The Eternal Family



Harry blinked his eyes open and glanced above at the sky. What had happened?

He thought with his heart beating heavily. He couldn't even clearly remember what happened.

He was in his room, no, he was on the way to the academy with Evis' teleportation method and he was suddenly here. He could remember nothing in between, it was as if the teleportation failed.

He looked around cautiously. He was in a temple complex and looking outside, he could see the sun shining brightly.

Then, he stood up a bit groggily and with a gulp, took a deeper look around.

There was no sound or anything of such matter as far as he could feel around. Everything was eerily silent.

He looked to his left, there was the entrance to the temple's inner rooms. He looked to his right, that was the way out.

Without a second thought, Harry started walking towards the outside world. There was a long row of steps heading down.

He gritted his teeth and walked. Something seemed absurdly wrong.

Was this the Disaster?

He walked. He walked. He walked and walked down, then suddenly paused and looked up.

The temple was as close as it was and the steps were as long as it was. His face paled slightly but he quickly regained his composure.

With a quick pivot of his foot, he walked up the steps and saw himself growing closer and closer to the temple.

He sighed in relief and once back on top of the temple complex, he locked down. He held his breath, he was on top of some kind of structure like a pyramid and the top of the pyramid was straight and clean.

With one big temple built atop it. Harry looked down at the places below and it was a huge forest, something vast beyond what he had thought at first sight.

He clenched his hands and tried to teleport. But he couldn't and nothing happened. His heart sank to the bottom of the abyss.

"I can't use Gifts?" he mumbled and closed his eyes to feel around himself.

[Jade Transformation]

Didn't work.

[Dream Walker]

Didn't work.

His heart sank deeper and he suddenly looked down at his hands. His hands were not human but instead Draconic Claws, his skin had almost invisible skinlike scales.

I am in my Dragonic Form.

He clenched his hands and with a yell, slammed his fist against the ground. With a slight thud, he got rebounded back and he grimaced.

It's like the walls of the castle. Too strong for my fist to break.

He then looked towards the sky. It seemed near, far too near. He pushed down the nervous thoughts and his draconic wings spread behind his back.

With a jump, he rose and started flying westward. But even after he flew for a minute or so, it was as if he was merely floating, he reached no distance.

Does Born Dragon abilities work? He wondered hopefully and landed back on the ground.

Draconic Transformation!

He thought as his body began to shrink, but immediately after, a brown light shined from the ground and his body went back to normal size.

He was even panting slightly.

Looking at the ground and around, Harry tried to use another Born Dragon ability but this time, it didn't even activate.

His heart feeling anxious and his mind reeling at the unexpected, he licked his lips and called for the system, "Can you hear me, System?"

[+&387-3-;$7-+2]

Harry looked at the black screen with a drastically worsening expression. Even the system was down?!

He tried communicating with it further but no matter how much it replied, it sounded unclear.

[Eternal Blood Coming out of Dormancy.] Suddenly, the system shifted and it became stable.

"Can you hear me now, System?" he asked seriously.

[Yes host, I can hear you.]

"What is going on?" Harry asked as he looked around.

[Some kind of Energy around here is limiting all sorts of outsider powers inside you. Our Data doesn't show what it is but I am sure it is related to the brown light earlier.]

"Can you scan our surroundings somehow? I can't move here at all and I seem to be stuck in space," he asked, being much less anxious after finally finding some headway.

[The Eternal Blood can scan your surroundings forcefully but that would reveal it's aura to any Eternal who might have a shred of awareness active around here. The two Eternal Eyes would sure sense us.]

"Is there no info about my situation anywhere in the database? Am I being... No, am I in a Disaster again?"

He knew asking a System that had the same amount of intelligence as him would do nothing good, but he wanted to pull all the straws.

[The System cannot tell Disaster from reality but one thing the System is sure of is that the Disasters cannot copy the Eternal Blood inside the Host. If the Blood is active now, it means we're not in a Disaster or some kind of illusion.]

Harry blinked at the system.

If there was a law like that, tell me already!

How many days he had spent wasting on thoughts like Am I in a Disaster was already too long to count, but that made him slightly confused regardless.

He looked around and his heart skipped a beat. If not a disaster... What kind of fucked up situation was he in?

[Host, if you spread your own Soul Sense out, we can see what is going on.]

"Soul Sense?" Harry asked curiously.

[Soul Limit - Spread your soul to its limits, breaking out of flesh and to the boundaries of reality to find its mysteries.]

Harry blinked and asked, "How do I do that?"

He had done so using Gifts before but without them... He didn't know what to do.

[Just open your eyes wide and let your Soul Roam free. You are already a Rank 2 Cultivator with all Stats above 1000 points, so you should be able to do it.]

Harry looked at the system weirdly. Sure, it had his mind and soul and was capable of Human thought even though it had no emotion other than Loyalty... But why was it so humane?

It felt as if a senior was guiding him.

"Hey, Evis! Are you playing some kind of joke with your father?!" he yelled out loud.

[...] System remained rightfully silent.

"System, why are you so humane?"

[Because the Eternal Blood coming out of it's dormancy gives my brain much more power than it usually has. I am much more knowledgeable too. So feeling human is natural.]

Harry nodded after a bit of thought.

"What did you tell I am to do?" Harry looked with wide eyes everywhere and nothing seemed to be different.

[Let your soul roam free to it's limits. Let it reach far beyond your fleshly coil.]

Harry tried with a cautious mind but nothing happened. Suddenly, he felt detached for a second before miles and miles of the surroundings came into his vision.

It was just like using a Sensory Gift.

Why did Evis never tell me about this?

It felt much more inherent than a Gift. As if a man using spectacles and another using his own sight.

It was somehow unhinged and clear.

"Can you tell what is going on?" Harry asked casually.

[It's the smell of Draconic Aura. I don't know what this place is, but it is related to Dragons. There is a deep stench and there is a lockdown of space surrounding here.]

Lockdown?

[It makes sure that no one goes in or out in a roundabout way. You just have to go out through the ordinary route going through the insides of the temple to reach out.]

Harry sighed. There certainly didn't seem like any other way.

Without any more hesitation, he stood straight and walked towards the temple. The sunlight stretched his shadows far and wide and his black abyss-like eyes were ever focused.

In the silent place, only his footsteps echoed like distant drumbeats.

Reaching in front of the temple, he looked at it with a frown, the long towering structure stood gigantic and massive in front of him.

"Is the lockdown the reason there is no sound around here?" he asked calmly.

Something around here made him slightly anxious in his guts and Evis wouldn't put him in such a place for no reason – if she was the one who put him here in the first place.

[Yes, the lockdown locks everything like sound down. You can see but you can't hear, it is a weird aspect of tombs Dragons had. They didn't want their corpses to be disturbed by the outside world.]

Harry paused. "So this temple might be a place where they store dead bodies?"

[Not sure. There is also a habit for dragons that they keep their dead near oceans, but we don't see any here. Something sounds off.]

Harry pushed the thoughts aside and reached the door of the temple. With a gulp, he pushed the glossy wooden door open.

He didn't know how to feel, he was carefree and slightly worried at the same time. The system's humanness had calmed him down very much.

[Eternal Blood going Dormant.]

Harry's heart skipped a beat as the door creaked open.