The Entrance To The Volcanic Isles

As Druak slowly drifted off to sleep he began to awaken, but this time not where he once was. No, he awoke in what seemed to be a battlefield, covered in corpses. Despite the battlefield being littered with these corpses, there wasn't a drop of blood that could be seen.

Druak was so busy looking at the state of the battlefield that he hadn't even noticed something that should have been the first thing he realised, his body seemed to be moving on its own.

Druak felt the raindrop from above him, yet no matter how much he struggled he still couldn't move, it was as if some other being was controlling his entire body.

Druak began to panic as most would if they had no control over their body, he had never experienced this before, not even in his previous 27 years of life.

'What's happening, why can't I move.'

After panicking for what seemed like hours he was eventually able to calm himself down. He had now realised that this must have been just a dream although he couldn't be certain.

Every once in a while everything would go pitch black preventing him from seeing anything, he would then end up somewhere completely different and would have no clue as to how he got there, but he always seemed to be on a battlefield.

This happened constantly before Druak could finally get a clear view of what was actually going on around him, as previously he would always lose vision of what was going on after a matter of moments.

Before him was an army of skeletons clad in black that had such intimidating auras that Durak could only stare in fear of what devastation they could cause; this had also answered Druak's question on why all the corpses never seemed to have a drop of blood on them.

It seemed as though the being that was controlling this body, unlike Druak, was completely unfazed by the intimidating aura that these beings exuded, as it charged straight into battle straight into the enormous army of skeletons.

Just as Druak was about to see the clash between these two great powers unending darkness seemed to consume him, as he lost vision of everything, just as he had previously.

After waiting for a great deal of time Druak's vision gradually came to, and the first thing that he saw was a skeleton clad in black, as its head was cleaved clean off.

Druak was amazed at the swordsmanship of this being, it seemed to decimate any foe that approached it as if they were nothing, causing such devastation that the ground around the battlefield would crumble after each of these beings strikes.

Druak admired the way in which the being brandished the greatsword it held and began to try to study as much of it as possible, however, Druak soon realised this was impossible as it was clear this level of swordsmanship was far too advanced for him.

Not one of the cladded knights could approach the being and it seemed as if the battle had already been decided, as the being continued to decimate this army of thousands of black armoured skeletons.

Just as all seemed won a humongous cloud of green smoke enveloped the battlefield, blocking Druaks sight. Despite not being able to see anything Druak could still hear the sound of something rumbling, which had piqued his interest.

'What the hells going on here. I've never heard of a battle that took place in my past life which was anything like this one.'

The smoke slowly faded however the rumbling sound that Druak heard continued to become louder and louder….

*Thud* *Thud*

The noise of some kind of enormous being could be heard from just beneath the ground.

*Bang*

The ground crumbled to pieces as a gigantic creature exploded out revealing the creature's enormous wings. 'ITS… IT'S A DRAGON.' Druak couldn't believe his eyes, an actual dragon, even if it was undead, this was still one of the greatest spectacles Druak had ever seen.

Druak had never seen a dragon in his life and was shocked to see one now, but before he could admire it any further the darkness once again came and he could no longer see the magnificent visage of the dragon and the power which it could exude.

This darkness continued for hours and at first, Druak was excited to see what the dragon could do, but this excitement became concerned, as Druak continued to stay in this darkness for what seemed like years.

Just as Druak began to lose hope in ever leaving this place a cold sensation enveloped his body and an incoherent voice reverberated around him.

"Druak wake up you lazy sod."

This had managed to wake Druak up and he was finally able to escape the darkness he was once in.

As he awoke he could see the face of Isacc, which seemed to be laughing for some reason.

Durak began to realise why Isacc was laughing after he sat up.

"Isacc, you ass. Why did you throw water all over me." Druak asked angrily, as he tried to get as much of the water off him.

"You weren't waking up and I thought it would be funny and I seem to have been right." Isacc responded with a grin covering his face.

Druak was annoyed as he never really liked getting splashed with water especially after he had been attacked and tortured by a water mage when he was very young.

Isacc knew this but took this incident rather lightly as he didn't realise how much it had impacted Druak.

This had gotten even worse for Druak as he had another encounter with this mage in his previous life, which led to Druak losing his position in the army.

Druak looked at Isacc with scornful eyes but decided to leave it be as he knew his friend didn't realise the feeling of being in terrifying darkness only to be awoken by something you hate.

After calming down Druak began to dry and clean his clothing as he had been sweating a lot in his sleep and the water didn't help.

Once he had changed it was time for them to pack their things and continue their journey toward the Volcanic Isles.

As they walked Isacc tried to start a conversation with Druak. "So wh...." But each time he began to speak Druak just glared at him and walked away.

Isacc seemed to realise what he had done and tried multiple times to apologise to Druak but every time he was about to speak he was cut off by Druak.

They had been travelling in complete silence for almost the entire journey.

However, after some time they began to hear something. *Sssp* *Sssp* It was the sound of the magma escaping the ground.

They were finally beginning to enter the Volcanic Isles, which seemed to also increase the heat around them greatly.

Druak began to sweat profusely while Isacc just had a slight sweat.

While walking Druak began to cool down, it seemed that Isacc was using some of his mana to cool the air around Druak.

This annoyed Druak more so than actually making him feel any better, as he felt that Isacc was almost making fun of him again. This was due to Druak thinking Isaac believed he couldn't do the same thing himself, this however wasn't true, Druak just wanted to save his mana for a vital moment instead of wasting it to keep himself cool.

The atmosphere around the two was rather awkward as Druak was constantly avoiding Isaccs attempts at reconciling.

As if the creatures around them felt the awkwardness they also seemed to be avoiding them as they encountered nothing while approaching the Volcanic Isles.

This proceeded for quite some time until finally, something appeared that broke the awkwardness.

Dozens upon dozens of Lava Elsks which were small four-legged creatures with lava tails appeared before them. They had been completely surrounded, it was almost as if the Elsks had planned an ambush beforehand, Druak however knew this couldn't be the case, as Elsks were far too low stage to have such intelligence.

Druak and Isaac both prepared themselves for battle. As they knew with the number of Elsks around them this wouldn't be an easy fight.

With great speed, Druak began to cast a Mana bolt at one of the Elsks.

The bolt of mana struck the creature directly in the face, but before it could be sent flying Druak then used mana manipulation to push the Elsk into the others, this kind of manoeuvre was only possible due to the small size of the Elsks and their lightweight.

The force of the mana bolt caused the Elsk to smash into the others, sending them all into a large boulder.

Druak didn't pause for a moment, as he continued to blast yet another creature. *Bang* Druak started sending out mana bolt after mana bolt, hitting each creature with great precision.

However, Druak couldn't keep this up for long as he had to assist Isaac who had far greater difficulty dealing with these creatures. Isaac had been fighting beings that were almost completely resistant to his kind of fire magic, so it was incredibly difficult to do much damage to them which resulted in Isaac getting almost completely surrounded.

One of the Lava Elsks managed to break past Isaac, lunging straight toward Druak who it instinctively thought of as a greater threat.

Druak was so busy casting another spell that he didn't even notice the Elsk, which inflicted an incredibly sharp burning sensation on his arm, almost as if boiling hot water was poured onto it.

Looking down Druak could see that an Elsk was clinging to his arm while flailing its tail at him.

Druak began to try to pry the creature off but the pain of its attacks made him flinch, giving the creature a chance to strike.

The creature then lodged its tail into Druaks gut.

Blood began to gush out but was stopped not long after by the heat of the creature's tail.

Druak had enough. He swung his arm down as hard as he could.

*Crunch* Just as he slammed his arm down a loud crunching noise could be heard. The creature was smashed to smithereens, but in the process, Druaks arm had been slightly mangled.

He took no mind off this as he didn't have time to concentrate on it, he already had burns all over his body which was another injury.

After fighting for what seemed like hours both Isacc and Druak were now lying on the floor exhausted, as sweat and blood dripped down their body.

"So you got any of that water you threw at me left." Druak asked with a slight chuckle. He couldn't keep angry at Isacc especially when this place was so dangerous.

"Yeah just don't get angry when I give it to you." Isacc grinned back, this was how most of their fights ended and it seemed this would be no different.

While sitting down Druak began to inspect his stats to see if anything had improved.

Druak had a smile on his face as it seemed that his mana capacity had increased enough to let him cast spells much more continuously.

His physique had also improved greatly and he was beginning to get slight definition on his arms and legs.

After having a look at the state of his body both he and Isaac then continued their journey to the Volcanic Isles, they were both exhausted but they knew that they needed to leave this place as fast as possible otherwise they would die of dehydration, so the quicker they could get this over with the better.