After completing the transaction with Dagon, Wright's consciousness returned to his body. The conversation in the realm of Oblivion felt like an instant in the world Wright inhabited.
Feeling the dagger still lodged in his chest, its tip pressed against something hard, Wright pulled it out. The wound in his chest expanded into a small circular hole, and his heart, now a black stone flowing with molten lava, no longer beat but emitted a faint red glow.
The searing energy suppressed the black water, and with Wright's dragon soul power, they barely maintained an unstable balance between the three forces.
"Heh!"
While Dagon observed his thoughts in the realm of Oblivion, Wright didn't dare to let his mind wander. Only after returning to his world did he allow himself to laugh.
For an ordinary person, being stabbed by a Daedric Prince's weapon would mean death or dismemberment, but a dragonborn could actively communicate with the Daedric behind the weapon. Signing a contract was just a matter of selling oneself once or many times—it was still selling. Who said one could only make a deal with one Daedric Prince? The prince had a longsword, Dawnbreaker, with a Daedric of light, Meridia, behind it.
Now that he had Hermaeus and Dagon within him, why not add one more? This was the true talent granted to dragonborn by Akatosh— the ability to contain the power of multiple demons within oneself!
Odahviing flew low, and Wright reached out with his mage's hand, grabbing its foot, quickly climbing onto the dragon's back.
"Odahviing, find a place to land!"
Odahviing had few external wounds, but more damage was internal. Every strike from the spiked mace carried Molag's chilling power, penetrating into the dragon's bones and organs.
Wright cast several healing spells, but they only stopped the bleeding from the dragon's wounds and couldn't dispel the cold energy within its body. The damaged bones and organs couldn't be healed, and for the first time, Odahviing's flight became sluggish and struggled.
"Dragonborn, your scent is utterly repulsive!"
Molag, seeing the searing energy on Wright's chest from the realm of Oblivion, stopped attacking Odahviing and swung his spiked mace toward Wright.
While Molag had the time to speak, Wright had to stay completely focused, knowing that even the smallest mistake could lead to death.
The black stone in Wright's chest was meant to drive Molag away if inserted into him. It didn't provide a great power boost to Wright himself; it only replenished his magic, though it might have other effects that Wright didn't have time to explore.
Boom boom boom~ A series of fireballs struck Molag's face. He didn't dodge and took the hits directly, the first thing to emerge from the burning flames being his wicked, pitch-black face and white fangs.
No longer engaging in direct confrontation, Wright used most of his magic to increase his speed, with a small portion used to distract and restrain.
Sensing the attack coming, Wright leaned back as far as possible to avoid it.
"Not enough!"
He raised his hands to the sky, hurling two fireballs. Using the recoil of their launch, he pushed his body downward, narrowly avoiding the attack. As the spiked mace swished past his nose with a low whistling sound, its spikes cut a large gash across his face.
The blood flowing out couldn't be wasted! Magic conversion activated, and all of it was transformed into magic power.
Bracing himself against the dragon's scales with one hand, twenty-plus dragon souls extended from all directions, biting at Molag. One of them grabbed a spine on the dragon's back and pulled Wright's body away.
Molag raised his hand and swung the mace, scattering the dragon souls and forcing them back into Wright's body. But his attack on the souls gave Wright an opening.
He took the black stone from his chest, gripped it tightly in his palm, and unleashed his full magic to stab it into Molag's leg.
Molag raised his foot, sidestepping, and then countered with a punch aimed at Wright.
This time, Wright didn't choose to dodge but instead raised the black stone and stabbed it toward the enormous fist.
As expected, just before the punch hit, Molag retracted his fist.
"Hahaha!" This was the first time Wright laughed sincerely in the battle. Molag, who had ignored all his attacks and taken them head-on, had actually dodged!
Molag, massive in size, moved with incredible speed. Wright no longer faced him directly, focusing on finding ways to get close and stab the black stone into him or lure him off Odahviing's back.
The doppelganger trick was just a magic sphere to Molag's senses, a waste of magic.
Fire—Wright continuously threw fireballs with minimal power to attract attention.
Dragon souls—Wright used them as twenty-plus hands to assist with rapid movement.
Lightning—Fully powered magic caused Molag to pause, but it didn't harm him in the slightest.
Dragon's Shout—Even in the void, Molag could strike Wright.
All magic tricks were mere distractions in the face of a battle-hardened Daedric. Only the black stone in Wright's hand made Molag wary.
Since Molag didn't come down, Wright focused on buying time for Odahviing to land by engaging Molag in a battle on the dragon's back.
Odahviing flew close to the sea. Behind it, the previously sunny and calm sea instantly became dark with clouds, lightning, and hurricane-force waves. When the storm passed, the sea was littered with flipped marine creatures.
The orange coastline finally appeared on the horizon.
During the flight, Odahviing had been struck multiple times by Molag, and using all its strength, the dragon flapped its wings once more. After soaring over towering reefs, it had no more strength left, crashing heavily onto the coast.
The giant dragon fell to the ground, throwing countless trees and rocks into the air, and gouging a nearly thousand-meter-long trench into the orange earth before coming to a stop.
The moment the ground hit, the inertia threw Wright away. To his surprise, Odahviing was heavily injured without making a sound. While flying in the air, Wright cast a healing spell towards the giant dragon's body.
Stabilizing himself and dodging several tree trunks falling from the sky, Wright charged toward Molag's side again, only to find that his arm had been thrust into Odahviing's eye socket.
Odahviing, who had blocked countless attacks for Wright, now had no strength to fight back. Through their mental link, he spoke:
"Dragonborn, quickly kill me and absorb my soul. Molag is turning me into a vampire!"
"Odahviing, you won't sacrifice yourself in vain!" Hesitation was not Wright's style in battle. He quickly jumped to the side of the giant dragon's massive body. "Zii~~Los~~Dii~~Du!"
This was Wright's last dragon shout, an ancient four-word dragon shout created by the great Miraak, a dragon language magic specifically targeting dragons: Devour Soul.
The ritual to transform the dragon into a vampire was interrupted. The giant dragon's flesh quickly disintegrated, and its soul turned into streams of light that Wright absorbed into his body.
"Foolish mortal!" Molag raised his arm and grabbed Odahviing's soul, but Wright immediately pulled his dragon soul and flew toward Molag, only to have his other hand catch it in his palm.
Just as Molag thought victory was certain, Durnehviir's dragon soul flew out and bit his face, while Odahviing's soul also detached from its body and turned, biting his face as well.
The two dragon souls tore at his face, with filthy blood flowing over his eyes, obscuring his vision.
At that moment, a pool of black water suddenly surged from the ground, lifting a black stone flowing with lava and stabbing it into Molag's foot.
A space rift opened behind Molag, and a powerful gravitational force began to tear at his flesh.
"Return to your hell!" Wright's dragon souls emerged from his hand, and over twenty dragon heads pushed against the ground with all their might, lifting Molag's body off the ground.
Molag's body was torn apart, but his hand still gripped Wright tightly. The pulling force of the rift grew stronger, and Wright, along with Molag, fell into it as the rift closed.
Molag's body, now just half of a skeleton, had not died yet, and Wright's battle with him continued.
After entering the rift, they arrived in a bright tunnel, a place with no direction or time, only countless humans passing through.
Odahviing and Durnehviir's dragon souls chased and bit at Molag, with over twenty smaller dragon souls following closely behind, constantly being scattered and reformed by Molag.
In this place, Wright no longer cared about morality. The people passing by became weapons for both Wright and Molag.
Some were caught by Molag, having their souls and flesh drained, while others were taken by Wright, their bodies becoming puppets for his summoning spells.
Magic clashed, thunder and lightning erupted.
"Spare me!"
A long-forgotten native language snapped Wright back to his senses as a black-haired youth with a large backpack flew toward him from the distance in the tunnel.
"Fellow countryman, save his life!" Wright gathered magic in his right hand, and a thick lightning bolt shot out, striking Molag, burning away the little flesh he had just regenerated.
Seizing the opportunity while Molag was distracted, Wright gathered all the dragon souls into his left hand. Just as Molag prepared to bite the person, the dragon souls stretched out and grabbed him.
Molag's claws tore through the person's backpack, sending books flying through the space tunnel.
"Such a shame, he's a prepared traveler. Off you go!" Wright shouted, gathering all his dragon souls into his hand. He grabbed the person's left shoulder and threw him toward the tunnel wall.
"Whether you live or die depends on how tough your luck is!" The person spun through the tunnel, crashing into a wall and disappearing.
The power of the black stone grew stronger, and Molag's magic could no longer sustain his body. His bones began to crack.
Wright rushed forward, kicking Molag's remaining head off: "Get lost!"
The flying skull slowly shattered into ash. The black stone that had turned Wright's heart into a black stone formed a molten light screen, blocking the entrance to a space tunnel fork.
By now, Wright was exhausted from the battle. He slowly floated back to the place where he had come from.
---
Who said that a traveler's arrival should always be smooth?
"Dammit!" Wright cursed nonstop at the bottom of a section of the Wall in the North.
The exit where Wright returned was inside the Wall. His right hand, body, and legs were tightly bound by ice, unable to move. Only his head, left shoulder, and left hand were exposed. Wright had appeared only to be trapped in the ice, pinned beneath the Wall like the Monkey King.
"Get up!"
Wright shouted, converting the little magic left in his body into strength, pushing upward with all his might.
The Wall remained unmoving, and not even a single shard of ice fell from around it.
"Fire!"
Wright converted his magic into flames! The magical fire scorched the Wall, turning the snow on the ground into steam, but the ice surrounding Wright's body still showed no sign of melting.
Wright felt deflated. He had emerged from inside the Wall, but as long as the magical array inside remained intact, the hundreds of kilometers of the Wall were one solid whole! He didn't possess the Monkey King's abilities.
"Pull!"
Wright summoned his dragon souls, making over twenty dragon heads bite into the ground with all their might. Clearly, even if the dragon souls were alive, they couldn't move such a massive structure.
"Help!"
The cries for help began to echo around the Wall. Wright, on the brink of death, no longer cared about his pride.
Unfortunately, the people and livestock in the North had all fled south. The White Walkers had moved south, and animals were scattering in panic. Every living creature had been decimated by the White Walkers, leaving the entire North devoid of even a rat. No response from the heavens, no answer from the earth.
Without food, even if Wright used all his magic to sustain his life, he gradually lost his vitality.
"Help~ me~ ah~~"
Wright was now covered by the snow, his voice coming from beneath the white blanket.
Around him stood ice statues, all familiar faces—Robert, Stannis, Renly, Nymeria, Tyene, Kana, his four children, the subordinates of Tyrosh, and Daenerys.
The largest ice sculpture only formed halfway. Judging by its shape, it was the tail and abdomen of a giant dragon. Wright's consciousness was growing foggy.
The snow was dug away with a longsword, and sunlight poured down from above.
Sensing a bit of warmth after being in the darkness, Wright struggled to open his frozen eyelids, barely making out three figures digging in front of him.
"Wright!"
Wright felt someone calling his name.
"Wright, wake up!"
He then felt someone's face pressed against his, offering warmth.
"Wright, eat this fruit first!"
He felt his head cradled in someone's arms, and a warm little berry was fed into his mouth, accompanied by warm droplets of water falling on his face.
Through his blurred vision, Wright could faintly make out fluffy golden hair beneath a hood.
THE END