While life was being brought to one mountain range or just celebrating freedom that had been granted to them while, within another, there was no such positive energy within another expanse. One could almost say that the complete opposite atmosphere existed within the once fabled & mystical Heavenly Mountains that served as Azure Dragon’s home as well as that of his descendents. Both a home & birth place for many of the world's strongest.

At one point it was known for a dignified beauty - appearing like ladders past the clouds above and into the Heavenly Realm itself - yet none of that grace could be seen. Many of the unconquerable peaks no longer existed. Those mighty cliffs appeared as if someone had taken bites out from their massive spires.

With each bite the next became bigger.

Although that brought up the terrifying question of what kind of beast could do such a thing without being stopped by the powerful residents. Truthfully that wasn’t far from the truth of what happened yet it was technically no beast that did all of this to these sky dragons. It also wasn’t just the mountains that received damage as (obviously) those prideful lizards would never let some invader do what they want.

The thick scent of the powerful bloodline was rolling off those mountains that acted like a bridge to the two major continents of the world. That once bountiful forest below - acting like an easy hunting ground for the thousands of mighty dragons that had their dens in the cliffs - was now desolate at best. Once verdant green now painted red with countless blue, yellow & white feathers floating inside the morbid soup.

Those once mighty dragons now scattered below with various parts of their body missing. A lot of them didn’t even have instantly lethal wounds yet they were left to bleed out in the chaos that occurred; both young and old left to die in the same pit. Despair visible on the faces of those who still had enough of their scaled faces intact to even read an expression.

However, those with so much of their head left ended up being a minority.

Despite that… There was no mourning to be seen.

A person from the mortal races may find it strange that there was actually no aura of sadness no matter where one looked. Nevertheless, just like should be expected by now, these dragons were the most arrogant out of all the already arrogant dragons. To them there was no need to pity those who died because they were too pathetic to prevent the cause of their death.

They were the strongest race that decided what was right & wrong so (to them) it was a sign of being not worthy of living if you either weren’t them or died against someone who wasn’t them. It was a cruel belief that saw husbands spitting on the corpses of their wives or killing their wounded children with their very own claws in order to preserve their blood. Afterall, they can’t possibly be part of their bloodline if they were so badly wounded in such a situation.

Not even their ancestors would get in the way of the parents' cruel actions as they would have done the exact same thing if those parent’s didn’t finish the job. Nothing could be left to shame them. Yet - within all this coldness - there was a single individual who was above all of this despite also being injured.

One could say that it was due to him not being wounded by the same “thing” but the difference in treatment was far too vast for such an excuse to be convincing.

The real reason for the differing treatment, inside the highest cave cum den upon the highest apex in the array of countless summits, was that it was the Azure Dragon himself who was recovering. Instead of being scorned he was surrounded by a dozen ancient dragons who all showed great concern while bringing countless rare herbs to help in his recovery. Even then he didn’t seem satisfied as he soon exploded out into a menacing roar that got all of them to fall to the ground.

“Did you find any information on who let the void encroach on my territory or even how they managed to do something like that under your nose!”

Those dragons (with at least tens of thousands of years of life behind them) looked around at each other as if children were trying to throw the task off to someone else. All unwilling to initially speak up until the youngest thus weakest was finally stared at by the other hateful lizards. Unfortunately he had no choice.

“We have managed to successfully rule out any of the other cardinal beast clans as well as there being no sign of primordial gods coming do-”

“I DIDN’T ASK WHAT YOU FAILED TO LEARN!”

The supposed lord of all dragons bellowed out while grinding his claws against the stone ground. Luckily from them; he wasn’t exactly in the best state of being, unwilling to move too much in case he only increased his injuries. Just barring his fangs towards those already fearful descendents of his.

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“Tell me who attacked us!”

That clearly made the dragons even more nervous than before.

“We… Don’t know; we’re assuming it was another dragon clan or the beast empire with our agents finding some trails within the latter but…”

“... But…?”

His voice came out as calm yet no one there was anywhere near believing that to be the actual truth when it came to this inner feelings.

“All the trails went cold just like others ones related to this “Little Black Cat Mafia”; I’m not even sure what organisation it could be. They were so well covered that we thought that maybe it was someone planting false leads - we even thought that maybe it was that dumb drake getting clever - but in the end all we found was some sick Radiant Lioness. She was so ill that it’s amazing she’s even alive-”

“SO YOU’RE TELLING ME YOU ONLY FOUND A SCAPEGOAT - THEN AT LEAST BRING ME HER HEAD SO I CAN *COUGH*!”

The damage he received was far more nefarious than he first thought - worse was that he didn’t know who could possibly be the one who caused it. All he knew was that the energy within his body was in complete turmoil as he showed signs of ageing… Ageing like a mortal.

All he had found was this strange unknown energy but whenever he tried to get a hold of it, it gluttonously swallowed his internal energy or divine sense, leaving his only option being the sight granted to him by his title as the heavens. Still that didn’t help as all he found out was it was a completely sadistic & malevolent energy similar but also very different than spirit energy.

Like someone had twisted spiritual energy to be as hateful as possible.

“Any sight of… Those women?”

For some reason he couldn’t get the pair out of his head and finally, after a long amount of sitting on it, he found out why that second mature lady felt so similar. She looked shockingly similar to Gaia and even wore the hat of the primordial god… As well as having the same aura as her daughter.

“No…”

He wasn’t surprised since one of them should be dead while the other could get around even his heavenly blessed sight.

“Have we received any information on when those drakes are going to act - I put a lot of resources into those hard headed idiots so that queen better get her tail moving soon. I want to get rid of the foxes as soon as we find out who attacked us. Although I don’t want her to jump the gun.”

“... They kept refusing to explain their preparations.”

“...”

“Please don’t get angry with your ancestors; you’ll only get more ill!”

Being reminded that he was even wounded only made him angrier which in turn made the damage to his body aggravate more that also did the same to his mood.

His body was covered in burns while the injury that hurt the most was the smallest in scale of them all - a single puncture wound that appeared on his torso. Technically it wasn’t lethal as it only hit his muscle layer yet that didn’t change the fact that it hurt much more than any of the burns. Not to mention it, for some reason he couldn’t understand, refused to heal no matter what treasure he greedily scarfed down.

What made it all the worse… Was that it was done by someone he let live out of sheer amusement for her pointless struggles.

The cruelty he had long fostered into the very DNA of his race came to bite him back.

How could he not be angry?

“I CAN’T EVEN GET REVENGE DUE TO THAT BITCHES DAUGHTER; THAT GODDAMN SCALELESS BITCH WILL SUFFER I SWEAR!”