Durreg and I made our way home, where mom was waiting for us at the gate.

“Hurry on inside.” She said tensely, and we silently moved past her and into the house.

She followed behind us, closing the fence gate and the door behind her.

“What is that mana pillar, Aunt Azoth? I’ve never seen anything like it.” Durreg asked.

“Neither have I, Durreg. In the thousands of years I’ve lived, I haven’t seen such a concentration of mana, let alone one erupting from the Unfathomable Abyss.”

“What’s going to happen now?” I asked.

“I am willing to wager that monsters are going to overflow from the serpent’s throat in the hundreds of thousands, rendering its surface uninhabitable. Monsters that can fly or swim will likely make their way out into the rest of the continent, spreading untold amounts of destruction and death on the human population. And I fear that that’s not the worst part.”

“…What could be worse than the largest monster horde in history?” Durreg asked nervously.

At this moment, the door opened behind us, and Auntie Ighir entered the house.

“Many more things than you might expect, and some of those we’ve got to worry about.” She answered, closing the door behind her.

“How is it, Ighir?”

“Even worse than expected. Anywhere near the island is even thicker with mana than the third layer, and most in-land areas had second-layer levels of mana, even past the very edges of the continent’s outer coasts.” She said grimly.

“Sooo… Why is that bad?” I asked.

“Dungeon monsters aren’t only born through reproduction. With enough mana, normal animals may absorb it and transform into monsters. With enough saturated mana, they can even be born out of thin air. If that wasn’t the case, every monster would have been driven to extinction – at least excluding those below the third layer.” Aunt Ighir explained.

Hearing that explanation, I quickly began seeing where their concerns were coming from.

“Well, what do we do now?” Durreg asked.

“We’re going back to the Draconic Isles. We have no reason to risk your lives by staying here.” Mom answered.

“What’s going to happen to the humans of the continent in the meantime, if staying here is dangerous for dragons as powerful as we are?” I asked.

“The people on the Serpent’s Throat are already a lost cause. Even if all four of us went, we’d never be able to kill all the monsters coming out of the dungeon, and that’s not including the potential rank S monsters that may have appeared. As for Kengir, it has the greatest number of classers within a city in the entire continent, on top of having the most powerful of the gods as its ruler. It’s likely the safest place on the continent. The other nations, except for the Latium Republic, have gods in all their major cities, so they’ll likely survive the initial, unconcentrated wave of monsters. That said, the Latium Republic is also the largest nation and has the largest land army, so they’ll likely weather the storm as well.” Mom said.

“While that’s reassuring, there are more people living outside of the cities than in them. What happens to them?” Durreg asked.

“I can’t say, since we’re not in charge of the human nations. However, with the exception of Kengir, they might try to slow down the hordes and escort villagers into a city to better defend them.”

Alarm bells began ringing in my head at a part of what auntie just said.

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“…Why would Kengir be an exception?” I asked hesitantly.

Mom heaved a heavy sigh.

“Likely because of the way God-King Katu thinks and acts. He is the god of heroes, and he greatly appreciates powerful warriors, skilled craftsmen, eloquent poets, and any other talented classers. In contrast, he holds contempt for the ordinary and poor, and this attitude seeps through the entire country’s behavior. To nurture talent, he gathered most of the country’s urban dwellers into a single great city and invested great wealth into the Kengir Academy. The remaining villages and port town exist to support the city, though it’s likely their use would be limited at best, given the monster horde. It’s not hard to imagine that he would willingly let the people outside of the city die if for every hundred dead, a desperate classer emerged. In fact, I cannot imagine him doing otherwise.”

My face paled the longer the explanation went on, and even Durreg was rendered speechless.

“Look, I am no hero, but leaving people to die without so much as a warning feels wrong to me. We’ve got the wings and the ability to escape from a monster horde; the least we can do is go to warn them ourselves!”

“Is your Tameryian friend rubbing off on you? It’s not too surprising, now that I think about it.” Mom chuckled before shaking her head and continuing.

“We’re not the guardians of the humans, Kiara. They’ve spurned us once before during the Celestial War; we’ve no reason to risk life and limb on their behalf, when they’d made their stance against us so clear.” She said grimly.

Something about what mom said made my chest hurt a lot.

“But what do the humans of today have to do with that?! Or me, for that matter?! I wasn’t around for that war. It’s not going to cost us anything to go and tell them to run to the city for shelter!” I protested.

“We should have at least a few hours before the earliest monsters arrive. But that’s not enough to get ordinary humans all the way to safety in time, and I doubt you could protect them all on your own.” Mom retorted, a hint of frustration showing on her face.

The pain in my chest grew, and I felt my own emotions moving in turmoil.

“The academy’s right there! I am sure there are people who would happily join us if we explained that to them! Why are you so opposed to helping people just because they’re humans?!” I yelled in outrage.

A moment of silence soon followed, as I realized why my chest hurt so much.

“…Would you have let me die too if I was born a human?” I whispered, tears beginning to form at the edges of my eyes.

Mom immediately moved in to hug me.

“Of course not, sweety. You’re my daughter no matter what, and I won’t let anyone lay a finger on you while I still draw breath.” She said, wiping my tears from my face.

She lowered herself to speak to me at the same level.

“I am sorry I didn’t realize how my words may have hurt you. You’re right, the humans are innocent of what their forefathers may have done, and I allowed my own experiences from the past to create prejudices.” She said softly.

I hugged mom back, and the knot in my stomach slowly unraveled.

“We should let them go on that rescue mission. It’ll give them a good opportunity to gain feats for evolutions and advancements. Coddling them too much would inhibit their growth.” Aunt Ighir said.

Mom kept quiet for a while before nodding.

“Durreg, make sure to take Kiara back with you the moment things get dangerous. I don’t want either of you getting seriously injured or killed. Got it?”

“I’ll drag her back here kicking and screaming if I have to.” He answered with a grin.

“But what will you two be doing?” I asked, getting out of mom’s embrace and wiping my eyes.

The two looked to each other for a moment then back to me.

“We’ll be slowing down the horde for you, since you seem so adamant on doing this.” Mom answered.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve let loose. What do you say we bet on who kills more monsters?” Aunt Ighir asked mom with a cheeky smile.

Exasperated, mom chuckled.

“We’ll be fighting over the open sea, Ighir. Do you really think you can do more damage than me in such an environment?”

“Well, of course, that only makes it an even match.” She laughed, and a competitive glint appeared in both their eyes.

Durreg sighed.

“Let’s go, cousin. If we’re going through with this, then time is of the essence.”

“Before you go-” Mom interjected, “-I’ve got something for you, Kiara.”

She quickly went into her own room upstairs, then come down with my newly upgraded Tyrant Gorilla leather armor. The armor had the Crowned Frost Eagle’s feathers woven into it, with faint, snow-white, glowing mana lines arranged in beautiful patterns all over it. In the center of the chest piece was the mana core, where all the lines intersected.

“I’ve enchanted this armor to morph into whatever form you choose to take. It will even create a saddle for your draconic form, so you don’t have to lug that ugly thing around with you wherever you go. It’ll also clean and repair itself for you, if you feed it mana.” Mom said with a hint of pride.

My eyes widened with excitement, and I reached for the armor, but mom wasn’t done explaining just yet.

“The armor inherited the natural cold resistance of the feathers, and I also added a few secret additions of my own. Take care not to lose or damage it beyond repair. Now go and change into it before you take off!” she said, handing the armor to me.

I didn’t need to be told twice and rushed to my room to do as she said.