Truly Beautiful
“Understood.”
Ruri no longer tried to stop the stubborn Ferda. She had expected him to refuse after her firm warning, yet she chose instead to simply go along with his wishes.
Once Ferda finished his meal, Ruri took the lead. She headed for the open clearing in the garden.
“I will take hold of you for a moment.”
The same Ruri who had so despised the idea of touching him now announced she would seize him.
“Do as you will.”
“Very well.”
Ruri caught hold of Ferda’s clothes. In that instant the fiercely blazing sun vanished. Something blotted out his vision—a pair of enormous wings unfurling from her back. The wings beat once toward the ground, and they soared.
Whoosh—!
Gravity vanished; the resistance of the air battered Ferda. He felt he might vomit the breakfast he had just eaten at any moment. Swallowing hard, he forced himself through the pressure and the wind. The dizziness and pain lasted only a brief while.
“We have arrived.”
At Ruri’s words Ferda opened his eyes. The scenery before him had changed in an instant. The place they had reached by flight was the very summit of the mountain.
In what felt like barely three seconds we reached the peak?
This was no teleportation spell—pure speed alone had done it. Even among Dragon Spawn she was the swiftest. No—perhaps the swiftest even among true dragons.
While Ferda stared at her, lost in that thought, she said,
“What you need to look at is not me.”
“What?”
“Look below.”
“Ah. Right.”
Ferda turned his head and gazed downward, eastward from the summit of Lonely Mountain. A colorless plain stretched out there.
The Land of Evil.
The region completely contaminated after the Demon King’s death. Something writhed across it.
Monsters.
Monsters—the invaders of the continent who had poured in ever since the Demon King’s birth. Where they came from, how they were made—still unknown even by the time Ferda had slain Baldrova. All that was known was that their purpose was the same as the Demon King’s a hundred and fifty years ago.
To create a land where only death remains.
To annihilate every living thing and rule over it. What Ferda now watched were the monsters rising from the east.
As expected of the east—the monsters are enormous.
They were vast beyond measure. Crawling from the unpurifiable Land of Evil, they boasted a size that could topple fortresses merely by rolling over. A calamity no human could ever hope to withstand.
Amid those dull colors of despair, a single flame of near-primary red danced. No—looking again, it was no flame.
The Red Dragon, Baldrova.
The one who would become Ferda’s fiancée was fighting there. Baldrova’s bulk was large for a dragon, yet against the monster she faced she was scarcely half its size. Hopelessly outclassed in mass, she was still no easy opponent.
Rumble—!
Monster and Baldrova collided. Despite the vast difference in weight class, she did not yield an inch. Instead the air itself heaved. The shockwave swept through the forest and reached even the high peak where Ferda stood.
“Ugh…”
Ferda’s body went rigid. An ordinary person might simply have been terrified, but the cause here was clear: dragon mana mixed into the wave had pierced his skin.
Dragon Fear… no doubt.
It was on an entirely different plane from the Dragon Fear Ruri had once released. Even knowing it was not directed at him, it made him feel as though those eyes were fixed upon him alone.
So this is a Red Dragon.
A helplessness of a scale he had never known even as an Archmage washed over him. Baldrova’s battle continued.
Crack! Crunch!
The embodiment of strength, Lord of Fire. The red tyrant’s combat was overwhelming. Sharp claws flayed thick hide. Long jaws and fangs severed arteries and tendons. She moved with such agility that the thrashing monster looked clumsy. Relentlessly she sought every blind spot, leaving the creature no chance.
Power, speed, and innate battle sense.
Kieeeek!
With every tendon severed, the monster could resist no longer and collapsed. Left alone it would die—yet Baldrova’s violence did not cease.
Rip—! Tear—!
Her claws punched through the monster’s belly and tore it wide open. Purple blood and green entrails spilled so copiously that even Ferda, far away, could see them clearly. At the same time Baldrova’s belly swelled. A brilliant scarlet light flared behind her white underbelly.
Fire Breath.
Fwoooosh!
The Red Dragon’s breath—said to be fiercer than the flames of hell itself—roared into the monster’s innards.
Kieeeek!
The creature’s agonized scream burst forth, yet soon even that cry died. From every hole torn in its body Baldrova’s crimson flames gushed out. Its insides cooked through, then crumbled into ash. The form dissolved into ash and smoke, and upon the cursed ground only the red tyrant remained standing.
Kroaaaah!
Baldrova’s roar thundered, shaking everything.
“Ugh!”
Ferda could endure no longer and collapsed where he stood.
So a Dragon Roar truly holds this much power…?
The sensation of being utterly overwhelmed by a dragon—something he had never felt even as an Archmage. His limbs trembled; his teeth chattered. He was, quite literally, neutralized.
“This is the true form of the one who will be your mate.”
Ruri crouched beside him and looked down.
“The blood of a Red Dragon carries savage murderous intent—the very essence of what you humans call an Evil Dragon. It is not a matter of temperament. It is essence.”
She stressed the word. Ferda understood why she spoke so.
Essence cannot be changed.
An Evil Dragon remains an Evil Dragon forever. Her killing intent cannot be erased, and there is no guarantee it will never turn upon Ferda.
“A Red Dragon cannot live without destroying. If you remain at my master’s side, you must steel yourself every day for the shrimp’s back to break between whales.”
Ruri’s expressionless eyes seemed to ask: Do you finally realize how shallow your decision was?
Her power certainly stirs fear.
Even seen from afar, the look in her eyes carved itself vividly into his mind. That fact was inescapable, undeniable.
Yet I am not afraid.
In Ferda’s mind those eyes remained, but so did Baldrova’s feelings. The emotions she had seen and felt helped him understand every action she had taken until now.
That act is for the sake of this world.
She loves this world enough to hide her true form, and she hunts the monsters herself to protect what she loves.
She is an Evil Dragon.
Yet at the same time she is a knight of noble heart, the guardian dragon of the continent—an ascetic forever advancing toward an ideal no one else can reach.
“Truly…”
Thus the emotion of fear transformed into wonder.
“Magnificent.”
Light kindled in Ferda’s eyes. He was smiling.
Ruri hated humans. Anyone who carried a dragon’s blood was bound to feel that way. Yet her own master, Baldrova, loved the creatures beneath her.
And she was wounded for it.
After the assassination of the Third Prince, Ruri’s loathing for humans had grown denser than that of any other Dragon Spawn. Because she hated them more than anyone, she understood the gulf between human and dragon all the more clearly, and she understood precisely what she despised. Therefore she already knew what happened when an ordinary human beheld a Red Dragon’s true form.
He brought this on himself.
Ferda had said he wished to see. Ruri had warned him thoroughly and even tried to stop him. Though she had seized him and flown him up before the battle ended, she believed she had done enough to dissuade him. Until that moment, events had unfolded exactly as she expected.
Ferda had merely stared blankly at the scene, trembling under the incomparable Dragon Fear.
The classic pattern.
That face would soon twist into terror; he would reproach his own shallowness and beg to be spared. By then her master would also understand—that human and dragon could never become one.
So she thought events were following her prediction. They were not.
“Truly… magnificent.”
The absurd words left Ferda’s mouth. Ruri turned her head, wondering if she had misheard. What she saw startled her further.
He’s smiling?
She could not comprehend it. How could anyone smile while watching something so mercilessly torn apart and burned? Should he not be terrified that the same fleeting fate could befall him?
Unless…
In that instant a realization struck Ruri like thunder and lightning—why this man could remain so composed even after becoming Baldrova’s fiancé, and why he could smile in this situation. If it were “that,” everything made sense.
This insane masochist.
Ruri’s loathing for Ferda deepened another degree.
That day Ferda could not move a muscle and lay flat on the bed. He had taken a full Dragon Fear and then a Roar on top of it. For an ordinary human the experience would have shattered the mind. Ferda, remaining sane, had simply had his body broken instead.
Can I really not move at all?
He tried flexing a hand; a toe twitched instead. When he tried to blink, his thumb jerked. When he tried to move his mouth, his nostrils flared.
No use, it seems.
That his mind remained clear was miracle enough. The best course was simply to lie still and sink into thought.
An entire day wasted.
He barely had enough time to focus on piercing his circles, yet here he was, forced to stay in bed.
Why did I want to see it in the first place?
The reason Ferda had wanted to watch—perhaps some instinct that the battle might give him an answer.
And did that instinct prove true?
That was what he needed to discover now. He decided to relive everything he had witnessed. He returned in memory to the moment he had arrived at the mountain summit—the scent of the air, the temperature against his skin, the rough gravel underfoot. He recalled it all with perfect clarity. In the mental world he had constructed he lowered his gaze and summoned the battle again.
It had not been the combat of a notorious Evil Dragon.
It was a noble battle fought by a noble red knight.
She was the one who would soon become his mate. In that instant something stirred deep within his lower dantian.
This is…
Ferda knew the sensation well. It was the same upheaval he had felt when he was cast out of House Rosnova.
A Red Circle is forming.
A Red Circle born of emotional upheaval. Because Ferda had intended to create a Blue Circle, he ought to have rejected it at once.
Strange.
Yet he did not. He sensed that this Red Circle was of a different grain.
This emotion does not spring from rage or the lust for revenge.
It was an upheaval caused by a feeling wholly different from those he had once known—yet a feeling that possessed potential no less vast.
I felt this while imagining Baldrova fighting.
Even now it was the same. The more he thought of her, the clearer the circuit became. Had he not insisted on watching her battle precisely for this reason?
Then…
Perhaps this was the answer. Ferda hesitated no longer. He focused upon every emotion he held for Baldrova—the wonder, the majesty of her form. He shaped the vague feelings into words, refined them, and stirred them higher.
Mana circuits whirled violently. The chaotic rotational force grew ever stronger, threatening to swallow him like a storm-tossed sea. Yet Ferda was a man who had once reached Archmage status through Red Circles. He delicately controlled the vortex born of upheaval, gathering what tried to scatter, compressing it, shaping it—until at last a single circle took form.
A Circle.
Feeling the lingering aftertaste of relief and exaltation, he examined once more the source of the emotion.
It was not founded upon hatred or the desire for vengeance.
Which meant the future would not be the same, nor would the same mistakes be repeated.
Good.
Ferda rejoiced at the knowledge. His nostrils flared.