Converging Destinies: Part 2

Chapter 202

       The mountains proved to be far more titanic than they appeared. After over an hour of flight, the group had only made it halfway up the side of the titanic mountain before them.

       As the group flew ever upwards, the air became noticeably thinner. It was becoming progressively more difficult to maintain their speed, even in their new, eagle forms.

       However, after an hour and a half of steady upward climbing, they made it to the summit. The whole mountain was a gray monolith that bore no snow. As they all crested over the top, the slopes on the other side descended downwards for miles.

       However, that wasn't the main thing that caught the group's eye.

       In the distance, the constant gray monotony of the plane was broken. A massive ocean of black lay visible in the distance ahead. It was a perfectly flat expanse of ebony, at least from their perspective.

       The descent was far easier than the upwards climb. Everyone pulled the wings of their eagle form closer to them, and dove downwards.

       Within minutes, they were hurtling downwards, and they were almost the whole way down. On the other side of the monolithic, gray spires, massive foothills led downwards towards the dark expanse beyond.

       Soon, the group had overcome the massive, gray spire of the mountain, and they soared over the foothills. Soon, they came to the edge of the ebony expanse.

It was clear that what lay before them was an ocean, of sorts.

       Waves of black fluid splashed against the endless, gray shore. The group shifted back into their normal forms, for their travel was finished for today.

       Cedric approached the waves, and put his finger into it. He recoiled with a shout of pain.

       "It burns!" He shouted.

       "Like, temperature burn, or a different kind of burn?" Brie asked.

       "Different." Cedric said. Brie crouched close to where it had seeped into the sand.

       "I feel like it's an acidic substance, and by the look of it, there's a whole ocean of it." Brie said, looking out into the distance.

       "How are we gonna get across? We don't know how far it goes." Eris said.

       "I have my spell that shapeshifts all of us, but I'm not sure what we'll do when we have to rest for the night." Cedric said.

       "Not to mention, what if a dragon attacks us over the ocean?" Brie asked.

       "I dunno, weirdly, no dragons have attacked us in the last couple days." Zerai said.

       "You're right, for some reason, they've stopped." Eris agreed.

       "It still leaves the question, what will we do when night comes?" Ara' Sei asked.

       "I don't know. If this were a normal ocean, I could probably control the water within it, but as far as I'm aware, there's no water to shape into an iceberg. And even if there was, acid would dissolve it." Cedric said.

       "I don't think most of those dragons could rest either, maybe we could make it to where they're coming from in a single day." Ara' Sei proposed.

       "Dragons are far more resilient than eagles. They could fly far longer than we could ever hope to. We probably need to find some way to rest." Brie replied.

       "As risky as it would be, we may have no choice but to push on without rest." Cedric said.

       "I don't think that'll work." Zerai replied.

       "Maybe it could. The spell that I use lasts for twenty four hours. After the duration expires, We could probably utilize my shapeshifting alongside Zerai's flight to push the rest of the distance. Not to mention, based on the properties of the spell, I've noticed that not too much of the exhaustion transfers over to our normal forms. As difficult as it would be, we might be able to pull it off." Cedric explained.

       "Okay, I don't like it, but we don't have much of a choice." Ara' Sei said.

       "She's right." Eris added.

       "In that case, tomorrow, we'll push onwards until we find wherever these dragons are coming from." Zerai declared.