In this post-apocalyptic world, civilization had remained in the old United States.
The ancient states existed only in myths and legends of the very distant past.
It was to the point of speaking of the Sumerians for those of our time. We might as well say that everything was lost. History, technology, art, and medicine but magic had replaced science. But like all power. Nothing was in the hands of the simple. Magic was the prerogative of the nobles, known as high humans.
Their power was terrifying.
In ancient Utah, the kingdom of Uriah, even the name was almost entirely gone. The kingdom was of course named after its king. King Uriah.
He was a high human and his queen, a "shifter" a dragoness capable of keeping a human form. Having the strength and powers of a dragon and draconic magic.
Their daughter, a hybrid who could also transform into a dragon but for a shorter time and with less magic but compensated by the mana from her father.
The simple dragons were not lucky.
Several thousand years ago...
After the war against the demons, they were used as "tanks" and mounts for the high humans in the United States who had been spared in the first wave.
Indeed, having paid their djizîa, the demons attacked the other nations, which could allow this nation to organize itself.
Then, after the destruction of the demonic super carrier, their fleet and the bombardment of the bases, troops and outposts as well as the destruction of the portals and emergency portals,
6 demon dragons were able to survive, badly damaged, without their magic and decimated troops. The Dragon Lords.
Soon, without the influence of Tiamat and the 2 top demons Demodragon and Vulture, they felt like they were growing wings and nothing connected them anymore.
Of course, they wanted to take refuge in the United States but they had to face an organized and powerful army and they were repulsed.
Disunited, they separated, each one wanting to rule a part of the world.
Ariès, the infernal dragon of Aries had settled in Canada. He liked the resources and the proximity of Montana.
He was the most scientific and logical of the group. Hate and violence were out of context for him. Let's just say he was the most convenient dragon demon to communicate with.
Aldebaran, the infernal dragon of Taurus, with huge horns, had settled in Mexico and Central America.
He was a strong head. Everything in muscles but he was more a wild beast than a demon.
These first two, who had campaigned with Ivan, had enjoyed getting monster hearts to avoid having to live by eating souls. Even though they were still demons, they no longer suffered from the corruption. This was able to clear the minds of Aries and Aldebaran.
Another one, the most devious one that survived was Hades, the demon dragon of Cancer, but his wounds were terrible and he was taken in by the surviving African tribes. He had forgotten everything and did not even know who he was.
Virgo, the master of intrigue, ruled over the entire European continent as well as ancient Russia, but the south.
Aquarius, the master of ice, ruled over the Arctic and Siberia.
And Pisces, the master of the oceans ruled over all the seas and oceans. Moreover, his body was that of a giant sea serpent.
King Uriah was a descendant of Aldebaran. His great-great grandmother had paired with this proud dragon and thus the Uriah lineage was born. Strong, powerful and ruling with an iron fist over the western United States. Now known as Uriah.
The eastern part of the United States was under the influence of 2 united lord dragons: Pisces and Aquarius. They were inseparable and nibbled at the coasts and then entered the land.
Aries, remained neutral but surrounded by the 2 other lord dragons and in the south by Uriah, ally of the demonlord Aldebaran.
If before they worked together, now it was every man for himself.
If before they worked together, now it was every man for himself [https://img.wattpad.com/125e84826817505230ce7f9d9a534f50af5262f0/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f355759635043766b4852537a65413d3d2d313130373336343339302e313639363431366538353264353333393536363436313732353838332e706e67?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The shuttle with all the crew plunged into the atmosphere.
With nothing to eat or drink, there was no choice and Zergalor had to put his hopes in Tania and the mixed team.
Obviously, the civilization was lost and even if he was a master calculator and strategist, their fates were linked. He, as AI and they as remnants and witnesses of a vanished civilization.
Zergalor : "Protect Nimbus at any cost. Science and the future rest on his shoulders".
It must have overheated his circuits to pay a compliment.
But the Baron was enviable to a paranoid AI. At least he was sometimes predictable in his choices. Also, he preferred to be an AI in the outside world than a sleeping ghost in Tania's shadow.
And he was also the one who got Tania out of her eradication by suggesting that she release him and enter the ship's AI just before she lost consciousness after being bitten..
Thus the shuttle, which was armed as a small corvette. A Zerg ship without a cannon is not a ship...
They followed the beeps in the direction of Montana, probably a vestige of another era, from the time of the great cataclysm, a desert place, full of rocks and cliffs inaccessible without adapted equipment. Only dragons could go there and besides the wild dragons often went to take refuge there, well those who remained. They were hunted and subjugated. Those who rebelled were coldly slaughtered.
Some formed mixed clans. The races and varieties used to make separate clans, but the scarcity and their austere life no longer allowed any luxuries.
They feared high humans on submissive dragon mounts and also human-dragon hybrids.
Dragons that could transform into humans were rare and had all disappeared. But if a dragon could transform, then it became a de facto citizen like the hybrids.
Normal dragons were less than basic humans, they had the same status as slaves, not to say cattle.
This was true in the whole of Uriah, but also in the world. This was the dictate of the High Humans.
All the descendants of the Wyvern Lords knew how to humanize themselves, or at least had enough magic to stand up to a High Human, and they had the same hierarchy.
That's why the wild dragons had nowhere to go but their secret sanctuary, so secret, that they always looked for it, like a legend.
The legend said, that a couple of true ancestors were sleeping a deep sleep within the sanctuary and that they would reveal the passage to a wonderful and free world for all dragons and that 2 goddesses were keeping the place secret. Their heads were like a snake's nest and that one look was enough to petrify you.
One was the goddess of black stones and the other of bad luck.
The dragons passed on these stories from generation to generation by oral tradition.
Unfortunately or fortunately, they did not age, but they often died of wounds, abuse, hunger, or were killed when their strength failed and they needed time to recover.
Worse, they were killed to replace them during their great hibernation. A necessary sleep phase of several years to go from juvenile to adult. About 1 to 2 years. But they were killed between 60 and 80 years. They were made to believe that they were old and worn out but they were simply tired and preparing to hibernate. Their reproduction rate being low, the population was declining under human pressure...
The world had become harsh and cruel and society was recovering on the blood of slaves and poor dragons.
Moreover, a complicity reigned between them. Often, almost family ties existed between dragons and slaves. They were companions in misfortune.
But when Ivan arrived at the mountain lake, shaken and turned by the torrents, the demondragon Virgo opened his eyes during his daily meditation. He immediately felt the cosmic energy released by dragonlord Ivan.
He smiled, dismissing the possibility.
Virgo: "Nah. He's a coward at his mother's beck and call." But the demondragons did not care. If they had pledged allegiance to Tiamat, they had not done so for Ivan.
Besides, they had trained so much that they did not fear the goddess for centuries. She maintained order and balance where each of them could find themselves, but that was ancient history for them. Even Ivan was a distant memory. But they had no hard feelings towards him, because he stayed out of the intrigues and power struggles, just carrying out his mission and minding his own business.
Virgo still had a doubt. But he did not send his spy troops. "If Ivan is here, it's because he has his reasons."
I was in human and my pants were just a shred like the Hulk's panties.
I had taken the cup and was still in shock.
I was 18 and probably forever...
my arms were pressed against the rock and my long black hair was soaked, but I was out of breath and groaning.
I had lost everything and this monster, this guardian, gave me the creeps. But she was certainly right... Someone had to stop this mess.
I still remember this sentence: "If I don't allow my own daughter to cross the barriers of time, then nobody will cross them.
Be thankful I didn't tear you apart. And I saw again a military mission using a hellish machine, a basilisk machine creating a space-time rupture but using 13 souls as a power source. Then the whole military base being reduced to rubble, the people erased from history up to their ancestors, as if they had never existed... Appalling! Their souls and bodies sent directly to the tartar! (A/N. The dragon child book)
The forest was immense and as far as the eye could see in all directions.
I then invoked the spell: "Safe shelter of Leomund" and a small hunter's house appeared. It had the basic amenities: a bed, a fireplace, a workbench for cooking and tinkering, a saltbox and a cupboard with various drinks and some ointments.
That's how I spent my first night in this unknown world, in my armchair made of skins in front of my fireplace and chewing dried meat. I then put on modern hunter's clothes. I didn't know where to look, but the next morning I made a dark, lightless hole and mentally connected it to my shadow heart.
If Tristan cried or prayed, then I could hear him... This was one of Tiamat's powers that I had had since.
It had saved many people. Even though I had a divine part, I was still me, still whole, still human.
But I was uncomfortable. Something was eating away at me. But it was like an unspoken cry for help. Like a crying beast, a cry for help... In the dark, in the darkness. It wasn't Tristan, I was sure, but it was like from another age, like from my time.
It was someone who had suffered and was still suffering, again and again...and a name that was familiar to me as a human but didn't mean anything... Connors...?????
I couldn't tell where it was from, but the South!