8 Chapter 8: An End and a Beginning
About a half a day later, the Chaos Dragon finally stopped struggling inside the barriers and fell asleep on the ground.
Following this, Gin, in human form, entered the barriers and flew right up to the Chaos Dragon's sleeping head.
Placing her hands next to each other on top of the Chaos Dragon's head, Gin started channeling energy. As the energy was gathering in her hands, Gin told [Great Sage] to start,
[Received. Placing the Soul of Gaia back with added energy to stabilize him.]
When Milim awakened as a Demon Lord, Gaia was revived, but didn't have his soul yet. But now that his soul went back into his body, the sleeping Dragon started glowing.
Not glowing purple, like the Chaos Dragon would, but instead White, the color of evolution.
For half an hour, Gin was holding her breath, waiting for the result. There was only one shot at putting Gaia's soul back in his body, and even though [Great Sage] said there was little to no chance of failure, she was still worried.
Quietly waiting as [Great Sage] was operating, Gin appeared extremely focused, staring at the glowing dragon until finally, a change.
And with the results, Gin had nothing to be disappointed about. As the glowing subsided, an earthly brown and green dragon egg appeared. This egg gave of the same energy signatures that Gaia did, confirming the success of the operation. The only difference between the egg and Gaia's previous look was the egg had a full earth elemental attunement, rather than being elementless.
On the other side of things, puzzlingly, the Chaos Dragon was also still alive, its large body still contained within the 2 barriers created by Misery. Instead, of disappearing like Gin thought it would, it became significantly weaker, EP Values dropping to below Gin's.
But that part wasn't the surprising thing. The real surprise was that somehow, a newborn soul was somehow born within the Chaos Dragon, giving it sanity, sentience, and true life.
Thinking that the soul must have been created due to Gaia, Gin decided that she wouldn't kill the weakened dragon, but instead raise it with kindness, hoping to have another True Dragon in the future.
Picking up the Gaia's Dragon egg, Gin noticed that the previous name of the dragon disappeared, so she decided to be the one to give Gaia his name. But spontaneously, she decided to also name the new Chaos Dragon, thinking that it would create a connection between them.
Using the Magicules in the surrounding environment, Gin declared, "From this day forth, this Earth attributed Dragon shall be known as Gaia, and this Dark attributed Dragon shall be known as Lin."
With this Gaia's egg grew in size until it reached about the size of a blown up pillow.
Opposite to Gaia's change, Lin's dark purple body started shrinking. Shrinking from a humungous dragon, getting smaller and smaller, until it shrank to about the same size as Gaia's egg before it transformed into a nearly identical egg, but colored dark purple. Along with this transformation, both eggs gained an Unawakened True Dragon Core, similar to Gin's except with their respective elements.
After observing the 2 eggs for about a minute, Gin set them aside, storing them in her inventory before flying back to Ramiris's side and started absorbing the excess Magicules in the air, continuing where she had left off.
----------
Looking at the scene in front Gin, it looked like the apocalypse had arrived.
After a few full days of fighting, Guy was finally able to weaken Milim, though just a little. But it was enough to give Gin the opportunity to get closer to the two and try to reach out to Milim by screaming her name.
This seemed to have a little effect on Milim, but not enough to snap her out of her anger. But for a split second, her dragon blue eyes gained consciousness before they returned to a wrathful glare and released more energy.
Repeating the cycle of Guy tiring Milim and calling out to her to in hopes to wake her up, progress was slowly but surely made.
First, Milim's eyes showed some recognition of Gin. Then her fingers and hands twitched. Next, her head turned a slight degree.
Continuing the cycle for more than a week, they consistently tried to wake Milim up at every possible opening until eventually, she was finally able to overcome her anger and regain full control of her body.
Shrinking back into her normal form, Milim flew down to the ground in a sad like manner. Tearing up from thinking about Gaia's death, she jumped into Gins embrace.
Startled from Milim's quick movements, Gin hugged the crying Milim back, comforting her for a good hour until she calmed down. This scene reminded her of the anime, except instead of Ramiris comforting Milim, it was Gin. Though Ramiris was still present, hovering besides Guy, being thankful that this stressful, long, eight day endeavor was coming to and end at last.
Unsurprisingly, with Gin assisting Ramiris in containing and absorbing the demonic energy in the surrounding area, she did not completely fall from grace. Instead of becoming a self reincarnating pixie, Ramiris shrunk into her small pixie sized form with the ability to transform into her adult form and gaining all its power for about 24 hours a year, which she learned right away as she was testing her remaining abilities.
Milim, on the other hand, was still extremely down, but the next few lines that she heard brought her spirits up immediately.
"Hey Milim, I know that Gaia had died and all, but you don't have to be upset anymore. You already destroyed the country responsible for this," explained Gin. Then, she surprised Milim by taking out Gaia's egg and adding, "Plus, I revived Gaia after you resurrected her. Though for some reason, she returned to her egg form."
Hearing this, Milim instantly got into a better mood, jumping up and down energetically, with her eyes sparkling with excitement. In fact, after hearing this, the group all thought that Milim had forgotten all the destruction she had caused just be hearing that Gaia was still alive.
Not wanting to stay much longer since his job was finished, Guy approached the two touchy girls and changed the subject.
"You two are both very interesting and strong. How about we stay in touch by using these rings I created. With these rings, we will be able to contact each other whenever we want, unless the other person takes it off."
Levitating 3 plain black rings above his palm Guy held his hands to the girls. The rings, which had no designs except for a simple, light blue, and spherical piece of Magic Crystal Ore lightly attached at the top, looked like nothing special.
But even though these rings looked very plain, Gin, realizing that this was the beginning of the council of Demon Lords, and that these rings were the same Demon Lord communication rings use in the anime, Gin readily accepted and lightly pushed both Milim and Ramiris to accept. Though it didn't take much convincing since even though they were fighting, everyone in the group already felt that they had grown much closer, like lifetime or even eternal friends.
After distributing the rings, Guy had one last thing to say.
"In a year from today when everyone settles down again, let's meet up again. I have a lot I need to say," Guy announced, quickly receiving a nod of confirmation from everyone.
Then he, along with Rain and Misery who were standing off to the side away from the group, said their goodbyes before teleporting away via a slowly activated skill [Spatial Motion].
At this moment, Gin felt extra thankful to Guy, as she believed that he intentionally used the [Spatial Motion] skill slowly allowing Gin to analyze. But this wasn't the case, as Guy had wanted to look cool teleporting away since his Ultimate Skill had told him that none of the other 3 had teleportation abilities. And Guy had not paid attention to Gin's skills since she didn't posses an Ultimate Skill.
Being lucky at the moment, Gin was able to fully analyze and copy the skill.
{Received. Skill [Spatial Motion] has been fully analyzed and successfully acquired.}
Then, before she was able to say anything, Ramiris quickly interjected. "If you don't have anywhere to go, you should go with me. My labyrinth is kind of empty just by myself," she said.
Gin kindly rejected her offer, saying that she would visit at a later date, but had business that needed her attention. But then told Milim that she should agree so that she can set up a safe area to put the two Dragon eggs so she could raise them in a safe and isolated space.
But surprisingly, although Milim agreed, she said she would only raise Gaia and not Lin, even though Lin used to be a part of Gaia. Instead, she offered Lin to Ramiris, saying that since she gets lonely sometimes, she could use a companion.
Surprised by Milims offer, Ramiris slightly tears up before she agreed and hugged Milim (in her pixie form). Then, Gin handed both the eggs to Milim before the two of them quickly flew off to the spirit labyrinth. Although the speed that they blasted off at looked reckless, especially after the event that just happened, Gin knew that when it came to Gaia, Milim was the furthest from reckless as can be.
Instead of leaving like everyone else did, Gin lied down right where she was standing. Even with her resistances, and even though she was absorbing energy in the air, she was exhausted and wanted to rest for a few hours before leaving to where she sheltered her future country's citizens.
Resting for a little while, Gin finally got up. She then asked [Great Sage] to give a report on all the gains she had received from this long tiring week.
{Received. Previously, your EP Value was at 150,181 (A rank). Your EP Value has risen to 205,902 (A+ Rank), but you are still unable to evolve into a Dragon King. However, your evolution is close. You have gained a few intrinsic skills from evolution into an Arch Dragon. Your dragon form has also nearly quadrupled in size, reaching the size of a house back in her old world. You have become close friends with the other future First Generation Demon Lords, and will become one, as you have joined the future council of Demon Lords. (A/N: There are more, but if I continue, it will be a long list.)}
'That's great. I guess its time to head out now.'
But right before Gin was about to leave, [Great Sage] quickly notified Gin about an urgent matter.
{Received. A life signature has appeared deep underground, buried underneath the destruction of the Ultra-Sorcery Kingdom.}
'Oh, there's a survivor? They're lucky to be alive. They're probably an innocent person that was unfortunately unable to leave.' Gin though naively.
{Received.
Negative. Being able to survive in the current destructive environment, it is highly unlikely that they were an innocent or non-combatant. Furthermore, being able to hide their life signature until now, They would have to be strong enough to hide from the likes of Guy, Milim, and Ramiris. It is highly likely that they would rank in the top 3 most powerful people of the destroyed Ultra-Sorcery Kingdom.}
'That's a good point. But if this person isn't innocent and is one of the strongest, then who could they be?' Gin thought, puzzled.
----------
Side Story 4
--Shortly after Milim and Ramiris took off--
*Crash*
"MILIM! BE CAREFUL! YOU COULD HAVE DESTROYED THE EGGS!!!" Ramiris scolded Milim angrily. After flying at terrifying speeds while carrying a dragon egg in each hand with Ramiris holding on for dear life, Milim quickly arrived at Ramiris's labyrinth.
"Huh? I was careful, didn't you see how slowly I was flying?" Milim asked, feeling confused.
Looking around, Milim then asked, "By the way, where's the Labyrinth you said you were in charge of. All there is here is mountains.
Since Ramiris put the entrance to her domain in the side of a cliff to better hide it, Milim had trouble finding it.
"Are you stupid. Its right over there!" Ramiris energetically pointed out. But the direction she pointed to was straight into a wall on the side of the mountain.
"No its not. That's just rocks."
"Uhhh, give me a minute. I know its somewhere around here." Ramiris said frantically.
It wasn't until the next day, after guessing where the gateway was and running in circles did Ramiris point in another random direction that just so happed to be near where the entrance was.
--------------------
Extra Authors Notes:
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
If you did, please give me a comment and add the story to your collection.
I'm going to try my best to read and reply to comments so if you have question, feel free to ask things.
Just one thing to point out about the chapter, the Barren lands will still exist. The climate and environment there will be terrible. Humans won't be able to set up countries there. Its just that it won't be as bad, and monsters will be able to spawn and survive there. But for the most part there won't be much of a difference.
Also, this arc is coming to and end, so if you have requests or ideas, feel free to share them. If you have a suggestion that fits well with my story, I might include it.
