The ritual that was being carried out was something that no one but a select few people in history had ever experienced. The ritual was called the Passing of the Flames, and it was a necessary rite of passage that allowed the Priestesses of Fire to transfer their powers from one generation to the next. The Flames being passed to Riyala were not normal! It was fire that had been granted to the very first priestess by Rumunaga himself, and it was said to hold the emotions, memories, and powers of every single priestess to have ever lived, and at that moment, it was all being burned into Riyala! Riyala curled in on herself in a fetal position and she put her hands on her head as she felt an intense searing pain passing through her head!
Thousands of images began to filter through her mind at a blinding pace, and Riyala felt like clawing her head open as the pain grew even more! There were emotions going through her heart that were not her own, and she knew that the images going through her head did not belong to her! Riyala started to become lost inside her own mind and there was a long period when she didn’t know where the foreign memories ended or where ’Riyala’ began! Is this what the priestess meant when she said that she would let go of everything in her past!? The priestess knew that these memories would change Riyala’s mind and heart and make it harder for her to remain the same!
It felt like everything that Riyala had ever done in her past was being torn apart as thousands of years of memories and feelings forced their way into her body at the same time! But even in the midst of this turmoil, there was one thing that Riyala held onto like a lifeline! A single image of a man smiling down at her! Riyala didn’t even remember his name, and she didn’t know why this image was so important to her. But as she lay within the fire and suffered the pain of succession, this one image was the only thing that allowed Riyala to remain grounded!
The flames continued for a long time, and Riyala’s consciousness was constantly bombarded with more memories and emotions, but after a while, it slowly began to slow down as the flames became less aggressive. At this point, Riyala had already passed out, and the large, aged dragon looked down at Riyala with a loving expression on her face.
’I pray the dragon gods give you the strength to stand strong as you face your challenges, child. May you find the happiness you seek even in the midst of all your battles.’
The dragon’s body slowly began to grow translucent as the flames began reducing in intensity, and the moment the flames stopped, the dragon’s body exploded in a bright blue dust that filled the entire cave! The dust floated gently towards the walls of the cave, and it dimmed to show that it was made from hundreds of glowing blue lilies. The blue lilies attached themselves to the walls as they joined all the other lilies to cast their light on Riyala’s unconscious body lying on the raised platform.
——
[The Radagan Royal Palace]
The Sovereign walked through the palace corridor with a frown on his face as he listened to the sounds of explosions and fighting that were going on in the main city. The Sovereign still didn’t understand why they being attacked! From the reports he got from his soldiers, the Lich that created the runes siphoning their powers was from another world, and if that was the case, that would mean that the Lich had to be at least an SS-Rank, as well as a Green Class Rune Crafter! Why was someone with that much power attacking them for no reason!?
’Did the Eternal Wanderer betray me? Did he tell someone else about the corpse of Rumunaga?’
The Sovereign stopped in his tracks the moment this thought crossed his mind! His face was set in a look of confusion and his head was bowed as he thought deeply about the possibilities. In truth, the reason that the Sovereign had given to the masses about the motivation behind this coup was nothing but a lie he fabricated in order to make sure no one learned of his true intention. The Sovereign didn’t really care about being the King of Radagan, and he couldn’t give less of a fuck if the throne was given to one of the wyvern riders. There was only one thing that the Sovereign cared about above everything else, and that thing was Power!
Ever since he was a child, the Sovereign had sought power like a dying man searching for water in the desert! There was nothing in this world that held his attention like the promise of power and the ability to gain more power with the work that you put in! Even when he was young, the Sovereign had always shown great talent for magic and swordsmanship. He was the son of the previous head of the Royal Army, and his bloodline ensured that he had strong genes and a powerful foundation for his growth. He learned how to use fire magic when he was only three years old, while the other kids were still crawling around, and he learned how to lift his father’s heavy sword when he was only ten years old. The lessons in magic and swordsmanship were absorbed by him like a sponge, and he never had to worry about being stagnated because he could feel it deep in his bones that he had the potential to reach the apex of this world!
When the Sovereign went to make a contract with a dragon, three powerful dragons had fought against each other because they could all sense the power in him, and they wanted to be the one that made a contract with him! The Sovereign had only smiled that day as he watched their battle because he knew that this was proof of his own abilities, and at the end he made a contract with the dragon that won against the other two! After that, things just continued to get better for the Sovereign! He constantly grew and learned from the things around him! He passed through the ranks in both power and the military like they were nothing, and before he knew it he had become the head of the Royal Army!
But then, a problem appeared. It was very hard for the Sovereign to even acknowledge the fact that this was a problem at all because of how easy things had been for him all his life. He always expected things to continue as easily as always for him, so when he finally managed to accept that there was a problem, he almost had an existential crisis.
The Sovereign had reached a plateau in his power, and he was no longer growing stronger.
At first, the Sovereign refused to believe it! A plateau! Stagnation!? He didn’t know the meaning of those words! Those things had never had any meaning to him, and he wouldn’t accept them as a reality! The Sovereign trained like a madman from that day onwards! He used every trick that his father had taught him on his path to grow stronger! He used crystals and meditation, and he even went out to ask his dragon to breathe dragonfire on him since there was a legend that being bathed in dragonfire would allow a dragonborn to unleash their hidden potential! But none of them worked! It was as if his body had stopped responding to the amount of training he was putting himself through! He was truly no longer growing stronger!
For the first time in his life, the Sovereign felt there was no meaning to his existence! He almost fell into depression, and there was a long period of time when he didn’t go out to meet with anyone since he didn’t want anyone to see his failure. This was how the Sovereign would have vanished into history as another failure, but everything suddenly changed on one random day. The Sovereign had been indoors for more than a year at this point, and his wives and children were starting to grow worried for him since they hadn’t seen him in so long, but as the Sovereign was wallowing in his misery, he received a letter through his window from a strange three-legged bird with a translucent body. The Sovereign didn’t recognise the bird, so he knew it wasn’t native to his world, but for some reason, he felt like the letter in the bird’s mouth was the most important thing he would ever receive. So the Sovereign took it and opened it, and he was shocked when a small vial rolled out from the letter and fell into his hand. The vial contained a strange purple liquid, and the Sovereign frowned as he held the strange vial while reading the letter.