Chương 80: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 80 - Unknown Magical Creature

After reading through the system's automatic adjustments and its explanation of what it had done for him, Su Nian felt genuinely touched. He couldn't help but sing its praises internally: System, you are absolutely smooth. So easy to use! I've still got two thousand system points left. Hook me up with a muscle enhancement package, right now! Su Nian waved a dragon claw with the ease of someone who had never met a price tag he couldn't handle. [Ding! Primary Muscle Enhancement requires 3, 000 system points] [Ding! Intermediate Muscle Enhancement requires 8, 000 system points] [Ding! Advanced Muscle Enhancement requires??? system points] [Ding! Biological Muscle Cell First-Stage Evolution requires??? system points]...

"Stop. Stop. Stop dinging at me!"

"I get it. You don't need to keep rubbing it in that I'm broke." The system notifications landed like a Big Slap across his face. It hit him so hard he could feel the depression setting in. Better just save up for the Molten Core. System points were never enough. They were never, ever enough. Su Nian exhaled a helpless sigh. The steam curled out from between his jaws and became a gray smoke ring that drifted, forlorn, out of the Dragon's Nest.

"Master! Master, something's wrong!" Outside the Dragon's Nest, Kobold Chieftain Bolikri's voice rang out, growing louder as it approached. Rapid footsteps clattered against stone, and then a dog head poked through the entrance.

"Master, uh..." Bolikri reached Su Nian and immediately stopped talking. It stared at the Black Dragon before it, a size bigger than it remembered, every inch clad in heavy, gleaming armor, and froze in shock. Su Nian's actual body hadn't changed. But the armor was so thick, so imposing, that it gave Bolikri the distinct impression its master had simply gotten larger. More majestic. More ferocious. The sheer weight of presence was enough to press down on a person's chest.

"Mmeh~" The kobold's noise disturbed Anna. Still deep in sleep, she smacked her lips once, then twice. Her tender pink lips pursed into a small pout. She rolled over. Her soft little hands found Su Nian's tail and pulled it close. Her two small feet, tender, ivory-pale, smooth as carved jade, hooked around it from the other side. She wrapped herself around his tail like an octopus and held on.

"Big brother... hehe... so comfy..." Su Nian: "... (?? ω???)?" He had no idea what she was dreaming about. He raised one dragon claw to his lips and made a sharp shushing gesture at Bolikri. Then, with practiced efficiency, he slipped the pink rubber stick into Anna's hands in place of his tail. He'd grabbed the extra-large one this time.

"Come over here," he said, jerking his head toward the far corner. He made a few claw gestures and led Bolikri away from the sleeping girl. Dragon and kobold huddled together in the corner of the Dragon's Nest.

"G-g-great Master," Bolikri whispered, voice barely above a breath. It had only glanced at the Black Dragon before dropping flat to the ground, face pressed to the stone.

"You've... evolved again?" This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. The master wasn't cruel. Bolikri knew that. But staring directly at the master's magnificent countenance still felt like an act of disrespect it wasn't willing to commit. Because something about this master was simply not ordinary. Not a week since it had pledged itself to him, and the master had already evolved twice.

Anyone with functioning eyes could see these weren't random, chaotic evolutions, each one was a step toward something greater. Something more powerful. Something more perfect. What dragon could do that? Even a variant dragon wouldn't come close to this kind of speed. Bolikri's personal knowledge didn't run deep. But it had bloodline memories to draw from. Kobolds had served the Chromatic Dragons for generations. It knew their personalities, their habits, their preferences down to the last detail.

No dragon of any color evolved like this.

"That's right," Su Nian said, lifting his head with an expression of complete indifference.

"I evolved again. You'll want to get used to it. No need to make a scene every time." Bolikri pressed itself lower still. Was that something a dragon was supposed to say? Dragon Queen Tiamat herself probably wouldn't have dared to sound so casual about it.

"Right — what were you panicking about? You said something's wrong. What's wrong?" The question snapped Bolikri back to itself. It raised its head in a hurry.

"Master! Our territory near the Dragon's Nest has been attacked by an unknown creature. What makes it even worse, it left no trail. Our patrol teams found nothing except the traces it left behind. The creature itself was never seen coming or going!"

"Oh?" Su Nian's expression sharpened.

"That is a problem." A creature had gotten near the Dragon's Nest without him noticing. That meant one of two things: it outranked him in tier, or it was extraordinary at hiding. Neither option was acceptable. A creature like that was a threat to Anna. That alone made it a priority.

"Walk me through everything your patrol found."

"Yes, Master! This morning during rounds, we found bite marks everywhere, on trees, on rock walls, on the Dragon's Nest walls themselves, even on the Flame Arrow Towers."

"And our silver ore stockpile. All of it was stolen."

"After examining the marks, we believe a creature gnawed through those surfaces. Based on the size of the bite marks, this creature is likely your size, Master. Maybe larger."

"And yet something that size slipped into our territory without a single patrol noticing it. It walked right up to the Dragon's Nest and chewed on it."

"This is a direct provocation! It's also—" The darker Su Nian's face got, the tighter his claw curled. With a sharp CRACK, he snapped off a chunk of stone from the wall. Bolikri's report died in its throat.

"Forget about it."

"... Forget about it?" Bolikri lifted its head, confused.

"But, Master—""No buts." Su Nian waved it off.

"I said forget it, so forget it. That creature isn't a threat to the Dragon's Nest. It won't be coming back. Probably."

"... As you say, great Master. Your will be done." Kobold Bolikri looked up at its master's absolute certainty and felt something click into place in its mind. The master must have already dealt with the creature himself. Confronted it. Driven it off. Possibly beaten it thoroughly. It was the only explanation for that level of confidence. Truly worthy of being the master. Bolikri's eyes, still fixed on the Black Dragon, filled with reverence.

The things a pack of small kobolds like them lay awake worrying about were probably not even worth the master's notice. Su Nian glanced at Bolikri sidelong. He had the distinct sense that this kobold chieftain of his was being gradually converted. Fully and completely won over. Good. That was a good thing.

"Tomorrow is the seventh day," Su Nian said.

"We move against the human village. Tonight, call every monster leader to the Dragon's Nest. We're holding a briefing."

"Don't underestimate the humans. They have abilities that don't play by normal rules. We'll need to be smart about this, use the right methods, keep our losses low."

"Understood?"

"Great Master, your wisdom spans as wide as the boundless ocean and runs as deep as the bottomless abyss!" Bolikri understood perfectly. Playing dirty was what kobolds were born to do.

"You're right," Su Nian agreed pleasantly.

"I've always thought so~""Keh keh keh..." In the depths of the Dragon's Nest, the sinister laughter of a kobold and a Black Dragon wound together and echoed off the stone walls.

Lore Note (Optional Reading) Bahamut is revered across many corners of the world. All good-aligned dragons hold Bahamut in high regard, but among them, Gold Dragons, Silver Dragons, and Brass Dragons bear her a particular and elevated reverence that goes beyond the rest. Even evil dragons, with perhaps the notable exception of Tiamat, her eternal rival, acknowledge Bahamut's wisdom and power with something approaching respect. In her true form, Bahamut is a vast, sinuous dragon of purest platinum.

The silvery-white scales that cover her body catch even the faintest light and throw it back in a beautiful gleam. Her eyes are feline in shape and deep blue in color, said by many to glow with an azure light like a midsummer sky at its clearest. Others insist the color is closer to the gray-blue at the heart of a glacier. Perhaps both accounts are accurate, and simply reflect the shifting moods of the great Platinum Dragon herself. Doctrine: Bahamut is uncompromising in her opposition to evil.

She will not tolerate it, in any form, under any circumstances. Beyond that single absolute, she is counted among the most compassionate beings in the multiverse. Her heart goes out to the oppressed, the invaded, the powerless. She demands good of her followers, earnestly, urgently. But she also believes in letting mortals solve the problems within their own power, fight the battles that are theirs to fight.

Bahamut would sooner offer a clue, tend to the wounded, or provide temporary shelter than reach down and carry someone else's burden for them. Alignment: Lawful Good Divine Rank: Lesser ➤ Next: The Players' Scheme