Having failed to contact Rose through the dragon scale brooch, Haruki had taken it upon himself to struggle up to the maddened dragon and ask him about the item himself. And although he feared the silver-clothed man would come looking for him at the dungeons, he was convinced by the queen that if the man knew about the place, he'd already would've been there.
'I know I won't be out for long, but I hope they're right about this guy not showing up.' Right at the entrance to the dungeon, he clad himself in an armor of dark to prevent the cold from affecting him as much. Even then as he ventured through the storming blizzard, the cold in the air grabbed his lungs like the hands of the devil. 'Fuck…It's still better than when we came in but…'
Wheezing through his gritted teeth, he marched through knee-deep snow as trying to fly in the storm would've been an idiotic choice. Once in a while, he even tried to teleport a bit further but with the blizzard blurring his sight, he had no clue as to where to land. Even trying to move as a shadow failed as the sun in the sky was masked by the dark clouds.
Peering high up at the frost dragon Klianstien slumbering over the castle, Haruki reached into his pocket and took out the dragon scale. Hoping to be able to contact Rose or Klian with it, he kept calling out to them, but it seemed to have no effect. By the time he placed the scale back into his pocket, the blood tears from his eyes had frozen over and he could even feel his eyeballs freezing from the cold blizzard.
Eventually blinded by the sudden shattering of his frozen pupils, he fell to the ground groaning.
"Re-Rejuvenation," barely saving himself, he got back up and produced a pair of goggles of darkness to protect his healed eyeballs. "Devouring light!"
Trimming his mana further, he used yet another ability to consume all the snow around him with an aura of gluttonous dark mist. Braving the rest of the blizzard until he was finally standing at the gates of the castle, Haruki called out to Klian, but his voice got completely drowned in the blizzard.
"I hope I can still walk back to the dungeon after this," closing his eyes, Haruki decided to make use of a spell he hadn't tried yet but could be useful in this situation. "Shadow form body!"
Enshrouded in a fiery aura, Haruki's body began to grow in the shape of a faceless shadow. It made him as tall as the dragon, and just as fierce as him. His face had a pair of glowing eyes and countless sharp teeth eerie enough on their own, but the flaming aura of the shadow made him look even more nightmarish.
Finally, feeling the presence of a being close to him, the maddened dragon rose from his slumber and looked right at the giant monster made of screeching lost shadows. Had it been any other in place of the dragon, even another member of the same species, they would've at least got on guard, but Klian seemed utterly unbothered.
"What brings you here, Duke?" He asked, his voice rumbling through the skies.
Hearing the word duke, made Haruki let out a cackling laugh. It had been so long since he'd been called a duke, the very memories of such times felt like a distant dream. However, brushing off that careless smirk of the monstrous frame, he uttered the dragon an answer.
"Here," dangling the brooch from the end of his giant nails, he presented it to him. "A dragon scale, is it yours? And why did Rose lie to me about its origin?"
The dragon took a long glance at the brooch without saying even a word. Giving not a hint of emotion, he kept his thoughts enshrouded in a mystery.
"It's not mine, but," letting out a grumble, he shifted his gaze to look into Haruki's empty white eyes. "It used to belong to someone I know, that is until he got killed in the battle against the emperor's army."
"Who-"
"Don't push your luck, Duke. My sister may have offered you our loyalty, but it's nothing but a verbal promise to me," glaring right into his eyes, Klian didn't seem too fond of Haruki poking around about the matter. "Use it if you must, but ask me about it ever again."
'I have to ask Rose then I guess.' Feeling the effects of the blizzard getting stronger, Haruki knew that he'd managed to enrage the maddened dragon.
"Forget it then, but can you contact Rose for me somehow? The brooch used to help us get in touch but it hasn't worked since we got back to Laria," Haruki said and began to undo the shadow form body as it was draining too much mana and would otherwise impair his abilities due to lack of mana.
Seeing him return to his original body, Klian glared down at Haruki with a grumbling reverberating through his long neck.
"Her arm, it began hurting once more, and so she's resting until it recovers completely," resting his head back on the castle dome, Klian kept his eyes fixed on the demon in front of him.
'Her arm is recovering? But that would mean!'
"Someone must've killed the warlock," as if reading Haruki's mind, Klian finished his thoughts. "Now be on your way, I've not recovered all of my strength yet either."
Shutting his eyes closed, the maddened dragon returned to slumber. Although not entirely satisfied with the conclusion of his meeting with Klian, Haruki was forced to go back to the dungeon with not that much new information.
'I guess knowing Almuld is dead is something, but who could've killed that maniac?' Unsure what to make of the situation, Haruki decided to brave the blizzard first before thinking it over. However, even in all this, one thing had been made crystal clear to him.
"We can't stay here for long doing nothing," he said to himself, walking back to the minotaur dungeon.
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