Page 361
Story: The Dragon of Dreams
Early Afternoon - Late Winter : The Nest
-----
*Vwoop-WHOOM* A heavy wave of mana blew over me the moment I exited the void inside the tree.
However, the moment my aura filled the room and light met my eyes, rather than catching the gaze of a thunderbird several times my size, I found myself face to face with an elder red and gold-scaled dragon.
-H..huh?!- "What are you doing here?" My voice instantly warped with confusion. "You are Chrysí Flóga, right?"
His wings, slightly spread from shock, instantly clamped to his body. "L-L-Lord Ragnarok?!" He immediately threw himself into a panicked bow as his tail curled slightly.
But I instantly took a step back with a slightly horrified expression on my face. "H..how the fuck did you recognize me..?" It was truly odd to feel such a mix of awe, confusion, and disbelief all at the same time.
However, as he finally looked up and noticed my body, he started losing his composure. "A-Ah! I-I apologize, sir! I-I just saw the look in your eyes and thought you were someone-"
"You recognized who I was based on my eyes?!" -What the hell?- I was so taken aback that I forgot why I was even there for a moment.
But it didn't take me long to get a reminder.
*VWOOOM-CRACK* As a mass of aura slammed down on me, the wood beneath my feet splintered, and an eloquent, feminine voice met my ears.
"The mighty Fenrir sprouted wings and horns after growing weak, huh.
.." Disdain coated her voice like poison.
"Is that why you have the etiquette of a dragon? Are you dependent on them after-"
"Fuck off." *VWOOM-CRRUNCH* Cutting her voice short, the towering thunderbird glaring at me from behind Chrysi instantaneously disappeared as its irritating face was slammed through the floor, caving in the tree's trunk before blowing out the walls and ceiling.
The tree, mana strengthened over several millennia, was as strong as mythril, but under the force of my aura, it just turned the tree into a massive fragmentation grenade.
*CL-L-L-L-LATTER* However, as the millions of wooden shards peppered the surrounding area, blowing apart other trees and turning unsuspecting creatures into puffs of blood and fur, the upper half of the tree, losing the support of the tree trunk after it was obliterated, began to fall.
*WOOOOSH* But as the leaves in the collapsing canopy howled and the ground around us darkened under its thickening shadow, my gaze just shifted from Chrysi to the space beneath him and my expression darkened.
*Vwoom* A glow almost instantly appeared within the cloud of dust as the calm voice met my ears again. "How naive."
It was the glow of hundreds of runes. -To use runes while being crushed by my aura.
..- A part of me was quite impressed, but at the same time, there was nothing but irritation on my face.
"No wonder Acanthis managed to fuck up his own race so badly.
.." As the glow grew brighter, I snickered with annoyance.
"His advisor was just as dumb as he is."
*Crackle-brRRRRRMMMM* Nearly instantaneously, a colossal beam of pure energy, almost thirty meters wide, erupted from the runes, spreading into a cone just before it reached me as I used my aura to redirect the insane blast of energy around Chrysi and I.
-To fire off something like that inside the cavern. ..-
It was a blast of several grams of antimatter, more than enough to turn the whole cavern into a microwave and cause liquid rock to rain down like hail.
But it was already obvious she didn't care about the other thunderbirds nearby.
"Oh, how long I've waited for this..." With a hint of craze in her voice, a wave of bloodlust exploded from her.
"Ever since the day I watched you kill my mother.
. since the day you forced us into hiding. . I have yearned for this moment..."
*WOOM* As time began to warp, a god's presence suddenly erupted from her, growing by magnitudes with every passing instant.
"Everyone else has lived in fear.. fear that you would come to kill us off completely, but I.
.." *Crunch* Forcing herself up under my aura, a mix of anger and confidence flooded into her voice.
"I took every waking moment preparing for your return.
.." *WOWOWOOM* Opening her mouth, she exposed a series of black artifacts embedded in her tongue before space started to distort and she began mobilizing her divinity.
"So why don't you follow the wishes of heaven and stretch out your neck. .."
-This.. isn't good...- My expression stiffened and my pupils dilated as my instincts heightened.
With each passing moment, her divine presence grew thicker and heavier, surpassing the likes of Myles, Acanthis, Freya, and even mine as the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Stolen novel; please report.
Before I could do anything, she surpassed all the divinity I had worked to accumulate. Even if I mobilized every spec of divinity I had, I wouldn't be able to catch her. -She might be dangerous...-
But while I needed a plan of some kind, she didn't give me time to think.
*Woop* Watching her instantaneously disappear as if she dematerialized, I ducked down as fast as I could.
But the next thing I knew, a talon caught one of my horns. "Too slow." *THWAAAACKKK-CRACK*
Snapping my horn clean in half, I was instantly launched off the splintered tree trunk, trailing a beam of light before ricocheting off the ground and plowing through another massive tree dozens of kilometers away. *CRRRUNCH*
But as I caught myself within the cloud of debris and gently began speeding up my divinity to try and close the gap between us, the thoughts racing through my mind vanished.
Realizing I had no chance of catching her with my eyes even if I raced every drop of divinity I had as fast as I could, I turned my attention to my aura.
But at that moment, my mind subconsciously switched from communicating with sentences to an endless array of numbers that meshed with my aura to reform the space around me to a map of constantly changing numbers, values, and formulae as if I were looking through the eyes of my soul. (like during the dragon sleeps)
It was a method of reading my aura completely foreign to my memories, but somehow, it carried an indescribable familiarity, as if it were programmed into my soul.
However, even with my efforts over the last week, my brain was not only way too slow for it, my consciousness had no clue how to read it.
"ACK-" The method, while incomparably fast and efficient to the method I was using previously, seemed to speak to my consciousness in a foreign language.
My own brain didn't even know how to read the map that it itself had made.
*VWOOOM* But as my aura exploded, and my mind shredded itself trying to render the map of numbers in my mind, there was an object that appeared right in front of me, and my mind instinctually used the map to respond to it as if to show me how to use it. *Vwoop*
It was her, the 'Secretary', reaching out her talons to grab my face and wing as if wanting to rip me apart with her own hands.
But before a thought could pass through either of our heads, a huge, thirty-meter-wide shard of wood just beneath and behind her flipped upside down before instantaneously disappearing into a column of light that pierced her torso.
However, as my mind slowly caught up to speed and I watched her head, wings, tail, and legs detach from her body, a chill passed down my spine.
The wall pierced by the beam of light, nearly fifty kilometers away, instantaneously ruptured, liquefying and shattering hundreds of kilometers of rock before finally, a beam of sunlight reached me.
*WOOOOOM* The sound was indescribable, like a deep hum coming from the fabric of space itself that you could feel throughout your entire body, but as I watched the wall and ceiling continuously liquify, the view of a bright afternoon sky filled my vision and the sound didn't even register.
In a matter of seconds, a hole hundreds of kilometers wide had been blown through the mountainside, releasing a plume of molten rock into the air as if it were a volcanic eruption before the thunderbirds' perceptions of safety vanished entirely.
However, while many shied away as they finally witnessed the horrors their ancestors had described, others, who had finally seen the endless blue sky for the first time in their lives felt awe, as if ignoring the destruction to observe the beauty of the sky beyond the bounds of the cavern.
The destruction was on such a massive scale it seemed to spread in slow motion, but while everyone else was entranced by it, my body tensed with fear. -That.. was so close to taking my head off...-
Looking back at the detached, feathered head of the secretary as it continued toward me, a heavy air settled around me.
For the first time ever, I feared my own power, not because of what I could do with it, or the responsibility it required to use, but rather because of how easy it was.
Even if I took into account that the secretary had done nothing but accumulate liquid divinity throughout her life, leaving very little crystalline divinity compared to the likes of Acanthis or me, using raw force of momentum to shear divinity, which I believed to be unbreakable by anything dependent on time, was nothing short of horrifying.
If the angle of the flip was a single degree off, I would have taken my own head off, and even if I somehow survived, my face would have been mangled. -If I get into a fight with a creature who can do that...- I would die before I could even react.
Or at least.. that's what I thought...
*Vwoop* Suddenly appearing right in front of my face out of a gate, my gaze landed on Ilios, carrying a completely charred and partially melted shard of wood a few meters long in his mouth. -Is that... There's no way...-
It was a piece of the wooden shard I had just vector flipped, still somehow intact, radiating enough heat to melt mythril like a piece of blazing coal.
But Ilios casually held it in his mouth, proudly wagging his tail as if it were a stick I threw for him.
"Did you.. catch that..?" My thoughts instantly tied into a knot. -Was the sectretary's body just that weak? Are we just that strong? Is he just that fast?- Nothing made sense. If my calculations were right, that fragment of wood was traveling at a speed even light couldn't scoff at.
But as I finally looked deeper into his eyes, there was an image that flashed in my mind.
A 3d map of numbers that replaced the image my aura painted in my mind.
The result of the method that came from the deepest reaches of my soul.
And the result of the next step I was going to have to take.
Read up to 5 chapters ahead of schedule, and get early access to artwork on My Patreon!
(In case Embedded Link doesn't work: /TDOD )
-------------
Also, please feel free to check out our discord for all updates related to TDOD releases! https://discord.gg/Dv7G5bQD4v
All are welcome!
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210
- Page 211
- Page 212
- Page 213
- Page 214
- Page 215
- Page 216
- Page 217
- Page 218
- Page 219
- Page 220
- Page 221
- Page 222
- Page 223
- Page 224
- Page 225
- Page 226
- Page 227
- Page 228
- Page 229
- Page 230
- Page 231
- Page 232
- Page 233
- Page 234
- Page 235
- Page 236
- Page 237
- Page 238
- Page 239
- Page 240
- Page 241
- Page 242
- Page 243
- Page 244
- Page 245
- Page 246
- Page 247
- Page 248
- Page 249
- Page 250
- Page 251
- Page 252
- Page 253
- Page 254
- Page 255
- Page 256
- Page 257
- Page 258
- Page 259
- Page 260
- Page 261
- Page 262
- Page 263
- Page 264
- Page 265
- Page 266
- Page 267
- Page 268
- Page 269
- Page 270
- Page 271
- Page 272
- Page 273
- Page 274
- Page 275
- Page 276
- Page 277
- Page 278
- Page 279
- Page 280
- Page 281
- Page 282
- Page 283
- Page 284
- Page 285
- Page 286
- Page 287
- Page 288
- Page 289
- Page 290
- Page 291
- Page 292
- Page 293
- Page 294
- Page 295
- Page 296
- Page 297
- Page 298
- Page 299
- Page 300
- Page 301
- Page 302
- Page 303
- Page 304
- Page 305
- Page 306
- Page 307
- Page 308
- Page 309
- Page 310
- Page 311
- Page 312
- Page 313
- Page 314
- Page 315
- Page 316
- Page 317
- Page 318
- Page 319
- Page 320
- Page 321
- Page 322
- Page 323
- Page 324
- Page 325
- Page 326
- Page 327
- Page 328
- Page 329
- Page 330
- Page 331
- Page 332
- Page 333
- Page 334
- Page 335
- Page 336
- Page 337
- Page 338
- Page 339
- Page 340
- Page 341
- Page 342
- Page 343
- Page 344
- Page 345
- Page 346
- Page 347
- Page 348
- Page 349
- Page 350
- Page 351
- Page 352
- Page 353
- Page 354
- Page 355
- Page 356
- Page 357
- Page 358
- Page 359
- Page 360
- Page 361 (Reading here)
- Page 362
- Page 363
- Page 364
- Page 365
- Page 366
- Page 367
- Page 368
- Page 369
- Page 370
- Page 371
- Page 372
- Page 373
- Page 374
- Page 375
- Page 376
- Page 377
- Page 378
- Page 379
- Page 380
- Page 381
- Page 382
- Page 383
- Page 384
- Page 385
- Page 386
- Page 387
- Page 388
- Page 389
- Page 390
- Page 391
- Page 392
- Page 393
- Page 394
- Page 395
- Page 396
- Page 397
- Page 398
- Page 399
- Page 400
- Page 401
- Page 402
- Page 403
- Page 404
- Page 405
- Page 406
- Page 407
- Page 408
- Page 409
- Page 410
- Page 411
- Page 412
- Page 413
- Page 414
- Page 415
- Page 416
- Page 417
- Page 418
- Page 419
- Page 420
- Page 421
- Page 422
- Page 423
- Page 424
- Page 425
- Page 426
- Page 427
- Page 428
- Page 429
- Page 430
- Page 431
- Page 432
- Page 433
- Page 434
- Page 435
- Page 436
- Page 437
- Page 438
- Page 439
- Page 440
- Page 441
- Page 442
- Page 443
- Page 444