[Aethel]
Aelfric's steps halted.
His breath caught in his throat as his sharp eyes caught a flicker of movement—something massive, yet strangely serene. The clearing ahead was bathed in a glow, illuminated by the gentle glow of countless tiny foreign creatures, fluttering on the grass. They hovered in lazy spirals, utterly undisturbed, as if nothing in the world could threaten them.
And there—lying leisurely, as if the very embodiment of contradiction, was the Dragon of the End. A vast, black form, its scales darker than any void, lay curled in repose. Each breath it exhaled sent faint ripples through the air.
And then—its eyes, twin pools of azure, deeper than any ocean, vaster than the infinite sky. They did not glow, they did not flicker, they simply were. Aelfric staggered back instinctively, his body reacting before his mind could comprehend. For the first time in centuries—no, perhaps for the first time in his entire existence—he felt it.
Power beyond power.
