City of Sin

Book 7, 144

A Lesson In Love(3)

Amidst his confusion, Richard could barely remember that Sharon had slapped him down from the sky. His limited mental faculties were occupied by the imminent danger as the huge group of dragons in the sky were flying down towards him. As he was right now, even a baby dragon could kill him with a single bite; his body just refused to follow his commands.

However, a loud explosion rang out as Sharon landed right next to him, facing the dragons in the sky, “DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH?”

The dragons immediately grew confused. They couldn’t understand just what had changed; only moments ago, Sharon had ordered them to kill. Unfortunately, the legendary mage wasn’t one to practice patience; seeing them continuing to swoop down for another second, her expression darkened as the entire arena went cold.

“Scram!” she shouted, voice so clear and deep it seemed to come from ancient times. Mana spread out from her immediately, covering the panicking dragons and dissipating their figures one by one.

The Banish spell could range from grade 5 to legendary, dealing great damage to summoned creatures and potentially even driving them out of the current plane. Sharon’s use of it was formidable, expelling all of the dragons immediately.

However, two black dragons remained, an eyesore in the otherwise empty sky. The legendary mage’s hair flew upwards as each of her pupils warped into a pale blue cross, “Outstanding magic resistance you have there.”

The two dragons flew up in shock, shouting in the draconic tongue, “Your Beautiful Excellency, we are not summoned creatures! We are your servants, residents of your weyr!”

Sharon was stumped, the blue fading from her eyes as she massaged her temples in annoyance. Summoning creatures from her weyr was easy, but sending them back took effort and time. With not a single shred of patience left, she scolded them, “Why not say that earlier?”

How were they to speak when covered in the storm of mana? The dragons wanted to scream, but knew better than to do so. They waited patiently as she finished a short chant, wailing pitifully as their figures shrunk down and were transformed into gnomes; wings lost, they fell down to the earth and were promptly buried into the depths of the arena.

While they had been shrunk, these dragons were still tough enough to barely be bruised by the fall. However, they immediately decided that they wouldn’t dare crawl out without Sharon’s permission, even if the effects wore off. There had been a lot of gossip around the weyr lately about her and Richard, and they didn’t want to see something forbidden.

With the arena finally cleared, Sharon quickly bowed down to examine Richard’s injuries. He had showcased great power during that lesson, so much so that even she felt a sense of actual danger. The momentary fear had led her to counter-attack subconsciously, and in that state she hadn’t held back. Even Tiamat couldn’t withstand an attack from her, forget Richard with a multitude of curses on him.

The legendary mage’s mind went blank at the sight of Richard coughing continuously, blood flowing freely from his nose and mouth. While she was talented in many fields, healing certainly was not one of them. She couldn’t think of any way to help. Fortunately, his body quickly surged with vitality with a bed of green covering the earth around him, white flowers blooming everywhere. His aura started to grow steadier, and after a few minutes was almost back to normal.

It still took a few more minutes after that for Richard to get up, wiping off the bloodstains on his mouth as he smiled wryly, “Your hand is still so heavy, I almost couldn’t get up.”

Sharon groaned, staring at him blankly. Her empty mind still couldn’t react properly.

“I’m a saint runemaster now,” he added.

“Oh.”

“I’m announcing it in a convention in five days, I have two runes prepared.”

“Oh...”

“There’s still a ways to go, but—” he suddenly stopped speaking, pulling the dazed Sharon into an embrace and kissing her forcefully.

Sharon’s eyes suddenly widened as she awoke with a start, but her muffled groans were cut off when he put more effort into the kiss. The legendary mage found herself pressed into the ground for the first time in her life, but her mind remained scrambled as she just stared at Richard in shock. It was only when she felt him enter her that something clicked at the back of her mind, her hands raised up and put down a number of times before she eventually shook her head and hooked onto his body.

The cold atmosphere was quickly blown away, replaced by a fiery passion as Sharon’s own desires surfaced. She slowly took more initiative, and despite Richard’s best efforts he was quickly overtaken. Returning to her savage nature, the legendary mage flipped him over and pinned him to the ground, beginning her own pursuit for orgasm. Any concerns about hurting him were thrown away as she crashed into him repeatedly, almost causing him to bleed once more.

By the time Sharon moaned in satisfaction and lowered herself into his embrace once more, Richard could barely even move. It took everything in him to just stroke her golden hair, giving her a gentle peck on the lips.

The legendary mage went blank again, although this time she fell into deep thought, “What does this mean? Are we in love?”

Richard thought over it for a while, “I’m... not sure either.”

“Why?”

“We’re still too far apart. Even now, I can barely catch a glimpse of you. Why did you even pick me back when I was a nobody?”

“Because I felt like it,” she shrugged, “The Balance told me to as well.”

“Huh? You follow that thing?” Richard was a little confused.

She snuggled onto his chest, propping her chin up with an elbow, “Destiny’s Balance. It’s been with me forever, but I need to let it absorb chaotic timeforce for years between every use. It can guide one’s destiny, and I’ve always felt like I can’t go wrong following it. I used both of my last two uses on you, and the result didn’t change.”

“And before that?” he grew curious. The balance concealed extremely complicated laws, to the point that he couldn’t even begin to analyse it. He knew that such an artifact didn’t belong to Norland at all; it far surpassed this plane’s standards.

Sharon cocked her head sideways, seemingly struggling to recall. Of course, she could remember anything she wanted to so long as she tried, but right now she was lazy and just wanted to sleep. It took nearly a minute for her to answer, “It told me to establish the Deepblue, and before that it had me increase Gaton’s debt. I can’t remember the... Wait, it cheated me that time! I never got everything I was owed, and he always wanted more. Hmph, if only...”

It was at this point that she recalled Gaton had fallen in the Rosie Plane, a twinge rocking her from her sleepy state. She turned back to Richard, “S... Sorry.”

That might have been the first time she had ever apologised in her life. However, Richard’s own emotions were confused, and he could only sigh and pat her back. He had already killed Raymond, extinguishing the man’s soul and feeding his body to the worker drones. If he still had the ability to return, the Scholars of Soremburg would have conquered the myriad planes long ago. Gaton’s vengeance was half-complete, but now there would be no way to find out just what had happened in the Rosie Plane.

“No, there’s still some hope...” he muttered. Ferlyn had caught a glimpse of Mordred taking Gaton’s corpse to the depths of the abyss; nobody knew just what would happen there. The depths went by many names, from the Source of Chaos to the Eternal Battlefield. It was the endpoint of the River of Death; anything was possible.

Unfortunately, he still wasn’t powerful enough to chart those depths. Even just moving about on the edge of the Darkness or the Outlands would be an easier task. Not wishing to keep thinking on those lines, he suddenly changed the topic with a smile, “Do you want some dragons?”