The Regressed Heir of Ravencrest

The air around Mythralis twisted and rippled like the surface of disturbed water, and thin, faint cracks began to spread through the space around her. They were small for now, barely visible, but she could feel them growing with every passing second.

Mythralis looked at the phenomenon and realised at once what was happening… She closed her eyes briefly before opening them again.

Some names were never meant to be spoken, and some existences were never meant to be acknowledged so carelessly. Yet the shock of sensing those traces on this child had made her forget herself for a single moment, and that moment had been enough.

“It seems I don’t have much time…” she murmured, her voice heavy as she looked down at Ethan in her arms. His life was barely hanging by a thread. The reckless use of Intent, combined with his excessive use of the Unknown Energy, had left his internal injuries in a terrible state. She could sense his pathways torn and strained, his organs battered, and his breathing growing fainter with every passing moment.

Marcus and Evelyn hurried toward the central parapet after noticing the spatial cracks forming around the Ice Dragon. Mythralis slowly lowered herself and carefully settled Ethan down, resting his head on her lap.

“Great One…” Marcus said, his voice calm despite the tension.

Mythralis’s gaze shifted to them. Marcus and Evelyn could both sense the severe injuries in Ethan’s body and wanted to rush over and treat him immediately, but with the Dragon’s Authority still in effect, every healer on the battlements stood frozen like a statue, and there was nothing they could do.

“Don’t worry… he will be fine,” Mythralis said, sensing the concern radiating from both Heaven Knights.

Everything had happened too quickly for even them to fully comprehend what was going on.

“Why did you do all this, Great One?” Marcus and Evelyn asked at the same time.

Mythralis looked at them and saw the confusion still spreading through their minds. She could understand why they reacted this way. Only moments ago, she had been trying to destroy their fortress.

“Come here…” she said, looking directly at them.

They stepped forward, stopping just a few feet away from her.

A small, ancient rune formed on Mythralis’s forehead as she infused it with her will. With a single thought, it split into two, streaking toward Marcus and Evelyn and entering their heads in an instant.

A flood of memories rushed into their consciousness, memories belonging to the Ice Dragon herself. They witnessed the Abyssal Pact member behind the Beast Tide, the Four-Eyed Demon who had aided him before being sacrificed, and the demonic artifact through which the horde had been controlled. They experienced Mythralis’s desperate resistance as she fought to the very end, even attempting to destroy the entire frozen cave. Yet she had been powerless to stop the corruption, her Dragon Heart completely constricted by the sudden influx of purple mist. They witnessed how she had fallen victim to their cruel scheme… and how the Unknown Energy from Ethan had ultimately devoured the corruption, allowing her to regain control of herself.

“This…”

Marcus’s eyes burned with rage. Beside him, Evelyn tightened her grip on her sword, her round pupils briefly narrowing into slits before returning to normal. Neither allowed their emotions to overwhelm them, however. Through the memories, they had experienced Mythralis’s helplessness, her desperate struggle, and the despair she had endured while trapped within her own body.

They knew she could have simply told them what had happened. But the Ice Dragon had gone further and shown them everything… something the prideful dragon clans would never usually do, or at least not from what they knew.

While both of them were still going through the memories, Mythralis’s attention shifted back to Ethan.

With a thought, snow-white scales formed on the back of her hand. She removed several and took a deep breath before uttering a few words in the Dragon Tongue. The scales floated into the air, gradually melting and reshaping themselves until they formed a pristine white ring that shimmered with ancient draconic runes.

Mythralis slipped the ring onto Ethan’s finger. Then she gently lifted him from her lap and laid him against the parapet, resting his head carefully against the stone.

Rune moved to his side at once and pressed himself against Ethan’s chest, his blue eyes fixed on Mythralis.

Mythralis looked into Rune’s eyes for a moment. As if understanding her thoughts, Rune moved aside.

She gently placed her hand on Ethan’s forehead, and frost began spreading across his body, covering everything except his head. Unlike the freezing frost she had unleashed during the battle, this frost radiated a soothing warmth as it slowly encased him.

Then a sharp blade formed in her hand, as though carved from millennium frost, and she sliced her palm.

Drops of pure blood essence rose into the air, a dozen forming in an instant before drifting toward the ice encasing Ethan… As they merged with it, the frost didn’t turn red. Instead, it became even more pristine, glowing faintly from within.

Suddenly, a faint resonance came from the black blade beside her.

The Eternal Sovereign Blade.

She picked it up and studied it for a moment. Even with her dragon eyes, she couldn’t detect anything unusual about the sword. Yet her instincts told her that it was unlike any weapon she had encountered before.

“You want it…” Mythralis murmured, looking at the black blade.

As though it understood her words, the resonance grew stronger, and the blade began to hum with greater intensity.

“What an unusual blade… just like its owner,” she said, her lips curving upward.

A few drops of her blood fell onto the dark steel, glowing a faint silver-blue. The moment they touched it, the blade drank them in, and a soft pulse rippled along its length before it fell still once more.

She laid the sword back beside him.

She gently brushed the hair away from his forehead, letting her fingers rest on his head for a moment longer as the frost completely encased his body.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “For everything.”

———

Mythralis rose to her feet and turned toward Marcus and Evelyn, who had come back to their senses from the memories a few seconds earlier. They hadn’t disturbed her.

Her eyes settled on Evelyn first.

Mythralis regarded her for a moment, her expression gradually softening.

“It seems that idiot made your life difficult,” she said.

Evelyn froze.

The moment the words reached her, the bloodline that had been stirring beneath her skin since the dragon first appeared surged violently, as if angered by her words. Her lips parted, but no words came out. A hundred questions crowded her mind at once, and she couldn’t voice a single one of them.

Mythralis’s gaze moved to Marcus.

“Severus’s child,” she said calmly. “I have already bound him in the mountains. You will find him there… and thank you for stopping me.”

She paused briefly before continuing. “I apologize for the destruction I caused.”

Marcus stared at her.

Then a memory that had long been clouded in his mind suddenly became clear. It was from his childhood, a day when his father had taken him into the mountains. A dragon had flown toward them, and it had greeted his father Severus… Until now, he had always believed it was merely a dream.

Both Heaven Knights were even more surprised as the rest of her words settled in their minds.

Dragons were the proudest beings on the continent. In all their years, neither of them had ever thought they would hear one apologizing to a human.

Mythralis raised her hand, and a space ring appeared in her palm. She sent it floating toward Marcus. Alongside it came a small object wrapped in a faint silver glow.

“Take these as compensation.”

Marcus caught the ring and the small object. For a moment, he didn’t know what to say. Then he straightened, and despite the blood staining his armor and the exhaustion weighing on him, he spoke with the full authority of the Commander of the North.

“On behalf of Northwatch, I accept your apology, Great One,” he said. Then his tone softened. “And thank you for saving my nephew.”

Something flickered in Mythralis’s eyes, but she didn’t let it show on her face.

Evelyn turned to look at Marcus, her eyes widening at his words. She was about to say something, but she stopped herself.

———

The cracks in the sky widened.

Mythralis turned away from the battlements and looked out over the frozen plain, where tens of thousands of beasts lay motionless in the snow, all held beneath the weight of her Authority and pressed against the ground.

She spoke a single word in the Dragon Tongue.

“Leave.”

The word didn’t echo. Instead, it sank into the earth and reached every beast on the plain, carrying the full weight of her Authority. It wasn’t a request but a command from a being far beyond their reach, one they couldn’t hope to disobey.

The space around her shuddered.

Mythralis turned back one last time, looking at the boy lying against the parapet, encased in glowing frost, with the silver cub curled at his side.

Let’s meet again…

The cracks closed around her.

WHOOOSH!

The spatial fluctuation swallowed her, and she vanished from the battlements. Only a faint chill remained in the air, along with a single silver-blue snowflake drifting slowly toward Ethan.