Arkan – Intuition VS System VS A.I

Draga

The hooded man made up his mind. He looked at the cliff and with no hesitation, he leaped off the ground and started to climb it.

In no time he had made it to the barrier that was the sea of dark clouds. He still did not hesitate as he climbed and went passed them.

As he did, the clouds hung on to him as they penetrated his body with his defenses not working against them at all.

They made it into his body but he did not struggle. Unfortunately, since he was still wearing his hooded armor, you still could not make out what effect they had on him if any.

He broke through them and reaching the cliff's surface was now child's play to someone like him.

When he reached the top, a view of the capital from afar was in front of him. He was above a great forest that stretched for as far as his eyes could see to the east of him.

On the north was the sea of dark clouds that had rolling hills as high as skyscrapers keeping it at bay. That was where he was standing.

To his west was the capital of the kingdom that invaded some of the northern parts of the land but covered a great distance and land in the west with the capital's wall stretching for miles around it as a form of protection.

In the westmost part of the kingdom, you could see villages from here and there that were built outside the wall and many of them large and having walls of their own.

The south was a mixture of mountains, hills, forests, and valleys that looked hard to travel. The mountains and hills did not have the same rocks that kept the sea of dark clouds at bay with everything about this southern part looking too normal. The forest did not have anything grand about it.

Where the hooded man was, he could hear beasts rooming the forest floor, with some already knowing he was there. They were watching him but not approaching.

'Now that is the feeling I missed since finding the boy. The feeling of always being watched. It is like even the beasts here can feel that the constant feeling of being watched has vanished. Something must be wrong.'

He asked himself as he leaped off the cliff and down to the forest floor.

He made no sound this time, unlike when he was hunting for the monster. He stayed away from the beasts, wanting to waste no time as he wanted to get what he needed and leave before the old man's sight returned.

The forest's trees were big, making it seem that some of the beasts that lived there were big too. Here and there, there were signs of fighting while at a distance there was some fighting still going on but he ignored them.

In no time he had made it out of the great forest. Like all the others that were on the road that lead to the capital, he stopped running and walked.

Almost all the people around him were tall and big while some, just like he was, only reached to their shoulders or chest. These were like basketball players that were warriors and he and the others were just ordinary people.

They all looked like warriors while the women looked tall and sexy but ones that no guy wanted to get the other end of the stick from. Everyone wore armor, even the children. The majority of everyone's hair color was brown together with their eyes.

As he got closer to the capital, he finally took note of the now vivid sections that made the capital. There were five of them and each was guarded by a Section Lord as you made your way to the castle.

Each section's buildings had a different color to their rooftops and build, showing the pride each lord took in the affinity of their element.

The first section was colored brown, the second red, the third light blue with a patch of lines representing lightning, the fourth was dark and the last section only consisting of some small mansions and large homes together with the castle was just neutral, almost resembling grey.

The first was the biggest of them all. Stretching for miles and the only one touching the outer wall.

The second was smaller than the first and so on till the last one and the one consisting of the castle was the smallest but more spacious. Each section was more than 30 to 50 kilometers between each one except for the fifth through the pensions and buildings there had more land to themselves, showing how less they were.

It was the same with the population. The outer sections were more densely populated than the inner sections.

The river that flowed from the castle top cut through all the sections and went west where all the villages were built.

Some of the villages had tall buildings that loomed over the whole village while others did not. In the capital, only the third section had such a tall building.

'It's been more than 80 years since I have been here, yet this place still feels and looks the same.'

He thought.

As he got near, he saw it. The board that welcomed everyone who dared to come to their kingdom. The pride of their people.

'Draga, capital of the Dragonian kingdom. The kingdom that once belonged to the dragons and their fierce ruler, DRAGA. Defeated by our first king, Barberia, we Barbarians conquered this kingdom and made it our own, thus becoming Dragereins. To show respect to such a mighty being who took the arm and leg of our first king in battle, we keep the name of his kingdom and name the capital after the mighty being as even in death his breath still curses the land. WELCOME TO DRAGA, where only the strong rule.'

Even for someone who is not prideful as he was, the hooded man had to admit that he felt a little sense of pride every time he read that. It was normal for his people to honor the stronger and even when they had fallen in battle and were their enemy.

Just as he passed the board, three people were sitting on a rock at the other side of it, eying each and every person who passed by as busy as the road was.

One lifted his eyebrow up after seeing prey pass by. A wide grin greeted the world as he sized up the man in black armor and a hood that looked like he did not want trouble.

"Yo, think we just found our meal for the day."

He said to the others who were looking at different prey too. They all looked in the same direction and as soon as they did, they all smiled but one of them remembered something.