Page 437

Early Morning - Late Winter - Year 24 : Acardi Wreckage Island

-----

*Fsssshhhh-Crackle* Watching glass inside the pit glow after reinforcing it, I flew just over the ocean, keeping my breaths long and still as if preparing to dive into something irreversable.

Beneath me, the exposed Acardi superstructure laid like the exposed tomb of a deity from a time long past—a vast metal grave laced with the scars of a story the world had tried to bury and forget.

Yet after being exposed to sunlight for the first time in countless millennia, rather than hungering to uncover more, I hovered above it.. contemplating whether or not to bury it again.

Truth be told, I was anxious. Exposing this level of technology without extreme caution would be like dousing the world in lighter fluid and handing out matches—even if we regulated it. -Unlike on Earth, the beings of this world aren't bound by such low computational or physical limits...-

Even with my abnormal control over aura and mana, I wasn’t unique. Dragons with centuries of experience and mana reserves hundreds of times greater than mine as a child could do exactly what I did when I was young. They would just be slower.

But time never worked against a dragon.. it worked with them—waiting, watching, and learning—compounding power through patience.

And that was where the true danger laid.

This place.. this wreckage.. it wasn't simply a scar carved into the planet or a tomb left by an advanced civilization—it was a classroom.

To the minds of dragons, the machinery inside was like an open textbook, and with the integration of atomic science to society, that very textbook would be translated into a language anyone could read.

However, I couldn't be certain someone hadn't already deciphered it.

Turning slightly, my gaze drifted to Espera, still wrapped in my web of aura, bound in silence suspended over the molten trench as a reminder of a horrifying reality I couldn't dismiss. -Someone knows too much...-

And I couldn't be certain it wasn't her.

Still trembling from the initial interrogation, she stared into the pit below with a look of dread so dark it was like she had caught the gaze of the grim reaper—like she had given up...

But death wasn't something I'd let greet her any time soon, regardless of how badly fate wished to take her from my clutches.

She still had use.. whether as a broken compass pointing toward whoever placed her there.. or as a cracked mirror reflecting a sliver of their ideology...

-The 'Spathi family', huh...- Looking up at Chioni helping the other researchers out of the pit, I spoke without a voice, weaving my will into the nerves beneath her scales. "So they asked you to retrieve ore..."

Jolting suddenly, she nodded before speaking with a shiver. "Y-Yes... I-I was meant to fill my bags with what I could and deliver the rest to a merchant ship off shore."

*VWOOM* Scanning over the watery horizon behind us faster than another one of her neurons could fire, and finding what indeed looked like a draconic merchant ship at the distant edge of my aura, my turbulent thoughts calmed.

If only for an instant. "What about the ore in the bags?"

"I was asked to sell it anonymously to the mineral aggregate at their estate.. the place we smiths typically got our ore..."

-To think they'd paint the story so naturally...- It was almost like they knew Hera or I would look into it.

But I wasn't surprised. The bombs had been placed too precisely.

One to tear out the pages of the textbook they were learning from, and another to bury those who had so much as an inkling that it was there in the first place.

-The perfect illusion...- With no one else inside the bounds of my aura besides the merchant ship off the coast, no one close enough to even know anything happened.

No one was close enough to suspect that anything was wrong.

In the eyes of Ampelos, the blizzard would have stopped, and the researchers would have been marked as missing, not knowing they were buried under kilometers of sand and water. -And if Hera and I weren't here, the second spy would have sealed their coffin with a layer of glass...-

...Even if those strong enough to climb through the sand would have hit a layer of glass so thick it'd be like a wall of steel.. and suffocated—a foolproof plan.

At least if two beings akin to gods hadn't arrived on a whim.

*Vwoom* Feeling Hera's aura gently caressing mine as if to grab my attention, I looked up to see her helping the researchers get oriented with Krystallo, before her gentle voice slid into my mind like a sheath being placed over a blade. "~You look troubled...~"

Catching a glance from her, I nodded before raising my head. "~I think we bury it...~"

Gently nodding, she didn't want to question me, but her hesitation still lingered. "~Are you sure?~"

"~We should have the cabinet dig and investigate it from some other place on the island for now.

.. We can't let whoever is really behind all this think anything went awry for now.

..~" Looking over my shoulder at the bright, glistening horizon, the image of a towering galleon just beyond it formed in my mind.

"~I think it's best we play their game for now. ..~"

Quickly checking to make sure all the researchers were out of the pit, I looked down into it before readying so much mana it looked as if the night sky had materialized around me. *VWOOOOM*

Knowing what was coming, Hera had everyone fly just off the ground, and lifted those who couldn't with her aura.

It was time to bury the tombstone that had been exposed for the first time in thousands of years.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

But this time, it wasn't going to be forgotten.

*spark-Creaaaaak* Hearing the metal dam groan in protest as I pulled away my aura holding it in place, I forced my space mana into it before dismantling it like shattering glass.

*Crackle-WOOSH* The dam instantly burst with metallic pop, releasing the tides like a tsunami, smashing into the glass wall holding back the island before shattering it, burying everything as if it were never there in the first place.

In the span of an instant, the exposed tomb was buried once more—consumed beneath waves of ocean and layers of sand, locked again behind a door only few held the key to.

*Fsssshhh* Yet as the waves of sand and water surged back into place, I felt the eerie echo of an ancient familiarity bounce through my mind.. the echo of a memory from the day I buried the corpse of the draconic ancestor—hiding it from the world just like I hid evidence of the Acardi.

"Tch..." Clicking my tongue as if to expel the bitter taste in my mouth, I shifted my gaze toward Hera, who had settled farther down the crystalline sands with the other researchers.

With the morning sun stretching its warm tendrils across the waves, I glided silently toward the shore, Espera dangling limply in my aura like a marionette whose strings had been severed.

The winds whispered gently against my scales, carrying echoes of ancient burdens—memories I had believed were drowned in the deepest reaches of my soul.

*Fwoosh* Eventually landing on the soft, glistening sands, I folded my wings, feeling a quiet, familiar heaviness sink deeper into my chest.

One Hera recognized in an instant. "~Bad memories?~" Her voice slipped into my mind, carefully gentle, a balm against lingering unease.

I nodded without a second thought. "~But now isn't the time for stuff like that.

~" Dismissing the sentiment, I moved Espera forward, carefully placing her onto the sand as though she were a delicate piece of evidence.

"~There is a merchant ship offshore coming this way. We can't waste any more time.~"

Hera's eyes sharpened knowingly. "~You want me to interrogate her?~"

"~Only lightly.~" Shifting my gaze past her toward Krystallo, who was quietly reassuring the shaken researchers despite the stains of blood still visible on her paws, my expression darkened.

"~This girl is a pawn of the Spathi family in Ampelos.

I want you and Krystallo to go investigate them personally while I bring her out to that ship off the coast and play things off like nothing happened. ~"

Her gaze turning heavy, with her snout falling with doubt. "~And what about the researchers?~"

"~I'm going to run to the Cabinet and get Leander to silence and hold onto them for now.

~" I spoke coldly, not reserving any brainpower for emotions.

"~Bring them two hundred kilometers inland.

I'll build a space rune here from the Cabinet.

When I get back I'll take Espera here out to the merchant ship while you fill in Leander on the situation and go to the city. ..~"

She nodded without a blink. "~Understood.~"

Turning once more, she quickly moved back toward Krystallo, who caught my gaze with a mixture of resolution and lingering self-doubt.

But despite offering only a brief, reassuring nod, I saw something in her eyes shift—a spark igniting within, clearing away some of the shadows she'd gathered before she straightened visibly, returning the nod with a determined smile and drawing herself up toward Hera.

For the first time, she wasn't just waiting in my shadow—she was taking steps onto a path that would be uniquely hers.

But I didn't have the luxury to remain still either.

Swiftly turning my racing thoughts and calculations inward, I prepared myself for a delicate race against time, and disappeared into the void.

*Vwoop* Folding space around me, I vanished from their sight instantaneously, zipping through the void and reappearing from the Cabinet's space rune beneath the courtyard, striding through the halls in my Fenririan form, ignoring the startled glances of staff and guards as I approached Leander’s office.

Not bothering to knock, I pushed open the heavy wooden door, my voice cutting through his surprise like a razor. "Leander, Hera and I have a situation. Come quickly."

He rose without hesitation, discarding the papers and quill he'd been gripping tightly as concern hardened his expression. "What's happened?"

"Theres no time for me to explain fully right now," Answering without giving him a glance, I turned sharply toward the Cabinet’s space rune, already manipulating the complex weave of runes in it as we walked. "Hera will fill you in on everything once you're there."

He didn’t press further after that, trusting in the urgency and purpose behind my tone before I finalized my adjustments to the rune and readied it. *Vwoom*

Pausing for just a breath, I looked back at him firmly. "Count to two hundred, then activate the Southern-Ampelos port on the rune."

His nod was swift. "Understood."

*Vwoop* Without another word, I slipped into the void again, constructing the new rune network's tunnel with careful precision, each strand of mana woven methodically yet rapidly, to form a safe path between the Cabinet and the Acardi superstructure.

*Vwoop* Eventually exiting about a kilometer above the lightly forested inland region of the island, I immediately etched another complementary space rune to anchor the connection.

By then, barely minutes had passed from Hera's perspective, with her only beginning to greet the edge of my aura far over the horizon.

But there was no time to waste.

Stepping back carefully, I observed as the newly formed rune pulsed before expanding and contracting to release Leander with a warp. *Vwoop* -Perfect…-

Scanning the surroundings as he steadied himself with stress tainting his gaze, he was quick to give me a confused look.

But despite Hera still being nearly a hundred kilometers away, I wasn't going to take the time to explain. "Wait here," I spoke bluntly, my voice calm but weighed down with urgency. "Hera will arrive shortly to explain everything."

Quickly nodding, not questioning another thing, he moved away from the rune and sat down, coating himself and the rune with light magic to hide it all without me having to ask.

And without another pause, I turned skyward again, unfurling my wings and launching myself toward Hera's rapidly approaching aura like an owl that spotted prey.

It was time for us to start spinning a web around the spider.. and turn the hunters into the hunted.

But first, I needed to grab the bait.

*WOOM* Tearing past Hera and the others in a controlled and silent blur, I reached out with my aura and plucked Espera from Hera’s side as if snatching a feather from the air.

Seeing Hera’s unreadable look, still drowned in though, I didn’t say a word, but seeing Krystallo focused, with the tension in her limbs coiled like a spring, I tried speaking with as gentle a warmth as I could muster. "Be careful, Sister."

Her breath instantly hitched before she straightened, her anxious frown softening into a confident smile. "I won't let you down, Brother!"

Her words settled in my chest like a stone skipping across still water—leaving ripples with every bounce.

And yet, even as I continued my arc over the horizon, I found myself unable to smile in return.

I was worried. With a terrible tightness from every ripple of memory from our purer days as children, I felt regret I knew I could never settle.

But.. I didn’t have a choice anymore… -I just hope I didn't make a mistake wrapping you up in all of this...-

Read up to 5 chapters ahead of schedule, and get early access to artwork on My Patreon!

(In case Embedded Link doesn't work: https://www.patreon.com/TDOD )

-------------

Also, please feel free to check out our discord for all updates related to TDOD releases! https://discord.gg/Dv7G5bQD4v

All are welcome!

---

Also if you are looking for a new story, check out my new novel! The System's Harvester

On RR and SH