When Night Shadow stepped on the bridge, the translucent iridescent bridge became more solid. Night Shadow looked at the bridge for sometime before moving on. While moving, Night Shadow looked down at the ocean below and whistled at the height. If there was any person who was afraid of heights, he would have gotten a heart attack by seeing the height. As Night Shadow did not have any heart, he looked forward and started moving faster. He did not want to waste his precious time here and wanted to leave this place as soon as possible.
Using his full speed, Night Shadow reached the other end of the bridge within a few minutes. As soon as Night Shadow stepped on the land, the bridge behind him disappeared. Suddenly, Night Shadow realized something.
The king was probably expecting him. Without further ado, Night Shadow started moving towards the entrance of the castle. The entrance was a big arc. The entrance was open and Night Shadow felt confused.
'Why is the entrance open?'
Night Shadow kept thinking about it while he reached the entrance. The moment he stepped into the entrance, he started transforming back into a transformer. Night Shadow was surprised at the transformation but quickly kept his clothes in the storage and transformed back into the 32 feet, black transformer. He never expected to transform back into his transformer form without him allowing it. Night Shadow had an idea but he dismissed it the moment he thought about it.
Suddenly, a lot of troops came forward with their weapons pointed towards Night Shadow and surrounded him from all sides. Night Shadow did not get surprised and just stood there without making noise while looking at each and every soldier. When the formation of the soldiers became solid, they parted and a heavily armed soldier with a spear-looking object came in. Night Shadow looked at the heavily armed with amusement and tried to hold back the smile that was creeping up on his face.
Unlike the heavily armed soldiers he has seen before, the heavily armed in front of him, looked armed to the teeth with no part of the Aerilian uncovered. Also, the armor did not look like actual armor but a piece of jewelry.
The soldier was wearing a completely golden-colored armor with different colored gems embedded in it. On top of that, the soldier did not look slim or fit but fat. Too fat. Night Shadow thought the guy in front of him was probably a spoiled noble. Night Shadow tried not to laugh loudly but a quiet snicker came out of his mouth.
Night Shadow suddenly closed his mouth when saw the guy starting to tremble in anger. Night Shadow looked around and saw the other soldiers also...snickering? Night Shadow did not understand their intentions but he knew it clear as a day that the other soldiers were making fun of the "heavily-armed" soldier in front of Night Shadow. The soldier saw this and banged the end of his spear-looking object on the ground and all the soldiers stopped laughing but a few quiet snickers were still heard. Night Shadow suddenly felt the shiny soldier in front of him very familiar.
'Have I seen this guy somewhere?'
Night Shadow tried remembering where he had seen this guy but ask. The heavily armed soldier came forward and tried acting cool by show the pointy part of his weapon towards Night Shadow's legs. Why legs? Because Night Shadow was too tall and the soldier was small. Night Shadow looked down at the soldier when the soldier said in a squeaky voice...
"Follow me, the king is expecting you"
Night Shadow and some soldiers snickered after hearing the "heavily armed" soldier's voice, breaking the silence the soldier put on them. The "heavily armed" soldier quickly turned around and started walking fast towards the main castle. Night Shadow and the soldiers followed right behind the soldier. Night Shadow saw the doors of the castle were silver in color and even taller than Night Shadow with an ethereal aura oozing from it. The soldier pushed the doors and Night Shadow was greeted by a long corridor.
The corridor was very long and carpeted lavishly with a red-colored carpet. On either side of the corridor was the lavish windows Night Shadow had seen from outside and at the very end, was a black door with a silver throne drawn on it.
The "heavily-armed" soldier started walking towards the door when he felt something pass by him and was heading towards the door. The soldier looked back and saw that Night Shadow was missing. He then looked at the soldiers who pointed towards the door.
The "armed" soldier shivered in a frightened manner before calling out, "Oi! Don't go there without me! The king will punish all of us for entering the throne room without his permission!"
Night Shadow just ignored the warning and went towards the room with full speed. If it came to fight, Night Shadow wouldn't mind more XP. Also, Night Shadow didn't have all day for the fat soldier to reach this place so he took the initiative to go ahead. Night Shadow reached the door within seconds and punched it with his full force.
BOOM!!!
The door opened abruptly but it did not fly off as Night Shadow imagined it. Night Shadow just shrugged mentally and went inside in the throne room. Night Shadow saw that the exterior of the castle was nothing compared to the interior of the throne room.
The ceiling of the room was filled with white, fluffy clouds. Yes, clouds! The room had beautifully carved pillars on either side kept at equal distance and equal intervals from each other and between the pillars were rows and rows of seats filled with Aerilians who radiated extreme power. And at the end of the room was a throne which was a huge throne that would even make a calm-hearted person look at it with awe. The throne was completely white with hints of golden-colored bolts of lightning flowing around it and beautifully carved letters of some language Night Shadow had never seen.
On the left side of the king's throne was a smaller yet even more beautiful throne. On the thrones sat a king with his daughter. How did Night Shadow know it was his daughter? Because he could tell she was very young.
The king radiated an aura of justice and wit whereas the princess radiated an aura of beauty. Behind the thrones, on the wall, was a "cool" picture of an Aerilian holding a sword in his while his silver hair flowed with the wind. Night Shadow guessed that the man in the painting was the king. Suddenly the noise in the room became pin-drop silent as everyone looked at Night Shadow with curiosity and hostility.
Night Shadow did not care and moved forward towards the king. The king himself looked at Night Shadow with such calmness that would have fooled anyone to mistake him as an evil guy but he couldn't fool Night Shadow. Night Shadow remembered the evil deeds the king had done towards Seraphim and would never forget it.
The king suddenly stood up, smiled, and said, "I was waiting for you, Night Shadow"
The Aerilians, who were sitting on the rows of seats, started greeting Night Shadow in a fake manner and fawned over the king. Night Shadow looked at those Aerilians with disgust.
'All they know is to fawn over people with high power and nothing else. Tch! Such idiocy still runs in this world'
Night Shadow suddenly felt a bit weird but kept going forward, not replying to the king's heartwarming welcome. While moving forward, he transformed his right hand into the Void Disintegrator gun and pointed towards the king. The talking became silent and the atmosphere was filled with shock, as the subordinates of the king saw what Night Shadow was doing. And before anyone could say anything, Night Shadow projected an image of a shard of the Allspark and said...
"Cut the crap, king. I don't have all day long for this welcome. So just tell me where this is shard is. Oh and don't think you can lie because if you lie, your little fawners won't be living to see another day"
Night Shadow spoke with all the seriousness he could muster and pointed towards the subordinates as the king, the princess, and the "fawners" stood up as they looked at Night Shadow with hostility and confusion. The king still looked at Night Shadow with a calm look as he replied...
"Yes, I know where it is and I will bring it to you on the condition that you will tell me why you need it?"
The reason why Night Shadow asked the king was that he wanted to threaten the king's subordinates so that the king will have no choice but to tell Night Shadow the location without losing his subordinates' trust. Night Shadow pointed towards one of his subordinates and said...
"I don't need to tell you everything on why I need this shard. Just give it to me and I will leave this place without injuring anyone"
Night Shadow filled each and every word he spoke and saw a drastic change in the throne room. All of his subordinates started shivering with fear, some even fainted, the princess looked at Night Shadow with fear and hid behind the king and the king looked angry after looking at his daughter being threatened. The clouds on the ceiling thundered with lightning bolts shooting out of them.
The king pointed towards Night Shadow and said, "Guards! Capture this man alive and bring him to the prison!"
Although the king tried to display these words as if they were the words of justice, there was a hint of evil intent. The guards didn't seem to notice it as they moved towards Night Shadow with their weapons ready. Almost all of the subordinates headed towards Night Shadow to try and capture him for the king. Night Shadow smiled evilly as his purple eyes sparkled like a predator looking at its prey. Night Shadow turned the fingers of his left hand into claws as time slowed down as he started the slaughter.
For long-range he used the gun and for short-range he used his claws. With this perfect combination, wherever he went, screams followed and bodies either vanished or fell down to the ground with no life in them and their blood flowing.
While slaughtering, Night Shadow was covered with their blood and looked like a demon straight from hell. Night Shadow also kept hearing dinging noises but did not focus on them as he didn't want to let this XP go away from his grasp.
After 10 minutes, the slaughter came to an end as dead bodies littered the ground and dark green-colored liquid sprayed on the once-it-was-a-beautiful carpet. The clouds of the ceiling were also painted red making this scene gorier. Night Shadow felt something leave his body and suddenly felt weird. He looked at his hands and moved the fingers, which he felt them.
'What did I just do? What was happening to me?'
Night Shadow did not understand what was happening to him and just left the thought for another time. Night Shadow looked around for his last 2 preys and gave a sigh. Night Shadow knew where the piece of the Allspark but he never expected it would come down to this.
Night Shadow sighed again as he evaporated the blood on his body using the heat generated in his body and shot the picture of the king behind the throne.
Wizz~
The moment the bullet touched the painting, the void left behind the bullet sucked the surrounding walls and a huge passage came into view. Without any hesitation, Night Shadow went inside it. The passage was just bigger than Night Shadow in width and height with the length going into the darkness.
As Night Shadow went deeper into the passage, the darker it became, so Night Shadow switched on his night vision and continued deeper. The whole passage was plain and it just kept going on and on when he saw a light source. Night Shadow walked for two hours when he saw what the light source was and it was a mind-blowing scene(A/N: Core-blowing for transformers like Night Shadow).
The light source was a hollow part in a ball of orange fire and in the middle of the ball of fire...was a floating shard. There was a translucent path leading towards the shard. Night Shadow became happy when he saw the shard but was shocked when he got to know what the ball of fire was. It was the sun. But Night Shadow did not care as he just wanted that piece of Allspark. After all, Rarified Energon is not called "one of the strongest metals" for nothing. But, Night Shadow was proved wrong.
The moment Night Shadow stepped inside the ball of fire, he started feeling discomfort. Night Shadow did not pay attention to it and continued moving forward. For a few minutes, he just kept walking forward when he felt a liquid drip from his left arm. Night Shadow looks at it and becomes shocked when he gets to know that it was Rarified Energon in its liquid form. But that's not the biggest problem.
With each step Night Shadow moves, he starts feeling pressure on his body. He doesn't know how it was possible but it was making him feel uncomfortable. Maybe it was gravity but Night Shadow had no idea. There was still at least 10 km to the shard and Night Shadow was slowing down his speed. He had no idea how but now, he was starting to feel tired. Yes, tired and discomfort and pressure. I mean he was a transformer, a non-living being yet he was feeling uncomfortable as well as tired.
But Night Shadow still did not give up. Night Shadow did his best to keep walking when he felt so tired he wanted to just sleep if sleeping for his was possible. Night Shadow held on and kept walking, for what felt like an eternity, when he was 5 km away from the shard.
Suddenly, his right leg gave out and he fell on his right knee. His right leg was melting very quickly and the feeling of discomfort was increasing with each passing second when he suddenly got an idea. To not waste any more liquified Rarified Energon, he pointed towards the liquid below him and said...
'System, activate absorption'