, couldn’t lift herself up. She just lay there convulsing, feeling the hunger her mother felt, yet unable to satiate it.

  Her mother took a deep breath and the clouds around them were sucked into her. More gathered around them. With a powerful but short exhale, the clouds were blown away, together with her. But she quickly steadied herself in the air as the paralysis from her mother’s aura wore off.

  “I forget my strength sometimes,” her mother said. “Do you forgive me, daughter?”

  “You owe me no apology, mother. I would react strongly to such news as well.” She smoothed out her silver robe as she landed on the floating platform.

  Her mother’s hopeful gaze was back on her. “So?” she asked. “He was… dominant?”

  She gulped as she remembered the way she felt in his arms, small and vulnerable, yet safe. The way his hands held her gently, yet she could feel the strength in them. The way he urged her with his words to bite harder. She licked her lips remembering the taste of him. Her mother was on her the next moment, so close with her face in her hair. She inhaled deeply, trying to catch a whiff of Jerome’s scent.

  “I smell him on you.” She breathed in again. “His smell… it’s… intoxicating.”

  “Mother, we should… we should watch the fight.” Her mother was beginning to make her feel uncomfortable.

  “You would not understand, daughter.” Her mother sighed. “I’ve lived for so long with only stories to fill the hole in my aching breasts. I long for what you’ve experienced, but I would not destroy my plans, nor your happiness, for it.”

  “Well, he has five women hovering around him, what’s a few more?” She chuckled at her own words.

  “Don’t give me false hope, daughter,” her mother said, shaking her head in sadness. “My heart could not take it if he rejected me.”

  She hugged her mother tight. It seemed it was her turn to give comfort. Her mother hugged her back and they just stood there enjoying each other’s comfort. And she had a point; human males were not like their race. To a human, having relations with a mother and her daughter would be incest — not that they were mother and daughter in that sense. But from what she could surmise about Jerome, she could tell he was a very principled person, but he was also a virile young man, whose virility was beyond that of a normal human, on par with a dragon’s.

  “Ahem. Take this.” Her mother let go of her and handed her a long chain. She took it, unwinding it in the process. The dull metal chain was three feet long and engraved on every link with a powerful rune, each different from the former. “I have seen that you would need it very soon. I just hope” — her mother held her face and gazed intently into her eyes — “that you would think of yourself first when it comes time to use it.”

  “What does it do, mother?” She wrapped the chain up her arm and made a fist, testing to see if it worked as a weapon.

  “It is not a weapon. But it carries my Authority, as well as the Authority of one other before me. It is my wish that you would grow strong enough to be able to use Authority, and add yours to it. Normal metal could never hold more than one Authority but this? This is no mere metal; it is not even from this world.”

  She gazed into her mother’s eyes in shock, then looked at the chain wrapped around her arm. “That’s amazing! Where is it from?!”

  “I do not know, to be fair. It has passed through many variants and many eons to get to me.” She sighed. “But it is powerful enough to protect you from the eyes of a Transcendent. And peradventure you happen to get caught in the web of one, it can whisk you away in a moment’s notice. I would love to say, use it wisely, but what I really want to say is use it selfishly; no life is worth more than yours, daughter.”

  She smiled bashfully at those words. Her mother knew her so well; that at the first sign of trouble, she would help the helpless first.

  “But I already know what you would use it for,” her mother continued. “It is too late to change your mind now; it is either that or I use that chain to keep you at my side.” She wanted to panic at that, but her mother smothered her in a hug. “I will not do that, daughter.”

  Just in case her mother changed her mind, she tried binding the chain to herself but it didn’t work. Her mother chuckled.

  “That wouldn’t work. Only when I die could you truly make it yours. But it will protect you still. Whomever I give it to will come under its protection. It cannot be taken, only given.”

  “But, mother, you said—”

  “Hmm. Or whomever you choose to protect with it. Let us watch the fight. The Chosen of Ilyrrah is ready to meet the Church’s Judge in battle.”

  “You know he has a name, right?” She smiled at her mother. “Chosen of Ilyrrah sounds like a mouthful.”

  Her mother tisked, letting go of her. “You know not how joyful I am that we found him in our time, daughter. Let me enjoy calling him that for a while. Plus, it will frustrate him to no end when I use it on him incessantly…” Her mother smiled devilishly. “...when you consummate your union with him.”

  She gulped nervously, her mind seizing up at the thought her mother just provoked in her. It stirred her loins and she felt her nipples harden, poking at the silk of her gown. What did she say to something like that?

  “Ooh? Who is this?” her mother asked.

  She looked up to see one of Jerome’s party members rush forward. She was a slip of a woman with long dark hair and a bust that was large compared to that of human sacred artists. But what surprised her was the fact that this sacred artist was very close to advancing to the Spirit Realm. She materialized the weapon Jerome had created in her hands — a long metal with complex-looking parts, and most likely with complicated functions. The weapon lit up in her hands and with a slight pull of her finger, a flash of fire burst forth from its nozzle.

  One of the Messengers far in the distance burst into a shower of gore.

  “Huh?” she muttered, perplexed. “That doesn’t happen with normal weapons.”

  Her mother laughed in excitement. “Let’s watch the show, daughter. I believe it is going to be interesting.”