Pov Enn

We were docked at a small island that had a natural harbor that could actually handle a ship of this size. It's been close to 8 months since we caught the first nesting dragon, and since then, we have caught many others. Our holds were close to being full, so it will soon be time for us to return.

I looked towards the cliff edge that was on this island and saw Rafe, still in his dragon form, resting from the journey we had. He looked more like a dragon now than when he first transformed. That started on our third week on this mission when we ran across a male specimen of the dragon race.

It came out of nowhere and surprised Rafe. I don’t know what creature’s teeth he was using, but even he seemed surprised at how easily he bit through that dragon’s neck. It was a bit hard to watch him consume the dead dragon, especially because he seemed to enjoy it quite a lot.

For the next few weeks, he continued to change his form to make it even stronger and informed us that dragons' eyes could see through this darkness a lot better than any other creature’s, which kind of makes sense, I guess—otherwise, they couldn’t survive in this place.

After that, things became even easier, but I still remember the few mistakes that happened. From the 127 nested dragons, we were able to catch, we only lost two nests. I am getting a bit worried about how many dragons seem to be around these parts. Luckly they are weaker. We now see a lot of silver-ranked dragons that are barely 10 meters long. They aren’t as big of a threat, but they are even faster and more agile than their stronger and bigger counterparts.

I have been contemplating if we should simply stop and go back and not push ourselves further. My thoughts were interrupted by some weird air movement. I kinda wish I still had my antennae. This human form was really bad at sensing the environment—the only things that it could do well enough were sight and hearing, but even those were limited.

I looked around only to notice that Rafe had his head up and was looking in one direction. Did he sense something as well? Then I almost went down on a knee as in my head I heard Ralph yell, “Sail now, use all speed possible, something really big is coming and really strong!” Just after that, a different voice, deeper than Rafe’s, chuckled really slowly.

I involuntarily swallowed as I was driven to my knee from the pressure of that presence invading my mind. I saw Rafe stand up, but I even saw him struggling. We pushed too far into the black ocean, but there shouldn’t be anything out here that powerful. I tried to move, but I couldn’t, and I noticed that almost everyone was on the ground holding their heads, completely non-functioning. There was no way we could escape.

I could feel something getting closer, but that was only because I still sort of felt the air currents moving in a weird way. Other than that, nothing seemed to indicate that something was coming closer, especially something that strong.

I could sense platinum ranks from quite far away, but this power that invaded my mind felt stronger. But it couldn’t be a diamond rank—I could see those shining farther away than my sight could ever see. Something was really wrong.

I noticed that Rafe seemed to be recovering, and I watched where he watched as he readied for a fight I didn’t know if he could win. The ship allowed us to see quite far out thanks to the artifact device that let us see through the darkness, but there was still a barrier quite far away, beyond which we couldn’t see anything. Rafe’s eyes could see more, as he told us, so when I saw him take a step back from whatever he saw, I knew we were done for.

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“I’m sorry, Father, I failed you.” And then I saw it—its head emerged first. It was the size of this entire island. I could now understand why I felt such a weird air current; it was pushing so much air in front of it, even though it was moving incredibly slowly.

It stopped when its head was inside the barrier where the darkness disappeared. “Curious, so that’s how they do it?” I heard the voice in my head once again, but this time it wasn’t trying to push me down, though I still felt the pressure, and it was holding me still even now.

I then saw it walking forward, it was walking on the water. I wondered why, but then I saw that its wings were quite tattered. It seems that Rafe also noticed that, and I think he started to ready himself to fly when the pressure hit him as this dragon focused on him fully.

"You are impressive, but you are not a true dragon. What are you? And don’t think that I can’t fly because of these old wings of mine—I lost the capability of physical flight so long ago. That doesn’t mean I can’t fly. But now, let’s examine you more—I’m curious."

It continued to walk forward, dwarfing us entirely. A single misplaced step and it would crash our entire ship, and it wouldn’t even need its entire foot to do it. "I smell many dragons in that ship. Kept in stasis. I didn’t expect that.”

“When similar patterns have happened before—they were vendettas against dragons when someone died hunting them, and then they think they can wipe my race out just because of that. Many accidents can happen in this darkness, even to those that shine, but you all are different. And I haven’t seen different things in so long."

It was now really close, and I could finally see Rafe’s legs give out as he was pushed to the ground. I saw him struggle to lift his head and actually succeed. This huge dragon seemed amused by that, got close, and started to smell Rafe.

"Not a dragon at all. I have no idea what you were or are—there are so many different smells on you from so many powerful creatures. What curious being are you? I haven’t encountered something like you before." But then it took another deep breath in.

"Is that dungeon I smell on you? Curious. I thought those were all subjugated, but I guess someone managed to break free—and someone who has some real talent." It then turned to us, its head bigger than our entire ship, and then smelled us. Did he get smaller?

"There's strength here as well, but so many are hidden behind magic. Creatures I didn’t know were intelligent seem to act like they are. Yet on all of you, I smell that same dungeon again. Curious."

"But what to do with you all? I am guessing you are taking dragons to your dungeon, so many of them, but why? We made sure that dragons and many other species couldn’t be copied by dungeons. That was before my time. Speak, fake dragon." it said. Rafe seemed to relax a bit as his movements seemed to get a bit smoother. "And I don’t want any lies. You should know that wouldn’t work on me anyway."

Rafe hesitated for a bit before he spoke. "That protection isn’t without mistake. At the moment of birth, a dungeon can influence the being born."

The dragon nodded slowly. "Crafty, was that dungeon."

Rafe paused after that statement but pushed forward after a moment. "Our father doesn’t take control of beings like that; he doesn’t like to. Instead, he uses that moment to glimpse the pattern of that creature. It takes quite a few, but he has managed to get quite a few protected patterns like that."

The dragon stopped for a moment, then got really close to Rafe and took another deep breath in, then started to chuckle deeply and slowly, vibrating the entire ship. On the island, from the cliffs, many rocks were falling down just because of that shaking.

"The fact that you are here means that those crafty bastards don’t know they have a free dungeon in the world. Tell me, how close is it to the limit of this world? Tell me how close we are to the breaking of the current overlord?"

I saw Rafe swallow, but he still said it. "Father has yet to reach platinum rank, but he is close."

"Unacceptable!" came a powerful voice that made me almost black out, and I saw others go completely limp. The island cracked into multiple pieces, many sinking into the deep waters.

"I am sorry about that, I just thought freedom was close at hand." Then the pressure vanished completely. "But something still doesn’t make any sense. You are all platinum-ranked, you should all be able to break free of the dungeon if it isn’t even platinum. Why don’t you?"

"He's our father. He has his faults, but why would we abandon him?" Rafe said after he turned back into a human for some reason. To my surprise, I watched the dragon get smaller and smaller until it was also a human, standing next to Rafe, still quite a bit taller than him. Out of nowhere, two chairs appeared.

"Tell me about this dungeon you call Father. I would like to learn more," his voice now was quite cultured and so charming.

One thing I still couldn’t understand, but I was certain now that this dragon was diamond-ranked. But how could he have escaped notice, and why couldn’t I still feel any power from him unless he wanted me to? Was he really that good at controlling his strength?