Ch.265Dragon (2)

Silence fell. The Dragon King stood quietly, gazing at the open chest of the necromancer.

In her eyes welled confusion, anger.

And despair.

Llewellyn could vaguely understand what she must be thinking.

She had come here for answers, for a single miracle that would resolve the situation.

What she had hoped for was obvious. She likely planned to help and guide Llewellyn, the newly emerged deity, to bring long-term peace to her race and tribe.

It was such a simple plan that it couldn’t even be called exploitation.

Even if not that, there were many paths she could have chosen, many methods.

Defeating the necromancer and forcing them to lift the curse.

Or if not that, devising a method to break the curse.

But all these methods only made sense if the tragedy and calamity befalling the dragonkin was indeed a curse, something that could be resolved.

If it were a strange disease, plague, or curse, there would be ways to break it, and it wouldn’t have been strange for her to think so.

That was common sense. So Llewellyn watched the Dragon King, observing her demeanor, ready to step in if necessary.

And she saw her unclench her fist with a devastated expression, looking utterly dejected.

All her efforts until now, the plans she had made thinking they were solutions.

All the methods she had explored. She realized they were all meaningless.

Even Llewellyn would have sat dazed for a moment in such emptiness. The Dragon King, struggling in that void of futility, slowly raised her head.

“I want to hear everything in detail.”

There was no anger. More precisely, there was naturally arising anger, but she consciously suppressed it forcefully.

Far from killing intent, even the faint anger in her heart was barely perceptible. It was a skill possible only for a fighter who had reached the extreme.

Something that could be called a fighter’s exclusive talent, allowing them to sharpen their mind like a blade to face armed enemies in any situation.

Called, imperturbability.

It was a technique that gave great resistance to mental spells and allowed one to dispel them by consuming a certain amount of mana. She handled it not like a game-like skill as Llewellyn did, but as something that had permeated her body.

It was a sensation Llewellyn had not yet acquired.

“We… the dragonkin, did you really create us?”

“Yes.”

“For what purpose—”

“We fled from death, but sought a way to somehow confront it. So we tried to create beings similar to us but with different qualities to overcome it. Taking inspiration from the shapeshifters of the same three clans, we created you with the help of the Empress.”

Ortemilia, who had been listening silently, trembled slightly. She realized that the Dragon King and herself had been created through similar methods.

The only difference was that Ortemilia was a shapeshifter and necromancer, while the other was a dragon and shapeshifter.

Noticing that Ortemilia had realized this, the Prophet glanced at her before continuing.

“But we failed. Or rather, we believed we had failed. You did not respond to our attempts, nor did you show qualities similar to ours… or opposing qualities that would allow you to evade ‘mortality’.”

Experiments rarely truly fail in reality.

If the results are not good, there are still lessons to be learned, and if successful, all the better.

But this experiment showed no reaction at all.

“So we abandoned you. Considering your inherent strength, we thought there would be no problems.”

An attitude that showed complete disregard for the chaos on the surface. The Dragon King fell silent, and Llewellyn recalled that it hadn’t been long since dragonkin began acting rationally, forming communities, and enabling normal diplomacy.

At most, about 300 years. Before that, dragonkin were the epitome of barbarians, the most feared savage warriors.

Now with reason in hand, they were called leaders, but in the past, they were little more than mad dogs.

So the Dragon King didn’t argue. She didn’t seem to want to argue either.

“Until now, we had forgotten about you. Though you killed your kin, we thought that one exceptional individual wouldn’t reach our aspiration. In reality, there are five on the continent as strong as you.”

It was obvious who those five were.

The Annihilator, the Survivor, the Sword Saint, the Blazing Lord, the Emperor.

But that was old news. They have now realized.

“So we considered you worthless… but that wasn’t the case.”

The tone conveyed regret. When the Dragon King remained quiet despite feeling this, the Prophet spoke.

“You were not failures. Rather, the opposite. You were successes. And… too successful at that.”

The expressions of the necromancers were similar. Gazes filled with sympathy and a sense of kinship.

The Dragon King knew that what she felt in those gazes was not mere pity.

It was the look family members give each other.

The expression and gaze of looking at a sick child with concern, wondering if there’s anything that can be done.

The Dragon King was greatly confused by all the gazes directed at her.

“…Why are you looking at me like that?”

She looked around at the surrounding necromancers, forcibly opening her jaws to growl.

“Don’t look at me like that! I can’t believe anything you’re saying….”

“Are you sure about that?”

The interrupting response. The Dragon King fell silent, but what settled on her face was not displeasure or anger.

It was despair gradually surfacing.

As if overwhelmed by that despair, she slowly opened her jaws.

“Then, what should I have done?”

Words flowing without knowing who to ask. No answer came, but the Dragon King sighed and despaired.

She had thought there must always be a way to overcome adversity.

She believed that somewhere a solution existed, that when she reached her destination, many things would be magically resolved.

Even while knowing it might not be so, she inflated hope to avoid being crushed by despair.

This was the result. The Dragon King let her arms drop dejectedly, and the Prophet, leader of the necromancers, looked down at her.

Silence descended.

The necromancers remained silent because they too had failed to find a solution and had fled, while the Dragon King, with both mind and emotions in turmoil, closed her eyes without time to organize her thoughts.

Only Llewellyn stood there blankly.

It was awkward to say anything in the presence of the Dragon King, who claimed to be cursed but actually wasn’t, hopelessly having to witness the extinction of her race, and the Prophet who could only stand by and allow it.

After a moment of contemplation, Llewellyn finally spoke.

“What’s the cause?”

All eyes turned to the words that cut through the silence.

The countless gazes made even Llewellyn momentarily speechless. Among them, the two most intense pairs of eyes met Llewellyn’s.

“What happened to the dragonkin and the ancient dragons. I’m asking about the root cause.”

“That is the problem, Your Majesty.”

The Prophet’s tone became respectful. Llewellyn knew this was a time to act like a king and be treated as one. The Prophet was indirectly teaching him this.

So Llewellyn subtly spread his divinity.

“None of us has succeeded in finding the cause.”

The Prophet said with a dejected smile.

“Experiments using dragonkin, conjectures based on information from all corners of the world and the magical realm, all verifications have been inconclusive or yielded different results before disappearing.”

“The symptoms?”

“As you’ve heard. All manner of diseases and calamities arising from the intersection of madness and death.”

For a moment, Nerilmeius came to mind, but Llewellyn knew it wasn’t that kind of madness.

Perhaps there was some influence, but that was all.

There must be a different cause. Llewellyn thought and concentrated on his divinity to utilize his intuition.

“…Huh?”

He was startled by something that caught his extended senses.

An unfamiliar presence. In a straight line toward the direction of the pantheon, countless shadows approaching from all directions.

Their forms were diverse but too strange to be definitively called animals or plants. They had shapes not found in either the animal or plant kingdoms.

But they evoked a strange sense of déjà vu in Llewellyn, whose not-so-good memory slowly traced back to one particular recollection.

When he fought Life and Death.

The place he reached after crossing the magical realm following Life and Death.

The countless monsters and all manner of twisted flora and fauna he had seen along the way.

At the time, he didn’t know the cause, but now he did. They were animals and plants corrupted by the presence of immensely powerful transcendents.

They were corrupted and controlled by the will of the transcendents that burrowed into them, spreading corruption. Just like…

‘…Just like?’

Llewellyn froze at the sudden thought.

“Llewellyn? What’s wrong? Did you notice something…?”

The warmth of the hand gripping his brought him back to his senses. Llewellyn had formed a slight conviction.

Perhaps, the source of the curse-that-was-not-a-curse, the plague that had befallen the dragonkin and dragons was…

“The magical realm.”

“What?”

Leaving the puzzled Prophet behind, Llewellyn turned to face his sister.

“Sis.”

“Uh, yes?”

“Gather the people. Tell them to prepare for battle and form the formations we practiced.”

An unexpected request. But Lucilla nodded with a stern expression and leaped away.

With consecutive jumps, Lucilla kicked off the wall and disappeared through the open roof, while Llewellyn walked ahead.

The others had no choice but to follow, puzzled as they were. The Prophet caught up, and the necromancers followed in confusion.

At the very front of the procession, the Dragon King asked with bewilderment:

“What on earth are you doing? Why suddenly mention the magical realm?”

Where to begin explaining? Llewellyn considered what needed to be said and moved his lips.

“Enemies are coming from the magical realm.”

In the end, what needed to be said was clear.

“Help me stop them. Then…”

Llewellyn’s gray eyes turned to the Dragon King, and meeting her gaze, he said:

“I will answer your questions and find a solution for you.”

Words infused with such intense conviction that they couldn’t be dismissed as impossible.

A vow declared by a god. It already functioned as an inviolable law. The Dragon King instinctively felt this and unconsciously swallowed.

When the Prophet, the Dragon King, and countless dragons left the nest and went outside.

Llewellyn sensed the approaching presences.

Among them was one familiar entity.

People called her:

[The Mourning Dragon, Nerilmeius]

Llewellyn etched the name he hadn’t seen in a long time into his eyes.

[Level: ■?□%]

And below it, the unfamiliarly broken numbers as well.