The priest's Guardian Angel flew past me, and before I knew it, she had her arms around my waist and came in for a hug. I returned the hug by placing my arms around her waist.
I think I might have attracted the concern of some observant fellows, but it didn't matter.
I broke the hug after a few seconds and the Guardian Angel knew her time was over, so she flew over to the priest and gently hugged his head before she entered his body with a bright blue light shining from his chest. For a moment there, I thought the Guardian Angel looked quite similar to the young priest, but it could just be my imagination.
It also appears the bright light cannot be seen by anyone here—as no one batted an eye when I saw the flash of light. But that wasn't too much of a concern right now. I wasted enough time saving the priest and the group of humans, and Valentyn is still on a rampage throughout the capital city. Within the five minutes or so I've spent helping them, the sky around the capital city now burned a deep red, with the smell of blood being more prevalent. I was still hundreds of metres away from the capital, and if the smell was quite strong already, I couldn't imagine the smell in the capital—it must be horrendous.
"Hey," I said to the priest, "Since you guys came from the capital, I assume you are evacuating—what happened to the capital?" I asked, using my thumb to point at the chaos behind me.
"Forgive me, O' Messenger of God, I do not have any knowledge or information on the current situation of the capital city... but—!"
I cut him off, "That's okay. I'm already informed about the situation, I just wanted to know the perspective of regular folks like you." I said.
So it seems no one knows why the capital city is burning to the ground, with death and chaos everywhere. Gosh, what kind of subordinate leaves work for their master to clean up? I could easily restore the burnt capital city to its formal glory with my powers, but that wasn't a concern. When the Demons come to guide the souls of the dead to the Overworld, it will be revealed that I (Valentyn) caused this event!
Would I get an earful scolding from them? It was pretty much certain.
All I could do was groan and deal with it. If I can explain it very carefully and be sly with my words, I possibly could get out of trouble, but I doubt that. I shrugged in dismay at the imminent earful scolding for me, no matter what I tried to do.
I released a long sigh. I turned my head to face the ash-covered sky above us and nodded. I've made up my mind (I've braced myself). Let's go stop Valentyn's rampage in the meantime.
"Priest," I called out, "I'm going to stop the rampage over there," I pointed towards the sky above the capital, "You and your group should go hide somewhere in the forest to be safe," I instructed him.
"I-I will immediately carry out your orders, Messenger of God!" he replied enthusiastically.
I watched the priest gather the group members, who had broken into smaller groups to talk and discuss things. It wasn't long before he had everyone back in one big group again. The youngest and weak members were in the middle, while the stronger and more physically fit were at the edge.
"Have a safe trip!" I called out as I waved the group goodbye. Some people may have thought of me as "strange" or "weird". I was probably not the kind of Angel they could've imagined—and I can't blame them.
As the priest was about to enter the forest like the group members ahead, I clenched my hand. I looked at it and compared it to his hand. His hand was wounded, but nothing too major—just some shallow cuts and bruises. I looked down at my fist and it was shaking mildly. My hand had never been wounded or damaged in my entire life. The wounds I see on mortal bodies are mysterious and alien to me. How does it feel to have your internal flesh exposed to the elements? Or is there pain even after a wound is created? Those types of questions that every mortal should know the answer to, but I don't. These thoughts connected back to what Iona had said earlier.
Something about connecting with those I meet. I might never see them again but to these humans? They might spend their whole lives remembering this one memory when an angel descended and helped them. It makes me feel a bit guilty.
And it was interesting to me that I wasn't afraid of anything—Valentyn, Hestia or heck, even the infamous Maria, but when the time came to ask a stranger's name, something perhaps any human could do, all of a sudden, I'm nervous... and frankly—scared.
By the time I had finally gathered the courage to ask for the priest's name, he had already disappeared deep into the forest.
I clicked my tongue. The priest is not to blame here—it was my fault. "This is not as easy as I'd expected, huh." I commented on my failure, looking down at my clenched fist again. I sighed. "I can always try again." I mumbled aloud.
I stomped the ground in vexation and revealed my wings again. I pushed off the ground hard and with a powerful flutter of my wings, I was soaring the skies. Due to my mood at the time, I didn't realise that one of the feathers from my right wing became loose and fell off as I took off into the sky.
But that isn't important right now. The main focus was how I stopped Valentyn's rampage. The sky blinked brightly in blue, red, purple, and cyan. As I accelerated, the air chilled and the pungent smell of blood weakened. My eyes focused on the movements of Valentyn, completely ignoring everything else.
'Why did you have to go on a rampage when I was gone for five minutes?!' I wanted to shout, but that would attract unnecessary attention. Considering that these heroes might've been exposed to the religion of Orth, or with the knowledge they have from their old world, they might recognise me as an angel. I mentioned that I didn't want these heroes to pay attention to me, so I guess... I might have to change my appearance for a brief moment.
Letting out an exhausted sigh, I gathered some divine energy into my body and forcibly made it stay there. I could feel the divine energy pushing against my body from the inside, trying to escape, but regardless of what it wanted, I had to make it stay. I didn't need to do this when I used divine power usually, but transforming or changing my appearance required me to forcibly store divine energy in my body and use the force that it acts upon my body to change my appearance. I'm not the One and Only Creator, or any of the Seven Wills, so I can't change my appearance on a whim—I need to use another medium before I can transform.
It's not that bad, it just takes some time that's all. But if I were to admit it—I don't like the feeling of my internals being pushed outwards, trying to escape the confinements of my body. It just... feels strange.
Now, back on track... I felt like being a large lizard today... a dragon in the eyes of the native Arulian people. Why? Well, "dragons" are pretty much the most powerful species in Arula, and taking a vampire like Valentyn down would be easy for them. Therefore, it would make sense. I can probably just swallow him whole, and transport him somewhere else as I fly away. I am not getting back at Hestia for copying me, so don't worry... I'm just kidding, the only reason why I'm going to transform into a dragon, is to get back at Hestia for copying me!
Grrr... I should tell her to stop copying my appearance and find an original one! Valentyn had complained to me before that Hestia and I look too much alike, even with our different hairstyles, coloured hair and eyes, but the overall appearance is too similar, and now, I decide to make her feel my pain!
Petty? Yes, this is very petty of me to do something like this, but that doesn't matter! While I may be lazy, I am also very petty!
With a deep roar shaking the entire earth and skies, the world seemingly fell silent. Fighting stopped, no noise of cries, grunts or yells, everything and everyone fell silent at the end of the roar. Who made that noise? Me of course. The roar was extremely unnatural for someone for an angel, but it was in fact I who produced that roar.
As a result, I was able to seemingly freeze the world in time for a few seconds. All battles paused, and all eyes were on me. It's go time!
My body surged with the violent forces of the divine energy trying to escape from my body. Suddenly, the energy was released all at once from my body. Streaks of divine energy beams escaped from my small body, such as from the eyes, mouth, nose and ears, while a thick, soft and black material surrounded my entire body. Soon, the black material changed colour to red, an indication that the final product—flesh was materialised. Furthermore, on top of the flesh, scales, harder than diamonds covered the flesh and they too grew in size at a tremendous rate to fill the expanding surface area of the flesh covering my original body.
These scales were red-black, a resemblance to Hestia's hair colour, but "cooled down". Only my arms were covered in these scales, and I had to materialise the rest of these scales on the rest of my body once the flesh grew into the general shape.
The larger appearance of the being one wanted to change into, more divine energy had to be expended. I was only able to gather so much divine energy that was present in Arula—not much, so I wasn't able to create a large dragon on the same scale as Hestia's dragon form. I was aiming for around twenty metres at least nevertheless.
Yes, twenty metres is huge for any living being, but Hestia had shown me her true dragon form instead of the shadow dragon form I had seen when I'd first met her, and she was gigantic. I believe she said she was around one hundred and four metres long, and fifty metres tall. While I wanted to materialise something on that scale, I literally cannot. If it was in the Overworld, I might get in trouble for "mocking" a (true) dragon, and I didn't want that, so I've never tried.
It was repetition afterwards, as the flesh grew, the scales grew over them and this cycle did not stop until my desired shape—a large lizard, was achieved.
My body was now in the shape of a dragon, with two front limbs and two hind limbs, all of which were thicker than my angel body due to the flesh and muscle. The dragon's face had two sharp horns of a burnt wood colour at the base, changing to a vibrant green at the tip. My field of vision increased to a massive three-hundred and forty-five degrees, allowing me to see both sides of the capital at once. Furthermore, my head is sharp, allowing me to cut through the air as I flew.
It was done. The transformation into the dragon was completed. It was thirty-three metres long, and eleven metres tall. A huge, walking and living representation of destruction in Arula—and right now... I represent that. The fiercesome appearance of myself scared people alike—the young, the old, the weak and the strong. They were all nothing compared to the strength of a dragon.
The entire process of transforming into a dragon only took ten or so seconds, so to the people observing the skies as I transformed, it merely looked like someone generated or materialised a small dragon with no warning. And the sudden appearance of a dragon made everyone freeze on the spot, watching my actions and planning their next moves carefully.
To celebrate, or to gather the attention of the people again, I prepared to roar again, but this time—much more powerful. I gathered air from my new nostrils, gathered it into the mortal body of the large lizard covering my actual body, and from there—
"ROOOAAARRR!!!!"
This time, the roar could truly be said it "shook the earth and the sky" due to the immense force. In the corner of my eye (since my eyes are on the side now), I saw that even Valentyn covered his ears and violently shook his head in pain. Some other heroes fighting Valentyn, like that pest Akane, Mob 1 and Mob 2, and some other heroes I don't recognise, had some sort of barrier protecting them from the noise, so they were fine.
I presume they were already prepared after the first roar hit them, so my stronger second roar did not affect them. But the roar was not intended to be a weapon—I only wanted to be in the centre of attention, making it think I was going after the heroes, and having them focus their attention on me.
With a large flap of the wings, like an eagle swooping down onto its prey, I did the same. Travelling at the maximum speed that this mortal body allowed me to go, I charged straight at the target—Valentyn.