Galen - The Untold Tales of Frelanna Forest

Chap 9: The will of Liana

“Papa! Papa!!!”

Among the ruined civilization scenery being destroyed with the roar of the dragon echoing through the sky, no one would notice the weak voice of a little girl. She was crying, her tiny hand kept shaking a giant dragon next to her. They both were buried under the collapsed fragments of the building.

“Liana…”

She could hear her father calling her. He had exhausted all of his aura energy so couldn’t be able to escape outside. At the top of the building, the fire began spreading. At this rate, both the little girl and he would be burnt alive.

“Liana, listen to me… only you can pass through here.” The dragon’s voice trembled. His front leg pushed Liana to the hole to escape outside “Please, get out of here.”

“No, papa…!!”

Liana cried. Her tiny human arms hugged her father’s dragon leg tightly since she didn’t want to leave him alone.

“Papa, I won’t go anywhere without you. Those dragons outside are very scary!!”

“That’s why I trust you that you can do it, Liana. You are strong enough to fight against them.” Her father’s dragon head had been lying down calmly and closed his eyes. However, his voice still echoed in her head “Liana, we are all stuck in this place, I’m afraid I cannot survive.”

Hearing that, Liana felt like she just heard a thunderclap exploding beside her ears.

Suddenly, the burnt wood fell down and collapsed right on her father.

“ROAR!!” Her father roared in agony.

“Papa!!!”

“Liana… please… promise me. I just want you… to keep living happily, keep smiling and stay strong. That’s already… my life happiness.” Liana now just could see his head while his body had completely under the heavy wooden fragments. His ruby-colored eyes looked at her with determination “Even if your mother and I cannot follow you anymore… But… we will definitely be with you, I promise…

Also, one day, when you grow up and be strong enough, it’ll be your turn to protect the one you treasure as the replacement of us.

Liana, can you listen to this last request of mine…?”

Liana bit her lips, she had no other choice than to listen to her father and went through the little hole, which had the size only she could pass by. Just right at the moment where her tiny body escaped the ruined building, the fire already caught up and closed the escape way. Eventually, her father – her most beloved had been buried under the fire…

***

Liana had been living as a vagabond for years after years. At first, finding a food resource was suffering for her. But time by time, she had already used to living a new life as an adventurer. Sometimes, Liana encountered the dragons and they wanted to hunt her down. Even if being beaten that unable to stand up, Liana still didn’t give up. She kept smiling, being cheerful, as her promise to her father.

“Being happy, being cheerful, being smily…”

Liana mumbled while holding tightly a necklace, attached with it was a red dragon scale – which was the last remaining thing from her father. It took her seven years to learn to survive in nature, be stronger than most dragons and could come back to her abandoned hometown without any trouble of the predators. After building a proper grave for him at the summit of a nearby cliff, Liana sit next to her father’s grave, her odd-colored eyes looked at the sunset sky and continued.

“Papa, I hope you can listen to me. Your little daughter back then… has evolved into a teenager dragon and survived on her own.” Liana smiled “Today, I brought for you a rabbit, your favorite food. Let’s eat together…”

Liana ate the grilled rabbit alone. After each of her bites, a drop of her tears fell to the ground.

***

Despite Liana being weredragon, she still preferred life among the wild. She never thought of the idea to discover human society and live with them.

However, it didn’t mean Liana hated humans like other stupid pure dragons. She stayed neutral, sometimes, she rescued some humans from the hunt of the dragons as well. Every time she did it, she already told them to not anyone about her existence, because she didn’t want to be evolved with them. Liana saved everyone because she knew that was the right thing she had to do. She learned from her father that back then, he helped many humans in the village too. So Liana would like to do the same as her father did.

One day, Liana was flying through and journeyed to the new land, new country, she suddenly got shot from the defense line of Tredia Palace and fell to their territory’s forest. That arrow pierced through her scale, she almost thought that she had been done for, until the prince of Tredia Kingdom came… And it was her first time being so close with a human.

After saving her life, Liana’s mind from that moment never stopped thinking about him. She had to pay back his kindness by helping him as well. So after a few days of reconsidering, Liana decided to return to Tredia Palace.

But it was so strange, Liana wondered, she could see the man in luxury being warmly welcomed by the civilians, but where was the prince? And it seemed no one in the kingdom minded about his existence. The happiness could clearly show on their face, without questioning about the situation of the price…

At that moment, Liana guessed maybe her lifesaver was also lonely like her too?

This question rose her will to meet him more. So she flew away, find the prince, with the hope that he was still alive…

That night, Liana was on her flying way searching for the prince, she noticed a glow of light sparkled among the forest. By curiosity, she flew close by to investigate, but ended up seeing him here. At first, Liana couldn’t believe it by herself, but after confirming it was him. Liana couldn’t help hugging him while crying in happiness. Like her, he was dumped alone outside human society, so he would be invulnerable against the attack of the dragons. But, since Liana was here with him, she vowed herself that she would protect him.

Liana then remembered her father used to say “it’ll be your turn to protect the one you treasure, as the replacement of us.”

But…

This time, she couldn’t protect her beloved again…

***

Back to the present…

“AHHHHH!!!”

“ROAR!! (GALEN!!!)”

No!! Liana screamed from deep inside her heart. She ignored the enemies up above her, flapped the wings with all her strength to fly down to chase Galen.

Frank who was hugging Liana’s tail suddenly couldn’t feel it anymore. He panicked when her tail disappeared. Instead…

…Liana changed herself back to human form!!

“LIANA!!! ARE YOU CRAZY??!!!” Frank screamed. But it was too late he couldn’t catch up with her falling speed anymore. Up above him, the Sabatoruses rushed to him, blew him away as easy as blowing a piece of paper “GYAAAHHH!! YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS!! STINKY DRAGONS!!!”

“Galen! Your hand!!”

Liana rose her hand forward, tried to catch Galen’s with her best. Eventually, they could hold their hands to each other. Next, this would be going to be a very brutal technique. Or worse, Liana was afraid that she would destroy her own body if she did that. But she didn’t care how she was going anymore. For Galen, for the one she treasured, she would do everything!

“Please, Liana!!!!” Liana screamed “Please make it come true!!!”

Splat! Galen’s eyes were opened wide as blood scattered from Liana to her face. What was she doing?! Galen was scared Liana was trying to gamble herself to save him. He was going to say Liana to stop hurting herself. All of a sudden…

…Galen felt as if he was floating in the sky.

Liana was holding his hand tightly, she stayed immobilized on air. On her face, she showed her proud smile.

“Galen…” She said “I did it!!!”

Behind Liana’s back where the blood was splatted from, there was a pair of dragon wings from her back. Her white dress got scattered, revealing the white skin on her back stuck by blood, with giant wings the same as her dragon form. The dragon’s vein showed on her face, they highlighted her eyes, which completely turned into two shiny rubies.

Liana eventually did it. She could fly with her dragon wings, even in human form!

“Liana!!” All worry got blown away, Galen’s sparkled his eyes in admiration. Inside his mind, Liana to him was having a very cool appearance now.

“Hang on! Galen!!!”

The Sabatoruses still didn’t give up, they chased Liana and Galen by flying down as well. Liana decided to counter them by fastening her flying speed to the island.

Liana then found out a field of giant thorn grasses from afar, with the height same as a forest area. She then thought of an idea.

“Ready, Galen!”

As if Galen understood what Liana was going to do, he was smart enough to guess why she led him to that area. Without any hesitation, he answered: “Do it!!”

Liana then threw Galen fallen in the middle of that grass area. The thorns were very big, so Galen didn’t worry to be stabled. With the sword already equipped in his hand, Galen released his hand from Liana and pierced his sword to the grass. By using his weight, Galen slowly landed safely while piercing his weapon to the tree. Of a sudden, Galen slipped away but he luckily fell on the ground.

Liana also landed herself distanced from Galen not far away, by swiftly flying and avoiding the giant thorns. She used her own wings, broke through the smaller thorns and crashed to the ground as well.

“Liana!” Galen ran to her. Liana was heavily injured. Her body trembled and couldn’t move anymore.

Up above Galen and Liana, the size of Sabatoruses was too big. So they went crazy, their legs stomped on the grass area but it couldn’t help them better. In reverse, they roared in pain when the thorns of the grass stabled to them. The dragons just could stare at Galen and Liana in helplessness. They decided to give up, not chase two of them anymore and flew away to nowhere.

Galen breathed intensively after escaping the gate of death. Now the problem now was Liana…

It was all thanks to her, Galen could survive until now. So to trade back, he wanted to do something to help her as well.

Galen lifted Liana’s upper half body by his hand, revealing the blood keep dropping from her back. Meanwhile, his other hand gently put on her chest. This situation was so alike the moment where she and he met for the first time. But this time, Galen felt so different that fluttered his heart. He could completely see her true beauty, feel the warmth from her body, the softness and smoothness of her skin and the pulse from her weakened breath.

“Thank you very much, Liana…

…Heal...”

The ray of green light glowed up from Galen’s hand and shined bright at Liana’s chest. The magical effect covered Liana, as the will of Galen. He wanted to heal every injury from her body, that was why during this moment, Galen’s sensation had been synthesized with Liana’s. He wanted to know where she was hurt, so he would purify all of her painful burdens away.

Galen didn’t notice, when healing Liana, the nearby environment was affected by his magic as well and got resurrected. From a dry and dead ground, the green grass began growing up from underground and became freshened.

Galen stopped concentrating his aura energy as he confirmed that Liana had been completely healed. But at the same time, his head began spinning and a sleepy feeling attacked his head. He shook his head, tried to not sleep. This time, he had to consume too much aura energy in order to heal Liana. But it was nothing comparing to what Liana had done to him, he thought.

Eventually, Liana slowly opened her eyes in Galen’s hug. Miraculously, she couldn’t feel any pain anymore.

“Hi, Liana. I’m glad you woke up” Galen greeted her “Thank God, you are fine now.”

Liana looked at her hands. They were completely healed, safe and sound, even her dragon wings disappeared without leaving any trace. It was like everything that happened to her earlier was just a nightmare. But Liana could already guess it was Galen who cured her injury.

Liana hugged Galen and cried.

"Galen... You are safe Oh my God... I thought that I lost you forever... when you were falling..."

"Haha, you have saved my life, Liana. I'm completely fine thanks to you, please don't worry anymore..."

Linaa smiled in tears. Eventually, she could protect the one she treasured...

But suddenly, Liana looked down at her body. Her dress had been torn apart from the battle earlier so she was half-n***d in front of Galen.

“Kyaa!!!” Liana jumped out from Galen’s hug. She hid in the corner of the thorn tree, her face turned as red as a tomato “Galen… did… did you see anything??”

At this moment, Galen just realized where he had touched his hand on. He was too focusing on healing Liana that he didn’t notice her body much! Now thinking about that, he blushed and clapped his hands with each other.

“Liana! I’m very sorry!! Please, believe me!! I swear I didn’t see anything!!!”

Actually, Liana didn’t mean to commit Galen as a p*****t, since she knew Galen had to do that to save her life. But now the problem was…

“Aye… Now what shall we do? My dress is messed up…”

“Please use this.”

Liana then felt the warmth being covered on her back. It was Galen’s coat, he took it out to cover her body.

“We will see if there is any shop around here to buy a new cloth for you.” Galen smiled “Until that moment, just use my coat, Liana.”

Liana’s eyes were sparkling like water and kept staring to Galen. In just a split of second seeing him, suddenly she felt her heart just skip a beat.

“Thank… thank you, Galen.”

Suddenly, from afar, Galen and Liana heard the scream of someone.

“The Sabatoruses are still around here?!” Liana cursed.

“Liana, maybe someone was attacked by the dragons. It’s our fault to drag the dragons to this place, so we have to save them.”

“Understood!”

Liana and Galen rushed themselves to the origin of the voice. They arrived, but the scream was originated from up above them.

“Oh my God, Galen, Liana!!! Finally you two are safe!!!”

It was Frank, he was blown away by the dragons and his wings were stuck by the thorn.

***

After saving Frank, Galen, Liana and Frank went out of the giant thorn grass field to discover the scenery around this island. However, it was so weird. Everything around was covered by an ominous purple-colored miasma. Standing at this place, they couldn’t distinguish the daytime and the nighttime. For a reason, it was impossible to see the sun’s location. There was even no sign of life there, everything was silent that became spooky.

“This is strange…” Frank got shivered “I feel something not right happened at this island.”

“Indeed, the aura miasma is so thick here.” Liana agreed “Look at those poor plants, they aren’t able to grow up, look like this place had been intoxicated by something in the past, very long time ago…”

Suddenly, from afar, three of them found something like a sign of the buildings. But it was completely destroyed.

By curiosity, Galen approached closer. It was indeed not only a ruined building, but the entire abandoned destroyed civilization.

“What the freak happened to this place…? This is scary, I don’t like this place…” Frank hid in Liana’s coat.

Galen didn’t say anything. He came to the biggest monument, because he discovered something on the stone. It was blurred due to the time, but when Galen’s hand wiped the dust away, he could read what it was written.

“…Frelanna Kingdom.”