'How many years has it been?' Ray wondered as he sat down on his own in a room created by himself. He started to think about the Dragon Krad and everything that had happened with the Shadow.

  In the middle of these thoughts, the sound of crying could be heard. When he looked down, there was what resembled a fat potato with limbs.

  "Boy, I know you just want attention but I have no clue what you want." Ray said as he slowly started to swing his arms back and forth trying to calm him down.

  "Can you please swing him gently, he's a baby. If he falls out of your hands what do you think will happen to him!" Sylvia said, agitated.

  "Well he is my son, so he should at least survive a fall from this height." Ray joked.

  Taking the baby out of Ray's arms, Sylvia decided to take him to get some food before he threw up from being swung around too much.

  'This parenting thing is difficult.' Ray thought.

  As Sylvia left the room, another person had entered with a staff in her hand. She was once an enemy but now Ray didn't harbour any hard feelings towards her.

  "What do you want, hag!" Ray said.

  At least his feelings weren't as strong as before.

  "You live a happy life now and you even have a kid, I just came to give you my usual warning." Bliss said. "Keeping that crystal from the Shadow Dragon will do you no good. It might cause more trouble than good."

  "I already told you I won't get rid of it. Do you have anything else you want to tell me?" Ray asked.

  She paused for a second and wondered if she should say what she wanted to say, but after letting out a big sigh she decided to leave it.

  "Ray, I have to thank you. You achieved my wish and everyone else's wish, but everyday you now live in fear. I feel you have to prepare for the worst that might come. You are only denying it." Bliss said.

  Ray knew what Bliss was talking about as they had gone over this many times before. When the shadow dragon was defeated, many things started to happen. The shadow remained in those that were infected but new infected no longer appeared. The land had also started to cleanse itself and the Redwings started to claim certain pieces of land bit by bit.

  Several meetings had taken place between the kingdoms as to what to do with the shadow continent. At first, Ray thought that since only the Alure kingdom and Redwing kingdom had helped in defeating the shadow, it should be rightfully theirs, but Sylvia claimed that it wasn't the right thing to do and would cause more problems later on.

  Finally they came to the conclusion that the land should split between all of the kingdoms, with the Redwings being able to pick their portion of land first. However despite being invited several times, the Empire had stayed completely out of negotiations, not responding to any of their invitations.

  Everything seemed to be going well and Ray was even able to settle down. Finally Sylvia and Ray had made their feelings clear for each other, they had even gotten married and had a child. Everyone from the Redwings attended the wedding ceremony and Gary was even made to be their best man.

  Ray had tried to reach out and invite his mother, but had no clue where she was and assumed she was at least still in the Empire.

  But Bliss was talking about the future, how it couldn't keep up. Not because there was another threat on the horizon, but because of Ray's system itself.

  Everything still worked for Ray, the system, the Redwing symbols, the communications and skills. Everything was still the same, and that included the first quest he had ever received from the system.

  His first ever quest was to save a 1000 lives and it was still the last one he had to complete. After defeating the shadow, the system had decided he had saved many lives that day. In all honesty, he thought the quest would be complete but for some reason the system only completed about nine tenths of the quest.

  Life after the Shadow was still filled with natural disasters and regular beast attacks, this meant that Ray would be still saving people's lives and this was slowly bringing him closer to completing his quest. He had also become more popular with those in the Redwing kingdom, but lately he hadn't ventured outside of the castle walls no matter what troubles had occurred.

  This was because his quest was now at 999/1000. If Ray was to save one more life, then he would complete the final quest. Bliss was unsure what would happen when Ray did complete the quest but she had a guess and he did as well.

  There was a reason why despite Ray getting all his powers back he was unable to transform back to his dragon self, and it was due to the spell that was placed on him. If he saved one more life then Ray would once again turn back into a dragon.

  At least that was the theory of it all anyway.

  Rumors started to spread that the king was sick, or his power had diminished from what it once was before. The honest truth was, Ray just didn't want to leave the life he had built. He was afraid and so he chose to stay in the castle, living with Sylvia, his Redwing members, and his newborn son.

  Seeing the look in Ray's eyes, Bliss decided to leave him be for now.

  'She's right. Sooner or later something will happen, and I should at least prepare for it.' Ray thought.

  Only he didn't realise that it would be sooner rather than later.

  Inside the Redwing council room an emergency meeting was taking place. Sylvia had been called and the crying baby was handed over to Auntie Martha and Uncle Monk to look after when they could.

  "Tell me, what's the emergency?" Sylvia asked.

  "It's the Empire, they have finally made their move." Lenny spoke. "Overnight the entire kingdom of Dunlock has been obliterated and it seems to be the Empire's doing. From our investigation it was the same person that had been used to destroy the Shadow's fortress in the great war. It's being used now and they are heading for the next kingdom as we speak."

  *******

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