Novel Full Chapter 775: Mystery Dragon
Chapter 775: Chapter 775: Mystery Dragon
The announcer’s voice had barely finished echoing when Cassian stepped fully onto the arena platform, the gold-trimmed white of his First Celestial uniform shifting in the wind like the mantle of a monarch. Kain watched him with narrowed eyes, pulse steady but every nerve alert.
Kain’s contracts were not in perfect condition after his fight with Isolde. And even worse, there was an even stronger opponent up next.
This brief pause was all they had to recover. Thankfully, with Chewy’s abilities to replenish energy and Queen’s healing abilities, their conditions were restored to as good as they could get.
Probably the only thing a little lacking with no method of restoration, was their mental strength. The last match against Isolde was also mentally draining. Trying to beat her with as little loss as possible meant that each contract was using their minds at 2 times the usual capacity.
’Maybe I should try and see if Bea can learn a skill that can restore mental strength’
Across from him, Cassian also began to summon his contracts.
One by one, dragons emerged.
First, the Dream Dragon—its opalescent scales refracted light into a shifting halo, and the air around it seemed to bend with impossible geometry.
Second, the Nightmare Dragon—black flame crawling over midnight scales, its shadow pooling unnaturally beneath it.
Third, the Solar Dragon—radiance coiling off its form in molten ribbons, each step cracking the ground beneath with heat.
Fourth, the Ethereal Dragon—its partially translucent body flickering like starlight through thin clouds, already phasing in and out as if ignoring the rules of physical space.
These were the only contracts that had appeared in prior fights and also the only ones he’d used to defeat Ezra last year.
Then came one Kain, and the audience, had never seen before.
The fifth dragon stepped into existence with a blinding flare of light—but the purity of that radiance was immediately split by veins of another element: deep, swirling water that shimmered like moonlit tidepools. The fusion of light and water wrapped its form in refracted halos, a moving mirage that made its exact size and shape difficult to judge. Kain recognized it as a Coronaflow Dragon.
The sheer elegance of its presence made the audience collectively inhale before breaking out into cheers at the appearance of a new contract.
Cassian’s summoning stopped.
He did not summon the sixth.
Kain’s eyes narrowed.
He knew Cassian had a juvenile dragon based on what he knew from the inheritance relic—a dragon with the light-attribute, supposedly. And maybe one more weaker secondary attribute.
Why hold it back? The thought twisted unpleasantly. ’He beat Ezra last year with only four dragons… does he think I’m also not worth the full lineup?’
The edge of Kain’s mouth curled down. ’Fine. Keep it in reserve. That pride will be your downfall.’
Cassian met his gaze, expression unreadable. But a faint hesitance could be seen in his eyes, as if contemplating something. Then his features hardened, as he seemingly came to a decision. He lifted his hand again.
The arena shifted.
No… it wasn’t the arena. It was the air itself, compressing, folding in on the space between them until every sound seemed muted and every breath felt like a chore.
A pressure—immense, ancient—descended over the stage, unlike the aura of any dragon Kain had ever faced.
There was a sound. Low. Resonant. Not a roar exactly, but something deeper—like thick roots tearing through soil and stone.
Kain’s skin prickled. His breath caught.
That… didn’t sound like a juvenile dragon.
————————-
Flashback to the Verdara Trial…
Amidst the cracked earth, Soreia remained kneeling, a silent figure of fury and defiance. Her spiritual contracts, once her strength, lay scattered and lifeless around her, each a grim testament to their destruction. Every one was either dead or dying, the battlefield soaked in blood and scorched by the flames of battle.
The air reeked of charred flesh, and the ruins of the Verdara relic were marked by deep scorch marks and cracks, as if the very stones had been shattered by some immense force. Above, the sky itself seemed torn, as if something had pierced it.
Cassian’s dragons were the architects of this devastation. Of the six that had entered the relic, only five remained. The smallest and youngest of his contracts, a juvenile light-attribute dragon with a minor fate attribute, lay a few feet away, its side torn open and barely clinging to life. Its breaths were laboured, each one rattling painfully in its throat.
Cassian, clad in battered and scorched armour, knelt beside the dragon. His gaze was fixed on the creature, his hands trembling slightly, but he remained steady as he placed his palm against its flank. He spoke nothing, his presence the only comfort he could offer since none of the healing skills or elixirs he carried had had any effect.
The juvenile dragon tried to lift its head, but the effort failed. Cassian’s jaw clenched in frustration and grief. Behind him, the remaining dragons unleashed a final, savage roar, their flames, teeth, and claws tearing into the last of Soreia’s contracts in a storm of destruction.
Soreia did not flinch. The vines of the Verdara relic began to creep toward her, winding around her limbs, binding her in place as she was declared the loser of their standoff. Their thorns pierced her skin, drawing blood, but her gaze remained locked on Cassian, silent but filled with a vow of vengeance. The vines tightened, and despite the pain, Soreia showed no resistance. Her heart burned with hatred, and even as the relic pulled her toward its center, she found comfort in the certainty that Cassian would not escape unscathed. With the last of her strength, she’d placed a curse upon him.
Meanwhile, Cassian remained oblivious to her fate (or his future troubled one). His focus never wavered from the dying dragon beside him. His fingers gently brushed its scales, his mind consumed with thoughts of the relic, of the inheritance it might offer, and of the possibility that it could be used to save the juvenile dragon. With hope, he glanced toward the relic’s heart—a massive flower, its petals tightly closed and resembling a clenched fist.
The flower, towering and ancient, loomed like a beautiful oasis amongst the devastation. Its size incomprehensible, the head of the flower even larger than the main royal palace.
Cassian felt a pull toward it, a strange sense that it held the power he desperately needed. Each step he took toward it seemed to resonate with the relic itself, the ground beneath his boots vibrating with energy, as though the flower was alive and aware of his approach.
He crossed into the flower’s immediate vicinity, the injured juvenile not recalled but being carried carefully by the Dream Dragon in case there was something to heal it inside. Once close to the flower, it responded in an instant. The petals—immense, each one as large as an average house—began to unfurl with a slow, deliberate motion. The air shimmered with energy, and the entrance it revealed was impossibly vast. Cassian hesitated for the briefest of moments, doubt flitting through his mind. But the urgency of the situation, the dying dragon at his side, the power within the relic that beckoned him, drowned out all fear.
Without another thought, Cassian stepped forward, his boots sinking slightly into the soft, shimmering surface of the flower’s interior. The petals closed behind him, sealing him inside. The air was thick with the hum of ancient power. Inside, the flower was massive—vast enough to fit several buildings within its walls. The space seemed to stretch endlessly, its walls shifting like living tissue. The floors were soft and vibrant, yet pulsed with an overwhelming energy.
In the center of the flower’s vast interior lay something unexpected—something that immediately caught Cassian’s attention.
A Dragon.
Yet it bore none of the warmth or vitality of a living creature. Nor did it have the overbearing aura and pressure that true dragons unconsciously emitted, looking more like a statue made of wood carved by some long‑vanished artisan, and the silence around it pressed heavy as Cassian advanced, each cautious step echoing in the vast, pulsing chamber
Its massive frame was sculpted from interwoven vines and layers of ancient bark, every scale a plate of knotted wood and hardened sap.
The colours were muted and ashen, the bark fissured and dry like it hadn’t seen water in millennia. Brown dry moss clung to its joints and brittle-looking roots coiled along its limbs, but no breath stirred its chest.
Then, the injured juvenile light dragon stirred weakly. As the group neared, vines suddenly exploded from the wooden dragon’s body, snaring the juvenile and dragging it toward its massive mouth that had silently opened.
Cassian’s eyes widened in horror. He attacked—blades, flame, and claw—but nothing so much as chipped its wooden scales or the vines wrapped around his contracts. Helpless, he watched as the vines pulled his dragon into the ’dead’ tree-dragon’s mouth.
The jaws closed. Darkness swallowed his companion.