Twilight of a Hybrid, стр. 58
After Valverno went flying into the darkness while carrying two female passengers, he saw another but smaller hole if it had been smashed with brute force into the wall. The hybrid had slowly drifted to that manmade hole and he suddenly fell. He landed at the base of the staircase without losing his balance from his feet. Valverno released Marina and Sora from his arms as he tried to fly again.
“What happened?” asked Sora.
Valverno had tried and tried again to fly again, but he couldn’t find himself to fly. It seems he may have entered a familiar magic force field that disabled his ability to fly. “I can’t fly, my sister. This happened the same way when I traveled with some other people to the Northern Region. I couldn’t fly until I felt the sense of endangerment.”
“To go ahead of yourself,” called out Geraldus.
Geraldus was seen riding on Flarefur’s back. The Griffin glided down after Valverno had flown from above the staircase. Geraldus dismounted from the Griffin’s back and own his own two feet.
“Trying to get ahead again?” asked Geraldus. “It seems staying together must be difficult to you.”
“By any means necessary, and I hate being underground,” said Valverno. “I nearly died when a bite was taken from my tail.”
Sora was awestruck by her brother’s tail being bitten. “Wait. You tail was bitten? By what?”
“I don’t need to mention what happened there,” said Valverno.
“Why can’t you tell her?” asked Marina.
“Because it happened it the past.”
Marina told Sora of what happened to Valverno after requiring the first armor artifact. Marina explained the one wild flying ride Valverno was on while the group was sitting on a boulder, and during the final moments of the high flying ride, Valverno hurled the group toward the cave entrance and then being taken down into the crumbling cave with the Earth Dragon biting on Valverno’s tail.
“And Vaeludar gave his life to save other people he considered to be a family, however he says he slipped the thingy on his arm before he could die in the falling rocks of that dreadful cave,” Marina finished.
Sora was trying to hold back a laugh. This funny tale of a hybrid had sounded like a true legendary warrior, but the ending part where the warrior dies out instead of living to tell the tale. She was laughing of how powerful Valverno sounded but was dragged down from a single, unlethal, harmless bite.
Valverno could hear whispering laughs coming from Sora. He knew she was laughing of how powerful he sounded but was easily defeated by a single bite he could have easily freed himself from. “What seems to be funny?” he asked.
Sora resisted looking at Valverno’s eyes, trying to conceal her hiding her laughs from the hybrid. “The way you looked high and mighty and powerful, and of course, you’re a demigod, and your father is believed to be the Ruler of the Gods, thus making you the Prince of the Gods. I just can’t imagine how powerful you are, but you’re easily get defeated by a harmless bite from a small, brainless lizard.” Then Sora burst in laughter, the thought of her legendary brother being brought down of a bite from a lizard.
“Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up, sister, laugh it up.” Valverno shook his head, even though he didn’t seem annoyed of Sora laughing at this embarrassing moment. Apparently, he heard her laugh plenty of times in the long thousand year past at embarrassing stories, so he is quite used to hear his sister’s laughing. “Laugh at all the points I could find those humiliating for me.”
Eventually, Sora calmed her laughter and went to her usually self and she stood up like a true female warrior. “All my life I saw you fought fiercely, bravely, and ferociously, and you were taken down by one non-legendary bite. How the high and mighty can fall in one move.”
Valverno wouldn’t have considered himself to be “high and mighty.” He wasn’t at his full potential of his true power, and he was only a half god, so he couldn’t be “high and mighty.” If he only was, he would be an immortal, physical god living among mortal creatures.
Then the floating torches around the group went through the small hole in the wall. Valverno was the first to enter through soon followed by Sora, then Marina, then Geraldus, and lastly the Griffin.
They walked into another dark room, but this time bigger than the cavern they exited behind them. Darkness was everywhere of what looked like miles stretching upward and forward. The floating torches only lit a few feet ahead of the group entering into another dark room. There was just no end: after one dark corner there is another. It was like exploring an underground maze.
“I hate the darkness,” said Marina. “Couldn’t have these Shadow Men casted your body armor more toward the surface?”
“If they did, then it would have made it easier for me to find them and reconnect my body to them,” said Valverno. “The Shadow Men were cunning and hid them across this entire island, making sure I would never find them. And I’m afraid to admit it, but they did a good job in hiding them: underground in complete darkness. Ralenskrit and Belverda had traced where the Shadow Men hid those three items. Now we’re close and…”
“Sorry to interrupt,” said Geraldus, “but can you light this darkness? I can’t see well.”
Valverno gave Geraldus a glare. “Are you getting old already? And do you know who you’re talking to? I’m a demigod. Of course, I can light anything.” Valverno drew his eyes back in the new dark room and casted out more magic torches from his hands and wings.
The torches shot from his hand soon