Chapter 317: Golden Dragon heritage!

A golden beam descended from above, the torrential flow thick, baptizing the simmering temple of gold located at the underground core.

Atherion quivered with fervent excitement, its scales bristling...

"Finally the time has come!" Atherion hissed from excitement, as the golden cascade flourished alive, the glorious golden dragon king temple beginning to tremble.

"Brother, your sacrifice wasn’t for naught!" Atherion mustered, its eyes misting red, turning its enormous frame towards the glowing, trembling ancestral temple, the dragon prodigy bowed in total reverence.

Following which at that very instant, a majestic roar resonated through the plain, the roar carrying a different vibe and causing all dragon blood to boil in reverence.

The roar of the one true dragon king!

The Golden Dragon King had descended!

Across the island, above and beneath the surface, all dragons halted whatever they were doing, be it facing a life-or-death situation, be it attacking human divisions, whatever was being done was placed on hold.

The dragons all stared at the simmering silhouette of a golden dragon rising in the distance.

The phenomenon bypassed all restrictions of spacetime, as those above and beneath the island saw the manifestation clearly.

The dragons all began to roar in unison, excitement thick in their tone, as they forgot all about the detrimental state the humans had pushed them to in an instant.

The dragons cared no more, now all that mattered was that their race was finally restored to its full glory.

They had waited centuries, the ones before them had waited for several millennia and finally they got to bask in the glory of shedding their inferior forms, ascending to a higher state.

From this day henceforth the flame dragons will cease to exist and the golden dragon race will be birthed!

Their roars resonated as one, the gold dragon silhouette glowing brighter, its wings unfurling....

Back at the core, the ancestral gold dragon temple began to crack as fissures spread through its surface.

Atherion watched this happen and the dragon couldn’t get anymore excited, words weren’t enough to express the joy it felt.

Crackle!

Cracks riddled the integrity of the structure, causing the entire temple to begin to crumble, its debris dissolving into brilliant, glowing motes of gold.

Forming torrent streams, washing over the dragon...

Atherion closed its eyes and embraced this flow willingly, its gold-crimson scales beginning to simmer, shedding the taint of crimson from its being.

"Yes! Yes! Hahahahaha!" the dragon laughed hysterically as the gold motes converged into a gold-woven cocoon around its frame.

...

Back on Seth’s end...

Seth glanced at the flashing prompt at the edge of his vision, and his eyes lit up... "Okay, now how would this work?" he muttered, sensing for any changes while still keeping an eye out for any attacking dragon.

But due to the devastating coverage of his previous attack, no dragon was close enough to cause harm, especially since the two great dragons hid like cowards in the distance far from his reach.

But while he didn’t sense any attack, Seth still noticed something off... A sudden calm coming across the plain.

Dragons consumed by madness suddenly becoming docile, staring at the flaming ceiling of the underground plain, their eyes carrying reverent awe.

Seth’s eyes narrowed, his frown turning towards the two great dragons who were gliding far... only to see them sitting docile on the earth, barely paying any heed to Seth’s existence any longer.

"What was happening?" Seth wondered in confusion, feeling the entire setting to be wrong.

And before he could begin to deduce what might be going on...

"ARGH!" he groaned in pain, his veins bulging thick against his glistening dark obsidian scales, his blood running hot as though it had suddenly turned to molten lava.

Hot steam rising from his body, as he went limp, falling helplessly to the earth, his vision bloated with flashing prompts, alerts from the system.

[Beware! Full draconic embodiment underway!]

[Divine lineage embodied!]

[Warning! Warning! Physical transformation begins now!]

Seth grunted loud, his bones beginning to crackle and rearrange, expanding and shattering, the vicious cycle as painful and gruesome as it sounded!

"Master?!"

The divine knight rushed to his side, features taut with worry.

Seth’s eyelids cracked open, blood leaking from their edges, "Protect me!" he hissed from between his bloodied teeth.

Managing to relay these words before sinking back into the transformation process, his frame swelling at a rapid pace, his pained grunts and wails slowly morphing into growls.

The knight understood the order, taking a step back, she turned to the dragons, cocking both her blade and shield into a stance, but surprisingly all that lay before her was rows and rows of golden cocoons as far as the eye could reach.

The crazed, rabid horde of dragons was nowhere to be seen.

The plain was overcome with an unnatural calm, but regardless the knight stood in place ready to protect her liege from whatever harm that might come.

...

Above on the surface of the slumbering super volcano, facing a golden, glowing cocoon was none other than Uriel, battered and injured.

Panting heavily, Uriel blinked through his confusion, just now he was facing a great dragon, one of unparalleled might, unlike any he had seen before.

The beast had even destroyed his mecha suit, and dealt critical damage to his genetic battle suit, Uriel had been fighting bloodied and battered, his will unrelenting, only for his foe to fall back and stare at the sky in reverence and roar.

Before he could plan to do anything else the beast had been consumed by this cocoon.

Uriel frowned hard, this behaviour simply didn’t make any sense... but in the end, he couldn’t question it much, after all defeating this beast was never his goal.

Pressing on his transmission, a static flow rang clear in his ear, "hello, anyone there?" he called, hoping members of his division were still active and hadn’t encountered another beast of the great dragon level.

"Boss? Boss, you are alive!" an excited voice came cracking from the other end.

Uriel’s blood-caked face remained stoic, ignoring his subordinates’ excitement he asked the most crucial question.

"How many have been installed?"

The voice on the other end of the transmission went silent... "All of ’em, boss, we’ve installed them all!"

Uriel let out a weary sigh, "Good! Meet me at the rendezvous point. It’s about time we got out of this hell hole."