Leon felt incredible. The expansion of his soul realm didn’t directly immediately lead to new power—he’d still have to generate enough to fill that space from his bone marrow—but the reinforced connection his soul realm now possessed with his physical body meant that he could call upon more of his stored power than before. Even with his consciousness in his magic body, Leon could feel the magic power running through him.

It was euphoric.

Of course, a good amount of that euphoria was the simple knowledge that he’d finally ascended to the seventh-tier of magical power, coming within striking distance of the peak of power within the Bull Kingdom.

Coming within striking distance of enough power to challenge Justin Isynos. He wasn’t there yet, but he was close. At the very least, he figured that he could now call upon Xaphan’s power without risking serious injury, which in and of itself greatly increased his fighting potential.

Leon floated above the compound of his Mind Palace for a long time, simply basking in the glow of his achievement. He was now the same tier as his father, and he’d achieved it at the age of twenty, though there was still quite a sizable gulf between himself and where Artorias was when he was killed.

His revelry was short-lived, however, for soon he heard the sound of approaching thunder, and sure enough, the Thunderbird came flying out over his island, gleefully surveying all that she saw.

That sight alone put quite the damper on Leon’s ecstatic mood and the knowledge that it did so only depressed him further. This should’ve been a time for celebration, but instead, he was only reminded of the Thunderbird’s deceit. It fed on itself as he slowly dropped back down to the ground until, by the time his feet touched the marble tiles around his throne, he was truly in a foul mood. It was time to get some answers from his Ancestor.

“Wonderful! Wonderful!” the Thunderbird joyfully cawed as she circled his Mind Palace. “Stunning!”

She continued on like that for a little while longer, and when she was finished, she alighted onto the perch that Leon had created for her.

“Not going to lie, boy, that other Mind Palace certainly had its charm, but I like this one quite a bit more,” she said appreciatively, staring down at Leon with pride, which only served to instill more terrible feelings in him. “More open, less stuffy, plenty of space to unfurl my wings…”

Xaphan’s gaze flitted between the Thunderbird and Leon, the two at obvious extremes of emotion—the Thunderbird, joy, while Leon, anger and frustration. “Not that it’s my place, but maybe you ought to quiet down for a second? Your descendent doesn’t seem to be in quite the same mood as you…”

The Thunderbird glared at the demon and began to spread her wings, her aura growing in an obvious prelude to attacking the demon.

“He’s not wrong,” Leon quietly said, instantly redrawing the Thunderbird’s attention as her avian head whipped back around and her aura faded.

“What…?” she asked in confusion.

Leon stood at the foot of his throne, calmly and seriously staring back at the Thunderbird. “… You lied to me, didn’t you?” he said accusingly.

Leon went silent for a long moment after his question as the Thunderbird cocked her head back and forth.

“… I’m afraid that unless you provide more details, I won’t know what you’re talking about…” she replied.

“My mother,” Leon said, willfully ignoring the implication that the Thunderbird had lied to him more than once. “You told me I inherited nothing from her.”

“What of it?” the Thunderbird arrogantly countered.

“I’ve been told otherwise.”

“By whom?”

“Valeria Isynos.”

“And you trust her word over mine? Is it not her family that has been hounding yours?”

“Her word aligns with my own suspicions. So, yes, I trust it over yours.”

The Thunderbird glared down at Leon, her eyes blazing with fury and lightning dancing across her rich, brown feathers. Leon had just gravely insulted her, and she was incensed by it.

But he wasn’t wrong.

The Thunderbird suddenly transformed into her human form and leaped down to the ground right in front of Leon, close enough to invade his personal space and stare at him in the eye.

“Anyone else who impugned my honor as you have just done would be ash on the wind by now,” she furiously growled.

Leon, undaunted, stood his ground, returning every ounce of antipathy he received with a glare of his own.

“Anyone else who lied to me as you did would likewise be ash,” he calmly declared. “Now, the truth, if you please. Else, I’ll start doubting everything you say, putting the restoration of your Clan at risk…”

“Threats will get you nowhere, boy, not when by your very existence you further my Clan…”

“Maybe I’ll choose not to have kids?” Leon shot back. “I’m descended from you, and your power makes having children difficult under the best of conditions. I can’t even fathom how difficult it’ll be now that I know that there’s something else in my blood. Maybe I just won’t do anything to counteract that infertility. Your line will end with me, and all because you were too damn proud to admit that you lied!”

The Thunderbird almost called Leon on his bluff. But something stopped her. She averted her glare for the first time and blatantly stared out into the Mists, staring back at the eyes that she knew were upon her. She hated that the owner of those eyes had put her in this position through its arrogance and sense of superiority.

And yet, she also knew that she could’ve at any time told Leon the truth. And she never did, even going so far as to lie to his face when he asked about this issue.

Leon followed her gaze, but he neither saw nor sensed anything out there. Whatever she was looking at, she was the only one who could see it.

With a deep sigh that brought Leon’s attention back to her, the Thunderbird took a couple of steps back.

“I’m dead, what need for pride do I have?” she murmured. She then turned to Leon and admitted, “Yes, I lied to you. You asked me to divulge a secret that wasn’t mine, and I refused. If asked again, my answer would be the same.”

“Even if asked now?” Leon sharply asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “You know that something else is there, you’ll find it on your own. But I’ll not assist you in its uncovering.”

Leon glared at her in anger and frustration. She knew, and she wasn’t going to tell him.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding,” he mumbled, kicking a nearby stone into dust. “Tell me. It’s my own damned power! What is it?!”

The Thunderbird stared at him for a long moment, silently thinking to herself. She wanted to stick with her original declaration, and she almost did just that, but the look in Leon’s eye stopped her. She suddenly had the sinking feeling that the relationship she and Leon shared had probably undergone a radical change now that he’d picked up a few crumbs of the truth. If she continued to refuse, it might never recover.

Again, she glanced out into the Mists.

And shrugged.

“… I suppose…” she hesitantly began, “if he wants his secret kept, if he wants to continue to deny your existence… it’s not my problem, is it?”

Leon said nothing, simply exuding pressure with his presence, silently demanding answers from her.

“It’ll destroy whatever relationship I have with him… but I don’t strictly need it…” the Thunderbird murmured to herself. After a long, thoughtful pause, she said without the slightest hint of ceremony or drama, “Very well, boy, I shall tell you. Your mother is a part of the Great Dragon Clan. Or was. Depends on if she’s still alive.”

Leon’s eyebrows shot up into his hair, while Xaphan’s fire sputtered and faded enough for his obsidian form to almost be visible within them.

“The… Great Dragons…?” the demon incredulously asked.

“Quiet, demon,” the Thunderbird growled, glaring at Xaphan yet not retaliating in any other way.

Leon reeled for a moment, but he quickly recovered. It gelled well with his vision of black flame and the reptilian features he’d gotten a glimpse of.

“Dragon…” he murmured.

“Yes, and the Great Black Dragon in particular,” the Thunderbird further revealed. She then paused, giving Leon some time to process.

Leon stumbled back, almost falling into his throne. But he remained standing, and instead summoned a small ball of fire in his palm.

“I knew something was missing…” he whispered, staring into the depths of the flame yet seeing nothing out of the ordinary. “But this…? You said that the Great Black Dragon was the most powerful of all Divine Beasts, right?”

“I recall saying something to that effect,” the Thunderbird replied. “I also said that his power was about on par with mine, so don’t suddenly start thinking you’re invincible! Besides, given what he did to you, you probably can’t even consciously call upon his power…”

“What do you mean?” Leon demanded.

“The Great Dragon Clan was the first to figure out how to pass on their power in their human children, and as a result, they know the most about such things. I have no idea how he did it, but somehow, that pompous lizard prevented his power from fully awakening in you when you performed the ritual. But it is still there, which combined with your emotional state and rapidly increasing power has allowed you to call upon it recently in moments of great emotional distress.”

Leon glanced back at the fireball in his hand. It was true that no matter how hard he pushed, he couldn’t summon the same power that he felt in the fight with Duronius, and he was really trying to.

“Then how can I change that and what will I be able to do when I manage to?” he asked, not once for a moment laboring under the delusion that the power would remain forever out of his grasp.

“I don’t know if that’s entirely possible, but the Great Black Dragon was known for several things,” the Thunderbird explained. “The first was his most commonly used power, that being black fire. It is a terribly powerful weapon, one that can destroy just about anything, even some of the hardest and toughest and most magically powerful materials in existence, such as Titanstone or Celestial Crystals.”

Leon didn’t know what that meant, so he directly asked, “How did it stack up against your lightning?”

The Thunderbird paused and glared at Leon in annoyance, but she admitted, “In this one instance, my lightning at its peak didn’t compare favorably, but it didn’t have to. My lightning had—has—properties other than pure destruction, properties that can’t be defended against.”

“Like its ability to counter the mind-altering effects of darkness magic?” Leon asked.

“Exactly,” the Thunderbird said with pride. “The Great Black Dragon was known for his extremely destructive powers, and that was why he was revered as the most powerful of all his brothers. However, he was also a one-trick pony, so to speak. The rest of the progenitors of the Great Dragon Clan had skills and talents other than destruction, and so the clan was built upon them and their descendants. Great Black was only able to destroy, and so his descendants have usually been rather isolated within their Clan and only called upon in times of war.”

Leon grimaced, but he was more than excited at what was revealed anyway. He could think of quite a few uses for such destructive power… but there was more that he wanted to hear, first…

“You said that his fire was only his ‘most commonly used power’, indicating that there were more?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied. Her tone by now had gone from reluctant to almost reveling in the secrets she was revealing. Now that she’d gotten going, she was all-in and delighting in revealing secrets that she wasn’t ‘supposed’ to be revealing. “Great Black was also known as the Dragon of Calamity, for he could destroy with more than just fire. He had a unique power, one that I’m afraid doesn’t easily fit into any of the magical categories…”

“What does that mean?”

“Meaning it’s certainly not fire, but I’m not sure what element to ascribe to it if an element can even be ascribed to it. As a being that was created by the birth of the universe itself, that power might be something more than elemental magic, something more akin to the reality-warping effects of more powerful Universe Fragments. I was never able to study it, nor was anyone else. Great Black was stingy with its use for perhaps that very reason. Anyway…”

As the Thunderbird paused, she began projecting an image of light nearby of a reptilian beast covered in shiny black scales, possessing two pairs of wings; vicious claws; a barbed tail; huge ivory spikes running down its spine; three pairs of horns that curled back protectively over its relatively thin neck; long, beak-like jaws; and on its head, three ominously glowing red eyes, two on the side of its head where Leon would expect them to be, and one massive eye more than twice the size of the others in the center of its huge ridged forehead. The central red-orange eye glowed so brightly that Leon suddenly realized that it was the light that had obscured the dragon’s body from his sight in his previous visions of black flame.

The scale of the monster was off, with the projection only being about four feet long or so and maybe another two to three tall, but the detail in it gave the impression that it was supposed to be much larger than that.

His expression momentarily darkened as he was confronted with the unmistakable fact that his ancestor knew about him, they’d made eye contact, and the beast still never revealed itself to him… unless those visions were it revealing himself? Leon couldn’t say for certain, but the emotion he eventually settled on was that of mild fury and more intense indignation.

“… this power had something to do with his central eye. In the rare times that it would open, it would pulse with light—maybe indicating what its element was? —and everything that its light touched would turn to dust.”

“… Turn to dust?” Leon asked, unable to quite believe what the Thunderbird was saying.

“Yes,” she replied, then began manipulating her light projection. “Like this…”

The dragon projection reared up onto its hind legs, curled in its wings to protect its exposed underbelly, and lowered its head until its central eye was aimed at the ground. Then, the red-orange light emitted by the eye magnified in intensity, then magnified again. A high-pitched whine filled the air, which grew strong enough for even Leon and his newly-ascended seventh-tier senses to feel uncomfortable.

At the same time, the Thunderbird projected a few boulders around, each about the size of the dragon’s head, all of which just fell apart in the Great Black Dragon’s light, disintegrating and scattering upon the wind in but a moment.

“Well…” Leon said in awe. “So… I could—”

“I doubt you’d be able to use such power,” the Thunderbird said, cutting off the obvious question. “As far as I’m aware, none of Great Black’s descendants ever inherited that power. It was his and his alone.”

Leon frowned in disappointment. But black fire that could apparently destroy anything was exciting enough. There was just one problem.

“Do you have any ideas on how I might be able to awaken that power?” Leon asked.

“I’ll think on it,” the Thunderbird honestly replied. “The Great Black Dragon does have a presence here, no matter how much he wants to pretend you don’t exist. I’ve consulted with him on several occasions, and while he doesn’t always answer my questions, I have gotten some useful insight out of him regarding your desire to shapeshift.”

Leon’s eyes widened in excitement and he couldn’t help but ask, “So, does that mean…?”

“I’m not even close to figuring that out, though progress has been made,” she immediately replied. “Rest assured, boy, I’m not going to stop working on that. The problem is just incredibly complex.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve figured a way for me to… oh, I don’t know… grow wings or something?” Leon asked, his tone hopeful.

“No,” the Thunderbird unceremoniously replied.

“Damn. I suppose that’s fine, I’ve waited this long, I can wait longer,” Leon said, his tone not quite as hopeful as a moment ago but still quite upbeat. “I don’t suppose you know more about my mother…?”

“No, and after having revealed all of this to you, I wouldn’t count on Great Black humoring any further questions from me. And as I am now, I can’t force any questions out of him. You’ll have to ask someone like that silver-haired wench for that information if you want it.”

Leon grimaced a bit from the Thunderbird’s phrasing and the reminder that he and Valeria still had business to discuss, but he was also looking forward to getting more information on the subject.

“Is there anything else you’re not telling me?” Leon asked her.

“Nothing immediately springs to mind,” the Thunderbird said.

Leon stared at her for a long moment, his golden eyes searching for any sign of deceit. When he found none, he sighed and decided to let this one go. He wouldn’t be forgetting the Thunderbird’s lie anytime soon, but he did, in the end, get the information he was looking for.

“All right, then. I suppose that’s something I’m going to have to keep in mind as I go forward…” Leon said mostly to himself. “Look for something that can awaken my blood further…”

“I shall redouble my efforts into researching ways to stimulate your blood to shapeshift,” the Thunderbird responded. “As for your training…”

“I think I’m going to take a break from that for a while,” Leon replied. “Lots to process, and all that…”

The way Leon looked at the Thunderbird made it clear that this was more a consequence of the lie, but she was willing to accept it. This was her last living descendant, she could set aside her pride for just a little while when it came to him.

“Just call when you need me and I’ll be here,” she said, quickly transforming back into her avian form, taking off, and vanishing into the Mists ten miles distant, leaving Leon and Xaphan alone in his compound.

Neither human nor demon spoke for a long time. Leon just sat on the steps in front of his throne to think about what the Thunderbird had told him, and to get used to the idea of the Great Black Dragon that she’d talked up so much before was his ancestor. Hells, it was probably why she talked him up so much. Whatever the case, he was going to have to get Valeria to tell him everything she knew about his mother’s Clan—not that he wasn’t intending on doing so before, but now that desire for information had drastically increased.

He just wasn’t going to be asking the Thunderbird’s opinion on it anytime soon. Whatever he decided to do would be as free of her influence as he could make it. He was no longer angry with the Thunderbird, but that feeling of betrayal and the resulting lack of trust wasn’t just going to go away anytime soon.

As Leon sat thinking, Xaphan simply stared at him in something that resembled awe. Dragons were masters of fire, legendary even to demons. He’d never seen one—they were rare enough in these times that most reputable sources claimed true dragons to be extinct—but still, the very thought that he was now contracted to a descendant of one of the strongest dragons to have ever lived changed much, and gave him a lot to think about, too.

After about twenty minutes, Leon got back to his feet, said his goodbyes to Xaphan—who seemed almost numb and unresponsive after the revelation of Leon’s ancestry—and sat down upon his throne.

It was time to get back out to the physical world and see what had transpired while he’d been out. Xaphan had told him it had been several days, and he wanted to know what had happened in that time.

But most of all, he wanted to finish his conversation with Valeria.

—-

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