CHAPTER 5: THE WOUNDED FURY
---
The descent into the chasm was a trial of nerve and will. The [Basic Wilderness Survival] knowledge guided my hands and feet, finding purchase on slick, unstable rock where none seemed to exist. The rhythmic, heart like thrum grew louder with every foot of descent, vibrating up through the stone and into my bones. It wasn't a heartbeat. It was a pulse of raw, trapped power, and it was laced with agony.
The silvery mist thickened, coiling around my legs like cold, sentient serpents. It was the dragon's breath, Nyx's essence leaking from her wounds and slowly poisoning this place. My meta-knowledge supplied the name: Void Miasma. In large quantities, it could unravel a man's mind and body. Here, at the fringes, it was a disorienting fog that whispered half-formed fears at the edge of hearing.
You will fail. They will all die. You are just a side character.
I pushed the thoughts aside, focusing on the next handhold. The System's guiding arrow was a steady, reassuring blue in the oppressive gloom.
After what felt like an eternity, my boots touched level ground. The floor of the chasm was a forest of shattered stalagmites and strange, crystalline growths that pulsed with the same rhythm as the dragon's power. The air was thick, heavy to breathe.
I moved forward, my senses stretched to their limits. And then, I saw her.
Nyx.
She was far larger than I had imagined, a creature of living shadow and starlight coiled in the center of a massive cavern. Her scales were a deep, velvety black, shot through with shimmering patterns that resembled a nebula. A magnificent, spear like horn crowned her head, and vast wings, even folded, promised dominion over the sky. But the promise was broken.
A colossal, jagged shard of glowing, sickly-green rock was driven deep into her shoulder, pinning her wing to her body. The substance was Demon Iron, a metal that actively suppressed magical energy and caused excruciating pain. It was the reason she was trapped. In the novel, Draco would find her years later, weakened but having slowly, agonizingly pushed most of the shard out. He would "heroically" remove the last fragment.
Her pain was a physical force in the cavern, a wave of heat and despair that made my eyes water. Each labored breath she took was a small earthquake. Her great head lay on the ground, one molten silver eye, slitted like a cat's, cracked open. It fixed on me.
The eye was not just pained. It was intelligent, ancient, and filled with a fury that could scorch worlds.
A low, ground shaking growl emanated from her chest, a sound that promised utter annihilation. I was an insect, a trespasser in her sanctum of suffering.
[System Alert: Presence of a Primordial-level Entity Detected. Hostile Intent Confirmed.]
[Warning: Direct combat is suicide.]
My heart felt like a trapped bird beating against my ribs. This was the moment. The ritual or death.
I slowly, deliberately, raised my empty hands, showing I held no weapon. I pushed a feeling of intent toward her, not with words, but with the raw concepts the ritual fragment had taught me: Not enemy. Healer. Ally.
The growl deepened. She didn't believe me.
Moving with glacial slowness, I reached into my tunic and pulled out the [Moon Touched Sapphire]. It flared to life in the gloom, its soft, celestial light a direct counterpoint to the oppressive Void Miasma and the ugly green glow of the Demon-Iron.
Her eye tracked the gem, a flicker of something other than pain within its depths, recognition? Curiosity?
This was it. I took a deep breath, the ritual's phrases, alien and guttural, forming in my mind. I pricked my palm with my dagger, letting my blood well up and drip onto the cavern floor.
"Karyth Nos Vyth'ren," I intoned, the words feeling like gravel in my throat. "Elun'dar Ahn'Sharok." (Hear the call of the wounded. I offer a bridge.)
I focused the ritual through the sapphire, aiming its energy not at her, but toward the festering wound, the source of her agony. I wasn't trying to dominate her. I was offering her a tool,my own spirit, my will as a channel to push the poison out.
The reaction was immediate and violent.
Nyx roared. It was a sound of tearing metal and shattering mountains. The entire chasm trembled, dust and rock shards raining down from above. She thrashed, her tail whipping against the cavern walls and sending boulders flying.
[Warning! Ritual Backlash! Hostility Level Critical!]
A psychic wave of her pain and rage hit me like a physical blow. I was thrown backward, skidding across the rough stone. My vision swam, blood trickled from my nose. Visions of my own death, crushed, burned, torn apart flashed behind my eyes.
This was a mistake. She was too powerful, too enraged. The ritual was a fool's hope.
But giving up meant Stonecrest fell. It meant Luna died. It meant Draco won.
No.
I pushed myself to my knees, gritting my teeth against the psychic onslaught. I held the sapphire high, my bleeding hand outstretched.
"I! AM! NOT! YOUR! ENEMY!" I screamed, not in the draconic tongue, but in my own, pouring every ounce of my defiance, my desperation, and my stolen knowledge into the words. "THEY DID THIS TO YOU! THE DESTINY THAT TRAPPED YOU HERE IS A LIE! I OFFER YOU A NEW PATH! FIGHT WITH ME!"
I redirected the ritual. I stopped trying to soothe. Instead, I took the searing tapestry of her pain and my own determination and wove them together. I showed her my memories, my death at Draco's feet, Luna's lifeless eyes, the demon tide washing over my home. I showed her the System's interface, the blueprints for empires, the promise of stars.
I showed her that I, too, was trapped by a story I refused to be part of.
The thrashing stopped. The roaring ceased. The cavern fell into a sudden, deafening silence, broken only by the drip of water and my own ragged breaths.
Nyx's great head turned. Her massive, intelligent eye fixed on me once more. The fury was still there, but it was now tempered by something else... a dawning, ancient understanding.
A new, tentative connection snapped into place. It was a thread, finer than spider silk, stretching from my core to hers. Along it flowed not words, but pure intent.
Pain.
...Purpose?
...Freedom?
[Primary Quest Updated: The Dragon's Bond]
[Objective: Remove the Demon-Iron Shard.]
[Bond Network: Unlocked!]
[New Bond Formed: Nyx (The Last Night Fury). Bond Level: 1 - Tentative.]
I stood, my body trembling with exhaustion and relief. I had done it. The bridge was built.
Now, I had to cross it.
CHAPTER 5 COMPLETE
Next: The painful extraction of the Demon Iron shard and the forging of the first true bond between man and dragon, as the clock to the demon tide counts down its final hours.
---