Chapter 1566: The City of Krom
Finally walking out of the hallway, Arad found himself emerging into a sprawling city, strangely built to human standards. Since all Metallic dragons can take a humanoid shape, they chose to build their towns and live like that to save space.
Massive towers with hundreds of floors, strange lights illuminating the streets, flying metal boxes that carried people around, and a strange mishmash of races and species that made Arad’s head hurt.
A tiny canary bird landed on a stall, spoke in the voice of a gaunt old man to a giraffe woman that had a meter-long neck, and then got a bag of apples handed to him in exchange for some gold coins, which he pulled from god knows where.
One of the flying boxes stopped, flashing a bright light at Arad’s face, followed by many other boxes. A loud voice screamed from inside them. "Krom’s Police! Clear the streets! I repeat, clear the streets!"
Soon, tens of people rushed out of those flying boxes and surrounded Arad and everyone else. Not a second later, a tall man with a long black beard and a gaunt face approached Loki and growled, "Your highness. The escort is here."
"Yo, Loki," Arad said with a smile. Behind him, half of the men who showed up had surrounded Alcott and were already pointing their blades at him, sweat and fear clear on their faces.
Alcott, on the other hand, was as carefree as ever, looking around the city like a kid who had been dropped in an amusement park.
"Starting a fight with father is a bad idea."
Loki glared back at the armed men, "Get back! Arad is right, don’t start any trouble, no matter what. It’s never worth it."
The men slowly blacked away, keeping their weapons and eyes pointed at Alcott.
Arad felt a bit sad that he wasn’t targeted. The metallic dragons here approve of his father’s power to the point that they see him as a threat even when unarmed, but he was left all alone.
Loki sighed and returned to the man who approached him. "Good, is sister’s car ready?"
The man nodded, looking back at one massive silver box. "Yes, but where is she?"
Loki froze; his sister was so powerful and immense that no dragon could lose track of her aura. He turned around, looked at the shadows, and paled.
His sister was nowhere to be seen. It took him a whole five seconds to spot her, and when he did, he took a few steps back and audibly gasped.
His sister was hiding in Arad’s shadow; all of her power, all of her might in its harrowing immensity got concentrated and managed to fit in the bottomless abyss of Arad’s soul, resting calmly on his shadow, keeping shackles on him from the shadow realm.
Linda’s shadow coiled around Arad’s, trying to restrain it. But Arad’s shadow wasn’t that nice or gentle; he immediately pushed her back, frowned, showing his contempt, and tried to slap her away.
Of course, Arad’s shadow wasn’t able to catch Linda’s shadow and hit it, but that didn’t mean he could fully resist her will. She was there to make sure Arad didn’t go on a rampage.
Linda didn’t even expect Arad’s shadow to be able to resist her or move on its own. It was only thanks to Ombre that Arad could control his shadow like that, or at least allow it to move.
"Sister! What are you doing?" Loki gasped and looked at Arad’s shadow with a worried face.
While everyone saw Alcott as the biggest threat around, Linda was of a different mind. She could feel it on the threads of time, while Alcott would cause a massacre before getting killed by her or her mother, Arad would end up pissing on both of them in due time.
As a powerful Elder time and shadow drakaina, Linda could see more of Arad’s soul and shadow than many could. She quickly noticed how the threads of fade bend and evade him, how the world favors him, and how his power is far from its peak.
What was even more terrifying to her was that Arad had a strange smell on him, the smell of her elder brother, Mary’s eldest son, John.
She didn’t hear from him for over a million years. Both of them are time dragons, so they lived far longer than the actual time had passed, but she could swear that if a million years had passed for her, then her brother must’ve lived for untold eons without ever coming back.
Arad had met him, and that was more concerning than anything else.
Arad shrugged, "Keeping an eye on me. While your guards think Father is the biggest problem here, she thinks I’m the one worth getting worried about." He looked at his shadow, "I’ll take that as a compliment."
Malina glared at Arad’s shadow for a second, trying to spot Linda to no avail. It was almost impossible for someone who isn’t attuned to shadows to detect her when she hides.
Loki sighed, "Fine, let’s go. Our ride is here." He approached one of the metal boxes, looked at it, then back at Arad. He remained silent.
"Sir, we have a truck we use for animals nearby. If he doesn’t fit..."
Loki glared at him, "You want to haul him away like... a cow? Find us a bigger car! One that he can fit in."
The police man looked worried, "Sir, we don’t make civil modules that big. We can’t fit a three-meter-tall man in a car."
Loki tried to calm down, "Sorry, Arad, we’ll walk with you to..." He froze. At this moment, Arad looked strange.
A young man standing at a bit over six feet tall {1.89 m}, well built, boasting a thin and elegant beard, glowing purple eyes, and a gentle smile that made him look like a younger version of his grizzly father.
Arad was already scary, having a dark aura of draconic magic around him that made him look far more threatening than any other dragon. But now, that aura had grown bigger, darker, and deeper. Every dragon could recognize Zephyr’s size magic, and none of them could now miss Linda’s aura in his shadow. Those two amplified Arad’s presence, turning him into a moving mountain of magic that flashed like a lightning bolt in the middle of the night.
Arad walked into the car alongside everyone else. It was now that the real trouble started.
This was the first time that Loki got this close to Arad, and he almost regretted it. At first, he never noticed. In the back of his head, he knew that Arad had many vampires inside his stomach, but now, he could sense that Arad had much, much more.
Deep inside Arad’s shadow, Loki could sense the presence of Archons, angels, devils, demons, vampires, humans, gods, and even a whole horde of dragons, all ready to leap out in the blink of an eye.
There was an especially powerful aura that glared right back at Loki, almost blinding him in fear. A mass of wings, eyes, and dark shadows whispered.
"Don’t be afraid." Baal was ready for violence, the sole mission of his life having become protecting Arad. Inside his soul, kneeling beneath Arad’s souls, he waited, eyes peeled open, glaring at the world.
Arad himself might be far weaker than the Queen, but he is holding enough firepower inside him to spell disaster. Loki and his men were guiding a threat that could kill gods into the heart of their kingdoms, to their most vulnerable keeps.
No one knew why the Queen wanted to talk with Arad here of all places, but no one dared speak, especially when the powers involved are so harrowing that most can’t even begin to understand them.
Malina looked around, then smiled, "Arad, see that house over there?" She pointed, "That’s my house, well, parents’ house. Father is a retired artillery general who operated those big cannons we saw outside, my mother is a cleric of Bahamut, a healer."
"You want to go visit them?" He looked at her and looked back at her home.
"I don’t know. It’s been a long time since I left."