Bloodlines of the Ancient Pantheons

"Captain, are you sure you want to do this?" asked Reidar, resting his hand on Dag's shoulder, worried about him.

Dag looked at him smiling, to calm him down.

"Reidar, I must know more. I need to get stronger... not just for myself, but for all of you. I pray to the Gods to give me that chance" he said.

Reidar nodded his head, backing his captain's decision.

Karl began the procedure: while one end of the needle was immersed in the black liquid contained in the glass bottle, he slipped the other end into Dag's arm.

Although his movement was very slow, as soon as the small tube penetrated Dag's skin, entering his vein, in about 3 seconds, the black liquid in the bottle was completely absorbed.

"Aaagh! What the fuck!" said Dag, when he noticed that his arm had sucked the liquid out of the bottle, as if it was thirsty.

"What... what happened, Dag?!" asked Karl, who immediately pulled the needle out of his arm.

"I don't know! As soon as you put that thing in my arm, my body greedily absorbed the black liquid, as if it was a fresh drink!" said Dag, who couldn't understand that physical phenomenon.

"And how do you feel now? How are you?" asked Reidar worriedly, looking Dag in the eye.

"I'm... I think I'm fine" Dag said, pressing his hand at the point of the injection.

"Don't you feel anything different? The amount of dark blood your body has absorbed is not small... I believe that some of that blood will be destroyed and regenerated by your organism, but another part of it will be inextricably linked to your blood" Karl said.

Dag got up from the trunk and took a few steps to see if anything had changed in his body, but he couldn't feel anything different from the usual.

"At least we tried. I'm just sorry we risked our lives to find that stupid flower! I hope it can come in handy in some way" Karl continued, nervous about his failed experiment.

Dag looked at his hands and arms.

He had hoped until the last second that the transfusion would be successful, but it didn't work out that way.

"Captain... I understand your outrage, but I assure you that your current strength will allow you to achieve all the goals you want! I've never seen anyone take out dozens of enemies alone and then walk away on his own legs!" said Reidar, trying to cheer Dag down, praising his deeds.

Dag took a deep breath.

"It's time to go. Tyven is waiting for us" he said, heading for the horses.

Karl and Reidar looked at each other, sorry for Dag, who put hope in the experiment.

Dag untied Aslan from the fence next to the hut.

Just as he jumped to the saddle to get on the horse's back, he lacked strength and his foot slid down, causing him to fall to the ground.

"Captain!"

"Dag! Dag!"

Reidar and Karl immediately ran towards him, grabbing the bridles of Aslan, who was frightened.

Dag lay on the ground, writhing.

He sensed a horrible sensation inside his body: he felt an internal burning as if his blood was magma and his internal organs were about to explode.

The veins of his neck swelled for the effort, but he could not speak.

The burning feeling soon reached every part of his body, including arms, hands, legs, and feet.

Karl lowered himself towards him, lifting his shoulders from the ground.

"Dag! Dag, can you hear me?!" he said, as his eyes were lost in a vacuum.

"I knew... I knew it was a mistake! It was too dangerous, we shouldn't have let him try! Fuck!" exclaimed Reidar, clenching his fists in anger.

As Karl looked at Dag's face, his neck began to writhe as if he was trying to free himself from a grip.

His pupils widened so much, his eyes became completely black.

"What the fuck! Dag! Wake up!" shouted Karl, shaking Dag's shoulders, hoping to wake him from that state of paralysis.

Karl's cries caught the attention of a child who was playing nearby.

The little boy looked at them, not understanding what was going on.

When he saw Dag's face from afar, he ran away in the opposite direction, moving away from them as much as possible.

The inner burning sensation that Dag was experiencing suddenly became the opposite.

He began to tremble in the cold and his movements became less and less evident.

"Aaagh!" shouted Dag, as soon as his eyes returned to the original color.

He began to breathe anxiously, looking around and shaking Karl's hands, trying to figure out if it was real or a hallucination.

"Dag! You're alive! Fuck! Fuck!" exclaimed Karl, glad I didn't lose his best friend.

Reidar sighed with relief and sat on the trunk where Dag was sitting before, trying to calm down.

Dag lifted his back from the ground, clinging to Karl's arms.

"It takes more than that to kill me!" he said, trying to play down, even though he was still stunned.

Karl helped him get up, slowly.

"Then?" he asked, curious to know the details of what had just happened.

"For a moment I believed I was going to die. I think that now I know what it's like to die in the flames, or frozen during a blizzard" Dag said, touching his forehead.

"What do you mean?"

"I felt the fire inside me, my chest was burning. The flames devoured my heart and liver... my arms and legs caught fire like twigs" Dag continued, looking at the palms of his hands.

Karl listened intently.

"Then suddenly, the heat became freezing and I could no longer feel the muscles, nor the limbs. When we feel cold, usually the cold comes from the outside and we just cover ourselves with furs to insulate the heat of our body. But imagine the cold is coming from the inside. It's impossible to get rid of it! Well, that's the feeling I had".