Meanwhile in the Duke's mansion.
An imposing middle-aged man said with his eyebrows furrowed: "Such a strong energy fluctuation." While he was thinking a figure cloaked in the shadows appeared silently behind him, the man didn't look surprised and said to the latter: "Find the cause of this energy and inform me immediately." The figure replied without emotion: "Yes, my lord."
Hearing the response the features of the man finally relaxed slightly while he looked through the window of his office with a pondering expression.
...
In a huge library surrounded by white pillars, an outstandingly beautiful elf was standing in front of a shelve reading a book which pages seemed to be made of very fine gold. Suddenly she seemed to feel something and her ears twitched, she looked in a certain direction and smiled while she continued reading the book.
...
Inside a colossal volcano, millions of kilometers away from the Medes continent there seemed to be sleeping a humongous white tiger. His stripes seemed to be formed out of black tattoos and his body was shackled with enormous red chains that were constantly emitting white vapor due to the high temperature.
He abruptly opened his eyes and inside his pupils lightning seemed to form. The chains started to heat up even more and the beast roared lightly, a raspy voice resounded through the cave saying: "Crow."
It then closed his eyes again and the surroundings returned to its previous quiet state.
...
At a gigantic and majestic palace, a handsome grey-haired man wearing a golden robe engraved with different types of exalted creatures was resting in a huge pitch black throne. The man seemed to be playing with two little pieces of jade in his hand: one black and one white. Presently, the only sound resounding in that enormous hall was the repeatedly *Clink* *Clink* of the jade pieces colliding. Suddenly the sound ceased and time seemed to stop, but it was only for a brief moment as once again the sound continued to echo through the palace.
...
Back in the alley, a sarcastic remark sounded out: "Hmph...These bunch of weaklings are trying to locate me? Open your eyes wide and kowtow to your grandfather hahaha." An energy wave seemed to erupt from the center of Jen's chest and spread in ten meters in a spherical form. But no matter how much the voice struggled, he couldn't expand it more.
"Damn, all this time waiting and once I descend I can only create an energy distortion of 10 meters? Agh, Agh, Agh... GODAMMIT YOU GUYS ARE LUCKY TODAY BUT YOU BETTER PREPARE FOR THE DAY I TRASH ALL OF YOU!" His voice sounded unwilling but he could only reluctantly stop the wave and retract his aura.
Once he did this the world seemed to have calmed down again and all the ones that had felt the previous occurrence sensed as if it had disappeared without a trace. No matter, how they tried to locate it they were not able to.
When Jen woke up he found his body aching all over. The first thing that came to his mind was: "I survived? How can it be? I clearly remember being corroded by dominion energy."
As he was feeling doubtful a voice sounded inside his head: "Hurry up and leave kiddo. Stop daydreaming or they are going to trace us."
When Jen heard this his eyes almost popped out of their sockets and he received a huge fright.
But the strange voice didn't let him even absorb this tiny bit of information and continued pestering him: "Oi, Oi, Oi are you there? Do you need me to do the knock knock joke? Hey, are you paying attention? Is that the famous 'Having your head on the clouds'? But isn't that weird, I mean the sky is clear today."
When the strange voice ranged again on his mind Jen felt like crying: "Brother, you must be kidding you didn't even give me time to respond. And what is all this nonsense of taking idioms as literal? Most important of all, WHY AM I SPEAKING TO MYSELF? Could it be that I am dead? This doesn't look like heaven it's more like hell."
The strange voice didn't seem satisfied with what Jen was saying and quickly interrupted in a somewhat angry tone: "Hell your head. Listen up little bastard you should be thankful to have the honor of being specially selected by ME. Now, take your saber and beat it off or I am going to give you such a huge walloping that your family won't recognize you anymore."
The voice sounded again but this time a bit flustered: "Wait, if I beat you, would that mean that I am beating myself? Because I am a part of you, but you are not a part of me. So we are not the same yet we are the same at the SAME TIME."
This time Jen couldn't stand it anymore and threw an avalanche of questions while he picked his saber and mustered his strength to get the further away from the alley as possible: "Who are you? What are you doing in my head? Why are you spewing all this nonsense? Could it be that I have a double personality like Mr. Ha-"
The voice didn't let him finish his question and interrupted: "What rubbish are you spouting kid, you sure have a fertile imagination." The voiced then sighed and said: "Ahh... kids these days can't think straight anymore they get distracted with each stupid topic that surges. You know when I was your age this didn't happen, at that time parents were more strict. They made sure that kids wouldn't get spoiled. It is unfortunate how time changes..." Even though the voice seemed to be reminiscing something, Jen could guess at a glance that whoever was saying this was obviously bullshitting his way through the script.
It looked like the voice could read his thoughts as once again, the owner of the voice was red with anger and started to insult Jen of how the new generations didn't know to appreciate the experience of their elders. However, Jen was no pushover and the argument kept going back and forth to the same topics time and time again.
If someone could hear their conversation they would probably sigh in pity as they would deduce that this pair had evidently gone bananas.
When Jen finally arrived at the Inn, it was around eight o'clock in the morning. Only now did he stop bickering with the voice and started feeling hungry. But he was more curious about the owner of that voice inside his head. He went to the reception and said: "Good morning, could you bring a basin of water to my room?"
The woman on the counter wasn't surprised with Jen's clothes being in shambles and the foul smell lingering on him it seemed she was used to this. She replied without much change in her voice: "Sure it will be right there." Jen tried to speak with the weirdo again. However, no matter what he did the other only said "Hmph, Hmph." sounds.
"It looks like he is irritated," Jen thought to himself and what responded him was a loud "HMPH" it was really obvious that the voice wanted to speak but his pride prevented him. The reason it reached this point was due to the voice saying, he was no longer going to argue with little kids and that Jen was not worthy of his attention.
Jen didn't pay too much attention to this three-year-old mentality voice and started to undress in order to have a bath. But his eyes couldn't stop falling on his chest where there was now a tattoo of a crow. However, it was obviously incomplete as the wings should continue to Jen's arms and most probably its different parts would also extend to the rest of the body.
Jen was completely stupefied as he had never seen a Dahl that was actually a heavenly Image itself. It usually only was certain patterns or parts of heavenly beasts but this was completely different. But this was not even the point, how is it that he has a Dahl?
"Is this my Dahl? I-I have awakened..." Jen muttered to himself in disbelief. More importantly, what did he have? sixteen years old. This meant that his awakening was, in theory, four times stronger than a top-notch talent. Of course, this estimation was actually not very accurate as this was not simply a matter of multiplying anymore, it represented a completely new level.
He now started to come to a realization and said: "That means that the voice was my Dahl? My Dahl can actually speak and possess a conscience." Who knew how overpowered this new ability he had received actually was. We are speaking of a being that represents the power of a star, this was not even mentioning the fact that it was not a normal star.
Jen couldn't stop his excitement and he laughed while tears streamed from his eyes. A smug voice then sounded: "So now you know how amazing I am, huh kid. But no matter what I am not going to help you unless you acknowledge your faults and beg me to."
When Jen heard this he almost vomited blood and thought: "Despite being an incredible existence, it was really too petty, wasn't it? Then again why did he chose me?"
A raging yell resounded in Jen's head saying: "PETTY? YOU ARE CALLING ME PETTY? Are weaklings born with balls of steel nowadays or what. How much guts do you need to call ME petty!"
The duo crow and human once again restarted their epic battle as if there was nothing more important than to belittle their enemy...