Captured in numerous ways

“Inhe! Hurry up already. You look good, just don’t make our god wait…” I shouted.

She came out of her room combing her long, blonde hair, her golden eyes looking at me. “You might say that, but I’m a dragon. How could I disgrace our race by appearing like a homeless?” she furrowed her brows.

“Haah- you are overthinking it, you are pretty anyway,” I shook my head as my eyes ran down on her petite and sexy body. If only you had a better personality, maybe I’d be more interested in you…

“Why would you shake your head? You are disgraceful enough, but at least you are strong,” she replied as she walked past me, swaying her hips.

It’s starting… Now I can listen to her ranting the whole day, I thought. Our race was one of the mightiest ones since we both excelled in physical battle and magical battle. There were only two Legendary ranked races who were able to pick a fight with us, one of them the Phoenixes, the other the Hydras. Regenerating bastards…

But each of these unique and rare species had different rankings. Third-class dragons, hydras, and other similar creatures were the weakest among these unique races. Then came the second-class, and first-class. I was a first-class dragon, which was quite rare. Inhe, the girl in front of me was similarly a first-class dragon, but she was weaker than me. The only reason why she hasn’t beaten me to the death for disobeying her and keeping my ‘untidy’ look.

If anyone touched her, they’d get themselves killed and she’d take a shower. She is so stupid, I shook my head and waited for her to finally wear her dragon-scale armour. Although I was a first-class dragon, there was one kind of dragon that was stronger and it was also the rarest one. Each of these unique races had one ruler and ours was called Dragon God.

They were able to control the lesser dragons like me, and Inhe. The stronger we were, the more likely it was that we could disobey the Dragon God’s command, though none of us would dare to do something like that. Not like I or anyone else had it hard. There could be only one of these creatures in the universe at the same time and if they died, they would reincarnate, bearing the memories of their predecessors.

Serving this kind of mighty creature was the best thing. When Padinyss appeared and took the throne as the true ruler of this world, I was still a little dragon. We all flocked to him like birds and joined his forces. Hehe, nice memories. We beat up everyone who dared to fight against our race and created an order with sheer force. Now we are the ruling race on the continent and nobody dares to question us.

“Stop looking like an idiot. You are a true disgrace. I trained the other dragons to become obedient, but you are so unruly. Why can’t you be graceful like me?” Inhe interrupted my reminiscence.

“Haah- you are so tiring. Let’s go already. Padinyss told us to check whether the rumour about the Ring of Lightning was true or not. If you keep lazing around, somebody will get it. How will you explain why we couldn’t get the ring to him?” Hearing my words, her eyes opened wide and she quickly wore her armour. Not caring about paying to the Innkeeper, she jumped out the window and turned into a dragon in the middle of the city.

Her wingspan was twenty meters long, so she naturally knocked down a few building nearby. Ignoring the damage she caused, she bolted off into the air, while I was left standing there like an idiot. I so fucking hate going anywhere with her. Why does she have to break everything? People surely hate dragons, and it’s all because of her… but most of us aren’t even like her! This is injustice!

Rubbing my eyes, I snapped my fingers and reverted the damage caused by her. The city once again looked like a moment ago. I quickly went down to the Innkeeper and gave him one gold coin, and then went after Inhe. I spread my golden wings in the air, and my scales reflected the light of the sun. Ah~ my race is the best. Oh… I shouldn’t be like this. Damned Inhe is filling my mind with bullshit, I cursed in my mind, remembering the past.

I may be a first-class dragon, and Padinyss may be a dragon god, but just like I, he too knows that there are stranger creatures in the universe. A few minutes later, I caught sight of Inhe’s purple scale-covered body. She flapped her wings quickly, trying to race against me, but I still caught up with her in no time. Hahaha, you are quite cute when you are trying hard to beat me, I laughed in my mind, knowing that she felt embarrassed by her loss.

“Ekrok… could you teach me how to be as quick as you? Our physical strength isn’t that different, but you are still much quicker than me. What is your secret?” Inhe asked with a small stutter, visibly very embarrassed.

Huh? She asked for help? SHE of all people? I never thought something like this would happen. Have she had enough of losing against me? But I’m not going to help you. If you learned my muscle technique and turned as quick as me, I wouldn’t be able to beat you. And you would command me around just like the other poor dragons. No way in hell I’d want something like that to happen.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not going to tell you. I wish to stay the second strongest dragon in the world, so I can’t teach you,” I replied bluntly.

“Tsk, fine.”

“It’s good that you understand,” I said, probably annoying her even further. She always got what she wanted since she also served Padinyss whenever he called for her. And so, she was in his favour and if she wanted something, Padinyss would get it for her.

If not for being my best friend, I’m sure that Padinyss would command me to teach Inhe when she started to plead for him. That’s how she learned the spells and skills of the other dragons in the capital city and turned into an all-rounder. She has too many skills at her disposal, but that’s her true weakness. Jack of all trades, huh. And you even got lucky enough to find Divine Blood in a dungeon and turn into a first-class dragon. Or maybe it was Padinyss who gave it to you? I wondered while looking at her.

Maybe I’ll ask Padinyss how Inhe turned into a first-class dragon. Before I could think further, I felt a connection forming between me and Padinyss.

“You hear me?” his masculine voice resounded in my head.

“Crystal clear. What’s up?”

“Have you reached the ring yet? Is Inhe there?”

“She is. She was wasting time with dressing up and bathing again…”

“A- haha. It’s fine. I have some news, which I’m not happy about. You know there was another planet not so far away, which didn’t have Mana in its atmosphere. Probably because of Reinald’s rings.”

“I know, how could I forget it? He was a fearsome opponent…” I replied as a shudder ran through my body. The long scar on my chest was caused by him. It was just a side effect of his strange spell, yet I almost died that day.

“The same planet was filled up with Mana about a year ago, which was truly strange. I didn’t think much about it and I didn’t really care either. But here comes the problem. The same planet fell apart and exploded today.”

“What?”

“Yes. I thought about it for a long time and I’m afraid, the hunter has been born once again. Young planets like this one shouldn’t disappear randomly and the fact that Mana appeared on it, even though it shouldn’t have been possible… These are all signs of the birth of a Devourer. The planet they are born on will always fall, but it’s all to cause enough chaos and disorder among the inhabitants so that nobody would notice its presence and it could grow up safely.”

“Once they amassed some strength, they mature and their racial skills and spells reach the max level, it will be very hard to find them and kill them. And if we want to stay alive, we better take care of the Devourer quickly.”

“That’s a very serious matter,” I replied, feeling dread even in the deepest bits of my body. If there are really matured devourers walking around freely, we’d best find them as soon as possible and liquidate them.

“Indeed. What makes it all the stranger is that quite a lot of humans appeared at the same time on the borders of the continent. It happened in a small kingdom. I told my servants to gather some information on it. For now, get the ring and then return to me. I’ll tell you the details when you are back, and then you should go and investigate that small kingdom. They may know something about the devourer. You can use whatever you want to get the information we need.”

“Understood. But I don’t think those ants would dare to disobey us,” I chuckled.

“Indeed. But don’t forget that Reinald too came from a place like that. What was that kingdom called again? I forgot it. Well, whatever. Now hurry up. This matter is really pressing,” Padinyss said before breaking the connection between us.

He had a small orb which he used to see things we couldn’t even imagine was possible. He was able to connect and talk with anyone with the help of that orb. He called it Dragon’s Orb, but he probably got it from a dungeon since its true name was the Orb of the Seers.

“Were you talking with his majesty?” Inhe asked.

“Mhm. We have a quite serious problem, so you better hurry up. It’s even more important that the rings.”

“How would anything be more important than the key to the world?” she asked with wonder, not believing me.

“Well, if our lives aren’t more important to you, then I don’t know what to say.”

Hearing my words, her draconic eyes turned deadly serious. She knew I wouldn’t joke about something like this. Nobody wanted to die, and it was even truer when we fought so much to get where we are. It would be terrible if a self-proclaimed evil creature would come and take it all away, wouldn’t it?

We spent the rest of the travel in silence until we saw a field, filled with bolts of lightning. The ground was filled with craters and the earth was charred black at a few places. “We are here, the Lightning Dungeon of Drydale city,” I said as a bolt of lightning struck my back.

Ahh~ this felt so warm and fuzzy. Maybe when everything is done, I’ll come here with my lover and take a bath! How enjoyable would that be? Hehe, and I could play around with her, my mind wandered off in excitement.

“These small shocks feel so good to my body. They are so warm and make me feel fuzzy! I wonder if it makes my skin smoother,” Inhe murmured to herself, feeling the same sensation. Noticing the hole in the ground, we flew into it, though we had to revert to our humanoid form as soon as we entered because our bodies were way too big. It still didn’t take more than a second to reach a cave, but unfortunately, it was opened already.

“There are presences inside,” Inhe furrowed her brows as her pointy ears twitched.

“Indeed. Let’s hurry up. Hopefully, nobody will take the ring before us, in case it’s really here.”

“It must be here. It was his majesty who told us, after all,” Inhe said while walking towards the entrance.

“Mhm. His Orb can make wonders. But what worries me is that he can see only events that can cause his demise. That’s why the Orb is an Epic ranked item. If he learned about the whereabouts of the ring from the orb…”

Inhe’s eyes opened wide as she picked up on my thoughts, “then this event could be a potential danger to his life.”

Nodding my head, I quickly rushed into the dungeon.

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A few weeks after Elena left the city, humans started appearing and checking in, in the nearest city. Derrel too came from another planet, so a slight increase of the usual number wasn’t surprising. But it happened two weeks later that groups of humans started appearing, which was much more surprising. Most of the people on Kriton didn’t even know Elena and those who did, couldn’t say anything.

But none of those people knew that their planet died because of Elena’s and Dred’s birth. When Bethor held a conference and gathered the strange newcomers, who knew how to use every element, he learned that they came from a planet called Kriton, which was dying. He also learned that the newcomers didn’t know about Mana before a strange event happened.

Thanks to his lack of knowledge, he didn’t know what these things meant, so he happily accepted the humans and provided them with houses, or the stronger ones with territories. Although the newcomer’s customs and behaviour were a bit different compared to theirs, Bethor knew they would slowly integrate and turn into useful members of his Kingdom. They were free workforce in his eyes. He happily looked towards the future, ignorant of what was coming his way.

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