Chapter 56: Race
"Of the races we have to face in this world, the Dragon race of the heavenly beast clan is the most terrifying."
Arian stood at the balcony railing, her eyes fixed on the mountain range in the distance, her voice carrying the particular evenness of someone delivering a fact they had long since stopped finding remarkable.
"They have razed cities to the ground over the slightest insignificance. They are mad and emotional. Even the demi humans are afraid of them."
Behind her, both daughters stood without speaking.
"You were lucky this time."
She didn’t turn around as she said it.
"But the next time you see a flesh true dragon at anything above tier 5, you run. Always."
The entire city had witnessed it. The dragon clearing the mountain range in a single sustained arc, its silhouette cutting across the sky above Windgrave before the sound of its departure had fully reached the walls. Two weeks had passed and it was still the image that surfaced first when anyone who had been outside that afternoon thought about what they had seen.
Some things didn’t fade quickly.
Arian let the silence sit for a moment before her posture shifted, the weight of the previous subject giving way to something lighter.
"Oh, by the way."
She turned from the railing and looked at Hela with the casual ease of someone changing topics mid-thought.
"I haven’t seen your little toy boy for two weeks now. Is he in the city or something?"
Hela’s expression didn’t change immediately.
"He’s busy hunting dragons."
She smiled, the expression sitting slightly sideways on her face, not quite landing where a normal smile would.
Ethan had made his decision before the dust in the cave had fully settled. The Demi-God dragon’s evolution had produced something unexpected alongside its departure: a clutch of eggs, left behind in the ruined inner sanctum, carrying a bloodline quality that none of the Rock Drakes they had encountered on the roads or in the outer cave sections had come close to matching.
If he could tame enough of them, Morgan’s evolution requirements would move faster than anything he had managed in the two weeks prior.
He had stayed back without discussion, and no one had argued with the reasoning.
"Oh, that’s okay."
Arian’s brow furrowed for a moment, her fingers coming up to rest against her chin.
"But we’ll need him soon. Maybe one of you should go and get him."
She turned her gaze between her daughters, letting it settle slowly.
"Ella."
The smile that followed was the kind that looked like a smile from a distance and communicated something else entirely up close.
"Go and get the boy here before the weekend."
Her eyes moved to Hela as she finished the sentence.
Hela’s hand closed at her side, the fingers pressing together without the motion reaching her face or her posture.
’She’s trying to irritate me again.’
The thought arrived flat and certain.
She kept her expression where it was and said nothing.
"Hahaha."
Arian’s laugh filled the balcony, genuine and unhurried, the particular amusement of a mother who had found exactly the reaction she was looking for and was not pretending otherwise.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Meanwhile.
—shuu
—shuu
—shuu
Three rounds of bolts cut through the air in quick succession, each one finding the ground ahead of a group of Rock Drakes and detonating on impact, the explosions rolling across the terrain in overlapping waves that forced the cluster to break formation and scatter sideways.
Atop a hill not far from where the bolts had landed, a figure moved in short tactical bursts between positions, crossbow gripped and cocked, eyes tracking the redirected beasts below without stopping.
"Now!!"
A cloud of bats erupted outward and swarmed toward a single Rock Drake at the edge of the scattered group, wrapping around it in a dense disorienting mass while the others continued moving away. The beast fought against it, its body working in every direction at once, finding no surface to push against, the bats reforming around each attempt before it could complete one.
Several minutes passed.
The cloud dispersed.
The beast found its footing and looked around, breathing hard, its eyes adjusting.
"Garr!!!!"
The growl came from low in its chest, defiance rather than fear, the sound of something that had been inconvenienced rather than broken.
It registered the four Rock Drakes surrounding it before the sound had finished leaving its throat.
They were different from the ones it had been moving with. Red scales, deep and saturated, crown tattoos marking the area around each of their heads, their posture carrying the settled quality of creatures that had already decided the outcome of what came next.
The beast’s processing stalled mid-decision.
"Dragon Dive."
The command came from above, quiet and without ceremony.
Morgan appeared at the edge of the beast’s peripheral vision and its gaze went immediately unfocused, the world it had been standing in replaced by something that had no edges and no exit, its mind pulled under before it could redirect its attention or generate a resistance.
[Congratulations, you have bound a lesser dragon]
[8/15 lesser dragons bound]
Ethan lowered the crossbow from the hill position and let the satisfaction move through him without making anything of it.
Eight in two weeks.
If anyone outside this mountain range heard that figure attached to a single summoner operating alone they would have had trouble processing it as real. The circumstances had been unusual from the moment he stayed behind, the Demi-God’s clutch providing a concentration of bloodline quality that the roads and outer cave sections had never come close to offering.
A godsend was the only reasonable description.
Unfortunately, from what his own investigation had pieced together over the past several days, the supply was approaching its natural limit. The high quality specimens were thinning. Whatever remained wouldn’t sustain the pace he had been working at.
He was turning that problem over in his mind when the sound of hooves reached him from below.
A group of men on horseback came around the lower edge of the terrain, moving toward the area where the bound drakes were retreating through their portal. One of the men pulled his mount up short and looked at the disappearing creatures with an expression that had already settled on irritation before he had fully processed what he was seeing.
"What’s going on here?"
His voice carried the particular quality of someone accustomed to having the tone of their questions set the terms of whatever followed.
"Why are those dragons obeying you?"
The clothing said noble. The tone said everything else Ethan needed to know.
He had seen this type enough times to recognize it without effort.
"I have no idea what you’re talking about."
Ethan smiled, already moving, his hands working to pack the bag at his side and deactivate the crossbow in the same unhurried sequence.
Vlad and Morgan disappeared a breath later, their presence withdrawing cleanly without announcement.
He was going to leave.
"Hey!!"
The young man’s voice rose sharply, his mount shifting under him as he pushed it forward a step.
"You think I’m blind?! Explain yourself!!"
His eyes were fixed on the space where the drakes had been standing, the portal already closed, nothing left to point at except the absence of what he had just seen.
Ethan kept walking.
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