White flames flared from my body, healing my dislocated front leg as I peered out of the mana mist with a mouth full of fire. The dragons stared at me, not moving an inch as if the cold had frozen them. They peered down at me as I growled, all while [The Heir of Hope] was solo playing, since I couldn’t use two spell songs since I was a dragon.

Once again, it felt daunting to face these adult dragonkin. While they weren’t as humongous as Mom’s retainers, they were large enough to remind me that I was nothing but a child in front of them. Even the four rank Bs flying above me made me anxious, as I knew each one had the capability to burn down an entire town.

[“No,”] the magma dragon stated as he strutted forward, his lava oozing out of his scales like sweat. [“You’ve given your statement—you will wait for later. However, revealing yourself like this before your elder scales, exuding your auras, and showing us your [Battle Frenzy]—how could you expect us to leave so soon? We want to fight you, little princess.”]

… What?

[“Well, sadly, I don’t want to fight you!”] I rebuked him. [“I want you to leave this place, now. If you’re only here to cause trouble for Frozen Nest, then leave. You aren’t welcome here.”]

“Krruuuaaghh!” The other two dragonkin bellowed, laughing gleefully at my statement. However, the spiky one suddenly tilted his head around.

[“Ah, you don’t understand Draconic. So the rumors are true. Forgive us,”] he said. [“‘She shows more flare than the kirin princess,’ we said. Tell us, Princess Hestia, how is Princess Fargryneill? Well, we hope?”]

… What?

[“If you met her, then maybe some of your personality latched onto her. The growler of the family might have transformed into an uncontrollable tyrant fitting for a Kargryxmor with your birth! It takes a true dragonkin to teach a lesser dragonkin how to act like one of us, after all,”] the leader remarked, looking at his friends carefreely, before turning to me, eyeing me seriously. [“That runt is an embarrassment to even her little sister, correct? A newborn that isn’t even a fledgling yet already shows all the value of a Kargryxmor … And what has the kirin done in the time you learned [Battle Frenzy]?”]

“Ghiirruuuka!” (Bastard!) I screamed as my emotions took over.

Seeing my reaction, the dragons licked their lips like mustache-swirling villains, but I couldn’t care less. These were the people responsible for Neill’s trauma. Oh, I understood what was happening. This entire hazing process was just a natural part of a society built upon monsters. Similar to wolf pups play fighting to establish the hierarchy between them, this was just another part of life as a dragon.

There was no reason to fight? Maybe for me, but to Rhekk and these three, there was always a reason to fight, even if the opponent was a child. Bullies … They were all just goddamn bullies.

[“Good! Get in the mood! Show us your power, little tyrant!”] the magma dragon screamed as his throat began to bloat up like a frog’s. [“I can smell a fellow lava dragon! So show—”]

“Kurraghhhhh!”

All of us snapped our heads to the side as we heard that massive roar, only for us to notice the shadow of a massive dragon hiding the sun, casting a shadow on us. Going by that massive horn, it was undoubtedly uncle Kary.

He turned his head around, eyeing the dragons and then me, before he closed his eyes. He turned his neck around and with a single beat of his wings, dove right into the ice cold sea water, causing a massive splash.

I-is he ignoring thi—

“Krrahk!” (Left!) the spikey dragon shouted, drawing my attention as well, where I saw an ice wall quickly approach us.

The three dragons snapped into action and picked up the ones in the [Hydra] bath and flew up, saving themselves before the ice wall caught them. The wall then swerved around, almost as if it could react to their actions … or, maybe it avoided my [Hydra]? Regardless, I command the toxin golem to shoot up, trying to grab the dragons before they could run away.

I know that wall. The same brilliant diamond-like appearance. A year might have passed for everyone else, but I saw that wall just a ‘week’ ago. That’s Mom’s true ice.

Yet, I couldn’t smell her. She was nowhere around here, so who was responsible for it?

“Lady Hestia!”

“Krieerrfffk!” (Slay them!)

I heard Tasianna’s voice followed by the trumpetting roars from a large number of newly arrived dragons and wyverns, blanketing the sky as they flew in from Iceskale. Their fury wasn’t just transmitted from the way their wings smacked the wind to propel themselves forward, but also from their constant growling. The one leading them was Rhekk, and I haven’t seen him this furious since Hikari accidentally took over our body.

With an ear-piercing shriek, five cyan magic circles appeared around him before he released those spells along with a dragon breath. This signaled for the others to do the same, following their leader’s lead and forcing the fire dragons to counter with their fire breaths and spells. Unfortunately for them, their spells lagged behind and they were momentarily overwhelmed.

This single mistake led to an aerial dogfight that placed the ice dragons firmly in the advantage, even disregarding the fact they not only outnumbered the fire dragons, but also had five rank As over the latter’s three. It was 16 versus ten.

The three poisoned fire dragons were immediately knocked out of the skies by a group of five, pinning them on the ground with a hail of ice breaths. Seeing this, the former group decided to completely abandon them, focusing their efforts into taking down rank B ice dragons before it got any worse.

“Ghrukka shrekkl.”

“Kghhraal fghukkrr!”

The fight that caught most of my attention was that between the fire dragon’s leader and Rhekk, who were growling a ton while trying to kill each other. Did they know each other? I couldn’t tell since I still couldn’t differentiate the different roars. I didn’t even know if there were accents when it came to Draconic, and that made trying to listen even more problematic.

However, this was only a “little” problem. The more urgent matter was how three of the fire dragons were actually in danger of dying. Their wings and scales received bellows of icy wind, damaging them and preventing them from flying and producing proper flame breaths. The dragons weren’t close to death, as they were still full with vigor, but unless they had an ace, this wasn’t looking too good.

… Bullies dragging bullies down. How poetic.

[“Your highness!”]

I raised my head up as I heard Shay’s voice, noticing the wyvern twins were now flanking me with Tasianna and Vifi on their backs, respectively. Peeking out from Beth’s flapping wings, Tasianna waved at me with her frostbitten hands, where I saw condensation shrouding her body like a veil. The new cyan catalyst she was holding had the same thing happen to it, although now it was glowing, probably from being used.

[“Was that yours?”] I pointed at the crumbling ice wall, its job done.

“Your mother taught me. Took me in as a proper apprentice to assure we can protect you in this way once we return to Altrust,” Tasianna explained. “Hehe, sadly, even after a year, I’ve only learned one spell of hers, [Fimbulvetr Wall]. The issue is, managing her true ice is extremely difficult on my body, despite how much she simplified the spell for me.”

By that, she meant Mom adapted her draconic abilities into spells for Tasianna. Naturally, her silver dust and her racial skills related to her ice abilities were not teachable, but that didn’t mean Mom couldn’t just do the same thing I did with the empty vessel skills. [Fimbulvetr Ice] was her unique skill from her latest evolution, and with it, she could make custom spells.

I’ve seen Tasianna and the twins visit Mom here and there for training, but I never really watched their training in action. They usually did it in Mom’s portion of our mountain—the deepest part. I had thought of visiting them to see what was going on, but every time I tried, going into the depths got unbearably cold, even for me.

‘If you can afford it, I’ll gladly part with my items,’ Mom said, but you didn’t mention getting into your cavern is harder than having to deal with the Church of Aurena! I felt like I was freezing even with [Solar Core] at 100%.

Nevertheless, that wasn’t the problem here. I could solve that particular problem by asking them whenever.

The bigger issue was the fact the dragons were in an all-out skirmish above me. In the time I spent speaking with Tasianna, the dogfighting had turned bloody, with dragons biting, slashing, and dismembering each other. Then again, considering both were each other’s natural enemy, their [Draconic Barrier] were hopefully worthless in blocking any attack.

[“Quick. What happens if either side kills the other?”] I asked while preparing [Sun, Consume All].

[“Nothing major … in the near future,”] Shay replied, but he didn’t sound convincing. [“The only problem that might occur is that the fire, earth, and dark dragonkin might consider this a declaration of independence from your siblings. An act of joining the succession crisis as a contender.”]

Beth nodded. [“Her Majesty explained that most of the fire dragons and drakes are on the side of your eldest brother, Kahalameet. This might cause a problem with him, or maybe with the faction backing him.”]

“Only if the fire dragons lose this battle. If, however, the ice dragons lose, this might raise the tension in Frozen Nest,” Tasianna added. “You heard Rhekkraxus, my lady. The ice dragon flight is still watching you, with most of the elder scales placing the duty on the younger generation to evaluate you. If you leave them to die, you might lose legitimacy and respect.”

Not like it bloody matters …

“Oh, don’t worry, I don’t think that annoying idiot will die, though,” Vifi interjected, pointing at Rhekk. “The fire dragons are outnumbered, and even if the Icecorn gets hurt, you can just heal him quickly. Well, try to keep him alive, at least. If he doesn’t, well, bad things will probably happen. Then again, if he does survive, he’ll just push you further into trouble! Actually, they might just ignore you outright and just push your right for the throne anyways; or at least, that’s what I read happened with the many human kingdoms that fell from a succession crisis.”

[“… You sarcastic prick.”]

“Ahh, don’t worry about it! It’s not like you’re one of the stronger members of the newer generation, it’s not like you have somebody here that can deal with three of the rank As at once without an issue, and it’s not like you have three ice mages trained by probably the greatest ice mage of this era. You probably can’t just handle the situation in your way, right?” Vifi shrugged in an annoying fashion. “It’s not like you’ve ever dealt with a situation in an unconventional manner before, right? Sometimes fleeing is all good, but sometimes, you need to tackle a problem head-on to solve it. Right, Donut? … Tell me, what would lead to the ‘peaceful’ solution?”

I wanted to ask her why she was even giving me such a rhetorical question. She had already rebutted every single argument I could make, directing me to the only plan we could undertake in this situation. The only route Aurora could possibly advocate for.

[“We’re taking both groups down as a third party!”] I commanded. [“Everybody, on me.”]

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

[“My princess, we can deal with dragonkin on our own,”] Shay stated.

[“If you have your own strike plan, then I’ll trust you two,”] I stated as Tasianan and Vifi jumped on my back. [“Focus on the fliers, first. Bring them onto the ground; we’re taking away their aerial advantage and claiming it for ourselves. Vifi, can you use your electromagnetic repulsion?”]

She showed me a thumbs up. “Got something better. Focus your attacks on the fire dragons, specifically the three rank As. I’ll take care of the rank A ice dragons in one fell swoop once you’re done. Got it?”

[“Then, Tasianna, let’s do this. We need to take down the injured ones, first.”]

Switch to [Dragon Fire]. Flash Fire.

“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In Hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s Music ♫”

Once the song switched to grant my allies full immunity to my fire attacks, I teleported right onto the three grounded fire dragons and stared at them and the five ice dragons hovering over them like vultures. My sudden appearance surprised all of them, with the former seeing me as an enemy while the latter as my allies. The little smiles they had on their faces, probably thinking, “Our princess is helping us!” which made me feel only a bit guilty.

Purple Flash. Symphonie des Feuergottes!

The lighting spell tripled the cost of my next one, but it meant a large spell like [Symphonie des Feuergottes], which normally required a long materialization phase, to instantly appear in the sky. With not enough time to react to it, the inferno erupted from the magic circle like a waterfall, catching the ice dragons and drowning the fire dragons and me within a sea of fire.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

With a 50% increase in speed from the allegro phase, [Flash Fire] became even faster. As I had designated my friends and the fire dragons as allies, none of them were hurt from the spell. Only the ice dragons were swept away by it, but before any of them died, I quickly changed them from enemies to friendlies, before using [Flash Fire] to quickly move to each one.

Once I did, I activated [Drakonian Sunlight Edge] on my tail and smacked each ice dragon right into their head with it, slamming them right into the ground. Solar energy counted as a [White Flame] attack for [Dragon Fire]’s protective requirement, but the skill by itself also boosted my total strength. The head smack was a one-hit knock-out.

[“Oh, thank you, Princess Hestia! We kne—Kruuuagh!”] The fire dragons tried to thank me, but I took them down before any of them could finish their telepathic message. I couldn’t risk them speaking with the others.

I had Hikari cast [Sun, Consume All] to ready my excuse as the fire waterfall dissipated. With the dragons above me occupied from their own fighting, none of them noticed I was using the flame waterfall as a veil to hide my true intention.

[“Sorry, Rhekkraxus!”] I shouted in fake panic, having put on my actor mask. [“I had to move fast and forgot to weaken the fire attack. Don’t worry, none of them are dead. I’ll take care of healing them.”]

[“Grk!”] Rhekk groaned with the other ice dragons, but none of them became wary of my deceit. [“Argh, it doesn’t matter! They were weak and didn’t react in time. Show us your strength once more, Princess Hestia. Let us fight to push back these invaders from our skies!”]

[“Got it. Just stay clear from my fire, especially the purple variant. The white is good, it can heal you.”] I arched my head around to the giant white sun floating above us, while a cloud of white flames was slowly moving towards it.

First, build up trust.

The sun activated and sent blazing meteors onto the injured ice dragons, healing them from their wounds. The white flames quickly repaired their injured and singed scales, hiding any evidence of my wrongdoing. As I left the fire dragons alone, it made their side hostile to me.

[“Good!”] Although, the fire dragons were more or less celebrating what I did. They were acting like little Shiterno cultists with how wonder-filled their eyes were at my fire spells. Nevertheless, they saw our group as a threat now and one of the rank As was directing their attention towards me; specifically, the lava dragon.

Outspeeding was a non-issue after I cast [Overload]; in fact, it was overkill with all my agility increases and acceleration options. Sadly, it was a bit necessary here, as I reached a very quick realization—most of my fire attacks were ineffective.

The fire dragons’ natural fire resistance, along with their resistance skills and their [Draconic Barrier] made the scale-dust explosion I did in the city deal no damage. I thought it was a fluke since I didn’t want to kill them, but the moment my [Hellflame Breath] didn’t even reduce the lava dragon’s health by 1000, I fully understood trying to fight fire with fire wouldn’t work.

Then again, his fire and lava attacks did nothing to me either. No matter what we did, we couldn’t hurt each other with our breath attacks, forcing us into a pure, strength test … which I naturally avoided since my vitality was paper thin in comparison. Thankfully, my white flames weren’t completely useless, so both [Quartz Regen] and [Sun, Consume All] could threaten them with damage.

With a big crunch, the lava dragon caught an incoming white quartz, crushing it in his mouth before eating it. [“Haha, the toxins won’t work on me, your highness. I thought I told and showed you that already? Some holy damage won’t be effective either. If you want to fight a rank A, then come at me with more than this! I felt flames hotter coming from my elder sister’s scolding!”]

True, but I wasn’t his opponent here. I was simply the “taunt” tank. The ice dragons did more damage to him than I could, so why would I try to fight against somebody who could endure my attacks? I had a companion who had been training to perfectly counter me since I first became a rank C!

“Freeze!” Tasianna called out when her ten magic circles finished materializing, conjuring up their spells all at once.

A great blizzard buffeted the area in front of me, caused by [Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei], before two giant [Slightering Frost Serpent] were summoned from the ground and snatched the lava dragon’s wings, causing him to growl. The remaining eight spells were [Kraken’s Destruction], creating eight giant water tentacles that slammed into the lava dragon like whips, all while the first spell began shooting blades of ice at him.

With him distracted, Vifi had the perfect opportunity for a [Voltaic Red: Rumbling Crush] using her lightning hammer. The strike finally sent the lava dragon onto the ground where Tasianna used [Fimbulvetr Wall] to encase him in true ice, while [Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei] continued ravaging him.

[“The spell isn’t too good for my body, so I can’t keep it up for too long,”] Tasianna said, reminding me how her spell crumbled at the start of the fight. She probably hadn’t mastered the spell yet.

Fortunately, it would last long enough for us to bring down the rest of the fire dragons. Shay and Beth flew in, using hit and run tactics on the rank B dragons, as they were preoccupied by the ice dragons, allowing me to send down multiple [Dragon Fire] meteors onto them. They weren’t meant to hurt them, but all these attacks still broke the fire dragons’ aerial balance and sent them crashing onto the ground, where the twins could take care of them.

Using the ice dragons’ pride as true dragonkin to our advantage, they completely ignored the rank Bs when they saw this. They turned their attention towards their rank A brethren, helping them attack the enemy rank As. Looking at the situation, the fire dragons had little chance to win this anymore unless they turned the tables completely.

Which was when I felt their auras tingling me. The heat around their bodies intensified, signaling a Territory release!

… Sadly, they were one step too late.

Allied Territory detected! [Magnetic Storm] has been activated!

It was Vifi’s Territory.

She dashed off my back and released a thunderous bellow by shooting a lightning bolt upwards as dark clouds began covering the sky and over half of [Sun, Consume All]. Red lightning shot down from the clouds, homing onto the fire dragons like heat-seeking missiles, buffeting them at the same time as Tasianna and the ice dragons attacked them. Vifi then clapped her hands, sending the dragons crashing onto the ground with her electromagnetic force.

She reached her hand up as she materialized a lightning lance, ordering her Territory to keep shooting lightning down on the fire dragon. Although they weren’t taking too much damage, the ice dragons, on the other hand, were avoiding the storm like the plague, lining up in a perfect row as they charged up their ice breath.

That was when Vifi snapped her head around. With a trail of red lightning, she vanished from sight as her Territory dissipated completely. She reappeared right next to the row of rank A ice dragons and arched her arm back, readying for an attack. The dragons managed to successfully react to the attack, but before they could flee, I had [Hydra] grab their tails and back legs with its multiple heads.

With an ear-piercing screech, the [Voltaic Red: Thunderspeed Roar] scorched the air as it pierced through the rank As’ wings, ripping off four out of ten, but sending all of them falling onto the ground. Vifi snapped her fingers in success before turning to us, shouting, “Tasianna! Go!” to order her to trap the remaining fire dragons in an assault of ice spells.

[“Traitor!”] Rhekk shouted at Vifi before looking at me, grimacing in humiliation and disappointment. [“This is not our princ—”]

“Despair, color the sky crimson! ♫

Earth scorched by rain of undying flames ♫

Hope born from misery! ♫

Quash it all, you are facing me! ♫”

[Dragon Fire] finished playing to interrupt the ice dragon, before a hail of firey meteors signaled the end of this fight. The remaining dragons tried to dodge them, but it was all futile as giant white quartz crystals rain down, following white flame lasers coming from my fire sun.

With the raucous cries of the dragons desperately trying to defend themselves from this apocalyptic scenero, it was only a matter of time before all of them were forced to land onto the ground. Thunder bolts from Vifi, ice from the twins and Tasianna, and the unending rain of flames destroyed the land underneath us.

Sadly, the rank difference between a rank B to a rank A was still evident. Aside from Vifi, the rest of us weren’t even level 125 yet, and even if we were abusing elemental weaknesses, the dragons were slowly brute forcing through our attempts with their stats and racial skills.

“Grrk!” Tasianna suddenly groaned and stopped maintaining her true ice, giving the fire dragons an opportunity to pounce at the twins, forcing them to back off otherwise they would be burned.

I had to divert my attention from the ice dragons and use my scales to protect them, drawing the fire dragons’ attention to me, including those of the ice ones. Vifi took over, occupying the wingless rank As, but they were simply stalling for time for the last flier to finish his spell.

“That circle—Sheer Freeze! My lady, dodge!” Tasianna warned me and I abided, but at the most vital moment, the timing couldn’t have been worse.

[Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Adagio)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

I lost my 50% agility boost.

Flash Fire! I called out in my head, but it was too late. As my body was speeding up, a cyan magic circle appeared on my chest and burst open!

… However, its timing was also off. As I suddenly felt the cold caress my solar core, a hefty wind blasted me to the side to protect me from the spell. It was like a [Wind Blast], no, a [Tornado Bullet] but times ten or something on the power scale. Yet, instead of smashing against a rock at the speed of a jet plane, the wind started to send me into a spiral, reducing my acceleration.

Once it was done, it calmly held me up in the air. I didn’t feel any resistance, but I was aware I wasn’t flying, gliding, or using [Air Walk]. The air was literally holding me up like, as if I was lying on a soft, cotton-like bed.

Dumbfounded by this sudden turn of events, I craned my head back in the direction of a new signal my skills detected, staring up at a shadow appearing above me.

“Eriiirrruuuuuuaaaaah!” It was the cry of a mighty bird with how much it shrieked.

This new arrival even looked like one with their long, narrow beak plastered on the head of a dragon, perfect for lance-like pecking thrusts. Emerald-green colored feathers with black tips even covered its entire body, making it look like they had stripes that outlined the patches of blue plumage on its chest, four legs, and two pairs of wings. The only scales that could be seen were on their feet and the underside of its bus-length tail, and all of them were onyx black.

This smell … sweet. I concluded. This was definitely an adult dragonkin, yet I didn’t feel wary of them at all, unlike the dragonkin below me. In fact … it felt like I was with Neill again. With my sister.

“Eriiirrruuuuuuaaaaah!” they shrieked “Stop this fight!” once again, now understandable to me after Hikari realized it was Draconic, but from the mouth of a shrieking bird.

These two shrieks silenced all the dragons around me. The still conscious fire ones bowed their heads and tucked their tails in between their legs, while the ice dragons only did so with much hesitation and after Rhekk performed it first. Seeing all of this, I dispelled my spells and buffs as I didn’t feel any ill-intent from them. Most importantly, though, all the other dragons were showing respect to them.

In the next moment, the feathered dragon tilted its head before beating their wings, launching themselves forward like a rocket before stopping right in front of me, causing a shockwave to blast at me. I jerked back for a moment, only for the dragon-bird to catch my back.

Huge! I noticed about the feathered dragon, significantly outsizing even the rank A fire and ice dragons. From the look of them, I was around a fourth of their size.

Finally deciding they were friendly, I wanted to thank them for helping me pacify the dragonkin below, but the dragon suddenly wrapped their tail around me like a coiling snake. They then pressed their gigantic head and caressed my neck with their feathers, tickling me before they nuzzled my head and rubbed their backward-looking horns against mine so gently, it felt like they were treating me like a fragile statue.

E-eh! I jerked when I noticed the tip of his tail twirl around mine.

If I remembered correctly, scalekin would entwine their tail with others if they wanted to show affection. To “share tails” was similar to getting into a relationship or going steady, unless the one doing it was your sibling or parent. In this case, it was familial love.

[“THAT was a feast for my eyes, little sis!”] the man bellowed out, sounding like a careless adult in his early thirties. The smugness in his tone made me think this guy was too confident for his own good. [“Can’t believe you would welcome your brother in such an explosive fashion! Brrr, my feathers went wild! That was a showing that only my little siblings could truly pull off! I got a new competitor in the quest to become like our grandpops! Eehahaha!”]

Oh, thank goodness! I exclaimed in relief as my flush disappeared. He’s just my brother.