With the death of the oculon-dragon fusion, the remaining layers of haze that survived Li's outpour of divine energy faded away, thinning into transparency that let the bright, sunny rays of the sun above pierce through.
With how bright and golden the sun was and how crystal-clear blue the skies above were, it almost looked as if there had never been an undeath riddled atmosphere in the first place. Under natural light and sky, the crater so riddled with broken down mine carts, rails, and shattered rocks had a hauntingly beautiful appearance to it, as if a visage of nature that had outlasted the race of time against mortal civilization.
Li and Tia both looked up as they saw little specks of shining green fall from the sky like snow. A sign of impressive control from Tia. She had channeled the enormous brunt of Li's divine energy in a way such that after destroying the Oculon, the remaining vast pool of power shunted upwards into the sky, scattering into what were now little flakes of power that wafted down slowly and gently.
Had she thrown the energy out as Li had intended right at and through the oculon, then he had little doubts that she would probably have severely damaged the mountains, though to a slightly lesser extent than Li. It seemed when she received power from Li, it was at a slightly inefficient rate.
Li let his wings slow, and he too glided down to the ground, and Tia's huge form also did the same. Side by side, they floated down with the snow shower of divine energy to the crater. There, little shoots of grass were pushing through the once barren, undead earth, marking places where the flecks of divine power had dropped.
A tremble in the air brought Li's attention back to Tia, and he saw that she was sealing her draconic form again. He looked up as he saw her turn into a faint silhouette shrouded by a bright backdrop light of white. As the light dimmed and shrank, the silhouette also became smaller, until finally, it formed into the regular shape of Tia's human form.
With a slight difference.
When the light faded entirely, Li was left looking not at one pair of eyes, but two. One green, one black.
Tia now had two heads, just like how she had in her draconic form. And like in her draconic form, one of her heads was framed in black scales, and the other in green. More draconic horns sprouted from her black scaled head, and antlers stood tall above her green head.
Nevertheless, Li rushed in to take her in her arms, for he cared little how she looked, jus that she was happy and healthy.
Well, he had known she was fine – he could sense it through their soulbound connection and by looking at her draconic form-, but even then, seeing her healthy and smiling at him was more than enough reason to give him relief.
Tia giggled as Li swept her up for it was not too often that he would ever rush in to give anyone a hug.
"I'm okay, papa!" said Tia's green head as she too wrapped her arms around Li.
"I know," said Li.
After a few seconds, Li put Tia down, and she looked up at him with twin smiles, both lined with teeth noticeably larger and sharper than before.
"More hugs!" said the black-scaled head in quite the demanding tone.
"No, one good enough," responded the green-scaled head as it looked with some judgement at the other. "And papa tired."
"I'm not tired," said Li with a smile. "And you've earned it, managing to beat something this strong."
He scooped Tia up in his arms again, hugging her and this time placing her around his shoulders where she usually perched.
"Dragon very strong, but Tia stronger," said green Tia. Black Tia shook her head. "Papa gave power. Not fair."
"Hm," said Li, observing the dynamic between the two heads. He knew they were one and the same person – Tia. But everyone had sides to them, and he surmised that this was like a physical manifestation of that. "It might not have been fair, but before the transformation, you were beating it. And dragon? Did you think that was a dragon?"
He asked genuinely for he knew his status checking skill would not have worked on whatever the Oculon had turned into. It only ever worked on things that had been in the game, and that was definitely not that. In that sense, Tia and her innate ability to sense into the hearts of others to know what they felt and who they were was far better at identifying than he was.
Both of Tia's heads nodded, and green Tia spoke. "Was dragon before turning into monster. Old dragon. Waited here for long, long, long time."
"For centuries, if the old Aarakowa is right," said Li as he looked out to where oculon had been vaporized. The purple haze still trickled out of the vents and tunnel openings leading into the mountains, but at a far lesser rate than before. The Oculon creature was channeling the haze from the mountains, and without it active anymore, the undead energy did not flow as fiercely. "But monsters like that do tend to stay in one spot."
Tia shook her head. "Dragon wanted to leave. Very much. But had to wait. Guard. Guard for…" She scrunched her brows, trying to remember what she had seen and felt by looking into the Oculon's many eyes after it had transformed. "For a friend. Close friend."
"Another to fight!" said black-scaled Tia with thorough enthusiasm.
"Oh, you'll be getting some rest is what you'll be doing," said Li. "We have plenty of time to kill going through the mountain, and you'll be taking a break."
"But papa," said black-scaled Tia. She pointed to the mountains. "Friend to fight there."
"I see," said Li. Even though it might have been hard to get the gist of what Tia was saying through just her words, he could always understand what she fully meant because of their innate connection.
And this time, he knew that she was saying that the Oculon had not been a creature that manifested randomly as specters of undead energy as was the case in Elden World. It was more a regular undead, formed from a dragon, and a dragon that had been meant to guard this area.
And guard it did, guarding and guarding for centuries, and even when pressed with severe force, it hesitated to retreat, in the end never once considering turning tail and slithering its way into the mountains for refuge.
It guarded for someone. A close friend, as Tia said, or, as Li could surmise, its master. And it was evident that the master still resided within the mountains itself.
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