Chapter 469: Mad Dragon King

Chapter 469: Chapter 469: Mad Dragon King

Chapter 469 – Mad Dragon King

A brittle sigh escaped Cassius’s lips. He looked absentmindedly at the sky made of threads in the Gate of Fate and Secrecy, his body feeling as though thousands of men were holding him from all sides, pinning him down.

He could hear the distant voices of his three goddesses, but his senses were all overflowing with things that were not his own.

Inside his mind, pulsing and throbbing as if the memories themselves were knocking against his skull, the vivid images he had just witnessed were still fresh, yet also spreading like a bloody cancer.

With that memory came the feelings the dragons had been going through at that moment — kneeling, chained, yet hailing a human who had enslaved them.

There was fear in those memories, and even a deep hatred.

Yet somehow, for reasons that left Cassius completely speechless, there was love. And that love was more encompassing than the hatred.

’How... is that possible?’

He winced, his lips pale and shaking, his body trembling all over as he tried to separate his own feelings from the foreign ones, and his own memories from the ones the Dragon Eye was still somehow feeding him.

But this time, the memories were singular, belonging to only one dragon.

And Cassius recognized the dragon, for it was the biggest and the most majestic.

It was the Dragon Saint.

It was the dragon his own master, Mallory Octavia Claweye, had loved, yet abandoned for vengeance.

A dragon who had loved her dearly...

...or at least, that was what Cassius had believed since his master told him her story.

But the memories spreading through his brain said the complete opposite.

The Dragon Saint was named Hamdall Au Fardharf, the First of His Name, and the Son of the First Red Dragon to hatch on Sunu Gaal.

A mighty being, talented enough to reach the Fifth Rank with tremendous ease. One who could have had any dragon woman he wanted, yet who had always been chaste.

He had never bothered with any woman of his tribe, choosing instead to focus only on getting stronger and becoming a Dragon worthy of succeeding his father.

But that had begun after a certain event, one Cassius couldn’t witness, as if that memory had been burned to ashes.

Still, the Last Born continued to watch the memories like a movie.

’Arggh.’ Cassius finally groaned, witnessing the life of a Legend.

An unknown Legend. And maybe for good reason.

One day, however, during one of Hamdall’s numerous expeditions into the world with his group of friends, made up of four dragon women — the strongest, meanest, and prettiest — they encountered a wounded woman.

A wounded dragon.

It was Mallory Octavia Claweye herself, on the edge of death. And that encounter completely changed Hamdall in a way no one would ever believe.

But Cassius knew what had changed in Hamdall at the sight of Mallory.

He knew why the Son of the Dragon King suddenly became so caring, so loving, that he managed to make his master fall in love with him.

It was not because Hamdall loved her.

’He... needed her.’ Cassius coughed, his eyes going wide, his left eye burning brightly.

His goddesses tried to wake him up, to stop whatever memories were taking hold of his being. Yet, afraid of doing something that could hurt him, they could only watch with tense hearts.

’Needed her... for what?’ The Last Born looked deeper into the memories, gritting his teeth, and the answer came to him, laid bare.

Hamdall’s own sister, Moon Au Fardharf.

Hamdall’s sister had been born crippled, despite being the daughter of the Red Dragon King himself.

They had tried many ways to find out why, but nothing could be found. But even though Hamdall didn’t know what his sister’s problem was, he had managed to learn how to cure her.

And it was thanks to Amate Desdemona herself, who had told Hamdall that the only remedy for any dragon race could be found in the True Blood of the Origin Dragon Race.

And just who happened to be of that very race?

’Master...’ Cassius concluded, and he was right.

Hamdall had never loved Mallory. He wanted her True Blood. And because he considered himself upright and just, he wanted her to give it willingly, and believed she would agree if she came to love him.

And he did succeed.

But before he even had time to ask her, Mallory had already disappeared, leaving behind a letter of thanks, apology, and love.

Hamdall never cared about that letter, and burned it to ashes right away.

His anger was boundless. He had wasted so much time and effort on a being he could simply have captured and used for his goal, and in the meantime, his sister had died, killed by one of the women who loved him.

For what reason? Cassius was unable to find out, and that irritated him to no end.

Yet the memories were not over.

Hamdall’s own mother began to blame him after learning the story, and he killed her in his wrath.

His father had already ascended by then, no longer a demigod, which spared him from retribution.

However, losing both his mother and his sister broke Hamdall’s mind, and he became the Mad Dragon King, ruling over the Red Dragons with anger and hatred, and a mindless obsession with his dead sister.

That is... until Amate Desdemona, the woman he had loved since he was young, came back into his life.

Hamdall wanted to marry Amate, even though she was human.

And Amate Desdemona had accepted, married Hamdall, and—!

SNAP!

Cassius’s eyes snapped wide open as the memories ended, and he jolted upward with all his strength, gasping.

His breathing was rough and heavy, and he was trembling like a naked man left alone in a Frozen Land.

"Cassius, are you okay?" Ananke’s voice boomed.

Lifting his head, he only then noticed that he was in the arms of the three goddesses, their confused and worried eyes on him.

"What just happened?" Tysche followed, wiping away the sweat that had gathered on his face.

But the Last Born only stared at them with a blank expression. The influx of memories had suddenly stopped, but whatever he had received was now inside his brain, and the implications were heartbreaking, yet confusing.

He opened his mouth, failed to speak, closed it, then opened it again, and managed to mutter, "Just... what did the 333rd do to the Red Dragons?"

Because now, Cassius doubted whether things were as simple as his ancestor having slaughtered them.

Hamdall, the Mad Dragon King, had been in love with her, not with his master.

And this whole history between Hamdall and his master had begun with the 333rd telling him about the Origin Dragon.

A coincidence?

’Queen’s breath, this is troublesome.’ Cassius closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ’How am I supposed to tell my master this? Just how?’

"Stop ignoring us, Cassius." Ananke cut through his thoughts cleanly, and he looked at her. "Are you okay? You were trembling all over. Did you receive memories from your Eye?"

Cassius blinked, his eyes sweeping between them. Then he nodded, slow and hesitant, his skull aching tremendously. "Yes," he replied. "A pretty nasty one."

"Want to share it with us?" Marvela asked.

He had no reason to refuse.

If he couldn’t even trust his own goddesses, who were always anxious because of him, then he would certainly be the most ungrateful man on this Earth.

So he didn’t hesitate, and shared the memories he had received from Hamdall, and how all of this connected to his master, Mallory, and to his 333rd ancestor, Amate Desdemona.

And as he recounted this rather confusing patchwork of memories, Cassius also took the opportunity to share the knowledge he had gained from talking with the White Phoenix.

The knowledge about his birth, about Desdemona, and about Kaden.

His goals of getting the Three Books and fighting against Gods, Errors and... Holders. All of that without even taking into account the Blessed of these beings, and the monsters... the damn monsters.

The more he said, the more surprised his goddesses became, and the bleaker the future seemed to them, knowing how many times Cassius would be in danger, and how many times they would have to witness it.

The agony, the fear, the stress, the anxiety of seeing one’s child on the edge of death so many times was not something anyone could bear.

Always watching over Cassius was taking a toll on the goddesses’ minds, and that burden was only going to get heavier.

"By the Abyss..." Marvela whispered, a little dazed by all these revelations.

Even Tysche was unsure how to feel.

She herself began to wonder at what point Desdemona had decided to bring her into this complex plan.

Ananke only listened and said nothing, and Tysche stared at her sister, her very big sister, the eldest of the three of them. And once again, she had the impression that Ananke knew more than she let on, even though they were supposed to share the same level of knowledge regarding these plans.

’Just what are you hiding from us, sister?’ she thought, and at that precise moment, Ananke snapped her head towards her.

The Queen of Fate smiled at her sister, a smile Lady Luck knew and recognized. The one she wore whenever she repeated her favorite words: ’All Things in Time. Just do your duty, open your eyes, and witness Cassius, for that’s all we need to do.’

Tysche narrowed her eyes at Ananke, then sighed. ’Secrecy, huh,’ she whispered. ’I sometimes forget that you hold the highest Authority of Secrecy in the realm of the divine. Ah, sister. Go on, then. Hide your secrets.’

"You have gone through so much," Ananke said to her Blessed. "And now you’ve received yet more information about the Mad Dragon King."

"I need a break," Cassius replied, falling back onto the ground. "I need time to absorb all this knowledge before I get overwhelmed. But my current problem is what to do about my master’s lover."

"What else?" Marvela shrugged. "You owe her the truth."

"Telling the truth means telling her that the one she loved, loved my ancestor. The very one who later slaughtered them." He winced. "How can I say that? And I still lack a lot of information. How did the 333rd come to kill them all, if she had accepted Hamdall’s love? And how did that scene, of Hamdall and all the dragons chained while hailing her, come to be? I still lack information. I can’t say anything before I know."

"Are you saying this because you genuinely want to know," Ananke whispered, "or because you are simply afraid of telling your master the truth?"

"Both," Cassius admitted. "I don’t even want to say it. I feel like I would be trespassing into her open, bare wounds. Sigh."

The three goddesses looked at each other and smiled wryly.

"You need a good sleep, darling," Marvela said next. "If you had mastered my Blessing a bit more, you would have been able to put yourself to sleep and dream the very specific dream you want, to ease your mind. But all you can do is force yourself to sleep."

"Ah. I will train it if I have time," he said, lifting his right hand, white flames shrouding it. "I just need one percent to reach the next level of my Concept. And I have reached the limit of my Essence. I can rank up now."

He smiled faintly, looking at them.

"I am ready to become a Third Rank, and obtain my Soulblade."

—End of Chapter 469—