POV Vesuvius:
The dragon lay on the ground of his palace of black marble, volcanic stone, and gold.
Two of his minions kneeled under him, his huge body making them look like a pair of ants.
The young elf in her simple green dress and the tall draconic knight in his heavy enchanted armor decorated with silver, gold, and glowing red runes remained silent. Their large fiery wings were folded on their backs, glowing in the darkness.
Even though the entire chamber was filled with thick, toxic smoke, they had no problem breathing.
Finally, Alesia ended the silence, her childish voice echoing through the vast chambers of the dragon’s divine kingdom, “Your Highness, the immortals tracked the gems you were looking for.”
“Where is the catch?” Vesuvius was sure there had to be one; otherwise, they would have already recovered them.
This time his knight spoke, “Sire, they were bought by a foreigner, an elf from the elven enclave…”
‘So elves, is it… no wonder they didn’t move. They might be peaceful, but when provoked, they are like a nest of wasps. Also, they are not very keen to deal with outsiders. Luckily, I have one of their own on my side.’
The dragon’s eyes moved between his two minions until they stopped at the elven girl, “Go, take guards with you, and recover them. Try to do it without causing a war… but if necessary, you can use some violence.”
‘I hope she will be alright.’ The dragon had doubts about sending his most trustworthy minion out, where he couldn’t easily protect her.
However, he knew it was necessary, ‘I can’t keep her sheltered. She needs to grow strong enough to take care of herself while I am not nearby. If she is truly worthy, then she will easily return triumphantly. Then she will get my final gift.’
But she refused to send her out without any protection, “And you go with her, protect her if necessary.”
‘No, she needs more security…’
“Take the war draconids with you.” He felt the surprise in both of them, making him grin when he imagined the terrified mortals when facing the monster he and his minions had created.
“H-how many?”
“Take all of them, the best diplomacy is the diplomacy of fear and power. Show them our power! After that, it will be their decision if they want to face us in war or enjoy our protection!”
‘War draconids should be a power that should be able to clash head-on with the most powerful sky ships and trump with their natural mobility and reflexes.’
They were his weapons of war. Their bodies were implanted with his mana crystals and fully covered in runes, giving them a massive mana supply.
Enchanted items covered their weaknesses, and their muscles were empowered by using alchemical drugs.
They were monsters with bodies capable of tearing through infantry like a hot knife through butter while having the mobility and firepower to face skyships.
“Yes, your highness. We will do our utmost to fulfill your orders.” They both bowed one last time before they turned to walk into the dark and long hallways leading out, their steps quickly growing more and more distant.
‘Now, while the demons are the focus of everyone, I have an opportunity…’ Vesuvius looked at the elf one last time as she walked out, ‘If you fulfill your tasks, I will give you new life at the peak of the world. I will forever uplift you.’
The dragon’s last doubts slowly vanished as he knew the elven girl was the best candidate, ‘She has the talent and personality required of my second in command. I wish I could experiment with it, but the cost is too great… Either she will survive and rise above all or die…’
Vesuvius reinforced hir resolve knowing it was the way of dragons and nature for the weak to die and the capable and powerful to prosper.
‘If they are really the gems that I have been looking for, then that should appease the winter dragon, and I will finally gain its power. Making what I am planning to do even more effective.’
Like all the dragons, Vesuvius knew how to spawn more of his kind. But this time, he wanted something different, ‘I don’t want to spawn a brand new dragon that I wouldn’t know. What would they even want to do…’
But now, when he had his divine blood, he was sure he could bridge the gap between his kin and a true dragon to make it possible to fully respawn them as a true dragon.
‘Demons, angels, and reapers are all capable of this. So why shouldn’t we dragons also be able to do this?’
Demons could corrupt the soul of a sinner by forcing them to indulge in or commit sins and then use fragments of their demonic soul to turn them into full demons.
Angels could do the same with their baptism, where they burn away all the sins of a mortal and then use fragments of their angelic soul to create a new angel.
Even reapers could do the same by transforming dying mortals and turning their deaths into a ritual by using their reaper soul fragments. Then after finally dying, they would become a new reaper.
But the dragons lacked this kind of ritual where they would transform a mortal into their kind. Instead, they take their soul shard and envelop it in the pure elemental mana that would form an eggshell.
‘Dragons are life, so our ritual consists of getting born. Demons are evil and corrupt, so their ritual consists of corruption, angels are the exact opposite. As for the reapers, they are death so for a reaper to be born, someone must die.’
They all had one thing in common, ‘It is like mitosis, we will split a portion of our soul and it will regrow and form a brand new one.’
Vesuvius had his own goal. He wanted to take the elf’s soul and stuff a fragment of his soul into her to potentially transform her into a full dragon, or at least something much closer to being a dragon.
‘Normally, I doubt that it would work.’ Angels, reapers, and demons would destroy the body of a transformed mortal during their rituals due to the extreme potency of their souls, but it didn’t matter to them as they weren’t bound to physical bodies like dragons.
Dragons were life, and life required a body. It gave them vessels much stronger than the other three races, but on the other hand, it made it much more problematic if their body gets destroyed.
‘But maybe all the transformation of her body and soul she went through made her strong enough, especially if I add my magic and divine blood into the mix.’
The dragon grinned as all his plans were moving forward, and soon he might have a true dragon under his command. A true dragon that would be trustworthy and loyal to his cause.
‘It should be better to transform her than to create a brand new dragon in the usual way. It will give her a head start and I will have a guarantee that the dragon I spawn will not be some stupid musclehead. I need someone that will be reliable second hand.’
A few hours later:
POV Alesia:
The young elf stood on a vast, empty plaza of polished volcanic stone. Everything was enshrouded in clouds of smoke, the golden eyes staring at her from high up. She felt the searing hot presence of the war beasts she helped to create, hiding in the smoke. The air itself was so hot that the square glowed in red.
She was going to return home but felt weird about it, ‘Is it still my home, or is this my home now?’
Her heart was split, unsure about what she would do if she was forced to fight her own family if they decided to stand up against her master.
‘Why not make them one?’ Her heterochromatic eyes lit up as she clenched her small fists and thought, ‘If I subdue the whole elven forest under the rule of his majesty, then I will not have to choose. We will all be serving the same master.’
“I think we will need more soldiers…” She looked at her fellow minion, the tall armored knight standing by her side.𝑂𝑽𝐿xt.𝗇t
‘He is weird but reliable… Even though he is spending an unhealthy amount of time trying to look… cool? Yes, that is the word the immortals are using to describe him.’
“Huh?” He scratched his head, his glowing eyes drilling into her soul.
“You know what, take also some immortals in case we need some expendable cannon fodder.”
“Why does it look like we are going conquering…”
“Because we are!” A smile formed on her face, and an aura of elements exploded out of her body, making the clouds of smoke around them spin and swirl.
The knight stepped back but didn’t avert his glowing eyes and asked, “Is that a good idea?”
“Don’t worry, it is not going to be an open war… we just need to show some power, and it will go easily. Trust me, I know what I am doing… I grew up there, so I know how to resolve this relatively peacefully.”