The red dragon cautiously stepped into the cave, smelling the lingering unfamiliar scent.
“Humans!”
Before she could ponder further, two small figures scrambled up to the cave entrance.
In this clutch, the female red dragon had laid three dragon eggs. The two trembling little red dragons at the entrance were the two young ones that had hatched first.
These two wyrmlings had escaped disaster because they were out, but upon returning, they found the lair in shambles and their yet-unhatched dragon brother? Dragon sister? had vanished as well. They immediately realized something terrible had happened: the dragon lair had been burgled.
Having hatched only a little over a year ago, both knew how weak they were, so they had hidden at the foot of the mountain over the past few days.
Only upon seeing a familiar crimson figure fly up the cliff did they follow her back to the cave.
Right after, two more figures climbed up the cliff, standing to either side, trembling and not daring to speak. They were the chieftains of the kobold tribe and the gnoll tribe.
After some questioning, Seria grasped the general situation.
She did not roar in fury like an ordinary red dragon, spouting talk of curses or revenge, nor did she rally her vassals to organize retaliation.
She instructed the two chieftains to return to their tribes and maintain their watch as usual. Then, paying no heed to the two little red dragons, she walked deeper into the karst cave.
Seria was not only a powerful red dragon, but also a red dragon priestess.
On the Continent of Veland, any race could take up a class, typically consisting of one primary class and one secondary class. The primary class was naturally the main direction of development, while the secondary class served to cover the primary class's shortcomings or enhance its strengths. However, most short-lived races, lacking the requisite talent, could not afford to expend much effort on a secondary class at all.
The combat techniques and magic spells of each class were categorized accordingly, facilitating future generations in learning and research.
Over thousands of years, this system had grown thoroughly perfected.
However, there were also races proud of their noble bloodlines who refused to even touch classes. They believed their innate strength was more than enough to crush everything; combat techniques and spells were inherently present within their bloodline talents and heritage, rendering it unnecessary to waste time studying them. Dragonkind was a prime example of this mentality.
In the eyes of dragons, their power was innate—a gift of bloodline, a bestowal from the Dragon God. Adopting the primary and secondary class system of other races was considered a blasphemy against the noble Dragon God and a defilement of their bloodline.
Yet arrogance and an unwillingness to learn had brought disaster upon so many races across this continent.
The “Dracorage Mythal” spell created by elven mages plunged dragons across the entire continent into madness, driving them to slaughter one another and kill their own offspring, thereby toppling dragonkind from their throne as the world's overlords.
The great war against dragonkind likewise drained the strength of the elves and dwarves, sending both ancient civilizations into continuous decline.
Humanity seized the gap in the era, gradually rising to become the continent's new protagonists.
Studying elven magic, dwarven forging, and even grafting the bloodlines of dragons into their own bodies, this group of short-lived beings adept at learning practically established the continent's balance of power for thousands of years.
Yet humanity also possessed a fatal flaw: infighting, endless infighting. Patricide and fratricide for thrones, clashing with blades for petty gain. The once-unified human kingdom had now fractured into countless smaller realms.
The struggle for hegemony seemed poised to ignite once more.
The red dragon paced slowly to the deepest part of the karst cave, stopping before a seemingly ordinary stone wall, and began chanting draconic magic.
Once the chant concluded, the wall melted away like snow before a blazing sun, revealing a new cavern chamber before her. The red dragon stepped inside.
This space was not as vast as the cavern outside, with glowing magic crystals and gemstones dotting its corners.
In the center of the space stood an altar, and behind the altar was a dragon deity statue. The statue's five heads were held high, body leaning forward with wings unfurled, as though everything around her was mere dust.
The red dragon walked up to the statue, retrieved a blazing crystal from between her scales, placed it upon the altar, and then prostrated herself to begin praying.
...
Seria was a red dragon born sixty years ago in the Monster Forest along the border of the Kingdom of Talia.
Back then, her mother was an adult red dragon whose temperament was no different from those red dragons lost to the long river of history: arrogant, conceited, and brutal, styling herself the Queen of Bloodflame.
Caring for her offspring? In the dragon mother's eyes, that was nothing but a joke. Abiding by the rules set by Lady Tiamat, the Dragon God, and not abandoning the wyrmlings before they reached the young stage was already the height of benevolence.
Feeding them on schedule? That was even more out of the question; the most she left behind were leftover scraps of prey. If one hadn't learned to eat dirt during the wyrmling stage, could one even be called a chromatic evil dragon?
As for the frail Seria, she was practically the designated target of bullying for her brothers and sisters, and the leftover scraps from the dragon mother never came her way.
Until she took the initiative to study the draconic heritage and pray to the Dragon God, Tiamat.
The vast majority of evil dragons were so arrogant that they didn't believe in deities at all; even if they did, they were nominal believers at best.
Far away in the divine realm, Tiamat, the God of Evil Dragons, suddenly discovered that she had gained a lay believer—and a red wyrmling at that.
Tiamat began to take note of Seria, even offering her a sliver of guidance in moments of peril.
Seria lived up to expectations. Aware of her puny build, whenever the other stronger red wyrmlings squabbled over food or started brawling, she hid alone in a corner rather than expending her stamina in vain.
In ordinary times, she went to the river outside the lair to catch prey. Relying on fish and shrimp from the water and silt along the riverbanks, she managed to survive.
Until she reached the young dragon stage, her internal magical organs began taking embryonic shape. Under the guidance of the Dragon God, Seria learned magic ahead of time and developed a keen interest in it. Naturally, the time to depart was fast approaching as well.
Then came a day when the red dragon mother, as usual, led her vassals to sack a human city.
An adult red dragon had already stepped into the transcendent rank, but this time, the red dragon mother did not return with treasure or other spoils as before. Instead, she dragged her battered, broken body back to the dragon lair. Not a single one of the vassals who followed her returned.
That night, not a single star shone in the sky, and the darkness was heavy.
Seria fled.
While the dragon mother and her siblings slept, she left the dragon lair alone, fleeing her mother's territory by relying on the magic she had learned and the protection of the Dragon God.
The caution—or perhaps cowardice—she displayed that night even surprised the Dragon God during her prayers.
However, reality proved her right.
On her subsequent travels, she learned from a captured human adventurer that the Queen of Bloodflame—her mother—had been hunted down and killed by the Kingdom of Talia, and the red dragon wyrmlings captured in the lair had already been transported to the royal capital.
Three days after Seria left the dragon lair, the Kingdom of Talia's dragon-hunting party traced the tracks left by the red dragon mother and located the lair. Rather than rushing to strike, the dragon-hunting party reported first to the King of Talia.
Another three days later, the dragon-hunting party, the royal guards, and the royal mage corps assembled at the borders of the Queen of Bloodflame's territory, enlisting an arcane grandmaster to lay down an anti-flight array around the dragon lair.
In just a single day, the overbearing Queen of Bloodflame, who had terrorized the kingdom's borders for decades, was slain, and her offspring became commodities for the kingdom and consumables for mages.
From then on, Seria acted with ever greater caution. So much so that the usual red dragon habit of roaring whenever things went awry was seldom seen in her; thinking before acting had become second nature to her.
Just now, seeing the dragon lair's treasures plundered, the dragon egg stolen, her vassals slaughtered, alongside a string of human provocations, she did not show her wrath, calmly making her way before the altar instead. Oh, and credit was also due to that exceptionally crimson scale in the center of her forehead.
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