Honestly, I don't even know how to mesh this world into Highschool DxD. I'm trying, very hard, but it is… grueling. And I have a lot of other projects, not even mentioning the art being created for this originally series is also done entirely by me. You can find that on R/The _Isles over on reddit and view my art on twitter, pixiv, reddit, deviantart.

Shamastus_999

After my next commissioned release, I'll be making some art of Koneko. 8k Canvas size, and I won't be cutting any corners. Please give me a follow!

Chapter 2 – The World Below

Savior or Destroyer?

Issei awoke feeling strangely giddy and rejuvenated as if some outside force had filled him with a profound and calming chill that both filled him with energy as well as provided him with a bursting feeling of clarity as he began to formulate his idea and plan to escape the underground place. He began to walk upward, following a path that looked the same as the other passages he saw, with dark stones and glowing plants that lined the rocky roof above. Everything looked the same as the previous passages he had seen for the last few hours since his awakening.

At least it felt like hours. He wasn't entirely sure how long it had been, but it felt like a long time had passed, he was sure of that from the now lack of movement around him. It was like the things he saw first had gone back into a slumber and decided to leave him alone, giving him the illusion that a long amount of time had passed, but he wasn't sure how long. There was no convenient clock and there was no sunrise for him to use as a reference—it was just him, the seemingly limitless depths of the world around him, and the hundreds of plants and trees that offered light through their bright glowing leaves and spines.

Magical. That was the word he had produced to describe the place. It was truly brilliant and magical in every direction he looked, but that didn't take away from the crushing reality of what beautiful heights offered in the darkness: terrifying creatures and monsters that wanted to rip him to shreds simply for existing. He couldn't afford to be relaxed, he had to stay alert and ready thanks to the fear that he could run across a monster at any and every corner he walked past. His mind seemed to work a little better after his awakening, mostly thanks to the looming threat of an attack that could come for him at any given time, and from any source. Even the plants around him seemed to hold some form of danger to him, such as the mushrooms that had released spores into the lungs that turned him into a spasming mess that almost took him to the afterlife once more.

He moved cautiously over the fine stones and soft mossy ground, avoiding the mushrooms with each step, not wanting to risk suffering their wrath once more. He moved with careful steps, but also moved as fast as he could to escape, fearing that the longer he spent in the chasm wouldn't increase his chances of a potential conflict. He walked until his scaled feet began to ache, only a few hours had passed, or what felt like a few hours. The rejuvenating energy he felt from before had waned greatly from when he first awoke, and as much as he wanted to rest for a moment, he kept pushing himself, feeling the shift in the air the further he followed the winding path that kept leading up upward at a steep incline. He wasn't sure how far down into the earth he was, but it felt unbelievably deep, and each step he took made it feel more and more like he was scaling the side of a mountain, rather than crawling up from a cave.

Eventually, it appeared he reached another floor of the underground world he was in. After hours of walking, climbing, and exhausting steps, he reached a floor with more trees than the previous. He knew the ground he stood on now was hallowed and below him was another section where the bad creatures from earlier wanted to attack him, and even then, the place went deeper, possibly containing even worse creatures than he had initially seen. He didn't want to test those limitless depths or that theory of his, just as much as he also didn't want to test the heights of the place either.

Issei leaned against a single crystal that jutted from the ground, the shiny glowing purple surface felt like glass under his hands, smooth and perfect. The exact opposite of the terrain that stretched before him now. While there was no visible blue mushroom in sight that wanted to poison him, the terrain was bumpy and dotted with rocks, some the size of puddles, and some a grey stone that held some black substance behind them, surely some form of a valuable resource that he had no use for. For a moment, he thought it was some form of coal, but he remembered that coal certainly wasn't as shiny as the thing he saw.

Ever so slightly, in the moment of his recovery from his exhaustion, he could hear something different than what he was used to. The faintest sound of wind moving through the chasm.

Was that wind? He thought, listening closely to the sound once more. The sound of wind meant there was at least air flowing, but that didn't necessarily mean it came from the surface. So far, he hadn't seen any more monsters that wanted to skewer him on the end of their spikey tails, so that was good. Looking around, he normally would have voiced his amazement but didn't want to risk the chance of something hearing him. Like the small patch of water, he had been tossed into earlier, this floor supported a large lake of colors, flowing over a ledge and creating a beautiful glowing waterfall. Trees lined the side of the lake, and several harmless-looking creatures sipped from the glowing water, being very wary of the black eel-like things that slithered in the water slowly towards them.

Deciding he had stayed in one place for far too long and decided he had more than adequate enough time to catch his breath and strength, he began his ascent upwards once more, following the not-so-gentle rocky slopes as his calves and feet began to burn once more. But he wouldn't stop. He couldn't. He knew he was close to the world above, so close he could almost feel it in the air that began to gently shift and sway around him.

Until a horrible sound shattered him from his dreamland-like thoughts. A cry from the darkness behind him sounded, and along with it came the massive sound of stone being hit by some form of blunt force. The sound of stone cracking under pressure. He turned to face the thing that had been the source of his fears and worries, wondering what monster he could have possibly awakened and disturbed to result in such a loud and booming noise.

And when he turned, and his eyes laid contact with the beast in question, his heart almost stopped. Shrapnel shot past him, bouncing around the stones and continuing just barely missing him, but his attention was set on the most immediate of dangers. Whatever it was, the thing was massive, much larger than the black-scaled beast that shot barbs at him. And when the dust finally cleared out, what stared back at him was a creature with purple glowing eyes that pierced through the darkness like little ominous lights.

Footsteps sounded, and scales followed as it moved closer to him. It was a massive, lizard-like reptile, with massive wings in the place of two front legs, and black scales as dark as a midnight sky. Its body had been cracked, as if something had eaten on its flesh, and revealed the horrible glowing fluid underneath. Its wings were torn and far too damaged to allow the thing to fly in any way, and its sharp and deadly tail swung with enough force to knock down trees and crush stalagmites that stood in its way.

For a moment the dragon seemed to stare at him in wonder, as its head cocked sideways as it opened its mouth and let out a strange sound that came out as words that only added to the horror he experienced.

"Mu et minoriath… duyna arbeozul deokor."

While the dragon spoke words Issei couldn't understand, the things seemed to have some form of intelligence, unlike the other monsters he had run across, and the dragon didn't seem interested in attacking him at the moment either. Instead, the thing simply seemed agitated as it spoke. A moment later, the beast began to speak once more to him as he stared like a deer caught in the headlights. There was no running from the dragon, and there certainly was no fighting it on his end. If he had some form of magic coursing through his body like a magician, he didn't know how to use it. While he had scales on his body, he couldn't breathe fire.

"You are the intruder… that awakened the tomb of cursed ones." The dragon grumbled out, the thing faltering over words carefully as it spoke to him in a language he could comprehend. "Duyna Engwon. Awakened us."

Everything about the dragon that stood before him was horrifying, from the way it spoke to the way it regarded him as nothing more than an insect that had awoken it from its slumber. And yet, the dragon seemed to not move an inch, as if it was enjoying the fear that Issei had at the moment. The thing continued to speak to him, struggling over words before it roughly translated to him yet again.

"And yet… you don't know your own purpose. Shineste de Konuwa. Harbinger of Reckoning. But yet… different. Your blood smells of her. That goddess, Nuvosuvia. Sylvia, in your tongue." The dragon continued, the thing's voice growing more and more powerful with each passing second. "You bring with you… the reckoning of the Cursed Ones. The reckoning of gnégarówa. Reckoning of gods."

Only after the dragon had spoken to him did he notice the smell the massive beast gave. It stank of rotting flesh so vile and thick he could almost taste it. There was some form of fungus growing on the exposed and desiccated flesh of the dragon, green and yellow-tinged with a structure that looked similar to moss. The massive teeth of the beast looked dull compared to his claws, but he had no doubt they could still shred him to pieces all the same.

"I... do not wish to fight my own kind." The dragon grumbled. "I would like to offer you… a pact. A deal."

Issei was at a loss for words. Purple eyes that burned with rage stared down at him, waiting for his response as his brain processed the words the dragon spoke at a heightened pace. The dragon had said it didn't wish to fight its own kind, meaning that he was also a dragon? While that revelation to him explained the scales and claws on both his arms and legs, it did not explain why he was in a humanoid body. And right now, he wished he was in the body of a hulking dragon. He was sure that then—at least—the monster that had been hunting him wouldn't have actually tried to eat him for lunch like they did the scaled beast that spoke to him.

"What kind of pact?" Issei asked carefully, afraid that any slip of his tongue could ultimately lead to his untimely demise. He had already come so far, and escaped so many beasts, he at least wanted to see what the surface world looked like before he died.

"My soul… I want you to slay me." The dragon spoke slowly, without a single hint of any heinous intentions.

"What?" Issei deadpanned, the question rolling off his tongue by complete accident as the dragon's request registered fully in his hyperactive mind.

"You are her champion. The Hero of Spirits. Slay me… so that I may be forgiven." The dragon continued, only adding to his questions.

"Wait… Hero of Spirits?" Issei asked, more questions stirring in his head he was sure the dragon could answer.

"You are the wyvern of prophecy. Savior of The Isles. Champion of Sylvia and harbinger of reckoning."

"What prophecy are you speaking of?"

"The Prophecy of Spirits. There are nine parts, the second speaks of a time… when the first of the great beasts rise from the depths of darkness, the age of reckoning shall befall the world above.Andwhen the first of the nine trees fall, the world will shake, and the world above shall be filled with skies of black and red." The dragon explained, its voice struggling and cracking the more it spoke.

Issei listened intently, processing the information carefully as more questions filled his head that he was afraid he wouldn't be able to answer. The dragon that offered his soul to him seemed to be fighting an internal battle, and it was on its way out.

"My Blakhal… my lord. My time is nearing its end…." The dragon huffed out, purple liquid sloshing in its mouth and eyes as it moved. "Slay me… before this poison does. Let the flames take me…"

"H-how?" Issei asked, having no idea to even approach slaying a dragon that already looked dead. As the dragon said, flames made the most sense, but how was he able to make a flame without any tools and resources?

"You are… a wyvern. Visualize the result you would like to see. Imagine fire, the same as when you transformed into the body of a human." The dragon explained to him as if the answer had been staring Issei in the face from the beginning. If only Issei knew magic was that easy, he wouldn't have struggled so much to reach his current point.

And so, he did exactly as the dragon had told him to do. With a sharp breath inward to calm his still-shaken nerves, he began to think about the heat of a flame. Think about how it felt on his skin when he last made one… when had he ever made one? There was a blur in his mind that faltered for a moment as he continued. He thought about the sounds of crackling wood as it charred over, and the uncontrollable hunger such flames had.

He thought about the flame until a feeling of clarity finally washed over him, a feeling that came to him from the core of his body as an unexplainable warmth that spread to his fingertips. And with the warmth came a feeling he hadn't felt before, an emotion that screamed danger as his eyes snapped open. Anger and rage were given form around him in the form of heat that swirled around him, pebbles from the earth below began to drift upward as if gravity had flipped, and those pebbles began to heat up around him like large embers.

He moved his hands forward, donning the palms of his emerald-scaled hands towards the dragon that asked for its release. And with the movement, a single word pounded through his head with a head-splitting ache, like an ax had been buried in his brain. Khatsot. Though he had never heard the word before, the meaning of the word came naturally, as if it had been engraved in the fabric of his being: Ignite.

"My name… is Gaweny. It means anger and madness." The dragon spoke out at the last moment, laying its head on the ground in rest. "May my soul… serve you eternally."

"Khatsot!" Issei yelled, the chant coming from his diaphragm with a raw and unbridled force.

And as soon as the word had left his mouth, the feeling of a weight that he hadn't known bared down on him had suddenly lifted, and the world around him flashed as his body grew light. The rotting and decaying figure of the dragon erupted into a brilliant torrent of flames that lit the chasm around him with foreign light, illuminating every corner and every darkened height. And he wished it hadn't.

As the gagging smell of immolated flesh began to fill his nostrils and the chasm around him with a horrid fume, bittersweet bile began to force its way up from his stomach. And the sight above him that filled him with horror was the sight of hundreds of creatures that hung from the ceiling. Creatures he had originally mistaken as stalactites. And soon, they would wake up from the smoke that bellowed upward, and he would be hunted once more.

He looked at the corpse of the dragon, burning away at the center of his flames, now nothing more than a shell of bones with dripping flesh. And just as he looked at the bones, a swirl of blue began to form and rapidly move towards his body. And as soon as blue energy collided with his body, an ethereal feeling washed over him, like he had been hit by an addicting feeling of vertigo. He immediately felt more alert and stronger, as if absorbing the soul of the dragon he had slain gave him some form of power he couldn't explain. But he needed to move.

Issei knew he needed to run and get far away from the dragon. He knew that no matter how powerful he was and felt right now, he severely lacked the numbers and knowledge to fight everything that hung from the stony ceiling above. The harsh reality was, that if they found him, everything would gang up on him and eventually overpower him in his entirety. Not only that, but he would also be fighting them on their terms, in the home they are most familiar with.

A good warrior knows how to pick his battles and when to avoid them. And he was going to avoid everything he could until he was in a position where fighting back would result in a feasible victory.

Issei took off in a sprint, using the energy his body had taken from the dragon to propel himself forward in a desperate attempt to put as much distance between himself and the charred bones of the dragon as possible. He began his climb, being just as careful to avoid any potential dangers as he had been previously but moving much faster than previously. And thankfully, when the sound of screeching and wailing finally did come, it was far behind him.

xXx

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