Vivian and Leodero looked at Izo, neither moving.
Sure enough, dragons were practical creatures.
"You two go outside first."
"I happen to have a few questions to ask Mother as well."
Only after receiving Izo's affirmative reply did Vivian and Leodero walk out toward the exterior of the dragon nest.
Goliya stared at their retreating figures, her eyes filled with desolation, like an old lonely dragon guarding an empty cave, watching until they had completely disappeared.
Only then did she slowly stretch her neck. The earlier battle and long-standing hunger impelled her to start swallowing the corpses of the Frostbats on the ground.
Crunch, crunch.
Her tongue rolled up the frozen corpses, swallowing them after only two bites without much chewing.
Goliya knitted her brows; the taste was clearly far from pleasant.
After all, something dusted with ice specks couldn't be considered delicious by any stretch of the imagination.
"Are you... dying?"
Looking at the dark smoke billowing from the wounds on Goliya's body, her listless expression, and the deathly intent filling her eyes once her guard was lowered, Izo asked hesitantly.
This also explained why the greed and desire Goliya had harbored toward Leodero earlier extinguished so quickly.
It was so fast it hardly seemed like a dragon.
"Yeah."
"Not going to struggle a bit more?"
Izo was somewhat surprised that a white dragon barely two hundred years old, having just reached adulthood, could face death so calmly.
"Relying solely on a white dragon's physique, these wounds won't heal."
"If I leave them to keep eroding me, how much longer can I live? A year? A month? A week?"
"Rather than showing my hideous state, I might as well face it calmly."
Goliya's intelligence wasn't low; in fact, it far exceeded the average level of white dragons, or she wouldn't have given birth to a smart little creature like Vivian.
She was already clearly aware that she was likely beyond saving.
If Izo hadn't come, she likely would have had to spend what little remained of her life in madness.
"I will avenge you..."
Izo showed little emotion, merely uttering a promise softly. No one knew the weight of this promise, and no one knew if he would actually carry it out.
"Avenge me? You should have realized how dangerous that monster is."
"There's no record of such a monster in the Dragon Inheritance."
"You might die too."
Indeed, being able to inflict wounds on dragonkind that could not heal was enough in itself to demonstrate its level of danger.
If he wanted to develop in the Northern Territory, he had no choice but to find a way to eliminate this formidable enemy. Moreover, it was impossible for Izo to abandon the Northern Territory; those priceless Silver Crystals alone made it impossible for him to back down.
"Perhaps."
Looking into Izo's eyes, Goliya knew clearly she couldn't persuade the young dragon before her.
The underlying tone of arrogance in his eyes moved Goliya somewhat.
"Heh, since you're rushing to seek your death, I won't stop you."
"But you must promise me!"
"Don't let Vivian and Leodero go with you!"
"They're still young with plenty of time ahead. I have a feeling that as long as they don't perish prematurely, they will surely achieve great things!!"
"...I promise you."
Izo was only silent for a moment before agreeing to Goliya's demand. After all, he had no intention of sending Vivian and Leodero to their deaths either.
"There's one more thing. Have you had any dreams recently?"
"Dreams? No."
"Why do you suddenly ask that?"
The sudden shift in topic left Goliya somewhat bewildered.
"Vivian and Leodero had the exact same bizarre dream?"
Goliya's expression turned grave, and she hurriedly pressed:
"What did they dream about?"
"They were eaten by you. That's also the exact reason I came looking for you."
"As you know, dragon dreams often possess a prophetic and revelatory nature, let alone when two dragons dream of the exact same thing."
"Furthermore... none of the three of us have passed the Fated Tribulation of our juvenile stage."
Hearing this, Goliya hesitated in thought for a moment.
"Take them far away from the Everfrost Great Rift in a bit. Don't let them come near the dragon nest before I die."
"Mm."
"If there's nothing else, I'll take my leave first."
Izo spoke as he walked toward the exit of the dragon nest.
"Wait."
"Follow me. I'll take you to get a few things before you go."
Goliya stepped down from her "throne" and walked to the edge of the dragon nest, where countless pale bones were piled up. If a human were standing in the dragon nest, they would surely feel that this place was ominous and evil, giving them a sense of wanting to stay far away.
But in the eyes of a dragon, it was practically a filthy, cluttered kitchen garbage dump.
Goliya stood right atop the "kitchen garbage," digging through it with complete disregard for her image.
Izo slowly approached, and before long, a deep, dark tunnel appeared before them.
The tunnel was very narrow, its entrance only wide enough for one dragon to crawl through at a time.
No way... There's actually a tunnel here?
All dragons have a habit of hoarding treasure. Could this be that big mother dragon's treasury??
Izo was somewhat surprised. In the dragon nest where he had lived for three years, there was actually a place he didn't know about. He had always thought this big mother dragon was dirt poor.
Who would have thought she had her own private stash, hidden all along amidst this circle of trash...
"What are you standing there for? Follow me."
Goliya bent down first and squeezed into the opening. Izo followed behind, crawling into the deep, dark cave together.
Passing through the pitch-black tunnel, the view gradually widened.
Inlaid in the walls of the cave were countless blue gems resembling night-glowing pearls, shimmering with a deep blue light.
These were precisely a common local specialty underground in the Everfrost Great Rift: Northern Blue-Glint Stone.
These blue-glint stones possessed considerable purchasing power in human city-states, but among dragons—especially white dragons—they were worth next to nothing.
Although the stones on the wall weren't of much use, the other items in the vault were another story.
Besides piles of various gold coins, magical artifacts, and spellbooks from human city-states, the vault held several treasures that truly belonged to dragons.
With his sharp sense for wealth, Izo spotted them instantly.
A dragon crown, a tail ring, a set of claw armor, a breastplate, and a heavy ancient tome.
These five items were genuine, high-value treasures; apart from the ancient tome, whose origins Izo did not know, the remaining four all bore traces of dragon craftsmanship.
A flash of greed etched into his very instincts flickered in Izo's eyes, but he quickly suppressed it.
He hadn't expected Goliya, a big mother dragon who seemed dirt poor, to actually be this wealthy.
Goliya caught the greed in Izo's eyes, and her mood instantly brightened.
After all, for dragons, showing off wealth was itself an exceptionally gratifying experience.
Wealth merely lying there was just wealth; only by inciting envy and jealousy among their own kind could it satisfy a fraction of their insatiable vanity.
Rate on N.U.
