Reincarnated as a Dragon – The path of the Dragon God

“Oh my, Henry,” Yula breathed. “I never thought you had it in you,” she said as she looked at the headless corpse of the one named Turk, whose head was now nothing but jam spread.

“I didn’t think I had it in me too,” Henry muttered. “When he talked about how he’s going to violate you, I just… lost it. I was just so angry. I actually wanted to do more than just pop his head off like a balloon.”

Yula put a hand on Henry’s shoulder. “You've done enough, Henry. I’m happy that you would get so angry for my sake. It makes me feel very treasured.”

Henry caressed his lover’s cheek. “I’m so fortunate to have you as my—”

“Fucking unbelievable,” Chloe groaned, dispelling the bubbling sweet air between the two.

Yula tittered and separated herself from Henry. “Oh, how inconsiderate of me. I humbly begged for your forgiveness, Miss Single.”

“Your husband just murdered a man in cold blood, Miss.”

“Oh, I didn’t notice.”

“Yula, he just killed a man and crippled the other. And you two are getting sweet together over it? You two do realise this is wrong, don’t you?”

“They’re bad people,” Yula reminded her.

“And that makes it okay to kill someone by crushing their head like a watermelon?” Chloe looked at Henry in utter terror and disappointment. “I thought I was just overthinking it when you killed Keith. I thought… maybe you were just doing what you have to do. But you’re enjoying it.”

Henry stared at Chloe silently.

“Oh, now you don’t have anything to say?”

“I have plenty to say but I doubt you would understand. I’m not going to argue with you about morals or… what’s right and what’s wrong. Just know that the place that I came from has a vastly different set of rules and principles. I have been moulded by it.”

“...Just what kind of world do you come from?”

Henry smiled melancholically. Though he was once human, he was now a Dragon and his morals had long been shaped by the laws of Ulrum.

“Forget it,” Chloe said. “We’re not exactly friends. We’re just temporary allies. After our business here is done, we will be separate ways anyway.”

“I suppose we would,” Henry sighed.

Chloe spoke no more and turned around to leave the alley.

Henry and Yula shared a small laughter before following Chloe out of the alley. They walked back out onto the street where pieces of wreckage and debris were scattered in their path. The road itself was not faring any better than the houses. Chunks of it were missing and some of it were on the other side of the area.

“So, where’s our guy?” Henry asked after the silence became too uncomfortable for him to bear.

“Somewhere around there,” Chloe said and pointed in the direction of a cul de sac. “That’s what my sources told me.”

“Hmm,” Henry murmured as he stared at the cul de sac they were gradually approaching. “What else did they say?”

“Nothing.”

Henry raised an eyebrow dubiously. “That’s it?”

“They’re not some reconnaissance expert, Henry. They’re just… people, who just so happen to know or see things that I’m searching for.”

“Did they tell you if they saw anything strange nearby?”

“If they did, I wasn’t told.”

“What is wrong?” Yula asked.

“I don’t sense any anomaly coming from in front. If Chloe’s guy had anything to do with our target, they are doing a good job of hiding their aura.”

“Or Chloe’s guy is unrelated to our objective?”

“I’ll know once I see him.”

“Quiet, you two,” Chloe whispered. “We’re close now.” She crouched down and tiptoed behind an overturned dumpster, beckoning for the two to follow her lead.

Henry and Yula obeyed without any objection and trotted over to her side.

“This is strange,” Chloe mulled as he took a peek at the cul de sac from behind the dumpster.

“Now that’s an understatement as if anything about this is normal.”

Chloe rolled her eyes once more. “What I meant is that this is going too smoothly.”

“Is your vigilantism often riddled with complications?”

“More than I wish.”

“We did encounter a complication,” Yula pointed out. “Those two thugs were unexpected, no? But thank your lucky stars for Henry here.”

“I still don’t like it. It’s too peaceful.”

“You think it’s a trap?”

“Or your sources are bogus,” Henry added.

“Whichever it is, we won’t know unless we move our asses from here,” Chloe said and moved towards the cul de sac furtively, going from cover to cover.

Henry and Yula followed her closely behind. Unlike Chloe, they weren’t too concerned about being seen. Or rather, Henry would not easily be spotted given his stealth ability. It used to dispel upon movement but now, his growth had allowed him to keep his stealth so long as he did not make any big movements.

As for Yula, she had her shadows. They melded her into the background, a trick of the visual. Though it was not much of a concealment if one perceived it from a close-up, she was not easily noticeable if viewed from a distance.

Chloe couldn’t help but feel vexed at how easily the two were handling their stealth. “Just how many tricks do you have under your sleeves?” she grumbled.

“Lots,” Henry answered with a smirk as they hid behind a rusty decrepit car. “Well, we’re here. So, which house?”

“The one with the roof intact,” Chloe answered.

Henry peaked out from their hiding spot and it didn’t take him long to spot the house with the roof intact. It was only the house that still had an upper floor the others barely had a whole bottom floor.

“It’s really too quiet,” Yula remarked after straining her ears to pick up on any sound or noise. “Nobody’s home?”

“Let’s find out,” Chloe said and crept towards the house.

Henry and Yula waited until Chloe reached the foyer and they made their move, reaching the foyer in a single stride.

Chloe tutted. “Show off.” She tried the door, giving the knob a few twists but the knob could not be turned and the door didn’t budge. “It’s locked.”

“Someone’s living here, that’s for sure,” Yula said.

“Evidently.” Chloe gave the doorknob a strong twist and the lock was torn out of its hinges. The door creaked open. “There.”

“Wow,” Yula exclaimed as silently as she could. “What were your powers again?”

“Super strength and a few other things, not as many as yours.”

“I only have my shadows.”

“But you have a shit load of applications.”

Yula giggled. “True, that I do.”

Chloe did not enter the house immediately. She rolled the broken knob across the floor. The knob rolled until it hit the stairs on the far side of the narrow and short entrance hall. “No traps,” she surmised.

“That’s enough of a probe,” Henry said and strode into the house with his head held high and his back straightened.

“You idiot! What are you—”

Just as Chloe began to warn Henry, a symbol manifested into existence on the wall to his right. A bolt of mystical energy was shot out from that symbol, hitting Henry square in the head.

“Henry!” Chloe cried in a panic but she still had some sense to keep her voice low.

“Don’t worry, he’s fine,” Yula assured her.

And Yula was right. Henry merely stumbled a bit from the sudden hit but it didn’t even leave so much as a scratch on him. The symbol disappeared afterwards. “Very promising,” Henry said.

Chloe sighed in relief. “Your arrogance will be the death of you one of these days.”

“Thank you for your concern but if I was ever in danger, I would know beforehand. I have very good instincts.”

“What happens if a danger escapes your instincts? What then?”

“Guess I’ll die?”

“Wouldn’t your wife be sad?”

“I will die with him if he does,” Yula said.

Chloe frowned at Yula’s answer. “You two are not right.”

“She’s just messing with you.”

Yula snickered. “Am I?”

Chloe was too peeved to even sigh. She shoved their oddity out of her mind and focused on their task at hand. “Anyway, just what kind of power does this guy have? It looks magical.”

“It is magic,” Henry said as he studied the wall where the symbol was. “I felt it when the symbol appeared.”

“Felt what?”

“Murux.”

“Murux?”

“You have played video games, right?”

“Used to, a lot.”

“Murux is Mana, kinda.”

“Huh… Man, this is getting way too surreal.”

“Oh, it’s real, alright.”

They continued walking down the small hallway with Henry at the front. There were two more similar traps and Henry came out unscathed after deliberately springing them like last time.

“Left, right, or straight to the stairs?” Henry asked.

Chloe peered into the rooms on her right and left. There was nothing but debris and ruins in all of the rooms. “I don’t think we will find our guy here unless he could squeeze himself in between those piles of wreckage.”

“The stairs it is, then.”

They prowled towards the stairs and Henry took the first step. The steps creaked loudly.

“Shit,” Chloe cursed. “That was loud.”

“No louder than those magic bolts hitting my face. I don’t hear or sense anything that might indicate that our guy is spooked. Either he’s the most oblivious person I know or nobody’s home.”

“Or he’s waiting for us to walk into a trap.”

“You’re too paranoid.”

“Well within reason to be. We just walked past a series of traps and if it was anyone else aside from you, their heads would be—” Chloe finished her sentence with hand gestures of something exploding.

“Yes, but we’re not anyone else now, are we?”

“...Why do I even bother?” Chloe muttered and gestured for Henry to continue moving.

Henry took the lead and climbed the stairs. To their underwhelming surprise, there was no trap. They safely reached the landing without anything happening aside from the creaking steps. They glanced around the second floor from the landing.

“Hmm, it’s not as battered as the ground floor but… I won’t put it past the possibility of this entire floor crumbling down.”

“Now I’m even more suspicious,” Chloe said after seeing no telling traces of traps or any sign that anyone had been here before. “Traps in the hallway but not on the stairs?”

“Maybe our guy didn’t think anyone could make it to the stairs alive?”

“I suppose that makes sense,” Chloe agreed after some thought. “But I don’t doubt there will still be some traps on this floor.”

“Only one way to find out,” Henry mused and stalked across the landing. No symbols or lights of any kind appeared or manifested.

“See, no traps,” Yula said cheerfully.

“You’re really sanguine, aren’t you?”

“You want to be pessimistic?”

“I want you to be realistic. Death could be waiting for us just around the corner.”

Yula chuckled. “So it’s just another Tuesday?”

Chloe scowled. “Are you being serious?”

“Quite so.”

Suddenly, Henry motioned for the two to keep quiet. “This is bad,” he muttered.

Yula’s frolic smile disappeared and a solemn expression took over.

Chloe was taken aback by the sudden shift of Yula’s demeanour but she didn’t let it bother her too much. Metallic silver matter slid over her skin and it hardened once it took a form befitting of Chloe’s sizes and measurements.

“Whoa…” Yula gasped in awe. “That’s so cool.”

“Yula, serious now.”

“Right. Sorry sorry.”

“What did you sense?” Chloe asked.

“It’s what I didn’t sense. Or rather, smell.”

“Smell what?”

“A decrepit ruin like this is often the paradise for all those creepy crawlies, rats, roaches, those usual bunch. But I don’t smell any of them here, not even remnants of them. None of those pests has been here for a long long time.”

“If you put it like that, it does sound strange. But maybe you’re just overthinking it? I know, I know. It sounds strange that I’m suddenly the optimist here.”

“I don’t even smell the faeces or urine of any animals outside this house or its vicinity. Even the strays, rodents, and pests knew better than to even tread close to this place. Something incredibly foul is here.”

“But you don’t sense any of that… foulness?” Yula asked.

“Exactly. Which is why I said ‘This is bad’. The foulness can elude my senses. We might already be in danger and we just didn’t know it yet.”