Hearing those words, Bonbon shouted, "Can’t I just have that?"
"No."
Auren frowned, ’Essence of what?’
In the other end, Roov and the beast within him shuddered in a way that could have been called worship.
The Essence of a Primordial Beast—pure, condensed, legendary—was the stuff of song and nightmare. It was the power older empires whispered about and then pretended not to rember.
"Are you referring to the sa Primordial Essence the Druka gave to Drakan?" Roov asked, voice thin with greed and reverence.
"So you’ve heard of it," Ugha said, smiling with sothing like approval. Roov tried to smile back, lips betraying the reach of his ambition.
Auren frowned at the na of Druka and Drakan.
History weighed on him then, heavy and black.
He knew the Banthaya Marshland and Kugaw Wasteland had once been bustling human territories until Drakan descended and turned them into a scarred husk.
No emperor worth his salt wanted to set foot into Dragon Mountain since. Drakan’s power had long been rumored to stem from a Primordial Essence, sothing that had kept whole nations in awe and fear.
Roov drooled inwardly and stood up, pointing to Auren.
"Just to make sure, as long as I defeat this young man in a duel in the coming ten years, I shall receive your Essence Blessing?"
"You have my word," Ugha nodded.
"Eternal Fla Essence? What’s that?" Auren asked, voice small in the great hush.
Bonbon, always eager to fill a silence, answered in a chirpy, informative way.
"Eternal Fla Essence is basically a lump of extrely rare, pure fire energy produced by us Primordial Beasts. It manifests only once every three thousand years in a form of a tiny sparkly droplet."
Ugha leaned closer and tapped the tip of Auren’s nose.
"He is right. And in your case, consuming my Eternal Fla Essence would grant you the strongest form of fire-elental affinity: Eternal Fire."
"Eternal F-fire?"
"Eternal Fire, the strongest form of fire. Not to ntion, you get unlimited access to fla mana, the ability to adopt a fully elental body. And," he added with a cryptic shrug,
"it can grant immortality, unless, of course, you are pulverized into dust before you ever manage to transform. There is no healing from that."
Auren smacked his lips after realizing just how powerful this essence actually is.
’In other words, the ultimate jackpot and my ticket to returning ho!’
He rembered, suddenly and sharply, his deal with the cocky angel back on Earth—a bargain that had sent him spiraling into this world in the first place.
To return, he had to beco an emperor before he turned thirty. He was thirteen now. If he could win this duel in ten years, if he could slip the crown onto his own brow and survive, he might claim that promised bonus and be sent ho!
The face of his grandmother flickered into his mind—her gentle hands, that warm, faint perfu she wore when she braided his hair.
’I missed you, Grandma,’ he thought, and the mory burned like a gentle, warm excitent overwheld him.
I’m coming soon.
The words lingered in Auren’s chest like a whispered vow, carried away by the hot wind that swept across the battlefield of fates.
Ugha, arms folded and grin curling like firelight, watched the clash of ambition and fear burn inside both n. It amused him, like a smith watching sparks leap from a hamr strike.
"So?" Ugha asked, voice rolling like a desert storm.
"Do you both agree?"
Both nodded without hesitation, the motion so sharp it felt more like instinct than choice. To defy a Primordial was to invite annihilation.
Auren inhaled deeply, as though the very air could harden his resolve.
The scent of scorched stone and lingering mana filled his lungs.
He clenched his jaw, forced the tremor from his voice, and answered,
"I have no choice. Let’s do this." His tone rang steadier than the hamring of his heart, but inside, doubt scratched like claws.
Roov, by contrast, was all confidence, the sly curl of his lips hiding calculation.
He turned toward Auren with the poise of a ruler accustod to winning battles before they even began.
His bow was elegant, his words dipped in arrogance.
"I agree, and thank you for the blessing in advance," he said, and his voice slithered with both courtesy and threat.
"Good," Ugha bood, clapping once.
The sound cracked through the air like thunder slamming into tin, reverberating across the mountains and rattling the souls of everyone present.
"Make the fight worth the wait. If it’s boring, I might change my mind."
Roov did not flinch. Instead, he allowed a confident smirk to tug at his lips. "Do not worry. I shall ensure you are entertained, Lord Ugha."
Auren’s skin prickled at those words. He could feel it—the invisible gears of Roov’s mind grinding, reshaping, planning. This wasn’t a promise of entertainnt. It was a threat disguised as courtesy. Roov’s eyes glead with the kind of ambition that built empires from the bones of nations, and Auren realized, with a chill, that he wasn’t just Roov’s opponent. He was Roov’s stepping stone.
I will win, no matter what, Roov thought, his inner vow etched clear in the sharp glint of his eyes.
Auren’s hand curled into a fist so tightly his knuckles popped. His gaze swept across the gathering: soldiers standing rigid with unease, nobles whispering in hushed panic, zealots staring with wide fanatic eyes. And in the middle of it all sat Bonbon, that maddeningly cheerful oracle, chomping on his fruit and laughing as though the fate of empires were nothing but a passing joke.
The world seed to blur around Auren, condensing into one unshakable truth. Ten years. A duel to the death.
The weight of a crown hung like a phantom on his head, waiting to see if he could carve a path to it. Yet the cold reality gnawed at him—right now, even his strongest skills, his so-called ultimate attacks, couldn’t leave a scratch on the emperor. Roov wasn’t just a rival, he was a mountain.
I need to get stronger. Stronger than I ever imagined.
For the first ti, Auren felt both impossibly young and unbearably old. Thirteen, yet staring down the kind of destiny that aged kings in their pri. The fire in his chest roared, and his heart whispered the truth: he was stepping into a war of years, and only one would walk away.
Fear and a strange, fierce clarity braided together in his chest. The path forward was a jagged line of fire and promise, but it was a path he had chosen.
He swallowed the heat rising in his throat and let it settle into sothing like resolve.
Sowhere beyond the dragon’s shadow, the world of kingdoms and scars and broken marshlands held its breath.
The Primordial Bargain was struck.
The cliff of fate jutted out, black and bright and waiting for him to step.
Auren looked up at the sky one last ti before the crowd began to disband and reality stitched itself back together.
The constellation of his life rearranged itself into a single urgent goal: survive, grow, rule, return. He whispered to the mory of his grandmother, his voice small and certain, I missed you. I’m coming soon.
And the wind that blew down from the dragon slled strangely of old wine and the iron tang of destiny.
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