A single barren tree broke the amber waves of light cast by the setting sun; the tree was alone amidst the sparse landscape commonly found around barren mountains, accompanying the tree, however, was a single figure that could have easily been mistaken as part of the tree itself.

The figure was perched in the tree and stared quietly as knights wearing blinding silver armor passed its quickly shifting eyes contradicting its idleness as they flicked from knight to knight before resting on a large black armored man riding next to what would look like to be his king.

One of the soldiers called out to the pair alerting them to the imminent arrival only to be mocked by the large soldier for his noise. The aristocratic knight was quickly shamed by the belittlement and shrunk down in his saddle.

Dropping from the trees and landing on all fours the figure scuttled past the Knights, predicting where they would go and entering before them, despite the quick movements the Creature didn’t even draw the slightest wayward gaze as it scuttled into a large cave.

In the main room of the cave, there were inscribed various magical formulae in addition to a significant amount of magical crystals causing the Creature to click its tongue inaudibly as it mocked the magical progress of the humans in the last two thousand years.

The Creature calmly watched from the ceiling of the massive cave, its lack of movement attributed to its sharp claws that aided its grip as it hung. Patiently and silently it watched the various groups of people mill around preparing for the upcoming ritual. There were many young and inexperienced troops present in addition to a group of people sitting off to the side, bound and gagged to prevent them from making noise or fleeing.

If anyone knew what the lizardlike Creature thought of the processes they would’ve been shocked as the Creature felt extreme disgust towards the inefficiency of the formulae used, as it was comparable to those found in textbooks of over four thousand years of age.

The Creature spent a few moments of its time in a state of light shock at the capabilities of these supposedly intelligent beings even two thousand years after the regression and they were still at a lower level of study than two thousand years BEFORE the calamity. However, its mild shock and dull minded thoughts were interrupted by the increased activity of the struggling victims.

Apparently, the kingly figure had spoken some words to them causing them to panic, fear roughly carved its place upon the horrified faces of the panicked sacrifices as they realized what was going to occur even as the king asked for forgiveness and thanked them for their sacrifice.

Hanging from the ceiling, the Creature disinterestedly let its arms fall from their crossed position and point towards the ground as it stretched and yawned. Its mild boredom was palpable as it seemed to easily dismiss the horror of the scene below as a struggling woman was carried forcibly by one of the tall knights towards the center of the cave. Ironically the Creature found the woman's sobbing annoying enough to wish that the knight would hurry up and get on with it.

“Sure, let's build a portal fit to waste twice the necessary amount of crystals in its inefficiency, but don’t mind us if we forget how to mute the bloody sacrifices.”

The Creature only slightly relaxed to quietly mutter as the mages began to drone on in a disturbing chant, each one carefully articulating their words. Within a few moments, the embroidered cloaks of the mages had started to stick to their backs as a sweaty testament to the extreme precision and focus they were exerting to maintain the ritual.

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Suddenly the eyes of the Creature seized on one of the younger humans. The gem in his eye so happened to be the squire who had handed the Knight the sacrificial knife. The naive and accepting attitude of the kid caused the Creature’s face to twist in its only significant change of expression thus far; a deep mocking grin.

“That kid… is positively oozing idiocy. He won’t survive this.”

The grin, although frightening, lasted only a few moments as the Creature's focus within the room returned to the tall Knight and his victim. The struggling woman's throat was being slitten with a disturbingly practiced ease. The blood that poured from the gaping wound quickly gathering into a pool that slowly spread outwards filling the etched gaps within the carved formulae.

As more of the gaps blood flowed and filled more of the etched designs, it began to be drawn towards the gate, flowing ever faster almost like a rapidly flowing river moving to its mouth.

The black gate that stood at the center of ritual seemed almost alive as if drank the blood of the sacrificed woman, as more blood flowed towards it dark, bloody runes began to become visible on the gate.

The horrifying runes did not shine with the light commonly known to charged magical artifacts but seemed instead to greedily consume light and energy even from the air itself, not satisfied on gorging itself on human blood but seeking to partake of anything that remotely came close to touching it.

The Creature blinked as a shocking white bolt struck at the fallen woman, the gate seemed to hunger for more than blood, and it was going to happily partake of the meal that had been offered to it.

Drawn out by the unnatural force the soul, once contained inside the woman's chest, was drawn out and floated for a few moments as if confused. Slowly it began to drift towards the innocently flickering light of the dark gate as if having it had found a kind guide.

A sardonic grin appeared on the Creature’s face once more as all too soon the docile white light violently transformed into black lightning. Unleashing several bolts that struck out, again and again, tearing the soul into shreds. Its sudden demise caused a shrill scream to echo from the soul.

Even before the scream's echoes began to fade, fear and self-loathing had imprinted itself upon the unprepared soldiers as they felt an empathetic horror at having consigned a living being to a torturous fate worse than any form of cruelty imaginable to a single man.

The gate, having consumed its latest meal opened and belched forth a gray soul, larger and lighter in color than the woman's had been, the soul quickly began to shake in fear as if it were lost and searching for its lost host who could not be found

In subtle coordination to this shaking one of the jars started to bubble and overflow. The blood contained within being drawn as a gory river towards the soul's call where it pooled under the gray orb. The soul, as if sensing a potential host began to vibrate faster, calling to the blood and pulling it slowly forming the structure of a body.

The Serpentine Creature was raptly watching the process, its eyes flickering with a uniquely satisfied greed as it examined the rapid transformation of the gore as it solidified to bones and veins weaving a new creation together.

The Creature’s face had an expression of disappointment when the soul had finished forming its vessel, watching the body for had been a heavenly treat to appease the Creature's burning desires of curiosity.

Thirty summons later and a great many stifled yawns later the watching Creature quietly waited. The mistakes made in the chants as well as the slight errors within the formulae hadn’t significantly affected those summoned up to this point. However simply because nothing had gone wrong up to this stage, didn't mean nothing would go wrong, in fact, considering the cumulative nature of mistakes in magic, this last performance of the ritual was likely to be a disaster and thus the reason for the Creature's presence.

The Creature lightly frowned as its theory was immediately proven true. The latest Creature’s formation was unlike that of the others as the structure it formed was mishappen and small, the soul attached soul caught in the crossfire as the portal attempted to sunder a bond beyond its power to break. Resulting in the forming Creature that was pathetically weak as it lay gasping for breath.

panic erupted within the cave, and distress shot across the king's face as he yelled out commands, one order being that one of the men kill the beast, the other for the mages to continue their chants resulting in the Creature to give voice to a dry chuckle.

“Hoh..? Humans certainly are a species stupid enough to steal a dragon’s egg.”