The visions had ended and soon everyone in the room had come to. They had all lived in those brief moments and seen everything that Ray had done. At the same time they understood his actions and all the thoughts that were going through his head, and they also felt the same emotions as him.
After learning this, Ray thought maybe many would choose to abandon him, after all he still had the d.e.s.i.r.e to kill many humans and they should have learnt that through his memories.
'It looks like the humans understand his emotions more so than he does himself.'
It was true, everyone in that room already understood whether human or not, how much Ray now cared for the Redwings, and that as long as they were with him he would do anything to protect them. The ones that had experienced Ray's memories were now able to cope with who he really was.
However, soon the news had spread to those that lived in the city, including the soldiers' families and the worry could be felt in the air. The soldiers tried to explain what they saw and how they could still put their trust in such a man after learning about him, but it was almost impossible to convince many others to do the same.
Because of all this, Ray had made the decision to leave. The fortress that had just been taken over needed to be protected anyway, and was now part of the Redwing kingdom. While everyone's nerves were unsettled, Ray decided it would be best to stay at the Lion's mouth bringing quite the force along with him.
Katy along with her five hundred or so men and women from the army had agreed to come along, then there were also a few important members from the Redwing table who had decided to tag along too.
Jack, although he would leave behind the other werewolves would come, along with Martha, Kyle, Harry and Lenny. Meanwhile Sylvia, Bliss, Roki, Roy, Badger, Sloth and the retired master knights Wilfred and Sir K would stay behind to run the city in their absence.
Sylvia tried to argue that Ray should stay. She didn't care what he was and she had said it before, he wasn't a master. She felt that if Ray stayed and helped the city, then the people would understand what he was like more and maybe warm up to him.
But Ray could feel it, not only feel it, but he could actually hear the thoughts of many in the city. If he didn't go through with this drastic and sudden change, then there was a good chance many people in the city would leave. This would give an opportunity for another kingdom to attack them once more.
This was the best decision for the city's safety and Ray.
While in the middle of preparing to move, Bliss had discovered something. Now that Ray was quite advanced, he was actually considered to be more dragon than human. Using his blood, she was able to clear the land.
While travelling once again to the Lion's mouth, they set a goal to clear the land on their way. The other good news was that the solution was also able to clear the Shadow from Sylvia. Her eye was no longer infected.
To her, it was the final nail in the coffin - Ray really was a dragon. However by now he had already left and she hadn't even had the time to tell him how she really felt about the whole thing.
The solution had also been tested a few more times as they wanted to see how strong it was. When clearing the land, more of it needed to be used compared to the old solution that Bliss had made. However now that they had an unlimited supply of Dragon blood, it didn't matter if the solution was less concentrated.
Unexpectedly though, when testing the solution on infected beasts it was unable to remove the Shadow. This most likely meant it still wasn't strong enough to remove the Shadow from a true infected yet. Sylvia began to realise that she got off lightly due to only being partly infected.
It had been a while now since Ray had been at the Lion's mouth, and currently both him and Kyle were in the underground tunnels. They were down there currently running an investigation. Redwing members were told to try to clear as much as the path of the tunnels where the Dark guild members had escaped from.
This way, they could eventually find out where they had been led to. The reason why Ray and Kyle were down here right now, was because the two of them were looking at two dead Redwing members that were lying there on the floor, both of their throats had been slit.
"Well, it's clear a beast hasn't done this, which means it had to be the Dark guild or a true infected." Kyle said, with his sword drawn and slashing the air a few times as if he was imagining slaying the person who had killed them.
Ever since his fight with Gary, his weapon of choice had changed from the chain back to a regular sword, and in his hands was the black raven. As a reward Harry decided to gift it to him.
"You can put the sword away, there is no one down here." Ray said.
"And how can you be so sure about that?" Kyle asked.
Ray just pointed to his eyes.
"Oh right, dragon eyes." Kyle said.
Ray could now be a lot more open about the abilities he had, there was no longer the need to hide anything now that everyone knew the truth. It was a relief.
"Well, it either has to be Monk who is now leading Gary's army, or one of the other Shadow guards, right?" Kyle asked.
It seemed common sense that Monk would now be in charge of Gary's army since he was second in command. Although after a defeat like that, perhaps Gary's army along with Morfran's were disbanded and placed in another one of the Shadow guards.
Both Morfran and Gary should have been sealed away in the portal. Morfran was too injured by Ray to escape and Gary, with no way of escape, had chosen to go down into the Shadow world himself. Still, this was all only a theory and Ray wouldn't believe it until he saw their two dead bodies for closure.
"If it's Monk I'm gonna show him a new swing or two." Kyle said swinging around the sword again, until it had clashed against something in the dark.
"Did Ray not tell you to put that sword away!" Harry stepped out from the darkness and could be seen placing his sword back by his side. "That little win of yours, defeating Gary, has really gone to your head. If you want to fight someone, I'm happy to have a friendly match with you anytime and bring you back to reality."
"No thanks." Kyle replied. "I don't want to hurt my friends, I'm too scared that I can't hold myself back and would embarrass you."
Harry shook his head with disappointment but decided to let it go. He was unsure whether the confidence that Kyle had was actually a good thing for him or not. He did certainly seem to be using the sword better than before, so he would let it go for now even if it was driving him a little crazy.
"Ray, I came here to tell you that we have discovered something and we wanted you to take a look at it." Harry asked.
"Oh, what would you need me for?" Ray replied, sounding surprised that he was being asked specifically.
"Well, we thought you might be interested. We wanted you to take a look at what we think could be dragon bones."
"Hey, don't go showing Ray his dead relatives." Kyle blurted out, "How do you think it makes him feel?"
"No you idiot, I'm talking about the Shadow Dragon that was defeated not too long ago."
"Wasn't the dragon burnt to ashes by Van?" Ray asked.
"It seems like the body was only partially burnt, and after clearing the land we managed to discover them buried deep within the snow.
When Ray unlocked a number of his old skills, he had proven that he couldn't do many amazing things with it. Some of them didn't even seem like magic and they were just outright creepy. This was why Harry thought maybe they could learn something from the bones.
As for Ray, he was naturally interested in the bones anyway. He wanted to know if they really did come from a dragon. On top of that, ever since seeing the dragon he had been having more dreams about the dragon settlement he had created a long time ago.
Just like he had done with the humans, he had gathered a bunch of the dragons and created a safe haven for them. The only thing was, he was wondering why he was thinking about it so much now.
"Let's go have a look at these bones." Ray said.
*****
For MDS updates and artwork you can follow on instagram and Facebook:jksmanga
If you would like to support the idea of a manga being created you can on P.A.T.R.E.O.N: jksmanga