When Dying Tashī Dalāi Called Out Every Force - Ch. 1.1


    A deep, bone-shaking rumble filled the air.


    Above us, the Jade Chakra Dragon emerged, her shimmering form slicing through the storm-clouded sky. Scales of molten jade rippled like liquid light, bending the storm’s fury into something eerily beautiful.


    My breath caught, and a knot twisted deep in my stomach. I knew this was my doing. Somehow, the book’s fall had awakened something ancient—something that should have stayed buried.


    The dragon’s gaze swept across the snowfield, vast and unyielding, as though it were weighing the fate of all beneath her shadow.


    “Maybe... if I put it back...” My words barely formed, the thought dissolving as quickly as it came. The grimoire lay in the snow, its title glaring at me: Grimoire of the Chronicle Stages of Dying and Living.


    The snow crunched beneath my knees as I scrambled to retrieve it, my fingers trembling from the cold and fear. The storm’s howling wind tugged at my shawl, and Drakos whined, circling nervously.


    The dragon thundered again, her body shimmering with swirling maps—longitudes and latitudes glowing across her scales, shifting like living universes. Faces flickered within the patterns, serene yet unknowable, their meditative forms etched in lotus positions.


    “Drakos...” My voice broke, barely audible. “Do you see it? East, West, South, North... all of it.” My hands clenched tighter around the grimoire as tears blurred my vision. “Why does it feel like I suddenly know how to describe this to you?”


    The dragon surged forward, her glowing tendrils reaching out as if to pierce the void, seeking something beyond comprehension. Was she crossing worlds? Connecting them? Or carrying us toward destruction?


    Master’s hand gripped mine, pulling me back to my feet. “Focus,” she said, her voice steady even as the storm roared.


    The avalanche crashed below, its fury drowning the world in chaos. My heart pounded louder than the storm, guilt pressing heavier than the snow. I had dragged them both into this—Master, calm as the mountains, and Drakos, shivering against my chest.


    I looked up at the dragon, bracing for death. “Maybe this is it,” I whispered. “Maybe this is where it ends.”


    Master shouted something else, but it was lost to the roar of the storm.


    The ground beneath me cracked, the world tilting as if the mountains themselves were giving way.


    And just like that, everything fell.


    But deep down, I wasn’t ready. How could I be? How could anyone be? Not yet.


    The world shifted as softly as snowfall, leaving me in a silence so weighty it felt like I was both floating and sinking at once. And I thought I had gone deaf.


    “?ri’vera.”


    The voice—low, soft, and impossibly familiar—came from behind me. I turned, breath catching, and saw Drakos. No longer the shaggy, mud-streaked shepherd dog I had grown up with but something... different.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    His fur gleamed, still fluffy and warm, but now rippling with shades of jade, gold, and the faintest hint of twilight blue. His deep amber eyes held the same gentle loyalty, yet they sparkled with a strange, knowing light. He wasn’t monstrous; he wasn’t draconic, either. Instead, he seemed caught between forms, like an artist still painting his masterpiece.


    “Drakos?” I whispered. My knees felt weak as I took a shaky step toward him.


    He stood tall, his head reaching my waist, his presence commanding yet calming. The snow swirled around us, though not a single flake landed on his shimmering coat. I thought of how he''d shielded me from the avalanche. I thought of the energy that had erupted from the mountain, the brilliance that had seared the skies.


    “You can hear me,” he said, his voice like a faint bell carried on the wind. He wasn’t speaking aloud. I felt his words deep in my chest, resonating.


    “What happened to you?” I asked, my voice trembling.


    He tilted his head slightly, as if considering his answer. “I’ve become... what I was meant to be. A Vehicle of the Cosmic Path. A guide for what lies ahead—for you, and for me.—And together with the change, you can understand these concepts now. You are like 16 years old now.” As if, I saw him grinned.


    The terms landed strangely in my ears, yet they felt natural, as though I’d always known what they meant.


    The world shifted as softly as snowfall, leaving me in a silence so weighty I thought I had gone deaf. Drakos nudged me gently, snow cascading off his newly transformed figure.


    “What happened?” I tilted my head, my voice barely above a whisper. It wasn’t just curiosity. It was disbelief, awe, and something else—a deep-rooted fear that the world had just tilted on its axis.


    He tilted his head slightly, as if considering his answer. “I’ve become... what I was meant to be. A Vehicle of the Cosmic Path. A guide for what lies ahead—for you, and for me.—And together with the change, you can understand these concepts now. You are like 16 years old now.” As if, I saw him grinned.


    “Cosmic Vehicle?” I repeated. I still had to ask, how do you think a 16-year-old could grasp it overnight? My fingers brushed his fur. Warm. Solid. Real. “What does that even mean?”


    Drakos hesitated, his amber eyes darkening for a moment. “I don’t know every everything yet,” he admitted. “But, I know I am continuing my past practices.”


    Past practices?


    His words stirred something deep in me—a mix of excitement, anguish, curiosity, and wonder.


    For a long moment, I couldn’t move, couldn’t even think straight. Snow crunched under my boots as I shifted my weight, steadying myself against the tidal wave of questions crashing into my mind. I stared up at Drakos—taller now, almost at my waist when he was seated. His fur shimmered in the faint, ethereal glow of dusk, shifting colors like a river of molten gemstones.


    “This change,” I began, carefully choosing my words, “did it… happen because of me?”


    He met my gaze, his expression unreadable. “You were the reason I stayed on this path,” he admitted. “But the cause? No, ?rī-verā. The avalanche, the celestial energy—those forces were ancient and beyond us both. They simply… awakened what already existed within me.”


    I frowned, trying to make sense of it. “So, you were always meant to be this?”


    He tilted his head again, his soft ears twitching, though his fur now bore no resemblance to the dog I’d known all my life. “I was always more than you could see,” he said gently. “And now, I must embrace it fully—because we’re running out of time.”


    “Time for what?” My voice cracked, betraying my unease.


    Drakos’s silence was answer enough.


    The air shifted, colder now, and I pulled my coat tighter around me. My thoughts spiraled back to the moments before the avalanche—the blinding lights, the vibrations in the earth, the echo of voices that didn’t belong. The faces. They lingered at the edge of my memory, half-formed and taunting, like a dream slipping through my fingers.


    “What about the faces?” I asked suddenly, my voice louder than I intended. “I saw them—felt them. And then you… you changed. Were they… were they trying to hurt us?”


    Drakos’s amber eyes flickered with something I couldn’t name—an emotion too deep, too raw. “The faces were fragments of what lies between worlds,” he said at last. “Echoes of the dying and the dead, reaching out for meaning… for you. Their presence here was not by accident.”


    “For me?” My breath hitched. “Why would they want anything from me?”


    “You have a role to play, ?rī-verā,” Drakos said, his voice quieter now. “A role that even I cannot fully understand yet. But I do know this: the avalanche was not an end. It was a beginning.”


    His words left me reeling. A role? In what? And why did it feel like I was being dragged into something far beyond my control?