If you’re wondering where I went this weekend, Saturday was my 10th year Anniversary, so no TOAE. I’m also published my second book this weekend. My first book will be free tomorrow until Saturday if you want to, you know, pick it up. Reading and reviewing it would do wonders for me. Please do so. Just don’t speak too enthusiastically in your review or amazon deletes it and says you must be my relative or something.
Also, it’s getting dangerously close to me finishing my doctorate. I’m looking for a job and so release times are probably going to suffer while I dedicate more time to writing papers and dissertations, so sorry, career first. I might even need to go on a month vacation from the sight while I write it. That’ll be in Fall of 2018. I’ll let you know when it happens.
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You pat off your naked behind as you stand up and look around. “Huh, it looks like we landed on a mountain.”
“It’s not a mountain anymore…” Mulan responds with a tight smile.
She isn’t wrong. The pair of you are in the center of a crater about a kilometer wide. There are traces of the mountain, but the impact has scattered the majority of the mountain and you now sit in a volcano-like divot created by your skyfall.
“Wait… I know this mountain.” Mulan’s eyes start to hold a look of worry.
“Huh? You recognize crater mountain?”
“Well, it wasn’t crater mountain before!” Mulan insists, covering herself up the best she can despite the lack of clothing for either of you. “Wait… we need to go! Master! We have to go now!”
“Go?”
Mulan seems to turn very agitated, grabbing at your arm and pulling while you stand there dumfounded. “Please, master!”
Before you can respond, there is a loud roar that nearly shakes the ground. A moment later, more roars answer, and within seconds you hear a cacophony of monster sounds around you. You look around but don’t see any monsters.
“Those sounds are familiar…”
“It’s too late, they’re here!” Mulan cries out, pointing up into the sky.
You look up in the direction she’s pointing, and that’s when you see emerging from the sky, dozens of dragons that are circling overhead. They start descending upon you. You merely stand there, naked, watching curiously. Mulan seems to cower more and more behind you the closer they get.
Finally, the dragons land in a circle around you. They don’t appear hostile necessarily. It is more like they are trying to put on a show of intimidation. While it’s true they are powerful, you check their stats and make sure yours are better. Suffice it to say, you’re confident you can take them. Just in case, you ready the insta-death dragon spell you made the first day you got there too, the one that killed Mulan.
“They’re dragons?” One of the dragons roar.
“This one… could she be? Mulan?” a silver dragon asks.
With those words, Mulan hides even farther behind you. Several other dragons make surprised exclamations as they talk excitedly among themselves. Mulan’s name comes up more than a few times.
“Hey!” You say casually. “How are you guys on this fine morning?”
You opt for pleasantries.
“You… strange dragon. We heard the sounds. You have taken this young dragon as your mate. That was a mistake, you will die!” A golden dragon shouts.
So much for pleasantries. “Excuse me, why is who I chose for my mate your problem?”
The dragon’s all look at each other, and then in a flash they all turn into human-like forms, landing on the ground softly. The whirling wind immediately dies down. You give a noise of surprise. So, dragons can turn into humans? The one who appears in charge is an older man with a beard. He had been the silver dragon. There also appears to be a cocky young man standing next to him with golden hair. He came from the golden dragon. He took a step forward, but the silver one stopped him by holding up a hand.
“You must be a rogue dragon. It’s rare to find a dragon that isn’t part of a colony. If you had been, you’d have known it is considered taboo to bredlock a dragon from another colony without expressed permission. This young dragon here appears to be one of ours. She is still quite young. Since she had gained the ability to hold a human form, she must have matured early, but she is still belongs to this colony.”
You give a tight smile as you look back at Mulan, who continues to shrink back and lower her head. So, normal dragons could appear in human form when they were adults. Mulan is officially an adult. You certainly didn’t push her into premature adulthood when you resurrected her from the dead. That’s just crazy talk. A-D-U-L-T… confirmed.
“A bredlock… that is to say that because I’m Mulan’s first, we are bound together, yes?” You clarify.
The golden-haired man became angrier while many of the other younger looking dragons winced. However, the old silver-haired bearded elder merely nodded.
“While it is true that you have bredlocked Mulan, this sort of thing can be broken.”
“Oh?” You aren’t terribly interested in the conversation, but you decide to humor him, since he’s been politer than the other dragons shooting you angry looks.
“A dragon can challenge and defeat you from Mulan’s colony. If you win, we forfeit the right to Mulan. If we when, you forfeit the right.”
“Well that doesn’t sound so bad.”
“The battle is to the death.”
“Ah.”
“It’ll be me who kills you, bastard!” The goldhaired man stepped forward.
“Mushu! Enough!”
“But Mulan was to be mine. It was all but decided.”
Mulan put a look of disgust on her face when the one named Mushu stepped forward. It was clear that she didn’t like the guy. If you had to guess, he was likely the reason she ran away in the first place.
“It was not decided, Mushu, do not get ahead of yourself.” The silver hair man shot a tired and exasperated look. “It will be me who performs this fight.”
“No!” Mulan said the first words since the dragon had spoken. “You mustn’t!”
“You have done this to yourself, my dear. Running away. Giving yourself to a rogue. You have much to atone for young lady.”
“Hmph.” Mushu shrugged. “I guess you’ll die anyway. Prepare to face the wrath of the dragon they call the Dragon King!”
Mulan turned back to you, tears in her eyes. Was she really so worried? This dragon king guy could hardly be that powerful.
“It’s alright, Mulan.” You give her a smile. “I’ll just kill him and then we can go home.”
Rather than looking relieved, her eyes swell up even more. “Please! No. Master, you can’t kill him?”
“Master?” There was a rumble of unhappy murmuring amongst the dragons at the word master.
You look from the crying Mulan to the silver-haired man questioningly. “What did I miss?”
“Ah? I guess we haven’t been properly introduced. Since we are about to fight to the death, we might as well exchange names. I am the Dragon King Fa Zhou. You can also call me, Mulan’s father.”
“Ah…” That’s problematic.