Chapter 8
After the incident, I was much more careful around the dragons in this place. I didn’t bother confronting the Emperor about Eise since I figured this place ran on a survival of the fittest mentality and I would just be told to deal with it myself.
Well, that and the fact that I murdered the evidence.
The female was shell shocked for a few days afterwards, not willing to move more than a few inches away from me at a time, so I postponed our next excursion outside until she was fully recovered. I almost regretted my decision to let Bronn live, as he had set me back quite a bit. If there was any silver lining in all of this, it was my new relationship with Piers, Akawa and Laek.
“Have the two of you heard anything?” I asked, addressing Akawa and Laek.
“Yep! Yesterday we saw a couple of the lesser dragons trying to recruit minors. We couldn’t get close enough to hear what for though. We’re not exactly built for eavesdropping, ya know?” Laek said.
“They were promising the same thing to those minors that they promised to the three you cooked though, food, power and status among the lesser dragons. Sounds like a load of shite to me though, the weak live to be ruled by the strong, and no self respecting dragon would acknowledge someone that they could kill easily.” said Akawa.
“Tch, sounds like someone is moving under that old geezers nose. He doesn’t strike me as the sort that would allow weak dragons into his court.”
“HA! Right you are, he beat me senseless when I tried to eat with the high ranks once.” said Piers, lumbering over after finishing his meal.
“Are you sure he wasn’t just afraid that you would finish all of the food before anybody else got to eat? Laek said.
“Oy!” shouted Piers.
Despite their banter, the three dragons seemed quite well disposed toward one another. Piers was a very jovial dragon and he got along well with everybody despite his love of combat. He would often give the weaker dragons pointers after they fought, and he never gloated or turned down a rematch after he won.
The twins on the other hand were probably the least liked dragons in this place. They had scared so many dragons out of the food court that now nobody wanted to associate with them. Well, I wasn’t exactly anybody's darling either and the two of them played a role in saving the female, so I was willing to forgive them their earlier stupidity.
“By the by, one of those blokes tried recruiting me too.” Piers said, casually picking a bone out of his teeth “But I couldn’t get much out of him about what he was recruiting me for. Moment I started asking he got all shifty eyed and told me to stop poking around.”
“Has anything like this ever happened before?”
“Mate, I’ve been here for roundabouts a decade now and I’ve never seen the place so riled up. S’not hard to see what the cause of it all is either.” He eyeballed me as he said this “Shame to say it, but I’d bet a lot of dragons will join up with em too, specially if it means getting rid of the newby who the Emperor has taken interest in. Won’t just be Minors either, I doubt the high ranks will appreciate you getting special privileges.”
What Piers said made sense. Despite being a new arrival, Reyzo had allowed me to sup with the high ranked dragons, and he even made a point of talking with me regularly. That kind of special attention was sure to draw the attention of the jealous and ambitious dragons. But there was still one thing that didn’t add up…
“Now all we need to know is how your female fits into all of this.” Piers said
Right. For whatever reason, Eise wanted both the female and I gone. The only question was…why?
The only one who would be willing to answer that question was the female herself, and she wasn’t going to open her mouth any time soon.
So it was back to rehabilitation. Fortunately, the female was more or less back to normal a week after the encounter, if a bit more clingy than before. I had thought that she wouldn’t be able to go outside again for a while, but she surprised me by practically pulling me out of the castle the first time I wanted to take her out.
“Maybe she thinks she’s safer out here than in there?” I thought
She would glance fearfully at Terero every time we passed him, though I sensed no malice from the guardian. Terero would mock us, insinuating that we were too young to be coupling, and I would insult him, calling him a gargoyle or bridge troll. It was how we showed each other we cared.
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While we were out the female would point me to various plants and objects, wanting me to explain what they were. Every day I took her to some new part of the forest, always within sight of the stronghold, and she would marvel at a world made of more than stone and fire.
I took her to a nearby lake and taught her how to swim, and though she was timid about the water at first, after a few hours of practice she seemed to have picked up swimming as one of her favorite hobbies. We went there every morning now, to swim and wash the muck from our scales. It was much more efficient than self cleaning at least, and It kept her happy.
During noon I would take her hunting and teach her how to kill small prey. It was slow going progress, as it turned out that the female had never killed anything herself and so was hesitant to take a life. She may have thought me harsh, but I made her kill and eat her first prey herself. She slept poorly that night, but I never had trouble getting her to finish off her prey again.
In the evenings we would find a nice place to perch ourselves and talk the sun away. Or rather, I would talk and she would listen. I told her many things, some that I had learned during my travels, others that I had tortured out of humans for fun.
Throughout it all she was wide eyed with curiosity, but more than that she was truly happy whenever we were out of the castle. She still hadn’t said a word to me, but I could tell I was close. Now when I spoke she would interrupt me more often, trying to ask question after question, but only being able to communicate in the simplest of ways.
It was frustrating for her, and if everything went according to plan those frustrations would get the best of the female. Or so I hoped, but in truth she was as stubborn as every other dragon.
“What she needs is something to push her over the edge…”
And three months after the start of her rehabilitation, that something finally came.
The two of us were enjoying our morning swim, splashing water at each other, wrestling and just generally making a lot of noise. My guard was down after so many weeks at the stronghold without any incidents happening around the castle and I had figured that dangerous creatures just refused to venture this close to a place filled to the brim with dragons.
Because of that I didn’t even notice we were being watched.
It waited until I got out of the water. The female was still playing, so I decided to dry myself out on a large rock that jutted out over the lake. But as I lay there bathing in the morning sun, something came out of the forest.
It was as large as the two of us were, with a catlike body and huge, bone crushing fangs. Though it’s most striking features were probably the two extra heads it sported. While one head was that of a cats and matched the body, another right next to it was a goat's head and the creature had a long, scaly tail that ended with a snake's head.
The female saw it immediately and tried to warn me by splashing around and swimming towards me, making as much noise as possible. But I thought that she was still just playing, so I just flicked an eye open and smiled at her.
The creature saw me sitting there and licked its three sets of lips, believing itself to have found some easy prey. It was wary of the female, who had already seen it, but it sensed no threat from her. It crouched on its paws and took off, preparing to sink its fangs into the back of my neck.
The female thrashing became wild, frenzied as she desperately tried to alert me to the creature's presence, but it was to no avail. There was nothing she could do, and in just a moment I would become that monster's meal.
There was nothing she could do to save me…
“Illumen, behind you!” yelled a high pitched voice that I had never heard before.
My eyes shot open as Predation activated, alerting me to the Chimeras presence.
Quick as a flash, I jumped up out of the creature's way, landing in the water next to the female. I gazed at her for a fraction of a second, but then turned my attention back to the chimera.
Like an arrow I propelled myself out of the water, landing on the bank of the lake. The chimera met me there and its snakelike tale lunged at me, mouth open and ready to bite. I activated my Razor Sharp ability and slashed, but the snake ducked out of the way and retreated.
I tried to jump at the beast myself, but the goat head started spewing flames from its mouth and forced me to back off.
Rather than approach it again, I activated my Gorgon's Eye, but the chimera negated it with its own hypnotic eye ability,
I activated Flames of Wrath and bathed the area the chimera had been standing in with blue fire, but when the flames abated the chimera was nowhere to be found until I noticed it sprinting at me from my right at incredible speed.
Concerned, I activated Predations ability to see its stats
HP: 450/450
MP: 98/124
Stamina: 53/87
Int: 23
Str: 52-20
Dex: 33-20
Spd: 64+64
“Dammit, it must have used a speed boosting ability while it was concealed in the fire!” I thought
This was the chimeras finishing move, the feline heads maw was wide open, the goat was spraying flame out to prevent me from counter attacking in the front, and the snake was keeping its Mythical Snakes Eyes trained on me so that I couldn’t look away without being paralyzed. It was right upon me, ready to tear my throat out and feast.
For certain I had underestimated this foe, I had thought chimera inferior to dragons, but this monster would give any minor dragon a run for its money.
But I wasn’t merely a minor dragon.
Activate
-Can only be learned by one of the 7 ##### ######
-The user must have both
-Can only be learned by those who have mastered cruelty.
Deject the poor, condemn the beggar! Mud and dirt are fit only to be stepped on, so say thou, yet now we be subject to the whims of humans? Heresy. The weak deserve not a scrap of mercy, nor an ounce of pity. Kill them all.
-(Life Drain) unlocked. The User steals 5% of the opponent's life force per minute when this ability is in effect.
-(Lv.3) (Oppressor) unlocked. The user steals 10% of the opponents stats, permanently increasing the users stats and decreasing the opponents.
-Locked-
-Locked-
The chimera suddenly got a lot slower, while I felt myself welling up with speed and strength. In particular I felt my speed increase quite a bit. I jumped up high and the chimera ran right underneath me-straight into the water.
By now the female had gotten out which was fortunate, because now that its movements were hampered I could fire my Flames of Wrath without worrying about the beast dodging.
The beast had just gotten its bearings back after having a chunk of its strength stolen and running head first into a lake. But as it turned around to face what it had originally thought to be easy prey it was greeted by a wall of blue flames. It didn’t have time to jump up, so it decided to dive down instead, thinking the water would protect it from the heat.
But the flames didn’t stop and soon the water became boiling hot, literally cooking the chimera alive. On top of that the goats head was running out of oxygen. Eventually the beast didn’t have a choice but to resurface, the goats head poking above the water only to be burnt to a crisp by the blue fire. Though it didn’t know it, that head was the lucky one.
The other two managed to stay under water for five minutes before they could no longer withstand the super heated water. Only then the chimeras corpse floated belly up, stewed to perfection, did I stop my flames.
“Now” I said to the female, pulling the chimera out of the water by its tail “What do you say we have a chat over breakfast?”
The female nodded, looking away from me with a very embarrassed expression
“V-Very well…” she replied