As the wall of dragons all around continued their frivolous fuss, it evidently annoyed the elders at this point as Bolnarstinum spoke outwards, “It is hardly an obtuse name, I have seen several dragons with just as prideful names in my years. I can see several amongst you with impeccable names but stuck at your weak levels.”
The hovering dragons did not lighten up though, clearly against Icy’s new name as though it insulted them somehow, and at this point, it even got in the way of their proceedings as hearing over the constant roars and shouts became hard for all but the supreme tiers.
Not to mention, dragons in the back used this as an opportunity to curse out the elders or Icy for whatever reasons possible. Whether favouritism, the rot of power, corruption of these fine lands, or just any argument to undermine them. It now honestly became a question how these elders maintained control even with half the Dragonlands’ population against them.
“SILENCE, useless fools. It’s no wonder we can’t depend on you,” Dreisetno finally snapped and released a hint of power beyond the barrier surrounding them all. Instantly, every dragon below cornem tier shut up as incredible power sealed their mouths. Those slightly stronger could only wheeze out as every breath drew on incredible strength, but they resisted this wisp of power successfully. Dreisetno’s time was not over yet as he turned to face the first elder, his eyes contained an unknown flourish of expectation as he asked, “May I take the stand?”
“Do as you please.” The first elder answered with an additional nod, his eyes focused on Akevorax, or perhaps calling him Icy was still for the best. With some thought, he gave a small addendum, “And anything to succeed.”
“While elder Casstilandri explained the unfortunate circumstance why we revoked your right, I must take responsibility for what I decided. Your request for exile is rejected, and from here on, you will not move beyond 100 miles of the Dragonlands. We will no longer allow any danger to come to you.”
“You’re over-reaching completely now, aren’t you? I’m not part of the clan,” his sentence cut short as he briefly glanced over to Adret before turning back to the five elders to say, “and I never intend to be.”
Dreisetno ignored his stares and disregard though, reiterating to the renamed dragon, “That’s why I take this responsibility. Akevorax, you are now under confinement of the clan. From this day forth, you are a core member and will be taught by the five of us in perpetuam.”
“You think you can keep me here? And I won’t lash out?” Eyes flashing past the myriad of silenced dragons in all directions, the intent to crush them all wasn’t hidden in the slightest manner. Icy considered quite deeply if he valued the bloodlines offered by all the dragons here over the stares and prejudice he received. And in all honesty, it just wasn’t worth it. While harder to find rare bloodlines in the wider world, at least he lived freely and most treated a dragon made of ice cream relatively well.
This month showed how fragile his mind actually was, not his ego if the distinction was not clear, but rather just Icy’s inability to deal with negativity.
“If you must vent your rage, then feel free. But we cannot allow you to leave.”
“And what of my friends? Will they be confined against their will and given all the same benefits as myself? Even the princess here, who is the blood of Manus, lest you’ve forgotten,” Icy’s driven words brought no change to the elders. He drove in the point best he could.
Driesetno glazed over the five humans, only lingering on Raccelline for a few moments before finally focusing once more. His voice contained exhaustion now, as though he came to a final option and said, “You really have tied yourself too strongly with these humans. They are impressive for their race… But it has distorted your views. If you continue down this path, you’ll never be good enough.”
Icy gulped this time, but still asked with a surging voice, “And what does that mean?”
“We’ll cleanse these ill-thoughts. Those four will die, and we’ll send the Divine Blood to another world so Manus may protect her personally.”
A second round of silence fell amongst them all, this one filled with the heaviness of intense dread. Once more, it took some time for Icy to completely understand what he heard, but once he did, the emotions on his distorted face grew palpable. He didn’t show any anger, spite, nor rage, but rather a blank face which looked towards the five elders with a hint of emotion.
Without explanation, he summoned the dark orb from his soul and gave his response, a simple threat, “You will not touch them.”
Dreisetno rolled his eyes, a few other elders looked towards him in pity as well. Only Gintsetbo stood out as he instead maintained confusion. Finally, Dreisetno replied, “What will you do with that tool Akevorax? It is useful against the children, but such a thing cannot even brush our scales. Just stand down. We will ensure painless deaths.”
“Take a single action and I ensure we will all perish.”
“Stop bluffing, if you possessed the means you could have killed Lostradus on that day. And honestly, a dragon of your talents would lay down your life for these humans? The Divine Blood, I understand, but for those four?” Icy growled at the insinuation, and the dark-green orb now hummed, responding to his intimate desires just as a soul armament was summoned. But now he sought out the providence within, even if it cost…
“I would gladly die for them, it might fall short of my goals, but their value will always exceed my own. And I don’t need a mediocre supreme tier to speak my ‘potential’. You lot can’t even reach the end.” His words left them all stunned, both sides for different reasons. The five elders thought they understood his name, but now questioned what was meant.
Meanwhile, the five humans behind him, the only individuals he dared call his friends, frowned deeply. None of them appreciated his decision to self-sacrifice, but they instantly realised who lay at fault for it.
Them, of course. For allowing him to reinforce such a suicidal ideology, but he crossed that point of no return long ago.
“You’re probably upset you never got to see how I killed Lostradus, right? No need to fret, I can show you all right now,” he spoke with frighteningly enunciation, each word strung out with a resolve satisfied with his own death. At the same time, his mana reached into the ring and pulled out two purple crystals, within each laid a flame. One invisible, and the other a vibrant orange… Two flames everyone recognised.
A voice came from behind, questioning him aggrievedly, “There’s no need to do this, why do you always insist on harming–”
“Because I won’t let any of you die. Does it have to be more complicated, Jaren? No more will die… No more. I can amass so much power, possess a potential which supposedly dominates everything, but now I’m told that power is useless? What use is this life if it cannot achieve what it wishes?” Icy’s words hung in the air, only lightened by the freakish vibrations of the orb beside him, his soul resonated so greatly with desire that such emotions filled them too.
His pocket watch appeared as well, wound up to a miniscule single second but an acceleration so great that Icy’s soul already quaked just as he demanded an unprecedented value.
One-million fold… The only way to obtain enough time so they all died.
Dreisetno replied,“This is the wish you’d die for then? For a bunch of humans with talent mediocre to your own?”
“That’s what you see them as,” Icy shortened his response, no longer in the mood to speak.
“Then why not explain your incomprehensible views, it’ll make it all the easier to root them out later,” With an almost sadistic reply, someone finally took action, Dreisetno releasing some of his own power and this time engulfing the five humans. All of them collapsed to a knee instantly, but then flattened against the ground as insurmountable power descended on them. They couldn’t even begin to fathom the weights they felt, as chains dragged them down without a moment’s rest.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
However, he held no intent to speak more with Dreisetno, in the first place he disliked this elder and seeing now how they truly behaved when it came to acquiring something they desired…
Every breath deepened, his nostrils flared with every emission and a guttural growl more akin to a beast than a dragon’s appeared. At the same time, the orb and pocket watch no longer hummed, but visibly shook with intense motion. However, Icy ignored this, focused purely on his plan and overwhelming demands to slaughter the dragons all around him. Under the divinity’s surging emotions for so long, he somewhat questioned how it garnered such intense and unequivocal hatred.
And now he knew.
To reject something’s existence and pledge your very life to its extermination, he could not call upon the divinity’s power, but at this moment he hardly felt the need to. As the invisible flame locked in a crystal drew near, it naturally stirred and infused Icy with those emotions once more. The two blended together, no longer controlled as his own thoughts matched near-perfectly.
Akevorax, also still Icy, submerged in these emotions and found the sensations drowned him. Kept bottled inside, he needed to release them for once, no longer suited to a stern face and petty insults.
He roared out with heart and soul. A long, roar which silenced the world, filling it wholly with his own voice.
The waves crashing against stone down below quietened, still and placid. The air no longer stirred, winds and breezes halted to make way for the thunderous sound which shook the very souls of any nearby. It invoked fear, an unknown which crept into the hearts of everyone nearby and pushed them away from the little dragon.
However, this roar did not stop. Every bit of will soaked his screams, a deepened will and intent to lay down his life for his beliefs.
A roar which transformed an anger he never understood, into his own.
Icy’s eyes flashed white once more, the sight no longer faint but developed and firm. But this time, it did not end purely there, from just two eyes appeared an apparition of scales, a snout, teeth, horns, and very soon, a whole head overlaid on his very form.
The two did not stay connected for long though, unbeknownst to the focused dragon, the translucent head separated from his own, from it came a neck which wrapped around his own like a snake curled about a tree. Its neck somehow disappeared into his body, but around his tail, a similar sight appeared, translucent scales of white which coiled about. Tightly bound to his body, Icy felt an intense familiarity exude from every inch, and only as his roar closed off had he discovered the source.
But he did not quieten, neither did it fade nor vanish. With a simple nod, one devoid of understanding, but of simple acceptance, the pair of dragon eyes refocused on the five elders. His two tools no longer shook, and while the orb hummed, he knew the cause of it.
Dreisetno’s eyes changed suddenly, and he roared out with a vibrant laughter which shook the whole mountain. As he retracted the released power, he said in Draconic, “Yes! You didn’t let us down. Icryla– My mistake, Akevarox. You truly do deserve to be called this generation’s best.”
“But first… Seromus,” the first elder cut off his attempt to reply and spoke a word which brought confusion and a complete lack of danger. It was a language so similar to Draconic, and he felt the word roughly translatable, but still fell short in its understanding. Furthermore, Icy recalled where this sensation came from, how on that day his egg travelled to the mountain range, both parents spoke a phrase in some unknown, incomprehensible tongue.
And while those words brought safety and sleep to his unborn mind, these passed over him, intended for the dragons all around.
Icy didn’t retract the orb or newly-formed white spirit, in fact, his body long since merged with the Auric spirit. And as his Disaster Fated bloodline reported no danger even to this point, however, he just assumed it was due to the opposing side completely levelling his bloodline. Nothing about him possessed the means to read into a fate involving supreme tiers.
And at first, nothing happened as the strange word glossed over every dragon in the periphery. Seconds passed in silence, the noisy ones outside taken aback by the spirit coiled about his neck and tail, while also imposed over his body and wings, this was far fainter than its detailed head.
Finally, something changed.
A dragon nearby stopped flapping their wings and fell, several more followed after with dozens of master tiers falling like birds struck by a bolt. They plummeted into the rock and stone floor, uninjured by the fall but clearly roughed up in the process.
None of them moved though, eyes open but empty. Finally, the cornem tiers slowed their wing beats, and many of them looked with fear to the elders before hastily retreating. A single word almost sealed their minds, and they remembered their place for once. As few supreme tiers on the mountain ever used the extent of their powers, it became easy to grow cocky in the face of them. Especially these five elders who preferred words over actions…
Icy rose the orb once more as the first elder glared to the side, now unsettled but still dreadfully sure that he needed a perfect moment to kill the five.
However, the first elder instead said with a hint of annoyance, “Please give us some privacy. You watched a fun show already, no?”
His eyes flashed with a ghostly white once more, and the specks of gold now revealed several completely unnoticed sight spells utilised by other dragons. From some hints of great languages within them, Icy believed these were other supreme tiers hidden on the island, but what exactly did the first elder mean by ‘fun show’?
Two obvious conclusions:
Either they faked all this to invoke a reaction from Icy… Or this was the moment they planned on acting, their ‘show’ now over.
“I’d really prefer not dying here, Akevorax. Can you please put that horrifying thing away,” the first elder spoke up and while he did not shudder in the face of this orb, such words clearly intoned how much he figured out.
Dreisetno took it another way though, turning to shout at the elder, “Are you saying he could’ve actually killed us?!” The deepened grimace on his face was eventually replaced with a sigh.
“Gintsetbo,” said the first elder, at the same time that dragon on the far--right turned suddenly with a hint of confusion… Perhaps worry as well? Fortunately, the elder continued, “Please briefly explain what’s going on. An exhibition from all of us would likely help.”
As that elder to the side, silent this entire time, received the command, he stepped forth to explain the situation. He didn’t have very much to say, in the first place he rarely even appeared the past month aside from corroborating with the other elders when necessary. Now, with that single step, a similar pale figure of white erupted from his body. It too snaked about his neck and rested its head on his own.
However, unlike Icy’s, Gintsetbo’s figure contained a far more solid body with its own unique wings. These wings were boney, devoid of scales or flesh, and the leathery span between them replaced by white flames very similar in colour to Elder eyes.
The same situation repeated for all four of the dragons in front, white spirits emerged and curled about their body, with wings and bodies formed distinctly with great differences between them.
Dreisetno’s wings appeared almost normal with exception of the hundreds of faces on his wing span, it reminded Icy greatly of the behemoth chimaera and how thousands of bodies merged into one, absorbed into a singular, greater mass.
Casstilandri’s contained a diffusion of great runes up and down its translucent body, they flowed within like blood and her wings instead contained an aurora-like veil of colour.
Bolnarstinum oddly appeared the most normal of them all, the white spirit completely plain and undecorated. But at the same time, this consistency impressed Icy just as much, what it meant he did not know yet.
And then the unnamed first elder, whose spirit had wings but no substance between them. Icy even checked with the Elder eyes that they weren’t merely invisible like the Divinus-wrecking flames… But they truly were empty. Seeing his confusion, the elder said, “Its wings are partially a soul armament. If I retrieved it, then your souls would all collapse.”
As tensions finally fell through, Icy retrieved the orb as well as any intention to release it. His pocket watch disappeared and his eyes traced out the five spirits placed in front of him.
Additionally, the two purple crystals retreated into his dimensional storage and with their disappearance, his divinity finally quietened, as did the emotions it wrought in his heart. But his anger hadn’t actually dispersed that much. He still maintained an unprecedented hate towards the five elders for what they put him through, and the fact they threatened what he valued most as a performance.
“You have likely figured it out by now, but we extend a congratulations, nonetheless. Well done for finding your True Will. We did have to take a rather extreme approach, but it’s good to know we succeeded,” Gintsetbo said wilfully, as though everything could be swept under the rug with ease.
He indeed figured it out, anyone could’ve made such a link.
The figure curled around him was precisely that of a dragon he saw once before, the uncanny spirit which transformed his Mind palace long ago, but why it never reappeared only grew doubts in his heart. Now he could rest easily though, albeit with a deep curiosity as he always presumed the True Will referred to a congruent belief between dragons.
Apparently not? But Icy’s question remained unanswered for now, Gintsetbo not given the time to answer as a new dragon appeared in the air beyond the mountain’s barrier. It circled the mountain once at a leisurely speed, with all five elders diligently focused on this figure.
Not even focused… they respected it.