Chapter 255 The Only One
The pain went on for what seemed like hours, but then it stopped. I had been brought to my knees, but now I stood back up like nothing had happened.
"Again!" I called out to the silence surrounding me in that red crystal room.
The waves hit me again and forced me back to my knees, but I tried to understand what was hurting me this time. I was being hit with overwhelming waves of power, but no matter how much I was given, my suit restricted me.
The pain stopped, but I was already standing back up. Before I could ask again, the pain was back on me, but I accepted it and let my body drink it in. The pain was being pulled into me, and it fought against the suit.
The pain stopped hurting, and I started to feel like I was being lowered into a regeneration pool. Then the feeling stopped, and the door to the chamber opened back up. Lilith smiled at me, and something about that authentic look of happiness gave me a sense of accomplishment.
"I am more than impressed that you could understand what was happening to your body through that pain. I don't know anyone that has ever spent less than thirty sessions before understanding how to expand the limits of their suit. This is only the beginning of this training, and the purpose is to slowly expand your power reservoir. This process is what is going to take us the most time, but within a month, you will also need to start to practice projecting your body," Lilith explained, but I frowned.
"I am sure I could travel pretty fast if I wanted to. What is the point of projecting if I can't even be there?" I asked, but then added, "I do understand the uses of it to spy and view far places."
"Unlike most, your body will become strong enough to form a connection with the place you are viewing to the point that you will create a copy of yourself. The only problem with this is that it leaves your original body unprotected, but you can make more clones beforehand to protect yourself," Lilith told me, and I nodded in understanding.
Something like this would be very helpful for exploring places with lower-level technology or places that might be dangerous. The idea of being able to do something like this seemed pretty crazy, but I was in another dimension, being taught by dragons how to control the power of living storms. It was pretty much par for the course at this point.
"How long before I start that training?" I asked, but Lilith just smiled and shrugged.
"Everything is dependent on how fast you can progress," Lilith explained, but I frowned at that.
"Does that mean that I could shorten the amount of time I will be in here?" I asked since that seemed reasonable, but that didn't seem to be the case as Lilith shook her head.
"While it will shorten your total time needed to train, there is no way to leave this place until the eye opens. That can only happen if Abraxas had enough power to do so. Five years is the minimum it takes for our leader to regain strength to reopen the gate. This period means nothing to us, but for you, it might feel longer," Lilith explained, and I nodded.
So, no matter what, I was stuck here for the next more than four and a half years. I had known this was the case, but this was my first time hearing about Abraxas having to reopen the gate for me to leave. This place felt more like a prison each day, but I had to remember that I wasn't the only one trapped there.
"So, this place is just as much of a prison as it is a home," I said as Lilith offered me her hand. I accepted, and Lilith floated off with me dragging behind her as we left the building.
"Yes, we are stuck here just as you are, but we cannot ever leave, or the eye would devour us. The dimensional barrier is the only thing that separates us from the Great Red Eye. The eye is a creature that lives in the void between dimensions. It is huge and ancient, and it hungers for power. If it were to ever get a hold of one of us, then it would devour our power and add it to its own. That is why we have to be careful with how we use our power. We cannot let the eye take notice of us, or else it will come for us," Lilith explained as she led me back towards my home, and I shivered at her words.
This place was more dangerous than I had thought, but at least now I understood why they were so worried about me using my power without supervision. It wasn't just because they wanted to control me; it was because they were worried about the Great Red Eye coming for us all if I used too much power or got too out of control.
Once we stopped outside of my place, Lilith was about to leave, but I reached out and took her hand; she looked back at me with a confused look. We had been training together now for over four months, and I really didn't know anything thing about Lilith.
"You know that I can not take this suit off, even if I want to, so there is no point in trying to..." Lilith started to say but trailed off when I shook my head.
"I Just want to get to know you better. There are still seven months to go before I am going to get a chance to see anyone else. That means it is just going to be the two of us, so I would like to get to know you a little better. It is also not every day that a person gets to be taught by a dragon," I explained with a smile, and Lilith seemed to relax a bit.
"If this is your wish, then I think that I can comply with that," Lilith said as she floated into my room, and I followed her, closing the door behind me.
"I do not know what you want to know about me," Lilith said as she sat down on my bed, and I joined her.
"Well, let's start with where you all came from? I mean, before you came to this place. In the memories, I can see that you were once humanoid when you first came, but the power of the Great Red Eye caused you to change, right?" I asked as I floated to my bed and patted for her to lie beside me. There were no chairs in the room, and since we couldn't do anything, I figured lying down would be the most comfortable, and I had some pains still from the blast of power I had received. I knew that I was stronger now, but it wasn't much of an improvement to my overall power.
Lilith hesitated for a second but then complied and joined me on the bed. I leaned my head against her shoulder as she started to speak.
"We came from another part of the universe on a Seed Ship. The journey took over ten thousand years that we spent in a deep sleep. Our home galaxy was under attack from the Gideons, and the war was looking bad, so Abraxas and many of the leaders decided to create the Seed Ships to ensure that our species survived. We were supposed to be watching over the Earth and guiding your people, but we could have never known what was hiding for us when we set up this dimension," Lilith explained, and I sighed.
"So the Gideons attacked your home world, and then you all fled, trying to escape them, but got trapped here since then. You are actually the race that seed humans on Earth and was supposed to watch over us? I guess that means we would have probably turned out a lot more different than what they became. You also seem to know that I am not a human," I said, and Lilith nodded, turning her head to mine.
"You should have already mined the asteroid belt and become a type 2 civilization already, harnessing the power of your sun. You would not have discovered nuclear weapons because we would have kept that knowledge from you, so there was no way for the Cleaners to detect us. There are so many things that could have been done, but other races did try to help but then were destroyed by their own greed. While we couldn't leave, we could still watch Earth grow, and it is something that many of the survivors do to this day," Lilith explained as she stared at me with silver-slitted eyes like my own.
I reached up and ran my fingers over her soft blue scales that seemed to have a slight sheen to them. It was strange, but I found myself drawn to her. Maybe it was just because we were the only two people stuck in this place together, but there was something more. Something about Lilith called out to me on a level that I couldn't understand.
"I know that you are not like us, and that is one of the reasons that Abraxas put so much faith in you. It is why I have faith in you. Only you have the capacity to destroy the Great Red Eye. If you can do that, then we might be able to return to the way we once were. I am not sure if that is possible, but I would be lying if I said that I did not crave the passions of my old body," Lilith said, and I nodded in understanding.
I understood what Lilith meant by that. I, too, missed the sensation of skin-on-skin contact or even just being able to smell things. The suit provided me with all the nutrition that I needed to survive, but it didn't give me any sense of taste beyond basic flavors. not like there was any food to eat here, but even my sweet tasted bland. It was strange how something so small could be missed so much, but it was just one more thing that made this place feel like a prison.
"I think we should get some sleep," Lilith said as she stood up from the bed and floated towards the door, but before she left, she looked back at me with silver-slitted eyes. "Thank you for trusting me enough to share your thoughts with me." Then she left, leaving me alone in my room with only my thoughts for company once again.
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