"Elves? What do you want them for?" Arnold asked in puzzlement.
Raphael didn't want to tell him about the experiments he was secretly supporting, so he made an excuse, "Well...I heard there is a secret medicine that can heal Nana's wounds over there, so I'm planning to check it out along the way."
The golden dragon nodded in understanding, "I see!"
After staying with the unrestrained red dragon for so long, Arnold's moral compassion had uncontrollably declined. At least when it came to choosing between helping a friend or the lives of another race, he would now turn a blind eye to the latter.
The two dragons flew swiftly, and the cold winter weather made them miserable. The vast white landscape covered up all the distinct environments within the Dragon Domain. A first-time visitor would never have imagined that hundreds of dragons and millions of dragon kins lived beneath this unremarkable land.
They flew from dawn until dusk before finally arriving at Dragon Council in the central region.
"Do you need to go in and report first?" Raphael asked, shaking the snow off his four wings.
"No need, let's just go in together," Arnold replied with a frown, carefully tucking his tail exposed outside the heating barrier back to keep warm.
Raphael didn't stand on ceremony and flew straight towards the towering structure standing on the ground. Even his 200-plus meter body looked tiny in front of this massive building.
"I am Calamity Demon Raphael! I have urgent business!" he roared loudly as he hovered in the air, and soon two dragons came flying over upon hearing his voice.
"Emersen? Long time no see. Oh! Rochester! Should I call you father-in-law? It's a human custom that turns out my mate's parents also becoming my relatives."
Raphael greeted the two dragons with a mocking tone, casually spewing a wisp of flame from his nostrils to form a swirling vortex for warmth and illumination.
Hearing that familiar voice, Emersen couldn't help but shudder, recalling the beating he took from this vicious red dragon back in the West Trade Valley.
"Ah, Calamity Demon. Congratulations on defeating the humans," the silver dragon said with feigned courtesy, his vertical pupils scanning up and down the brilliantly glowing crimson dragon, also glancing at the exhausted and cold-fearing Arnold behind him.
The blue dragon Rochester, however, was less friendly, "Raphael! I don't care what secret deals you have with the humans or groups like Herazanthos and the Aire Faction! But involving my daughter is your problem!"
Raphael suddenly turned his head, light glowing in his abdomen for a breath attack.
"What are you trying to say? Take her away from me? I don't mind being the dragon slayer again, just like what I did to Augustus and Yuranda!"
"You! Don't let power blind you!"
Rochester didn't expect this red dragon to still have such vile conduct after all this time.
He only meant to remind Raphael not to be too reckless, but the single-minded Raphael immediately confronted him.
"Hmph! Say it straight! I'm here to see Draconic Sage, so let me in!" Raphael arrogantly turned his head away and commanded impatiently.
The old blue dragon felt a surge of anger rising within him. Although his breath was icy blizzard, he could still sense the simmering high temperatures of the red and golden dragon breeds.
"Forget it..." Emersen pulled Rochester with his claw, signaling him not to act rashly over some minor issues.
"Haven't you figured out this red dragon's temperament yet? Arguing on the surface is meaningless. He's now the focus of our faction, helmsman Herazanthos said to accommodate him as much as possible."
Rochester glared resentfully at this vicious dragon who had somehow won his daughter's heart, then reluctantly used exclusive draconic magic to open the invisible barrier above Dragon Council to let them in.
Seeing the entrance open, Raphael immediately charged in, dragging Arnold with him.
"Achoo!"
The anti-magic field inside Dragon Council took effect immediately, dispelling the golden dragon's heating spell. The huge temperature difference made him sneeze uncontrollably.
"So that's why I told you to train your body more. It would increase the intensity of your breath and generate more heat to keep you warm in winter," Raphael joked with a smile.
This reminded Arnold of the past. When they were young and went on adventures, they often spent years in the wilderness without any heating means, as they needed to conserve their mana to deal with potential threats.
The two little dragons had to huddle together to stay warm with each other's body heat. Raphael had the advantage then, being as hot as a human hot water bottle. Arnold had to hug him tightly to prevent frostbite, a habit that lingered to this day.
"Why did you have to be so dramatic? Was it worth making all those dragons who dislike you here?" Arnold shivered and leaned closer, drawn by the heat radiating from the red dragon like a campfire.
Raphael snorted coldly, "Rochester is Nana's father. For the sake of his own daughter, he wouldn't undermine me at a critical moment and might even help me. So it doesn't matter how I treat him as long as I don't go too far."
"As for Emersen..." He stopped in front of a tall gate. "I just don't like him."
Arnold fell silent for a moment, then realized they had arrived at his father's residence.
"Hmm..." He landed and crawled to the door, giving it a few light knocks before carefully peeking through the crack.
"Come in."
Arnold waved to Raphael with his claw and pushed the tall gate open to crawl inside.
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Crimson Dragon followed closely behind. As soon as he entered, he felt a warm spring-like breeze, undoubtedly from some kind of magical item in operation.
Looking around, the place was piled high with all sorts of books and materials, so many that they reached the ceiling, turning the interior into a complex maze.
The partially open vents had been blocked to keep out the cold wind, leaving the surroundings dim with only slivers of light peeking through the bookshelves to guide the two dragons.
Arnold crawled familiarly deeper inside, while Raphael curiously stayed behind, randomly pulling out a book to read.
"'Dragons and Death'? What kind of book is this?"
He flipped through it casually. Apparently it was written by an author seven thousand years ago, when there was no concept of magic yet. Dragons frequently went out to pillage in order to satisfy the hunger of their kin, usually in what is now the Morey Plain and Strife Plain.
There was little leisure time for any dragon to compile books during that period. The three issues of food, mating, and offspring constantly plagued them.
Dragons who ate dirt could barely sustain their own lives, let alone have the vitality to breed dragon eggs. So a stable food source was the basic condition to attract female dragons as mates. Without magic to assist, the males could only regularly harvest from other civilizations, but not excessively or the prey would flee.
The offspring issue was also a major challenge. Pregnant female dragons could not move too much for hundreds of years, so the males had to take on the responsibilities of defense, food gathering, and caring for the newborn hatchlings after birth. There was simply no spare time for other pursuits.
"The author dissected the bodies of his own kind for research? That's bold!"
Raphael didn't even read a few pages before coming across vividly depicted anatomical drawings of dragon corpses, with the cross-sections revealing all the internal organs.
"...According to my experiments using the ancestral potion recipes: I found that when dragons die completely, their corpses turn colorless or gray in the test solution, while any other lifeform turns yellow, white or black. This made me very curious, because in subsequent experiments, stones and rotten deadwood also turned the test solution colorless or gray, reminding me that our dragons can survive by eating stones and dirt..."
"...Does this mean that our dragons' death is a form of reincarnation? Only our lifeforms completely change..."
Raphael became more and more engrossed as he read on, never imagining that a real dragon from thousands of years ago could have such bizarre ideas.
"How do you find this book? I spent a great effort to retrieve it from the ice sea, and then poured immense resources into restoring it," a composed and wise voice suddenly rang out.
Raphael looked up to see Arnathus had appeared beside him.
The sage was crouched down with his upper body raised, draped in a silk-like shawl. A pair of intelligent golden eyes were framed by a crystal glasses, one side protruding like a telescope likely used for studying magic.
"Wise Draconic Sage, I apologize for my previous offenses against you," Raphael said with a slight feigned bow.
But Arnathus had long seen through this dragon's true nature and didn't expect a major personality change anytime soon.
"May I ask what brings you here? Arnold said you had business with me," Arnathus said politely. Arnold then appeared silently behind him, not daring to speak.
Instead of stating his purpose directly, Raphael held up the book in his claw. "Could you lend me this insightful and unconventional book for a few days? It's rare for me to be so captivated by writing."
Arnathus narrowed his eyes and crawled over, gently taking the book back from the red dragon's grasp.
"This is by the Second Sin Dragon Mistrala, a dreadful butcher who lived around 3900 to 4300 years ago in the Yoddim Era."
"Oh?" Raphael's interest was piqued. He only knew that there were six recorded Sin Dragons throughout dragons' history, all of whom committed heinous crimes and were publicly tortured to death.
Other minor Sin Dragons guilty of smaller mistakes were only exiled to the ice sea for a period before being allowed to return.
Only these six were infamously remembered for eternity, often used by parents to scare misbehaving hatchlings.
Draconic Sage flipped through the book as he explained, "Mistrala hatched from an egg spawned by a green dragon and black dragon pairing. It was said his scales had an eerie purple hue in the dim forests, and not only could he command the nurturing power of the magic woods, he also possessed the abilities to create poisonous mists and spread plagues, calling himself the 'Disaster Dragon.'"
"No wonder you all gave me the title 'Calamity Demon'. You were comparing me to him, maybe even wanting to turn me into the Seventh Sin Dragon?" Raphael joked with a smile.
But Arnathus shook his head. "He was far more terrifying than you. At least your goals align with common sense and you still have some friends. You're just ill-tempered and stubborn. Mistrala, on the other hand, seemed to discover his own peculiarities. Aberrant individuals often appeared back then, you should know why from the Golden Flame Mother's notes about Behemoth, right?"
"Yeah," Raphael recalled the Behemoth torn apart and devoured by the dragon masses.
"But Mistrala became obsessed with history from this, trying every means to understand the mysterious past of this continent before the Jotton Era was established."
"However, some of the original councilors were still alive then, and Mistrala could not steal or deceive them to obtain those notes containing the buried secrets, since he himself was not a descendant of the councilors. So he turned his attention to the dragons themselves instead.
"This was his purpose for stealing dragon corpses then?" Raphael suddenly realized.
Arnathus smiled slightly: "Little Raphael, think about it, where did he get so many dragon corpses from the wild?"
"This...he created the corpses!" Raphael suddenly realized.
When dragons died, they never left remains, instead choosing to fly away. It was impossible for their bones to be buried here.
"Correct. The interrogation records from that year recorded that Mistrala first tried to lie in wait over the Arctic Ocean to follow elder dragons, dragging them back to study after they died. But he quickly realized it could take hundreds of years for a dragon to die and leave, and venturing outside the Dragon Domain risked being sentenced to true exile in the Arctic Ocean."
"He started by lying in wait near elderly dragons following them, planning to take their bodies after they perished. But he soon found that dragons could live for centuries without dying, and venturing outside the Dragon Domain risked being judged and truly exiled to the ice sea."
"So he could only experiment on himself, gradually studying the process. Until one day, his own mate suddenly fell deathly ill."
"What happened?" Raphael asked with anticipation.
"The records state his wife was a silver dragon who preferred the cold highland climate. But to accommodate Mistrala, she lived for years in the humid, sweltering rainforests shrouded in his poisonous miasma. An ordinary black dragon could perhaps endure it, but Mistrala was an aberrant - his wife grew extremely frail after laying eggs and succumbed to the toxins."
Raphael was stunned, as this reminded him of Nana, whose physiological habits were so mismatched with him.
Arnathus continued, "Faced with his wife's corpse, Mistrala began an internal struggle. In the interrogation records, he said he experienced an extraordinary dissociative state, which eventually transcended morality and reason in his pursuit of the world's truths."
"So his wife became the first experiment subject. Much of modern dragonologists' basic knowledge originated from Mistrala's work as the source."
"However, the silver dragon alone could not satisfy Mistrala's curiosity. He began collecting scales from other dragons to study. As his experiments hit bottlenecks, he resorted to using his aberrant powers and some lost potion recipes to poison and kill one innocent dragon after another. The experiments rapidly progressed, and he eventually did not hesitate to slay underage hatchlings or steal and experiment on dragon eggs."
"Finally, one of the original councilors intervened, venturing deep into the toxic woods dragons feared to drag out this criminal mastermind. Mistrala was ultimately impaled on a stone pillar, with his scales and flesh flayed off by shells before being burned to ashes and frozen shards to be scattered into the ice sea."
"He deserved his fate..." Raphael murmured in relief.
Then he wondered aloud, "But why did Mistrala shift his obsession to studying ancient dragons in the middle? What drove him to such extremes?"
"Unknown," Arnathus shook his head. "This book 'Dragons and Death' is something I accidentally came across when it was recovered. It only contains Mistrala's hypotheses and experiment logs, not his motivations. Oh, the later green dragon Prulis was actually his descendant."
"What? Prulis? The Prulis Faction?" Raphael exclaimed in shock.