Through the week Arad spent in the void; he had discovered several new layers to his power. After pushing his matter-creation ability, he managed to create several elents until he stopped at the eighth elent he found so far, Oxygen. That ans that after discovering Lithium white fighting Vorvadoss, he had managed to get beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, and lastly oxygen all created from energy. By using the void between atoms he can crush them into energy and then rearrange that energy to form matter.
By mixing oxygen and nitrogen, he managed to make a compound close to air, which he used to breathe for the past week. This seems to be how adult void dragons manage to survive in the vacuum of the void, they create their own air to breathe.
Arad had also discovered that carbon with hydrogen could create so nasty gasses that were prone to explode. He kept trying to mix them together in different ways by applying what he learned of alchemy so far, but he wasn't getting that far on his own.
But, Arad had a bigger problem at hand now that he landed on the crust, wanting to teleport back into the world. He can't take a human form anymore, and he suspects it's because of his damaged human soul.
Not being able to take a human form wasn't the end of his problems, he seems to find it near impossible to control his power now, and everything he does is at 100%. He can't scale his strength or magic to a human level. If he were to fly down, the raw magic seeping out of his body would cause animals to turn into monsters and scare all the humans away.
And there was a bigger problem since he spent the whole week crushing matter and creating air for him to breathe, it seems that had saturated his body with a curse akin to that of the cursed tal. He didn't know what would happen if he teleported straight back to the university or his layer, and didn't want to test it. With a sigh, burning with fire he teleported back inside the world but several kiloters into the sky above where he was first. Then without wasting a second, he looked around and noticed the desert to the south-west of the university.
A massive desert nicknad the wasteland of death, several thousand kiloters wide, it was considered an uncharted territory that, albeit being on the border of several kingdoms at once, none dared to claim its harsh land. The only creatures known to roam the place were dragons, more specifically the blue dragons, copper, and brass. Besides those, it was only filled with giant scorpions and sandworms that would swallow anything and everything that moved.
To Arad, such a place looked perfect. As humans won't wander inside, and since it's far too large, he's bound to find a piece of land unclaid by any dragon. He flew toward it imdiately, making sure to stay at least a hundred kiloters in the air as he didn't what his curse would do. Even though what Arad was experiencing was a case of severe radiation, to him, it was rely a curse placed upon him, he who tried to tinker with creation, the job of the gods.
Arad landed in the middle of the desert and looked around, he was far away from any dragon territory or human settlent. There were so monsters around, but he can't help it. Staying in the outer void would require him to keep making air, which would only increase his curse even more. He has to stay in the mortal world until his human soul recovers.
GRRRRRRRRRRRRR! A massive worm that's almost fifty ters tall and three wide erged from the ground, growling and foaming from its mouth, and fell on the ground, dead. That wasn't the end of it, Arad could hear the monsters around him cry and die just due to him existing beside them.
He walked toward a large rocky mountain and dug a cave with his claws until he reached the center and made a cavern for himself. Based on what Doma said, it'll take him at least another week to heal his soul at the longest it'll take him over a month. For that ti, all he can do is sleep here and hope his curse fade away.
Arad was worried about Flatail who was still inside his stomach, but thanks to the abundant food he kept, that little beaver should be fine for years to co.
Using a fire breath, Arad lted a bed for himself in the stones and rolled up like a dog, closing his eyes to sleep.
He didn't know the extent of the chaos that his return had caused in the world.
Dragons started to migrate away from the desert the mont they sensed Arad approaching. A migrating copper dragon stopped by a city located at the edge of the desert to warn its people, "Death has taken residence in the great desert of Al-tamary. Do not wander close as even we wyrms can't set a claw inside." He imdiately flew away after stating that.
Just an hour after Arad landed in the middle of the desert, all the cities surrounding the forest were in a panic as the tallic dragons warned everyone as they migrated away. If a being powerful enough to scare the dragons away, it's not sothing those kingdoms could ignore.
Everyone gathered their wizards and scholars to study the desert from afar. After the tallic dragons stated they couldn't get inside safely, not even the bravest of the braves dared set foot on the sand again.
By the second hour, all the nations bordering the desert had gotten into contact nearly an hour after their wizards started working on the matter and began sharing what they found.
They have identified an unknown source of great magic in the middle of the desert surrounded by a thick barrier of a curse similar to the one of the cursed tal. If the dragons didn't tell them it was a being, they would've thought it was but a massive deposit of cursed tal.
40km from the mountain where the magic source was located, everything had already begun to die. Plants withered and monster corpses were scattered everywhere. Mages expert in detecting life and undead found out that there is a single life signal in the middle of the mountain. They called it the death zone, a massive circle 80km in diater with its center being the life signal in the mountain.
The wizards experinted as they usually do, so the third hour passed with them teleporting animals and monsters into the death zone to see how long they lived. The result was a maximum of 1 second at the edge of the death zone, but outside it, the duration increase rapidly until it reaches 10 min while being 100 km away from the life signal.
They concluded that even being 500km away isn't safe for humans and marked the whole desert as a restricted zone.
By the fourth hour, they managed to confirm their suspicions as they noticed animals and monsters dying 450km away. Based on that, the wizards started experinting with ways to defend against the curse, and their test subjects were animals and monsters, they even started gathering criminals for human experints at a later stage.
All the countries surrounding the desert kings and nobles started holding etings through magic crystals; all except Ruris kingdom who was thought to be still recovering from Vlad's incident and couldn't help with the research efforts.
Cases like this are extrely ti-sensitive for several reasons. One is that if it isn't a threat that must be eliminated imdiately, it's a power that must be allied with as quickly as possible. Whoever kingdom gets to that first wins the arms race, and everyone only works together from the start because it is mostly like a threat that needs their power combined to kill. This was one reason why they ignored Ruris kingdom, they couldn't help slay the monster and would be an extra competitor if the power could be used. What they don't know is that the monster they are afraid of is the husband of Ruris's princess, Isdis Lior Ruris.
By the fifth hour, the wizards detected a second magic source that teleported to where the monster they were watching was. The magic source they detected this ti wasn't a stranger; it was an infamous elder lich, Boronos, also called the sweeping death for the armies of zombies and skeletons he used to fight while casting powerful magic with his spell caster lichs.
The kingdoms began panicking as this confird their theory that the power in the desert could be reasoned with, and they are now losing to an elder lich. If such a monster got his hands on that power, it'd be the world's end.
"Hooooo!" A voice said inside Arad's cavern. "Even I didn't expect to find a dragon here."
Arad opened his eyes and stared at the elder lich standing beside him. "Living beings can't live around ."
"I'm but bones and magic. The curse can't harm ." Boronos giggled. "People need to earn the right to et you. And it seems I'm the only one worthy to stand in your presence."
"How did you get here? I could've sensed you if you flew here." Arad lifted his head.
"I did pass by this mountain several centuries ago. I teleported into a location that I was in before, it is indeed simple magic." He waved his hand, "If this doesn't prove my power. I still have more to show off."
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