Standing up and looking around on the dimly lit temple let me see who we were fighting. Out of an estimated hundred enemies sent to kill Colbert half had to have been killed by us, however the ones that lagged behind were the better equipped knights, paladins and warriors. The shuffling of armour could be heard coming from all directions as I looked at a few leather clad individuals surrounding me.

Deciding not waste time and instead to act on my new conviction I proceeded to crouch down onto all fours, my tail whipping out and striking some soldier behind me, which in turn sent him tumbling into the eternal darkness below.

*Thud*Thud*Thud

Directly in front of me was an archer wearing leather, while the swordsman was better equipped with chainmail covering his full body and head. This would be problematic to deal with as I can not pierce through the mail, so my focus instead went for his face.

Lunging forward at the man while he drew the kite shield in his left hand over to his chest and pointed his sword at me, resulted in me being partially impaled over his weapon. Unfortunately the sword broke a quarter of the way into my stomach before he lost his grip on the weapon and I slammed into him at full force, the thwack that I made on impact sounded as though it was the swordsman who just ran into a wall rather than a wall ramming into him.

Falling on the ground hard had knocked all the air out of the man, his face was in an ‘O’ shape but with no air coming out, allowing me to simply land on top of him and wrap my jaws around his head. The shield under me tried to lift me up but the right hand flailing around for a damaged sword, and the left hand being insufficient in even slightly lifting me off, was proved to be pointless as I squished his head until his eyes popped out of their sockets, until his screams of terror stopped only to be followed by a *crack as bone, blood and brain flew into my mouth.

Letting my jaw relax while standing up allowed the corpse to partially rise and then fall to a wet *Thwack as the bloodied chain mail splashed blood at the archers feet, the darkness hiding any complex emotions on the poor creatures soul. However the eyes never lie, with hazel eyes reflecting dim light coming from torches up above along with flashes of magic as the battle between the party and the general rages on. This moment felt like it went on for minutes but in truth I had snapped my jaws shut around those orbs far too quickly to enjoy the moment, the hazel eyes reminded me of my masters own eyes, to whom I had been bound and not allowed to feel my bestial emotions.

Although she never told me to act more human, in fact I was once the one who wanted to be human until the fear of being eaten forced my weaker side to subside, but it was also her who enslaved me and brought my humanity back, but she did not know until the truth was shown to her by Colbert.

‘Who set me free?’

My master, or was it the temple that brought attention to my lack of will?

Climbing up and over the ledge I had to stop thinking about the contrasting hazel eyes, one filled with fear while the other with absolute authority. Standing up to my full height I got to witness a one sided slaughter, the man was of the same height as Allelu, however his physical strength far surpassed my own as he casually swung his sword with both hands and destroyed the knights guard.

With a single swing Allelu had her sword bent at the point of impact as she herself lost her left arm when her own two handed sword bent and was ripped out of her grasp, resulting in the hand being dropped on the ground while the rest of her body was sent off to the side, it happened so easily that I had thought that my mind had tricked me.

*Thunk *Clank *Thud

However, Allelu was truly not on the peak anymore.

My mind was frozen, I could only watch as the previously diminutive man felt like he was a giant, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Staring at the engraved armours back of the man made me think, I could potentially win against the paladin but this general was something else, not even I could throw Allelu so far in her full armour, the weak and squishy humans had sent someone terrifying and I was locked in here with him.

I could not take a step forward, for the first time in a while I felt small and insignificant since becoming a dragonkin, I had tasted defeat in the past but not even the hydra had felt so terrifying. The spiders had swarmed me but they could barely pierce my scales, this was not on the same level of threat that I had faced in the past as this was actual danger from the time when a maned wolf could gulp me down, this man could just as easily cleave me in half from head to toe.

Marie and Sofia had similar looks of shock, while Colber had not changed from last time with a pink skin colour that told me he knew from the start what would happen. The once red demon knew there was no getting out of this fight alive for him or us, this would just be considered another failed expedition into Deep Woods from the dukes of Snout Port son, meanwhile we were nothing more than eyewitnesses that had to be silenced.

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Once the general was within reach of Colbert with his sword, he pulled his weapon over his head and swung down in a taunting manner as though daring the pink demon to dodge an earth shattering attack. This was when a sense of impending doom hit me.

My heart thrummed and my chest hurt when the sword had struck down, the feeling of impending doom had then changed to one of imminent death, as my eyes felt heavy and as my chest thrummed with out of control power. Feeling as though my heart was in a cage three sizes too small for it, with it beating against its railings so hard that I could tell every rung that made up the cage apart. After a momentary black out I could barely just make out the scene before me.

Sofia was cleaved in half, from her right shoulder blade and down to her left hip, two pieces having intestines spilling out from between them as though attempting to join back together. The blood quickly leaving her body through the two pieces, leaving Colbert to by lying within it at the bloodied feet of Marie with her dagger drawn, face etched in horror after witnessing another party member killed.

Thrumming in my chest felt unbearable as it resonated with the death of my master, I might not have liked Sofia but she had never sent me in to my death, and had even bandaged me up earlier along with Allelu.

Darkening around the edges of my eyes was quickly becoming worse as my heart was torn, by the cage and the emotions of seeing someone so easily killed before me, as that someone was actually a nice person to me.

With nothing left to lose I threw myself head first at the general, but just as I had thought he was toying with us all along, the pommel of his broadsword quickly flashed out and without looking at me he scored a direct hit on my snout. Crippling pain rang through my body as I flailed around on the ground while my claws weakly held my snout, blood pouring in copious amounts and the pain feeling worse than being eaten alive.

Large amounts of nerves are located in my snout for heightened smelling, so taking such a powerful hit which also most likely broke the bone of my skull underneath felt unimaginably painful. I could hear very little around myself as enemy forces made their way onto the platform, with me not stopping until they drew their own broadswords and stabbed me in my tail with one.

*Aaahhhh

I continued to struggle for a while more until my snout got better over time, with the pain in my snout subsiding to unbearable levels I could just barely look around myself, however even if this made me aware of my surroundings the pain was still splitting my head in half along with fading vision I saw more darkness than light.

The armoured figures standing around me and behind two kneeling figures, both of which had to be Colbert and Marie as the general stood in front of them. He waited for a while longer until the entire upper platform was filled with armoured figures and a small circle was left in the centre. I was pinned to one side of the circle, while on the other was the remaining party members were looking to the side at the general who was out of my view.

I was not focusing at anything at all until heavy footsteps on the eerily silent mountain peak came up to me.

*Thwack

A fist hit the side of my face, flaring up my incredibly painful snout and forcing me to writhe once more.

*Hahaha

Laughter came from all around me as I was mocked by these weaklings, were it not for their general I could have potentially had a fighting chance against them.

General: “You have caused a great deal of problems for me today, inhuman scum.”

Colbert: “You are the ones who decided to step into Deep Wood in order to find and kill me.”

Looking around through blurry vision I spotted the golden scale, reflecting within itself so much power. Once again I felt like I remembered my pride, however when I tried to rise from my position on the ground my arms were incapable of holding my upper body, making me fall back down.

*Thump

General: “You can stay there Dragonkin, you will be dealt with back in the capital for your peoples crimes, with Zeus as the judge, jury and executioner.”

The sneer in his words seemed to be quietly echoed by all the people around, as restrained shuffling could be heard but no one moved against me.

Colbert: “The Draconic empire fell a long time ago, why do you seek vengeance?”

General: “You dare think that just because we are shorter lived we would forget past wrong doings easily? We are guided by the will of our Gods and they seek vengeance.”

Colbert: “All that was dealt with long before you, the only gripes that you can have are here and now, not with long gone empires.”

General: “Playing us humans for fools, exactly how I would expect a demon to behave. Simply because the past is gone does not mean that this makes you innocent and washes all the blood off of your hands. Even now your kind eats our peoples souls, enslaving them to menial labour under terrible conditions before being sacrificed to evil Gods like Dagon. With the Draconid empire gone we are still feasted upon by their people, the empire might not have land but their people live free to pillage and raid us with no consequences.”

Colbert: “How is killing someone unrelated going to stop this?”

General: “Silence you demon, your silver tongue will not be able to save you from our judgement now so prepare to die, and after this we shall publicly execute the demon in the capital while the witch of an elf serves as a cheap whore for the brothels in the capital.”

Thinking about what is being said is hard, however I have been able to crawl my way over to the scale and from what I could understand none of us are getting out of this situation as anything other than slaves at best, although I highly doubt I will live longer than a mayfly if ingesting the scale does not help.

Engulfing the scale and swallowing it does nothing at first, as I carefully watch the general move behind Colberts back while he says something that I can no longer make out. My vision goes black before returning later, peering down at Colberts execution, but not before having a talk with someone important.