Chapter 243 The Dragon & The Wyrm

POV Tanya:

The young woman walked down a wide marble corridor in a long, wearing a richly decorated red dress. She tried to keep her calm, but she heard it. The same patterns of breathing and steps were always around her. Someone was following her.

She hurried up her steps as multiple possibilities passed through her mind, 'Is it just some political rival, or am I being suspected?'

She felt that both options weren't far-fetched as she knew that her recent actions created many rivals and could even lead to someone questioning her loyalty, 'I was sabotaging the whole expedition for years. It wouldn't be weird if someone becomes suspicious.'

She passed through another corridor, passing by an old man dressed like a low-level royal official hunched over a book.

She controlled her expression, but inside, she was already panicking, 'I have seen him three times today. Always in different clothes.'

The young woman continued walking through the long marble corridors of the palace, her lengthy hair bouncing up and down as she slightly speeded up.

She walked by multiple servants, her eyes scanning each and every one of them, noticing that there were multiple whom she had met that day.

She kept walking, keeping her cool, trying to look like she was oblivious to the people following her.

Finally, she spotted an exit. She speeded up her steps even more while still maintaining her posture, her heels loudly tapping on the marble floor.

She finally stepped out of the large government building, calming down as the fresh breeze hit her face.

The open space and the fresh air finally allowed her to relax a bit.

She stood in the middle of a small courtyard surrounded by tall fences with guards in capes and shiny ornamental armours patrolling all over it.

'I need to get out of the capital as soon as possible.'

There was already a carriage waiting for her. She hurriedly stepped towards it.

However, she froze when her eyes fell on the driver. He had a large hat over his head, hiding his face.

She still spotted his face overlapping with a second translucent one, making her realize that something was wrong, 'Illusionary magic. He is not my driver.'

The young woman stopped in her steps, hesitating about what to do. She felt eyes on her back with the royal guards patrolling the compound.

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She knew that she was trapped, 'I can either get into the suspicious carriage or get arrested right here.'

"My lady, is something wrong?" the driver looked at her, his voice sounding like that of her own driver.

She calmed herself, thinking rationally, 'Maybe the driver is still there only to watch over me. Even if not, it will be easier to get away during the ride than fight through all the guards around me. Especially until I confirm who is behind this.'

Finally, Tanya straightened her back and entered the carriage, closing the doors behind her.

POV Vesuvius:

The giant dragon was flapping his wings high in the sky. The winds howled around him, with the whole sky covered in the blackness of the clouds.

His golden eyes glowed brightly as he looked into the distance and waited for something.

Suddenly the winds grew even stronger, and something small and glowing appeared like a small dot on the horizon.

It quickly grew as it closed towards the dragon, slowly revealing its massive winged form.

"Astrapolius! I have waited for you!" the dragon's voice boomed across the sky, causing the nearby clouds to spin and rotate.

The wyrm quickly got closer, revealing their much more bulky body than before.

Their horns grew even longer, the lightning crackling around them becoming so bright that it outshined even the sun.

Their scales also changed, gaining a shiny metallic lustre while looking bigger and rougher. They also switched to black colour, looking the same as Vesuviuses' own scales.

Their body was no longer so thin; instead, they grew in bulk while preserving their elegance.

Vesuvius immediately used analyzed them.

Ding!

//

Analyze result:

Name: Astrapolius Tempest Draco Pluvius

Species: Ancient Draco Wyrm

Occupation: NPC/Scholar/Boss

Level: 80

Danger level: Death Sentence

//

Vesuvius didn't care about the danger level, as he knew it was based on an average player of his level.

As the wyrm got closer, their domains touched, mixing as if someone had mixed two liquids.

The clouds crackling with lightning mixed with the fiery burning sky, the lightning and fire dancing across the sky, brightly flashing.

'Interesting, they didn't gain my affinities; instead, their old ones got stronger.'

The wyrm stopped not too far from the dragon, their golden eyes staring straight towards him.

The wyrm was much larger than before, but the mountain-like dragon still dwarfed them.

The dragon and wyrm flapped their wings as they hovered in the air, facing each other.

Vesuvius no longer felt suppressed next to them. He even felt that in raw power, he was stronger now. He also had his own domain, largely bridging the power gap between them.

Still, he wasn't sure if he could win, considering their vast difference in experience and knowledge.

"Astrapolius, I came here to give you an offer. A great offer."

The wyrm didn't immediately refuse. Instead, they remained flapping their wings in the air, their eyes slightly flickering with lightning.

"Speak, young dragon, and maybe I will agree."

"Come and join my kingdom. I will give you a rank and power fitting of your standing. Once I expand towards the kingdom, riches will flow towards me, and I am offering you an opportunity to gain a portion of it."

Vesuvius quietly waited for the answer, hoping for the best but already counting with a blatant refusal, 'They are old, maybe even too old.'

"I have lived here in peace for a long time. I witnessed our glory times, our downfall and now this? Why should I risk my life in wars?"

'That is a good question.' Vesuvius himself wasn't sure about that. He was just shooting blindly, hoping for some luck.

"Join me, and I can make you even stronger than just with my blood. I have more ways. You must have seen my minions."

The wyrm remained silent, so Vesuvius kept pressing, throwing more and more. He knew that wyrms were similar to dragons, so he decided to push in that direction.

"Why? You know, I have already brought the war here. You can try hiding in a hole and hope no one will notice you. Or you can fight and gain from it. Either way, you will not be able to avoid the fight."

Thunders shook with the land, and strong winds rose as the wyrms aura exploded in irritation.

Vesuvius immediately backed away and stopped pressing, feeling like it was a bad idea to continue with his provocation.

"I am not a coward! I will not hide, I will defend my territory, but I refuse to join your war of destruction and fall in the distant battlefield that I don't care about."

"I am not asking you to go on the offence. I am asking you to guard the land I will give you."

The wyrms domain slightly flickered, the dragon easly catching it and immediately pushing even more.

'Wyrms are rational beings who like to make decisions based on facts. They are not as emotional as dragons.'

"You have seen it. I grow in power faster than any dragon in history. With more time, it is only a matter of time before I become unstoppable. I can potentially upset the balance of this world back into our hands. You can join me now when you have bigger value, and you will gain a larger profit, or you can wait."

The wyrm flapped their wings unshaken, their golden eyes drilling into the dragon, "Yes, but the potential is only potential until it is fulfilled. I will not join until I gain more assurance that this venture of yours will not turn into a failure costing us both our lives. Become a dragon lord, and I will think about joining you."

The lightning struck across the sky as the wyrm turned into a lightning bolt and vanished in the storm clouds leaving the dragon hovering in the air behind.

'Become a dragon lord? I can probably. I already have my domain, so I can try it. But I doubt that it would be so simple.'

Vesuvius was more than sure that it wouldn't be about raw power and that there would be some trickery in it like the last time, 'If dragon god wanted the strongest dragon to be a lord, then they would be no need to for trials. Still, is it a good time now? With my kingdom being in the war.'

POV ???:

A few players walked down the street in the middle of the Alvamora kingdom's capital city.

The whole street was deserted, except for a few stragglers hurriedly walking as if they were scared.

"Would you believe we are in a war against an enemy we don't know?"

"The whole expeditionary army vanished without any traces. There we no messages from them. They just stopped reporting from one day to another. Then a letter of war declaration came."

All of them gulped down, realizing how huge a strength difference something like that signified, "Not even to allow attached mages to send back messages. That means they had to be overwhelmed so fast that they had no time to react."

Suddenly sounds of hooves and wheels came down from the street, and a fast carriage drove past them, the wind swishing behind it.

Multiple armoured riders on horses followed after, all wearing armours of the royal guard.

The next moment an explosion shook the street, flames erupting around the carriage.