From within the ravine, the mountains towered overhead and mocked him. Cholryss had long shifted back into his human form, and he wandered about the moist rocks, sending the occasional pebble scatting across the path before him.

Likewise, the river babbled at his side and laughed at him. Though Cholryss was completely alone, he felt deeply ashamed of himself. What kind of dragon could not fly?

A sub-dragon, he thought wryly. It was the abysmal abomination that he had become.

Cholryss kicked the next stone harder, sending it into the air. Some leaves rustled and tore away, drifting down into the brush below. The ravine opened up into a forested valley. He might as well go where the terrain gave his feet more grip, considering how he would now have to climb his way back up.

As he looked back mournfully to the mountain peaks, Cholryss sighed. The flight down here had been terrifying. No longer able to fly, Cholryss had only been able to direct his wings and let the wind take him where it would.

Pathetic. I've really become pathetic.

The trees passed him by, one much the same as the last just like his dolorous thoughts. Cholryss wondered how long it would take him to climb back home. Likewise, he wondered if his mother or anybody else from his clan would find him and fly him back.

The shameless, childish part of him wished that they would swoop down and take care of him, just like they had been doing. The pride of a grown man, an adult dragon, begged otherwise.

There was a reason why Cholryss had tried to fly on his own again without telling another soul. He wanted to regain a small piece of himself, all by himself. Even if he had plummeted down from their mountainous village, at least it had been on his own accord.

Worthless. A sub-dragon is not even worth their wings….

The useless things felt like dead, shredded slabs of old leather on his back. Cholryss preferred his human form in all occasions, so he did not have a constant reminder of his wretched, corrupted form.

A nearby rustle pulled him from his thoughts. All the while, Cholryss had been sticking close to the river. When he peered through the trees, he saw streaks of red bleeding their way across the waters.

The bloodied corpse of a deer had been dragged close to the bank except it had been stripped of all flesh. Even some of the skeletal structure had been snapped and scattered around. Only the head remained intact.

Taken aback by the gory scene, Cholryss stumbled away from the river.

A person crouched a short distance away from the deer corpse. Back turned, the masculine figure had furry, pointed ears and a long, busy tail that wrapped around his hips.

Unwittingly, Cholryss had just stumbled across a lycan shifter fresh off a feeding.

By the looks of him, the lycan had made the kill and dined alone. The lone wolves were said to be the most dangerous, similar to how the ones who retained their animalistic appearances even in human form were the most powerful.

This lycan just so happened to fit both of those qualities.

Run.

Cholryss knew that he was in no state to deal with a lone lycan shifter, so he turned heel and ran. If he truly wanted to get away, he would shift into that despicable sub-dragon form and use his bastardized wings to empower his sprint.

Frankly, he would rather die than shift. After his dragon form had been forcibly corrupted into a sub-dragon, Cholryss refused to shift unless it was on his own terms. Never again would he be forced into the sub-dragon form—not on his life.

"Hello?" the husky tone of the lycan called after him. A wolf's howl followed his question, stronger and deeper than the human voice would let on.

Cholryss ran his fastest, but the soft, running steps of the lycan soon gained on him. A lycan in a partial wolf form would always outrun a basic human.

"Ugh." Refusing to shift, Cholryss called upon his magic. He flung his hand back with a blue glow of mana leaving his palm.

He might have lost most of his magic, but he still had many useful tricks up his sleeve. The light exploded at the lycan's feet, sending shards of ice around to encase his ankles: an [Ice Trap].

"Ha! I'm an ice elemental too, you know!" The icey cage could be heard shattering, and the lycan's padded feet took up pursuit once more.

While Cholryss had reacted with fear at the sight of the lone lycan, he realized this was stupid. The lycan had yet to threaten him. If anything, the teenage boy sounded like he was having fun with this, so Cholryss decided to pick up on that mood.

"Hey. You're having fun chasing me right? How about you chase this instead?" For a substitute stick, he used [Manifest Ice] to formulate an icicle in his hand. Cholryss stopped and threw it in the other direction. "Fetch!"

Since the lycan was still running towards him, the icicle ended up hitting him sideways, square on the nose. "Ow, ow, ow," the lycan cried, holding both hands over the center of his face. Some canine claws extended from his fingers where humans normally had nails. "Why would you do that? Our noses are sensitive. That hurt!"

"Oh, um, actually I'm sorry," Cholryss stammered out. "I honestly did not mean to do that—!"

An inhuman growl lifted from within the lycan's chest. Without further ceremony, his body uncoiled like a spring. The lycan pounced on Cholryss and took him to the ground. From there, he used his superior strength to pin him with ease.

"Ack." Cholryss struggled for a second but quickly recognized that the only way he could get up was if he shifted to sub-dragon form. Since he already determined that he would not make the change, Cholryss prepared to die.

My life is meaningless anyway. Yeah, I kind of want to die. This lycan would be doing me a huge favor. My family and clan would be better off without me….

His eyes squeezed shut tightly against the lycan's rancid breath panting in his face. It smelled like he had interrupted the lycan in the middle of him brushing his teeth after the feeding. At least he should not have his body desecrated, the lycan being well-fed recently.

Only the remainder of his draconic pride had kept Cholryss from ending his own life in the first place. Ever since his true form had been corrupted, there was no point in living aside from that. His clan felt burdened by him in the same way. Even Mother looks miserable every time she looks at me…. Hopefully, she would be happier when he was not a burden anymore. Cholryss was ready to die, thinking of the same person who had brought him into existence.

Nevertheless, the lycan wanted to draw this out in some useless chatter. More than that, the lycan sounded thoroughly upset. "Why were you running away from me? Am I scary to you? Am I really that scary?" he asked. Big tears clung to the lycan shifter's long lashes.

Then, his voice lowered into something more like a purr. "Well, there's nothing to be scared of. My condition isn't even infectious… unless I bite you." The lycan opened his mouth to reveal how the normal human canines had been exacerbated into long fangs. Some of his other dentures were twisted and curved into similar points. Like a vampire, he lowered his mouth towards Cholryss's face.

Of all the ways to die, Cholryss did not particularly want to die to a creepy, deranged lycan.

Normally, in a desperate situation like this, Cholryss would unleash his finisher spell—something only S-class mages could perform. Alongside his dragon form, he had also lost much of his magical aptitude. Through experimentation with all the spells that he knew, Cholryss had discovered that he was not even A-class anymore.

B-class. I'm a mediocre B-class mage. What spells do B-class mages even use in a time like this?

Cholryss could throw out an [Ice Cloak] around himself, but that would hardly be effective against a lycan. As his enemy had said, the wolf boy had an ice alignment.

This sucks. Just stop being creepy and kill me already! Though that was what Cholryss thought, he opted to say something different. "You can't even turn me into a lycan anyway, so just hurry up and kill me." Hopefully, that line would do better in dissuading him.

"Oh?" The lycan sat back a little but still made sure to keep Cholryss pinned. "You're a shifter too?"

"Yeah."

"How come you didn't shift then?"

"Didn't feel like it."

The lycan boy gave him a quizzical look. "I mean, I guess that's understandable if your other forms sucks…. Are you a wereshark? Are you not able to shift on land?"

"What the…? I'm not a wereshark!" Cholryss never heard of those before, but maybe it was possible for them to live by the coast—similar to how the dragon and lycan shifters have taken to the mountains.

"So you're not a wereshark…." the lycan boy said with a thoughtful claw to his chin. "That narrows things down a lot. There's only one thing you can possibly be!"

Cholryss rolled his eyes. "Uh huh." His back was pressed against the soil at the base of the mountain where the Isankar Clan of dragons lived.

"You're a werecat!" the lycanthrope declared proudly. "Is that why you ran away, scaredy cat?" After sneezing, the lycan let out a barking sound in his face—quite alarming to hear that coming from a human's throat.

"No," Cholryss said, maintaining an air of indifference. "Worse."

"Worse than a werecat?" Taken by surprise, the lycan loosened his grip. "Now, I say. You must be one unfortunate son of a bitch—"

Cholryss ripped up his arm and slugged the lycan in the nose. "You're one to talk, dog! Your mom's a literal bitch."

A yelp came from the lycan's lips, and he shied back. A darkened glower fell over his eyes, and Cholryss knew then that he had caused great offense. "I told you," the lycan said with spittle coming from his mouth. "My nose is sensitive!"

"S-Sorry. Just… keep the insults on me and not my mother." Cholryss sat up but did not bother to stand. Turning his cheek away, he stewed in his own thoughts.

I love my mom. She's absolutely the best, without peer. When I die, I hope she's happier….

"Actually," the lycan said, managing to calm back down a little. "I chased you just 'cause I wanted to have some fun! It's been a while since I met anybody." He pranced forward, and crouching on all fours, that fluffy tail started to wag behind him.

Cholryss gave him a sidelong glance, raised one eyebrow, and returned to his brooding. It looked like he had something worse than a lone werewolf trying to kill him. Instead, he had a werewolf trying to be his friend.