Chapter 629: Be strong

Back at the ice-dragon's mountains…

"Gideon!? What is going on?! Please, look at me!" Vera's yell echoed around them as she knelt on the ground cradling Gideon's face. The man had fallen to his knees a while ago and the smoke-like dark magic kept oozing from him uncontrollably. She was getting more afraid as he had suddenly collapsed for no apparent reason. The only thing that seemed out of the ordinary was that flash of bright light.

The colour of his eyes was now flashing between blue to black as his dark magic began to whirl around him like a forming storm, threatening to blow Vera away.

"Get away… from me, Vera." he said through his gritted teeth, looking as though it was really hard for him to even focus and form the words to speak to her. "Take your dragon… and go find Evielyn –" he managed to choke out the words he needed to say to her.

"No! I can't leave you here! You will be coming with me!" She shook her head and grabbed harder onto him.

He reversed the hold and grabbed onto her wrists instead. "Listen! Vera!!" his voice sounded like a snarl now. "I'm going to lose control. I don't –"

"You promised Gideon! You promised you will not leave me! You promised that would not happen!" Vera burst out in tears. Why? This was not supposed to happen. What had gone wrong then? Were they not supposed to be changing the future for the better? Why did his condition suddenly deteriorate to this extent out of nowhere?

"I'm so sorry…" his voice came out nearly like a growl. She could see that his nails that were holding onto her wrist had turned completely black in the short time they were talking. This occurrence only caused Vera's heart to sink even lower and a bad premonition suddenly sprung up in her heart.

"No! I won't accept your sorry. I don't want to! You have to keep your promise and stay with me –" Vera did not want to continue listening to what her mate was telling her and kept shaking her head.

"Please! Listen to me… Vera… the monsters are calling out to me. I am going to have to lead them in this war. So you need to get yourself to Evielyn. Please…" He insisted, sounding like it was getting harder and harder for him to speak. "Tell her… not to let the monsters spread. All of the monsters need to be eliminated. Not even a single one of them should be spared. All places that the monsters will set foot on will be swallowed by the darkness. And that is how the abyss will expand." He forced himself to talk, pushing through the swirling darkness hovering at the edge of his mind. He needed Vera to pass this important message on to Evie no matter what. She was their hope right now.

"And what about you, Gid?" Vera's lips trembled.

"I will come back to you, Vera. I will keep my promise. Trust me. I will do something."

"Then why don't you please let me help you? You should know by now that I'm no longer a mere powerless human, Gideon. Especially the past few days… you have seen how I had been training with the ice dragons. I know that I am still not as good as Evie. But I can command and control them." her trembling voice turned begging. Because she had realized she could do nothing to stop him. She had done this before. In her vision, she had clung onto to him, cried a river to stop him and the result of all those things was nothing but terrible. He had hurt her quite a few times and those moments he had realized what he had done to her turned him ballistic. It made him only loathe himself even more and his darkness only became stronger every time.

Vera did not want to see that happening to him in this current timeline. Him, hating himself for hurting her to the point that he wanted to just destroy himself to pieces. Since she had already seen the future, she wanted to avoid having him get hurt even more. "Gideon…"

His darkness pulsated, creating a smoke formation akin to a black rose around them. He grunted and clenched at his chest again. Vera knew this look of his. He was really close to losing himself now. But he did not.

After grunting for a few minutes, he looked at her again, panting hard and sweating buckets. Then his hand lifted up tremblingly and cupped the side of her face.

"I know, Vera. I know… You'll help me by becoming stronger, my sweet mate. Be strong for me. Please. I'm not going to be naïve and tell you to stay back obediently in the castle and do nothing. I knew the moment you freed the dragons that you'd be someone great. A great warrior. No… Even before you did that, I knew you were full of potential. You just needed an outlet to show how great you are. So… go ahead and be one as you wish, Vera. Fight as you wish. Kill as you wish. I would not stop you nor chastise you. Just promise me one thing… that you'd take care of yourself. Don't let the monsters or anyone hurt you."

Silent tears were leaking from the corners of his eyes as those words left his mouth. "Join the war and destroy all the monsters for me with your dragons. That's how you can help me." He had used up a lot of his strength to speak to Vera at length and reassure her that even without her being beside him, he would be fine.

Gideon was now burning up. Fire and utter darkness were both consuming him. Since that light appeared, he had started hearing someone's voice, the voice of darkness or whoever it was. A foreign language that he had never heard before but could understand kept whispering in his ears.