168 I like to be alive and donst want to be dead (1/2)
”Such weakness, it is no wonder they were so small.” Looking at the now cold corpse of the last remaining drake, she couldn't help but feel disgusted by her death. A mere human girl, a young one, had managed to keep her life suffering a pain only slightly softer and weaker. But she was just a human, nothing as strong as a drake. However, apparently, her will was like an iron fortress compared to the one of that monster.
In fact, what the large creature experienced was attacking almost exclusively her mind and soul, barely meddling with the sensations of the body. But as consumed with fear as she was, the female drake did not manage to survive the ordeal, preferring to stop struggling. That was why Leilade was so much disappointed, clearly not expecting such behavior from a distant relative of the dragons.
The mark that should have been imprinted on her chest was almost done, but with the death of the host, the shadows and the fire were beginning to fade away. It was the quickest way to erase the soul of a relatively powerful being, as the small girl had to estimate once more if the dead thing in front of her could even be called powerful. Grabbing the corpse anyway, she explored a bit the cave, only to find out some food and a small pond of water in the back of it.
Only by searching a bit more did she found out a few crystals that barely had any mana in them. Compared to the treasure of the wyverns, it was obvious those drakes were not even worth considering in the same sentence. Even their memories barely had anything interesting. Besides hunting, mating and escaping when seeing a large shadow in the sky, they were boring.
The only thing remotely good she learned was the fact that they attacked a few times the dwarves that traveled between the mountains. Even if the territory of the dwarves was mainly composed of one big chain of mountains, there were still dozens of them that were completely isolated or too far away. Like the Forbidden Mountain, which was still at many days of travel from the real frontier of the Iron Kingdom.
However, besides knowing she had once more helped those half men, it was still useless for her. Leaving the place, she directly decided to go to the breeding grounds of the dragons and letting the small fry live a bit longer. Remembering the location of what was called, Clear Peak, the only detail she knew about it was that it was the highest point of all the mountains. So high that even the clouds could not obscure it, as a sea of them could be spotted from there.
There were still a few other summits where the same scene could be seen, but none was completely occupied by the dragons. Floating upward, even more, she passed through the few clouds that were blocking the stars in that night, basking fully in the moonlight. There, she proceeded to create a few ghosts, to speed up the process. Even if she had a relative idea of where she was, with the near presence of the Skasa, it was not to the point where she could find her way immediately.
Waves of ethereal forms began to flood the dark sky, searching for something. Closing her eyes, Leilade began to patiently wait for an answer, as she focused fully on the many shadows lingering around her. Examine all of them, she searched any traces of an exterior intervention, mainly something that was bothering her in her soul. And if at first, nothing was found out, there was still a few irregularities that she immediately proceeded to remove. As she was beginning to do the same with the flow of mana in her body, one of her summons finally found the place.
With the sun beginning to rise, the dragons were slowly leaving their dens. Far above them, she could see why the dwarves were extremely worried about their numbers. With the fact that this race already had an extremely long life and was incredibly hard to kill, just the presence of 6 adults in the same location was definitely a threat.
The smallest of them was only 30 meters tall, without counting the length of his wings. As for the biggest, it was nearly the double, his blue scales shining under the sunlight. However, by seeing their shapes, she realized they were definitely not the most threatening variants of the dragons. Contrarily to the unwelcomed guest of the Vault of Souls, that smug dragon, they were extremely slim for their size. All their limbs were nimbler, but as a drawback, it was nowhere as thick as they could be.
Likewise, instead of having a rounder face or even a normal neck, their head was more similar to the one of a snake or a lizard, with an extended neck that could allow movements usually prevented by their skeleton. Trying to get on top of such a creature would only result in death, as it could always reach any part of its body. Even their tails were abnormally long, and she wouldn't be surprised if it was used to reach some tunnels dug by the dwarves.
Now she understood how they could repeatedly attack the outposts of the dwarves. As big and large they were, their thing limbs allowed them to grab anything that was only a few meters away from the entrance of the tunnel. At the same time, the reason why the gate she encountered near the fallen Kingdom of Pankow was preceded by a tunnel. Because that distance was enough to prevent the tails of the dragons to reach the dwarves.
However, even if they were not bulky or covered in spikes, they still remained part of one of the strongest races of the Universe. Without counting those horrors living in the empty space. Just a single one of them could probably crush the trio of wyverns she met or even more likely, the small group of drakes she just slaughtered.
Without any surprise, besides their slightly muddled minds, they quickly spotted her. Maybe the fact that she had the sun right behind her and was creating shadows large enough to cover part of it was the reason. If she wanted, she could even completely obscure the sun, and the more she thought about that, the more a part of her wanted to do it.
Soon after, an entire part of the summit was covered in darkness, as the sun was no longer visible. If the dragons were not capable of seeing this, that would mean they were truly blind. But instead of rushing at her, they just looked at the event with mild interest, before doing what they planned to do. Like it did not matter to them. Seeing the result far from being anything she expected, Leilade stopped wasting time and mana for nothing.
Even now, as she was approaching, the best she obtained was just a glance, like her very presence was completely invisible. Looking at her completely black hands, she was however certain she had nothing hiding her. This time, even she was beginning to wonder if they were dragons or something else. Otherwise, couldn't they just take her a bit more seriously.