Chapter 55: Untitled
As the Rock Drake fell under Morgan’s control, a beam of light appeared in the center of its forehead, followed by a tattoo that settled into the scales and held there.
Ethan watched his summon.
There was a hint of a smile on Morgan’s face as she approached the bound drake and ran her hand slowly across its scales, the contact unhurried, carrying the ease of something that had just claimed what it came for and was taking a moment to acknowledge it.
The group behind them had finished with the beasts they were fighting and began moving forward, their footsteps slowing as they closed the distance and took in what was in front of them. The expressions that settled across most of their faces sat somewhere between concern and confusion, the sight of a summoner’s bound creature disappearing not being the expected outcome of a cave operation.
White Ghost had stopped completely.
He watched Morgan lead the Rock Drake through a portal that opened in the air beside her, the two of them stepping through and disappearing without ceremony, the portal closing behind them as though it had never been there.
He said nothing for a moment.
"It’s part of my evolution ritual requirements."
Ethan offered it plainly, not mincing his words, not elaborating beyond what he had given them.
Evolution requirements were private by convention. No summoner liked going into the details of what their path demanded, and pressing someone on it was considered poor form even within a team on an active operation. He didn’t expect questions and didn’t leave room for them, gesturing forward and urging the group to continue before the silence could develop into something that required more from him.
They moved deeper into the cave system.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
The inner sanctum opened ahead of them after another stretch of narrowing tunnel, the passage widening suddenly into a larger chamber where several dozen beasts lay on their backs across the floor, their bodies still, their breathing slow in the way of creatures that had recently exerted themselves and were resting in the aftermath.
The team took stock of the room from the entrance.
They had pushed through the outer sections, held the drake encounters, controlled the numbers. Whatever waited in here was the final layer of what this cave held, and by the time they reached this point the collective assessment moving through the group was that they were ready for it.
White Ghost stepped through the entrance first, his purple blade already drawn and leveled, his eyes moving across the room in quick efficient passes.
He found his target and moved toward it.
"You filthy humans and your prying."
The voice shook the walls of the cave, reverberating through the stone floor beneath their feet and up through the ceiling overhead, the volume of it carrying not from effort but from sheer scale.
"If you had come in here a day earlier I would have eaten you raw!!"
From the far end of the chamber, something massive pushed its head out from the darkness behind the resting beasts. A dragon. Clearly too large for the space it occupied, its frame pressing against the cave walls on either side simply from the act of lifting its head.
"Shit!!"
White Ghost’s arm came out immediately, spreading wide, instinct moving faster than thought as he stepped back and put himself between the creature and the group behind him.
He had suspected something was off about this place from the moment the early reports came in. The numbers hadn’t made sense. The rate of emergence, the organization of the outer beasts, the pattern of the elite drakes removing bodies rather than letting them accumulate inside. Something deeper had been driving it.
He had requested a tier 5 armament from White Tower before the operation began, the organization’s most valued category of equipment, the kind that didn’t get issued without justification. He had justified it and it had been delivered.
It was useless here.
Whatever the tier 5 armament could do against a normal threat, the creature now filling the far end of the inner sanctum sat above it entirely.
This was a Demi-God Dragon.
"Argggg."
The sound that came from it wasn’t aggression directed at them. It was something else, something internal, the sound of a body reorganizing itself on a scale that the cave around it was not built to accommodate.
The rocks began to shake.
The beast pushed itself upward and the pillars holding the chamber’s ceiling in place gave way one after another, the structural supports shattering under the weight of something that had grown beyond what this space had been designed to contain.
Stone came down.
"Holy Shield!!"
Ella didn’t wait. The defensive spell activated instantly, a barrier spreading outward from her position and wrapping around the entire group in the same motion, the falling debris hitting the outer edge of it and cascading to either side as the ceiling continued to come apart overhead.
The passage behind them filled with rubble.
The chamber ahead filled with dust and the sound of something enormous moving through the space above them.
They were sealed in.
In front of them, a Demi-God Dragon that had just completed its evolution.
Behind them, a collapsed tunnel with no clear exit.
No one spoke.
The dust moved through the sealed chamber in slow settling layers, visibility dropping to almost nothing, the sound of the dragon’s movement above them registering through the stone floor in deep irregular vibrations that traveled up through their boots and into their legs.
Then the vibrations shifted.
They became lighter. More directional. Moving away rather than pressing down.
The dragon broke through the cave ceiling and cleared the mountain entirely, its wings catching the open air above and carrying it upward and outward, the sound of its departure fading until only the echo of it remained, bouncing between the walls of the ruined chamber and then fading to nothing.
Dust settled.
The chamber went quiet.
"Phew."
White Ghost exhaled, the sound long and deliberate, his sword hand dropping slowly as he looked up at the ragged opening torn through the ceiling where the dragon had exited.
Fighting a Demi-God was not a category of decision that rational people made. Only someone like Arian would approach that kind of engagement without flinching, and even she would have needed a specific reason. He was tier 6, and the armament in his coat would have bought him exactly enough time to regret drawing it.
He turned to the group, his expression settling into something between relief and the particular calm of someone who had run the numbers and accepted the outcome.
"It’s gone."
A coy smile crossed his face.
"Well....i’ll call that a success."
The dragon had been mid-evolution when the attacks on Tona Town began. The rapid birth rate, the exclusively male offspring, the organization of the outer population. All of it traced back to a single creature undergoing a transformation that had temporarily overridden its normal behavior.
Now that the evolution was complete, the creature had no reason to remain.
The cave system and everything in it would become accessible hunting ground for human summoners in the near future. The population left behind was manageable. The source had removed itself.
Two separate thoughts moved through White Ghost’s mind as he looked at the opening above them.
He would need to write a report.
The dragons had a new Demi-God.
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