Path of Dragons-Chapter 10Book 8: . Running Away, Together

“It feels like I’m running away from my problems,” Sadie said, running her hand through her hair as she looked around the room. “My people need me now more than ever before.”

“But do they want you?” Elijah asked.

It was a valid question, but Sadie didn’t immediately answer. Instead, she turned away and walked toward her window. From the height of her apartments: which were at least fifty stories above the ground: she could see Hong Kong in its entirety. And what was on display was not an encouraging sight. The city was in ruins, and conquering the Primal Realm hadn’t changed that.

Sure, the city was better off than it had been, with fewer and less dangerous undead monsters roaming the streets. However, killing the Queen of Desolation wasn’t a magical potion that could reverse the damage that had already been done. Elijah had seen that during his trek through the city, but even then, it was hard to escape the feeling of uselessness that came with that realization.

The task of keeping the city safe felt like bailing water from a sinking ship. One moment of inattention, and they would fail.

“These people need to learn to take care of themselves,” Elijah added. “I know you think it’s your responsibility, but:”

“It is my responsibility, Elijah. I’m here to protect them. Whether they want it or not.”

“If you keep going like this, it’ll kill you. Everyone needs a break.”

“If I take a break, people die,” she reminded him.

What Elijah wanted to say was that maybe certain people needed to die. It was a great motivator for others to take up the responsibility, and it would force the population to find new ways of combating the problem. That was what had happened in other cities, and it would happen in Hong Kong too.

But he knew that Primal Realms were different than towers. If normal people entered the Desolate Reach, they would die: just like Gideon or Zhang Yue.

It was a difficult problem to solve.

Fortunately, from what Elijah could tell, it wasn’t urgent. It would take years for the Primal Realm to reach full power, and in that time, others could step up and grow powerful enough to fight it.

Still, that did nothing for Sadie’s sense of responsibility. Elijah knew her well enough to recognize that she would never trust anyone else to do what she thought she could do herself.

So, Elijah chose to take a different tactic. “It’s not as urgent right now. We’ve earned a little respite,” he said. After all, the power of Primal Realms was cyclical. Immediately after being conquered, they were weaker than they ever would be again. With every passing day, they would continue to grow stronger until they burst forth with a level of power sufficient to subdue an entire region.

Or a whole world, if what Elijah had read was correct: though that was considered a rarity, if only because every planet was host to multiple Primal Realms. If one was sufficiently neglected so as to result in that kind of explosion of power, then the others would be too. In those cases, they usually fought one another for dominance, typically to a stalemate.

Not that either scenario was encouraging for Elijah. If it came down to that, the world would become virtually uninhabitable by humans or any other race.

But they weren’t even close to that point, especially with the Desolate Reach. It had been drained, and it wouldn’t become a significant threat for some time yet. Because of that, it was the perfect time for Sadie to take a vacation, which was the crux of his following argument.

Eventually, Elijah convinced her, and soon enough, she’d begun packing.

All the while, Elijah was certain that they would be interrupted, but no one visited Sadie. No one showed up to convince her to stay. Even when they left her apartments behind and made their way to the roof, nobody tried to stop her from leaving.

That was disappointing.

It was her home. She had family there. And they hadn’t tried to conceal her intentions to leave, either. Surely, Tianwei and Nico knew what she had planned, and still, they were content to let her leave without so much as a goodbye.

“Do you want to let your grandfather know where you’re going?” Elijah asked once they reached the roof. “He might worry…”

Sadie stared at the roof, as if she could see through the entire building. Then, after a few moments, she shook her head and said, “No. They’ll figure it out.”

Elijah considered trying to convince her otherwise, but then thought better of it. The last thing he wanted was to step into the middle of her family drama. So, without further ado, he shifted into Shape of the Sky and invited Sadie to climb onto his back. He knew it wouldn’t be particularly comfortable up there: he was shaped more like a snake with wings than an actual dragon: but it was probably better than being toted along in his talons.

“Ready?” he asked in the hissing voice characteristic of the form.

“I…I guess,” she said, her arms around his slender neck. Elijah could guess what was going through her mind. Even if she fell: which probably seemed likely at the moment: she would survive the descent pretty easily. Hopefully, that was a comfort.

With that confirmation, Elijah flexed his legs and threw himself upward with a mighty flap of his wings. Within moments, he was soaring over Hong Kong, though the act drew the inevitable attention of the undead flyers nesting within the tallest high-rises. After only a few seconds, they’d begun to swarm.

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But Elijah wasn’t worried.

Once he’d oriented himself in the right direction, he used Lightning Rush, leaving the monsters far behind. In the space of two seconds, he flew hundreds of miles from Hong Kong. It wasn’t quite as much distance as he could have managed unencumbered, but the decrease wasn’t as large as he might have expected.

Probably because of his increased attributes.

In any case, they were soon soaring over the Red Beach of Panjin, which made for a truly marvelous sight. Over the course of the next day, Elijah took Sadie on a tour of the surrounding area. Predictably, flying wasn’t a comfortable endeavor for her, so they spent much of their time on the ground.

But eventually, they reached their destination.

And it took Sadie’s breath away. She stood atop the mountain overlooking the mist-shrouded valley, speechless and with an expression of wonder playing across her face.

“This is Zhangjiajie National Forest Park,” she said. “Everything here is bigger than it used to be, but it’s one of China’s most powerful natural wonders. I’ve always dreamed of visiting.”

“Well, dream achieved.”

After that, they shared a nice lunch atop the mountain. They were high enough above the mist that they weren’t bothered by the wildlife, but they still had the advantage of the great view. Soon enough, though, they headed down into the valley.

Predictably, Elijah was soon surrounded by animals. Apparently, during his short stay, he’d built something of a following. It was wholly based on his propensity to feed the beasts, but he convinced himself that they just liked him for his gentle demeanor and magnetic personality.

Sadie tried to act unfazed, but she wasn’t quite as accustomed to it as him. “You know some of these creatures are strong enough that they could probably kill you,” she said as he fed a hunk of meat to a small black bear.

“The way to any animal’s heart is through its stomach.”

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“Until you run out of food and they start looking at you like you’re their next meal,” she reasoned.

“Well, yeah. Probably. But my buddies here wouldn’t eat me. Would you, bud?” asked Elijah as he scratched the bear’s head. It let out a low growl. “Okay: not a dog. Gotcha. Here.”

He tossed a hunk of meat: it had come from a wild boar he’d hunted and roasted the day prior: off into the woods. The bear followed.

“Where are we going?” Sadie asked. “Not that I don’t enjoy a little nature walk, but…”

“You’ll see. It’s not much further.”

It took them a further half a day to reach the site of the dolmen, and then a short flight to get to the summit of the edifice where it rested.

“What is this?” Sadie asked, approaching the circle of trilithons. Each arch left a gap almost three feet wide, so she had no issues passing beneath them. She did so, running her hand along the surface of the carved stone. “It looks like black marble, but I can feel the power coming from it.”

“I don’t know what it’s called. I found it nearby.”

“It’s pretty. I would…”

She trailed off as she studied the first carving. Her speechlessness wasn’t a surprise. Elijah had never been the most artistically gifted of people, but to anyone who’d known Dat, the inspiration for the patterns etched into the stones was obvious.

“This is for him?” she asked.

Elijah stepped closer to her. “Sort of,” he said. “When I make these dolmens, I always use something important to me as inspiration. I’m not sure it matters, but when I get going, I sort of just go with the flow. In this case, it led me to Dat. This is called the Circle of the Hunter.”

For a long few moments, Sadie just stared at the carving. It depicted the first time Dat had used his miracle in the Trial of Primacy, and he stood over the four-armed ka’alaki, his shortsword raised above his head. The entire picture reminded Elijah of a schlocky fantasy book cover from the eighties, but he felt that was appropriate, given Dat’s tastes.

“He would have loved this,” Sadie said, resting her hand on the carving. Tears traced lines down her cheeks as she added, “He didn’t have a lot of friends, you know. Not that were left. He was popular in school, but most of those people…”

She didn’t have to finish the statement. A large portion of humanity’s population had fallen during Earth’s transformation, and it would have been a surprise to find that Dat’s old friends had survived. Not impossible by any stretch, but the odds definitely weren’t in their favor.

“He was a great guy,” Elijah said. “One of the bravest people I’ve known. A hero.”

“He was.”

After that, Elijah showed Sadie everything he’d carved. The dolmen wasn’t as densely covered as some of the others he’d built, but each standing stone depicted something important about Dat’s life. In all, it felt like a fitting tribute for the man who’d sacrificed himself to save their lives.

Sadie agreed, and the monument to her friend left her more than a little emotional. For Elijah’s part, he’d processed many of those feelings when he was building the dolmen, so he managed to maintain a stoic façade.

Eventually, though, they were forced to take a step back and make camp for the night. They could have gone to the grove, then and there, but Elijah felt that it was better for her to put a little distance between her current emotions and her first impressions of his home.

Plus, the Zhangjiajie Forest provided plenty of wonder that neither of them wanted to quickly leave behind. Thankfully, the clouded leopard guardian kept its distance. As they sat around the fire, Sadie asked about the dolmens.

“Think of them like teleportation nodes,” Elijah explained. “But I can’t go from one to the next. They always lead back to the grove. But I can teleport from the grove to any of them.”

“How many have you built so far?” she asked.

Elijah answered, “So far? Six. There’s the Circle of the Dragon. Circle of Spears. The Moon Well. Circle of the Boar King. The Circle of Hope. And now the Circle of the Hunter. The first few were probably kind of wasted, at least in terms of their proximity to one another. But I think this one and the Circle of Hope really expanded my reach. I’ve got four more I can make before I upgrade my core, which I think is a little ways away. I haven’t even figured out the method yet, much less started on the preparation process.”

“You talk about advancing cultivation like it’s a foregone conclusion,” Sadie remarked with a shake of her head. “For most of us, it’s a struggle.”

“Maybe my island will help,” he suggested. “The ethera density is much higher than anywhere else I’ve been.”

“Perhaps.”

After that, the conversation moved on to other things, but they both pointedly stayed away from the elephant in the room. The Primal Realm was still an issue, and neither of them relished the thought of constantly throwing themselves back into that death trap just so Hong Kong could keep its head above water.

Eventually, though, they decided to call it a night, falling asleep in one another’s arms. It was a decidedly big step in their relationship, even if neither of them acknowledged it. Instead, they simply enjoyed the comfort provided by the other.

The next morning came with chirping birds and sunlight diffused through the surrounding mist. The effect was a feeling of surreality that gave the landscape a magical cast.

After cleaning up and enjoying a breakfast of mostly tasteless pork chops warmed over an open flame, they once again ascended to the dolmen, and at last, Elijah used Roots of the World Tree to open a portal home.

It was a long time coming, and even as he gestured for Sadie to step through, he felt a sense of immense relief. He followed her a second later, letting the atmosphere wash over him.