Chapter Eleven

Draco arrived at the docks of Aeon Toris early morning. He didn’t even wait for the boat to finish docking before taking off in flight with great speed. He flew to the nearest city from the docks, which was Zenan. The cold winter winds made his face a little numb but as soon as he landed he used a simple heat spell to warm himself back up as he wandered through the city looking for a cartographer shop. There were not many people outside because the cold air but spring wasn’t too far away either.

Draco asked around for a cartographer shop expecting that a city should have at least one. It took him some time but he finally found it. He got lots of weird looks as he wasn’t wearing normal winter garbs like everyone else. He had on a simple sweater and pants and some boots. He didn’t need to dress in layers because he could use magic to warm himself up whenever needed and he liked the maneuverability from lighter clothes.

At the shop he picked out three maps of all the continents that were outlined and drawn with good detail. After buying the maps he asked the cartographer what he could tell him about the corrupted chasm in Aeon Toris.

“It’s supposed to be a place filled with some of the strongest gravity based Elementals. And that all of the fighting from those gravity Elementals has messed with the chasm so much that sometimes you will be walking on the side of the wall like it’s normal. Even the skies above it are filled with aether wyverns,” the cartographer told him.

That was all Draco needed to hear to go there. He left the shop and took to the skies heading northeast to the town of Morden. There were no direct paths or many striking landmarks in Aeon Toris so he had to follow the small links to the town and cities to get a more direct course to the chasm. He passed the white stone road after an hour of flight and took only a couple times that first day to rest and eat. When nightfall came he was forced to stop and make camp until sunrise.

He only had a sleeping bag, but setting up small foundation rising the ground around him up was easy. He made a large square hut of stone around him with numerous holes in the sides to let in air. Then he gathered a moderate amount of energy created a fire to keep him warm and put on a spell to feed energy that gathered into the fire to keep it alive while he slept.

It was one of the many useful things he learned through his time at the magician’s academy. Draco was so very grateful to his aunt for sending him there. He slept easy that night and woke up many hours later as the fire was burning low. He poured some more energy into it and ate his breakfast slowly. He could tell from the holes alone that it wasn’t bright enough yet to go flying outside so he waited until it was.

Finally when the sun started to rise he was off again, stopping only three times a day to eat, rest shortly, or sleep. He kept up this cycle for almost two weeks until finally reaching the town of Morden. He spent a single night at the inn there and then headed directly north to the city Azril.

Because the city Azril was more direct, Draco flew much faster and got there in just under ten days. Once more he stayed a night at an inn and moved on the very next morning. It took only a couple hours of flight to have visual on the chasm; though it was still several days away. And the closer he got the more he realized the chasm must stretch on for almost a thousand miles.

He reached the chasm entrance within a few days but took some time to rest. He flew low when he got closer because all the aether wyverns in the skies above him. After his rest Draco flew up to the skies and found the biggest wyvern around, ignoring the rest, and he hammered it hard with a dark bolt of shadow magic.

The wyvern screeched in pain then recovered in time to tackle Draco in the sky before his next attack. Draco managed to pull up a wind barrier around him to keep the wyvern’s sharp claws from tearing into him, but the beast kept pushing him down, threatening to ram him into the ground. It was furious and intelligent; Draco knew he made the right choice picking this one.

He waited until the last possible moment to wrestle control from the wyvern and switched their positions around so he was on top and slammed it into the ground. It didn’t do much damage to the Elemental but it bought Draco enough time to hammer it with some more shadow spells. Shadow was the only real weakness gravity Elementals had, but even then it was not major.

With the wyvern weak enough Draco pulled out a blank card from his belt and sealed it away, then placed it in the other pouch on the belt where he would put his sealed cards. After that he walked straight into the chasm and immediately felt a strange force pulling him around in many directions and just walking straight felt a little abnormal.

He soon came across numerous common elementals and raised his guard but as he continued on they paid him little or no attention. The chasm path had a low incline as he gradually walked further down it. Eventually the path evened out and was flat until Draco soon realized he was walking closer and closer to the western wall of the chasm. It was not long until he was walking on the side of the wall like it was normal.

Draco took a small break to eat then continued on. Soon enough he came across a gigantic behemoth; a massive bull like Elemental with dark purple and blue skin; and large horns on the top of its head pointing straight. He didn’t know if this particular behemoth was extra large, ordinary size or what; because it was a legendary creature. Unlike Draco it was standing on the ground and not the wall, he wondered now if perhaps it was the behemoth that was causing this particular gravitational anomaly.

He knew this would be a tough fight and that the first attack would be his best shot on it, so he began gathering in a massive amount of energy. Gathering the energy from around him alone seemed to be enough to alert the behemoth to his presence as it was now starring directly at him.

When his attack was ready Draco realized that he might not be close enough to hit the behemoth with it. It could easily see the attack coming and deflect it from this far away. So he rushed forth closing the large gap between them and when he felt he was close enough he unleashed a large blast of shadow energy the size of the Behemoth’s head. It found its target perfectly and exploded with wisps of dark energy.

The dark energy cleared a second later and Draco saw the behemoth was almost unfazed except now its eyes were glowing red. Draco started to gather energy once more but was quickly hurled by an invisible force towards the opposite wall. He managed to reorient himself easily and prepared to slow himself down from slamming into the east wall, until the invisible force moving him abruptly changed course slamming him down to the ground. He hit down hard and then the corrupted effects of gravity came back to him and he was flying to the east wall once more as if he was falling from a great height.

This time Draco caught himself, as he and the Behemoth starred each other down. He wiped the blood dripping from his nose; it was broken. Draco gathered in energy and the horns of the behemoth started to glow purple. Static energy gathered in the middle between the behemoths horns and a moment later a massive beam of pure energy shot out at Draco.

He used a wind spell to slingshot himself diagonally up and out of the way of the attack. He could see down that the beam of energy completely disintegrated through the rock wall leaving a curved out chunk in its place. Draco kept himself suspended in the air and brought sharp ended rock pillars out from the sides of the wall between the behemoth and rammed them into its sides.

He began charging another spell as the behemoth shook off the pillars and they crumbled apart. Draco could suddenly feel a powerful force trying to pull him back down but he resisted. Then he shot a bolt of lightning aimed right between the behemoth's eyes.

It hit dead on and caused the behemoth to shake its head and reorient itself. Draco took advantage of this and summoned a powerful wind spell that lashed out at the behemoth cutting its body up in large gashes. A moment later the force pulling Draco down increased greatly and he could no longer remain air born.

He touched down to the ground with great force and struggled just to keep standing. He saw the behemoth lower its head and its horns began glowing purple again. He knew what was coming and knew he would have to break out of the behemoths hold or he would be dead.

Putting forth everything he had he was able to break the hold of the behemoth and launch himself above the attack narrowly dodging it by inches. The behemoth took a moment to recover and Draco found a plan. He charged forth at the behemoth and landed on the back of its neck. It tried shaking him off but he stayed on, taking quick deep breaths. He was exhausted and the behemoth could still fight.

The behemoth bucked around some more until it realized that would not work and so it used gravity to try pulling Draco off. Draco was too tired to resist for long and when the spell started pulling him to a wall he let it take him. Then when he got close enough he broke the hold on him and burrowed a small tunnel deep into the wall and dived into and waited there regaining strength and planning his next attack.

After several minutes he was ready and climbed back out of the small tunnel with the behemoth facing the other way still looking for him. He gathered a large stone and sent it flying at the back of its head. It swiftly turned around spotting Draco just as he sent two small dark bolts of energy into its eyes blinding it.

It wouldn’t be blind for long so Draco wasted no time and shout out surges of lightning aimed at the center of its head. Then he blasted it in the same spot as the behemoth thrashed around forcing its eyes open. They darted around wildly as it still struggled to regain its sight.

Draco was struggling to get a good breath by now almost all his energy spent. Then he noticed the behemoth slowing down looking almost as exhausted as he was. He looked at the wall to the east and saw a pool of the behemoths thick blood gathered there, it lost a lot from the gash wounds Draco gave it. He may not have been able to overpower it or outmatch it but he did manage to bleed it out.

He knew this was now or never with this elemental and before it regained its sights completely he pulled out a blank card and gave everything he had left into sealing it inside. The two forces struggled but the Behemoth was too weak to resist the pull and before Draco collapsed it was sealed away.

Draco managed to land back on the wall that was still pulling him like it was normal and then he closed his eyes falling into a deep sleep.

Some hours later Draco woke up feeling too weak to do much and starving. He saw in his hand was the sealed away behemoth card and he put it in his belt grabbed some food; ate it then went right back to sleep.

Draco spent over a week in that one particular spot in the chasm just recovering. That was the toughest fight he ever had, if the behemoth had been just a little bit smarter he would be dead. When he was good enough to move he did, but he took his time and encountered more elementals; fortunately for him they did not attack. The force of gravity soon returned to normal as he was walking on the path again instead of the wall.

Soon enough he came to a small segregated path leading off elsewhere to somewhere unknown. It was about twenty feet wide but for the chasm that was very small. Draco contemplated going down it and decided he would rest on it and decide the next day. He built up a small box of stone around him like before and slept in it.

The next day he decided to take the detour down the path. It curved and even zigzagged a lot, but never gave way to anything new or more promising. He walked for a couple hours until the path came out into a large opening. He saw a group of large hulking red skinned elementals all of them standing around eight feet tall. Juggernauts, there was a pack of them that stood around two juggernauts that were about ten feet in height and even more monstrous looking than the others.

The two big ones fought, hitting each other back and forth with their fists or locking into a grapple. Draco knew what this was, a clan leadership fight; the two were fighting for supremacy to the clan. Juggernauts were uncommon, but very strong and hard for most Elementals twice their size to stop.

He knew he stumbled upon a great opportunity to obtain a very powerful juggernaut and fortunately for him he would barley have to do a thing. He only need wait until one of them has won, blast it with a shadow spell, swoop in and seal it away then fly out of there at great speed.

Levitating into the air and keeping a fair distance, Draco slowly gathered energy and watched the fight patiently waiting. When it was over and one of the juggernauts was victorious, he blasted it with the spell swooped in and sealed it in a blank card and sped out of there through the path. He didn't bother checking to see if they were after him he didn’t slow down until he was out of there and back onto the main path.

He kept moving at a fast pace in case the juggernauts were coming. He bypassed and ignored several other gravity elementals that were too weak to hold his interest. The further down the chasm he got the less and less elementals there were until not a single one was in sight anywhere. The area also gradually became darker too, it was night time now but the moon was full and should shine down more light than what was there.

Draco kept going into the dark area until he saw a light blue glow in the distance. He approached it cautiously and saw that there was some weird circle filled with strange symbols. Not knowing what it was Draco decided to turn away from it and let it be but an unseen force pulled him into it and despite how hard he tried he was powerless to stop it.

He landed in the exact center of the circle on his back with grunt. He got up and the circle flared to life shining so bright in blinded him. He heard a low pitched sound and then blacked out.

An unknown time later voices whispered in his head, “Is that him?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“We both saw him in our dreams, we’re going to need him, not as much as he needs us but destiny is calling…”