novelraw Chapter 323 - 322 - Mastering Instincts
Chapter 323 - 322 - Mastering Instincts
The slaughter was terrifying to watch. Back in the Inheritance, Lind had battled experts of the Platinum Wing clan as well as some random beasts encountered on his journey, but his time there was as a human with a touch of dragon on him.
When he broke through to Gold Tier, Lind had felt an itch he could not scratch until he encountered the beast lairs between him and his goal. Blood dripped from his hands as his face was plastered in a smile.
It vanished the next moment as the blood lust was once more shattered by reason. The spurts of frenzy were getting shorter but it was only 1 aspect Lind was battling.
His new body came with a lot of automatic responses but most of them were fairly simple adaptations. Lind had to learn to moderate his aura which wanted to blare out to conquer any area.
Since he had to control his cultivation from the very beginning of his journey, it was simply a matter of comprehending that aspect of his new path, yet it was much stronger than any Qi impulse to advance like when he was in the Soul Realm.
A dragon apparently did not simply dominate because of power, but because they were born feeling the need to dominate. Ethry did not exactly match that but then he recalled how competitive and openly hostile to his wives she had been at first.
It suddenly made Lind feel a little like a toy being fought over but his wives wisely won her over while he was not watching. The only woman Ethry feared, however, was his mother. He wondered if he would have had a similar reaction if he met Ethry's parents if they were still alive.
Similar issues were his response to new scents or possible threats that his body wanted to unleash full power or pin mercilessly anything it perceived as a challenge. For all of those, it was simply a matter of discipline and comprehending his new set of physical abilities.
The current bloodbath, however, was a war of dominance not only against the physical beasts, but against his new desire to rule. Lind was not simply killing wantonly despite how it looked to others.
He had killed peak Diamond Tiers and Gold Tiers mostly, in other words the most likely challengers to his authority. He had engraved the ground with his harmony flames to mark his territory which now turned the beasts from surrounding him to being trapped instead!
As the battle progressed, more cultivators Arts and conjuring was mixed into it as Lind mastered his powerful drives. There was one drive he had been worried about but apparently the arrogance of dragons made it a moot point.
He had worried due to the very real stories of the vitality of dragons making them very amorous creatures, but it seemed it was restricted to his own kind. Lind was unsure how that would work as while he was gaining dragon traits, he was still very human.
He was concerned his return to society would be…complicated.
Still, he now had more practice as the battle wound down and he used his cultivation senses to survey his results. He frowned at the viciousness of some of the corpses but he noticed some strange things.
The only corpses that were shredded like he was angry were ones that had run towards him in battle. The other dead were either caught too close as they ran or were killed with single strikes to the heart, brain, or spine.
"So even in the heat of battle, I crush my enemies but show mercy to those that do not resist. I still do not like the instinct to kill over simply incapacitation." He spoke out loud but found his voice was odd. He used water and light to make a mirror. It was an illusion but served the purpose.
He was once more surprised. There was blood a plenty on his hands, robes, and hair, but not his face at all. It was pristine but his mouth was far wider than a human's should be.
Lind also noted his exhaustion was setting in. He made sure nothing was hiding above or below before he calmed his dragon soul. The features returned to being more human than dragon but his body felt so heavy.
He was about to fall when he saw Kora and Tal making their way over. He was about to smile when a sudden desire to kill Kora rose in him. It was not a conscious thought but a draconic instinct.
"Rocs and dragons generally do not get along even if they respect each other. I am surprised it took this long to manifest." Senior dragon soul spoke to him but her tone seemed to pity him.
Lind felt his anger rise, not at Kora, but at the inane pre-conditions dragons lived under.
"I am Lind Frey, I am now a dragon soul but I am not surrendering my Dao to your race's petty rivalries! I will follow my path where it leads but I will not be forced to follow anothers!" Pain lanced through his body suddenly.
His dantian was vibrating as the emerald gold seemed to be angry but Lind's eyes suddenly became very human once more. Emerald light flared on his body that stopped Kora and Tal as a change came over the man they were close to.
The storm above changed. Lightning had stopped falling during the battle but it had not yet returned. The quality of the feeling changed as Lind looked up.
"Your opinion was not requested! I am me! I will not reject the gift of life I was given but I will not abandon my oath to you no matter what this damned soul feels!" Lind suddenly felt a change to what he thought was his future self.
It almost felt like it got fainter but he did not care. He saw a room and spoke to a voice, but the future was yet to come and he was forging the path he desired!
The pain increased.
"Stop it! You will kill yourself if you reject your soul!" The senior dragon soul felt terrified but then dark green eyes were staring at her inside the space she had carved out. They were endless pools of power far unlike the usual eyes of the boy.
What was this vision?!
"Reject? You think I am rejecting it? I am not rejecting it, I am–" Lind suddenly felt his meridians strain as Qi circulated far faster and in far greater quantities as his harmony flared out of his control.
"AAAARRRRRGGGGHHH!" Lind's pain could not be contained but he did not summon an elixir. An instinct of his talents warned him he had to win this battle on his own or he would never advance.
He would lose the battle of wills between instinct and himself.
Lightning began to gather once more but it was not of the 6 elements. It was emerald lightning once again!
A tribulation?!
Kora and Tal felt fear but senior dragon soul felt horrified. If that bolt was what she thought, the Heaven's were becoming angry at Lind! He was rejecting the gift of the spirits!
"I am not a slave to instinct! I will use all the tools granted but I will not simply comply with your racial issues or delusion. You are MY soul, not separate from me!" Lind's words reverberated across the blasted lands.
Any beast that had been returning ran in terror as the authority in that voice was instinctually laced into their very being to avoid at all costs!
Kora and Tal shivered but did not run. Their bodies screamed to run, but they would not abandon Lind. He saw that and smiled through the pain.
"SEE?! Look at them! They are my family and my friend. I will never abandon them, not now or ever!" The rumble above suddenly changed. It was no longer anger but almost like the Heavens were curious.
Senior dragon soul was shocked. The Heavens were listening?!
Lind was now in his dantian as a serpentine dragon was staring back at him. They were one but the disagreement had made them opposed. A dragon would not yield but neither would Lind Frey!
The stubbornness was his from the very beginning of his life and had nothing to do with blasted dragons!
"We are one but still as 2 here. I cannot master you, because you are my soul. Instincts from some racial memory are not ours, but those that came long ago. We are one. I will not be defined by other beings. This new bloodline will be defined by me alone!" A shift occurred and suddenly sunlight fell on Lind alone.
Kora and Tal felt a change in their instincts. They no longer felt fear, only awe.
The surviving aether beasts all were the same as them. They all poked their heads out and felt awe looking at the human in the shaft of light they had never seen in that blasted land.
The pain faded as a change came over Lind.
His scales faded completely and his dirty blonde hair returned. His slitted eyes were gone but every beast there could not help but feel they were in the presence of a terrifying dragon.
The physical features did not make a dragon, but the indomitable will, the unstoppable force, and the master of life was all before them. Lind breathed out a great deal of impurity as the sunlight faded once more.
Lind opened his eyes and in those eyes, all beasts felt the innate desire to bow in obedience.
"So that was the problem. I broke through but did not truly master my foundation. I kept a sliver apart to study when it was so much simpler to simply complete the stabilization." Lind seemed a bit lost in a minor enlightenment but then he looked out over the beasts and at the clouds above.
"Leave this place. It is now mine." He spoke softly but it was an edict from Heaven so far as the survivors were concerned. Whether they flew, slithered, or ran on 2 or 4 legs, they all left as if a nightmare was chasing them.
Lind flexed his hand and felt the power in his body was far greater than before. He finally felt whole and complete. The thunder rumbling told him the Heavens were returning to punish the world but he felt a strange connection to them now.
"Is this what all Divine beasts feel, senior?" Senior dragon soul was shaken from her stupor as she felt the power flowing around her. Lind was no longer simply a human with a dragon soul, he had completely integrated it into every aspect of his being.
Most humans took millenia to figure that out, but he did it in less than a decade!
"I–I do not know. Divine bloodlines generally keep their secrets close." Lind nodded as it made sense but he felt it. Heaven and Earth seemed to sing and dance to his Eyes and Touch now. It seemed happy to help him.
"I will need to see how that goes when I reach the Diamond Tier." Lind bowed to the boiling clouds and only Kora and Tal witnessed the clouds settling for a moment as if they were pleased at his humble bow. "Come, we are almost there."
They moved on as the lighting blasts resumed but there was a change. Any beast that tried to return was instantly killed by a bolt of lightning where before it was random. Lind Frey had claimed the land of his first battle as a Gold Tier and the Heavens acknowledged it.