Chapter 9: Awakening

I looked at the message and my rational mind kicked in. I did not hesitate one bit.

"Yes."

The moment I said that, the system got to work.

The system attempted the tame, a mark formed on my chest first, a purple diamond shape on my chest. It appeared on her chest as well with a small burning sensation.

She looked down and saw the mark on her chest. She immediately looked up at me, confusion in her eyes.

"Accept it and you’ll be with me forever. Get stronger, get revenge," I said.

She paused for a moment as if thinking, then she leaned in close and planted a deep kiss on my lips. That was it, she accepted.

[Taming completed]

[You have awakened the full system]

We finally stopped kissing and pulled away. I let out a smile and spoke, "We should wash up." I took her hand and got into the water. She washed up together and soon after got dressed.

The fishes were almost burnt at this point, but I managed to salvage it. We ate together and when we were done, I quenched the fire and we got ready to leave.

"We have to still be careful, they might still be out searching for us," I explained to her as we started walking.

"So where are we going?" she asked.

"Anywhere at this point," I replied. I was not still sure of where we were and I had no bearings.

"Do you not know where this is?" she asked me.

"You do?" I asked her.

"This is the kingdom of Dracoris. I heard we were getting transported to the Sky Palace City."

When I heard what she said, I froze.

’Those names, it’s from the game,’ I recalled the virtual game that I had started playing. These names were inside the wiki that I read about it.

’Could it be?’

I thought about what had happened before I woke up in this world, every event that had taken place, and it all started to make sense. I had somehow entered the world of the game, the world of Tera Online.

It finally made sense, all of it, even slavery, the darkness, everything made sense. The world of Tera was unforgiving.

"We should head to the Sky Palace City then. We need to find a way to start our livelihood, to start our journey."

She did not have an issue with that. She simply followed behind me. We made our way through the forest while still keeping our eyes open. You never know if the slave masters had come back to run another search.

Slaves were expensive and one like Lia was very expensive. They would not let go of her easily. In fact, going to Sky Palace City was a risk, but it was a risk that I was willing to take to start establishing what we needed to establish, our journey, our rise to the top in this godforsaken world.

We walked for a while along the side of the stream to ensure that we did not lose our source of water and our food.

The first night caught us here and I made sure Lia went to sleep while I stood on watch. This was the second night that I did not get some sleep, but I had gone longer in my last life to ensure that I got jobs done. I was sure that I could thug out a few more nights without some sleep.

I sat by the water while she slept on soft grass. I watched her eyes calmly.

A few minutes later, the taming mark on her chest lit up in the night. It burned bright and golden flames lit up on her chest yet did not burn her clothes.

"What the hell?" I muttered in shock.

Before I could do or say anything, the flame covered her entire body. I panicked, worried that it would somehow hurt her, but it did not seem like she was in pain.

[Tamed Partner is awakening latent bloodline]

The system sent out a notification. It explained in one word what was happening. I knew what this was, many races in the world of Tera Online had bloodlines and awakening it to its fullest potential could allow one to become extremely powerful.

Seeing this happen, I immediately got excited, eager to see what she would turn into or what her power would be.

She slowly began to float above the ground as the flames spread and burned red hotter, getting so bright that I could barely see properly. The flames soon took the shape of dragon wings behind her back and made her fly upright, a beautiful scene to behold. I stepped back and tried to cover my eyes as best as I could.

"Hey, there is a bright light over there. Let’s check there," a man’s voice reached my ears.

I looked around, knowing that the guards were still really looking for us and they had found us due to the very bright light.

"Shit," I cursed and began looking around the ground to find some sort of weapon. I found a sharp stone and got ready.

Lia was undergoing her awakening and I could not afford to allow her to get hurt.

I walked over to the tree and hid behind it, hearing the footsteps of the men approaching, knowing that I had to do something before they arrived. I controlled my breathing and ensured not even a sound got through.

Finally, the first guard stepped through with a torch in his hand and a sword in the other. The moment he stepped through, I lunged out and swung the stone down. He tried to react, but I moved faster and the sharp end of the stone slammed into the side of his head.

Blood gushed out and the guard collapsed to the ground. The second guard was stunned when he saw his partner collapsed. He looked at me and pulled his sword.

"You piece of shit," he roared.