Lo Quen shook off the tangled thoughts clouding his mind.
Right now, only one thing mattered—growing stronger.
He took the half-melted sword from Jaelena's hand, its blade still faintly glowing with broken vortex-like runes.
Stretching out his massive left foreclaw, he touched the sword's edge, then pressed his right foreclaw against the shattered armor still clinging to Aurion's remains. From both relics, he felt a surge of pure, pent-up magic straining to burst free.
The equipment was already ruined. Without a master smith of magical arms to repair them, they were worthless.
Lo Quen did not hesitate. He began draining the magic sealed within the sword and armor.
Raw power flooded into him, pouring through the points of contact in a rushing tide. His body swelled with energy, filling him with a sharp, intoxicating exhilaration.
He recalled what the panel had told him—magic could be absorbed from the air, but also siphoned directly from enchanted objects.
Valyrian weapons inscribed with blood magic runes were rare, their sigils acting as reservoirs, storing power like a mage's battery and letting mortals wield spells through steel.
But as Jaelena had warned, such weapons exacted a terrible price. Even trained sorcerers couldn't wield them often without paying in blood.
Aurion had managed two consecutive shots only because his warped, monstrous body was no longer bound by human limits.
Lo Quen drank deep, draining until the runes lost all light. The torrent dwindled to a trickle, then nothing at all. Their reserves were spent.
He checked the panel. The two artifacts had yielded five thousand points of Magic.
His reserves now stood at fourteen thousand—more than he'd had before killing Aurion.
Nearby, Jaelena retrieved the dragonbone bow and its quiver. Aurion had dropped them before Lo Quen's claw struck him down, and the flames had not marred the weapon.
Lo Quen could feel the immense power locked within it, but this he would not consume. It was a prize, not fuel.
He lowered himself so Jaelena could climb once more onto his back, then launched into the air, circling high above Tyria.
The disappointment of not reaping Aurion's Dragon's Soul hardened into fury, which he loosed upon the city's Scaleclaw Legion.
The monsters sensed their commander's fall.
Their ranks broke. Discipline collapsed into panic. Screeches of fear echoed as they stampeded toward the massive black-stone gate.
Lo Quen blocked the skies above them, his golden fire pouring down like a flood, incinerating them by the thousands. Their cries turned to ash before they could reach the walls.
He did not count the dead.
He only saw the Dragon's Souls rising from their corpses, drifting into him one after another.
The panel's numbers climbed with dizzying speed. His frame swelled larger still.
The sisters clung to his back, their violet eyes wide with awe, struck dumb by the sight.
Questions knotted in their hearts, but they held them for later.
Lo Quen reveled in the storm of destruction, in the flood of Dragon's Souls filling every cell with fire. Below, the streets of Tyria ran with blood, the last humans butchered by monsters.
He spared none. Dragonfire sealed the gates, cutting off escape. He skimmed low over the avenues, his fire painting golden ruin across the canvas of the dying city.
The monsters scattered in terror, burrowing into broken walls, cowering in collapsed houses, yet none escaped the judgment that fell from the sky.
Golden flames raged, tearing through the dark.
His magic dwindled fast, burning away with every breath of fire.
By the time Tyria's streets ran empty of monsters, his reserves had fallen below five thousand.
But the reward left him stunned.
One hundred twenty thousand Dragon's Soul.
His bloodline purity surged to 16.8%.
The golden dragon's length now stretched to 164 feet—nearly fifty meters.
A size fit to be counted among the greats of dragonkind, even in Targaryen history.
Princess Rhaenys's mount, the "Red Queen" Meleys, had reached only 150 to 160 feet. Lo Quen's golden dragon already surpassed her.
Amid his exhilaration, Lo Quen noticed a troubling problem.
The purer his bloodline became, the lower the chance of harvesting Dragon's Soul from Scaleclaw monsters. At his current purity, the probability had already dropped below half.
Which meant that although he had burned over three thousand Scaleclaws, less than half had yielded Dragon's Soul.
He couldn't help cursing the system's stingy drop rates.
Lo Quen sighed. Relying solely on hunting Scaleclaws to raise his bloodline purity was no longer viable. As his blood grew stronger, the day would come when the chance of gaining Dragon's Soul from them would reach zero.
He descended onto Tyria's towering black-stone walls.
The cold bricks were soaked with dark blood. Guard corpses lay strewn about, fragments of shattered armor and broken blades scattered across the ground.
Most had deep, fatal slashes at their necks, blood long drained and hardened into black clots. Others had their limbs torn off, their once-sturdy armor ripped apart like paper.
The stench of blood hung heavy in the air.
Lo Quen had no time to pray for them.
He set the two sisters down. Golden light rippled, and before their held breath, his massive dragon form shrank and condensed until it became human once more.
The sisters were still reeling from witnessing the miracle of transformation when fresh shock struck their faces.
"Ah!" Janice gasped, her cheeks flushing crimson as she clapped her hands over her eyes.
"Damn it," Lo Quen swore inwardly, the exhilaration of flight instantly drowned in embarrassment.
He hastily snatched up a bloodstained guard's helmet, barely managing to cover himself.
Jaelena, by contrast, kept her composure. A warrior born, her attention fixed on sharper matters.
She recalled their second meeting, when Lo Quen had also appeared naked. She'd assumed it was some quirk of fire sorcery—never imagining he could transform into a dragon.
"Why can you take the shape of a dragon? Is this magic? How did you learn it?" she pressed, not waiting for him to find clothing.
Her barrage of questions stirred his impatience. He answered flatly, "Of course it's magic."
"Impossible. You're not Valyrian. How could you possibly know magic that transforms you into a dragon?"
Jaelena shook her head sharply, doubt plain in her eyes.
In her mind, only the Dragonlords of Valyria could command dragons. To see an Eastern sorcerer become one shattered her pride to the core. She wanted to deny it, even after witnessing it herself.
Lo Quen bristled at her cold, haughty tone—more like a noble interrogating a prisoner than someone addressing her savior.
His voice chilled. "Lady Jaelena, don't speak to your rescuer that way. Are Valyrians the only ones allowed to study magic? As far as I know, Valyria had no such spell to become dragons, did it?"
Her eyes widened, realizing how cutting her words had been. Shame flickered across her face, and a faint blush rose to her cheeks.
"…Forgive me. I was out of line."
Her voice sank, heavy with fatigue and bitterness. "Lo Quen, thank you. You saved my sister's life. You're right—perhaps we Valyrians were too proud. We thought we could master magic, but in the end, it devoured us."
She let go of her pride and obsession, unfastened her helm, and let the night wind tangle her hair, bright as molten silver. Staring down at the scorched ruins of her city, despair hollowed her eyes.
Janice stepped softly closer to Lo Quen, her voice barely above a whisper. "Please… don't blame my sister. She's given her whole life to Tyria and to Valyria. Since the Doom, the survivors have clung to the belief that one day Valyria's glory would rise again.
To us, dragons are bound to Valyria itself. Every survivor has prayed for their return, hoping they would lead our people to rebuild our Free Cities.
To outsiders, this hope may seem madness, even obsession. But to Valyrians, it's the only reason we keep going."
Her voice carried sorrow—for her sister, and for all the hopes that had died.
Lo Quen nodded in silence.
Janice's words cut through the haze, letting him see more clearly the crushing weight Jaelena bore, and giving him deeper understanding of Osarion's madness—his willingness to sacrifice everything.
For that hollow "dream of Dragonlords," they had hurled themselves into the abyss.
And now, the dream was broken, and the city lay in ruins.
"One more thing," Lo Quen's voice cut through the heavy silence. "Osarion is dead."
He recounted what had transpired in the Magic Tower—Osarion's schemes, the birth of the Chimera, and how the Bloodmage was ultimately devoured by the monster he himself had created—his words cold and succinct.
The sisters went pale, horror widening their eyes.
They had known Osarion to be strange, but never imagined his methods could be so cruel.
"Ugh…"
Suddenly, Jaelena staggered. Her face drained of all color, white as paper.
She clutched her mouth as violent coughs tore from her throat, dark, viscous blood spilling between her fingers. Her legs buckled, and she collapsed to her knees like a puppet with its strings cut.
"Sister!" Janice cried in terror, throwing herself toward her. "What's wrong?"
Jaelena forced her head up, her face bloodless, crimson streaks at the corner of her lips. Her voice rasped like sand grinding against stone:
"I pushed the magical weapons too far fighting those monsters. The blood magic in me is out of control. Hurry, Janice—kill me with your sword! I won't become one of those mindless beasts of slaughter!"
Her desperate scream shattered all the strength and ice she had once held, tears streaming like a flood that drowned her former resolve.
Lo Quen's eyes sharpened instantly, locking onto her neck.
On her once-pale skin, gray-brown scales, cold and hard, were spreading at a pace visible to the naked eye.
At once, he understood why she had stressed that the Dragonbone Bow could only be fired once every fortnight.
The blood-soaked battle on the steps, the flaming sword in her hand, the rune-etched crimson armor—every spark of magic she had drawn on had quickened this deadly corrosion. Every surge of borrowed power had been paid for with her life.
"No! Sister, don't!" Janice sobbed, her cries breaking into ragged gasps.
She spun to Lo Quen, clutching his arm as if it were the only driftwood in a storm-tossed sea. Her violet eyes burned with desperate pleading.
"Lo Quen, please—save her! You know magic, there must be a way! I'm begging you!"
Lo Quen stayed silent.
He was no saint, no savior who rushed to rescue every dying soul.
Least of all Jaelena, who had met him with nothing but cold eyes and talk of Valyrian pride.
But Janice's raw, heart-rending plea stirred something in him.
He remembered when he had first arrived here, how this timid girl had led him to ghost grass, helping him replenish his magic for the first time.
He remembered the fight against the purple monstrous bird—if not for Jaelena's precise arrow, loosed at the perfect instant to shatter its skull, he likely would not be standing here now.
A heavy sigh left his chest.
"I can save her. But there is a harsh condition."
"What is it?" Janice's eyes lit with sudden hope, her voice urgent.
...
[Upto 40 chapters ahead for now]
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