*Back to Present*

Early Morning - Mid Summer : The Ancient Wreckage, Southwestern Holy Kingdom

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Gliding just below the clouds while cloaked with light magic, I watched the 65-meter-tall elder fly a straight path from where I first saw him to a tiny cave entrance before changing to his humanoid form and walking inside without hesitation. -Myles definitely would have sent a team of people... So, who could this be?-

After waiting another moment to make sure no other dragons were around and he wasn't coming right back out, I glided down to the cave entrance and found a spot to land around two hundred meters away.

*fwo-oowsh* *fwoosh* *fwoosh-tap-tap* The landing was as gentle as I could make it. -He shouldn't feel the vibration from this distance either.. hopefully...-

Hastily changing to my humanoid form, I looked over at Ilios and had him stay at full size. "Watch the entrance for me. If he slips past me somehow, I want you to grab him, alright?"

"Huff." He straightened up with a determined expression, quickly reminding me how big he had grown.

-We really have become completely different beings in just a few years... I wonder what Mother and Father will think when they see us...- I had been planning to visit them for quite a while now, but one thing continually led to another. -Maybe after I handle this, I'll have the chance to visit them in Atlas...-

Giving Ilios a gentle pet as he lowered his head next to me, I sent him up the mountain and finally cleared my thoughts. "Hooh..." -Whatever the case, I will play it as it lays. For now, let's focus on this...-

Quickly situating my greatsword and the reactor connector, I made my way up the rocky mountainside being extra careful of my weight, before finally making it to the tiny entrance and squeezing myself inside. -This is a little tighter than it looked...-

But while my horns scraped the ceiling and my sword cut into the wall, once I got through the entrance, it opened into a tunnel I could more comfortably walk in. -But what are those?-

The tunnel itself looked like nothing more than a cave, but all along the wall, there were several clearly manufactured metal rectangles with some sort of heavily worn carving in them. -Are these mounts for lights or something?-

They looked spaced as if they were supposed to be lighting the path, but not only were there none hanging there, the metal mounts were incredibly rusted and clearly extremely old. -These have to be at least a few thousand years old, but they're too crude to be done by the Acardi...-

Curious if it was something that fell off, I quickly sent a bit of aura into the ground but found nothing out of place. -Hm... How odd...-

Finally standing back up, I turned away and tried to move on, but something continued to weigh on my mind as I walked. -First, the entrance was too small for a fusion artifact to fit through, and now these mounts that don't look like they're from the Acardi... Is this not the cave I'm looking for?-

My doubts only accumulated the longer I walked, but before long, they vanished.

*clunk* The noise of metal bending ripped through the silence around me like a sonic boom. *VWWOOM* It caught me so off guard I almost didn't manage to silence it before it continued deeper into the cave. -Holy hell that was close...- "Phew..." -But.. what was that?-

Moving some aura into the ground beneath my foot, I immediately noticed a fairly thick slab of cast iron with a crudely made handle on the edge.

It was entirely covered in a thick layer of dust and rust. I was honestly lucky to not fall through it. -W..woah... What is this?-

Hastily blowing away a majority of the dust that settled on it, I reached down and gripped the handle. -Is it a hatch?-

But the moment I was about to pull up, a foot met with the back of my head.

*fwip-WH-W-W-WHAM-FWOOOOOSH* In an instant, I was sent ricocheting down the corridor before slamming into a solid wall. *DING-CRRRUNCH*

A ring of metal filled the air as I instantly came to a stop. -Tch... To think I would let him sneak up on me...-

More annoyed than hurt, I hastily pressed my aura into the wall to dislodge my body but almost immediately noticed that my back wasn't lodged in stone. -HUH?!-

My eyes went wide as I looked at what should have been a cave wall to see a massive titanium alloy wall.

I recognized it as the same material that made up the interior of the Ancient Wreckage immediately.

But it made my mind stutter for a split second...

And to a dragon, a split second was plenty of time...

The next thing I knew, a half-sky-blue-scaled fist came zipping through the cloud of dust and slammed into my chest. *DIIIIING-CRREAAAK-CRACK* The punch instantly sent me through the wall of titanium, hurling me into a room full of all sorts of equipment I recognized.

From the titanium tiles on the floor to glass enclosures and robotic arms strewn about, the entire room was made of salvage that had been pieced together. -Someone.. was living here...-

*CLAAAANG* Slamming into another, far more solid titanium wall, I hastily dispersed all my momentum and narrowly avoided landing on a container full of a blue liquid that reacted with my aura. -Woah, what is that?- *thunk*

I gave it a curious look as I finally landed.

But the elder didn't care.

*puff* Seemingly not wanting to let me catch my breath, the somewhat short, but muscular man came flying out of the cloud of dust before meeting my gaze and going wide-eyed.

At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to kill him on the spot. -But unfortunately, I need to keep him alive for now...- Looking past him into the cloud of dust, I quickly visualized where the entrance was and closed the distance between us. *fwip* The surrounding air turned opaque as if it had become a solid wall immediately. "I sure hope you're durable."

The instant the tip of my fingers met his clothes, my hand curled into a fist and teleported into his stomach.

*vwoom-tink* *CRA-FWOOOOOOMM* He vanished almost instantaneously, being launched out of the room at several times the speed of sound.

At the time, I intended to hit him down the corridor hard enough for him to bounce around the small bend in the cave before breaking out through the cave entrance.

But I had no clue how much my strength had progressed.

*BAAAANG-Shatter-CRUMBLE* As an immense blast of air rushed through the cave toward the entrance, a huge section of the mountainside, spanning several hundred meters, shattered before being blown off the mountain entirely.

The elder didn't bounce around the curve at all.. he simply plowed straight through the wall.

*crrrumble* Although I couldn't see any of it from inside the cave, the noise of crumbling rock made me freeze, with the annoyance and anger directed at the elder disappearing almost instantly.

My worry of the cave collapsing on the rooms entirely washed over my mind like a wave of clarity.

But thankfully, the damage didn't spread back into the mountain too far, and once the noise subsided, I managed to ease my nerves. -Are things.. alright?- Hastily looking around, I tried to find any cracks that looked out of place but the entire cave in front of me looked like it had been sand blasted to oblivion. -Holy sh*t... I didn't think that through...-

I was honestly incredibly lucky, not just because the cave didn't collapse on the room I was on the edge of, but because there was another entrance at the other end of the cave, letting the cave into a massive wind tunnel instead of a vacuum bomb that'd cause the entire mountainside above me to come crashing down. -But.. things worked out somehow.. so why don't I just count my lucky stars...-

Finally catching my breath, I got ready to go out and blow a hole through the rubble so I could make sure the elder was still alive, but before I could hop through the hole in the wall, a blinding light appeared at the end of the tunnel.

*Brrmmm* -Huh?- *fwooosh* The dust filling the cave was immediately blown back toward me with a wave of hot air before it finally dimmed, and a big white fenrir poked his head in.

His head was nearly as big as the tunnel, but after spotting me, he pulled it back out.

He was calling me over. -Did he catch him?-

Quickly hopping out of the room and making my way to the newly made cave entrance, I looked outside to see Ilios sitting next to the Elder's sprawled-out body.

His condition looked shockingly alright except for a considerably swollen and bruised abdomen, and a few teeth marks from Ilios, but I went in for a closer look just to make sure he wasn't going to die. -Considering the artifact I had to punch through though... I'm sure he's fine.-

As expected, there was nothing much of note; a significant amount of shredded muscle, ripped tendons, a bit of internal bleeding, a few fractured bones and vertebrae, and some other minor injuries which were already healing.

To a dragon, most of the damage was surface level. -But, it'll be at least a few days to heal the fractures... Even if he wakes up in an hour, he shouldn't be able to move...-

Quickly going through his pockets, I found a pouch of platinum coins, several fairly basic artifacts including a normal-looking ID, a few blank pieces of paper, and a weird, small, glowing sphere that looked like it was made of a beautiful jade. -What's this?-

It was quite small, only about the size of a golf ball, but it slowly emitted mana and glowed a beautiful teal color. -How pretty...-

Assuming it was some sort of charm, I quickly slipped it into my pocket before finally standing up and brushing off my clothes. "Alright, I think I found what I was looking for in the cave, so can you watch over him for me?"

Ilios immediately nodded before trotting over so I could praise him.

"Haha, yes, yes, you did a great job." He immediately started smiling from my praise, and the next thing I knew, I was smiling as well. "I promise we will play some when we visit Mother and Father after dropping this guy off, alright?"

Seeing him gleefully nod as his tail started wagging faster, the tenseness and anxiety still lingering in my mind finally subsided, letting a much more pure mix of excitement and curiosity dominate my thoughts.

It was an odd feeling, as if my mind was actively being healed or somehow influenced, but it was a feeling I had become quite familiar with. -I have felt it so many times now.. yet every time I feel it, I can't help but wonder... What is it?-