Shifter - Infinite Transformation-Chapter 61: Soothened Heart

The dragon closed in on Camp Ashborn at a terrifying velocity. Flames already gathered in its massive maw in the distance, and I wasted no time using Burst.

Cedric’s condition was still a mess, and I doubted that would ever change, really, but his Power was great. It tore through muscles and bones, nearly sending me spiraling, but I was much faster than I normally would have been as I charged through the tents. South.

I was not yet suicidal enough to rush toward a massive dragon, and I certainly did not want to meet the mother of the juvenile dragon I’d killed. All I could hope for was that the mother dragon would never find out that I killed it.

Green flames hit Camp Ashborn’s defenses. They burned through the wooden palisade and human flesh all the same.

Screams rang in my ears, making my hair stand up on end. Then came the heat. The temperature all over Camp Ashborn increased drastically in an instant. I didn’t want to look back, yet I did. The scenery unfurling before my eyes was just as bad as I’d feared—possibly worse.

The western part of the camp was on fire. Green flames tore through the tents and burned them to cinders, only to spread further. The flames surged and expanded, reaching the neighboring tents, igniting them as well. Then the dragon crashed into the ground.

It landed with a terrifying roar, flames surging everywhere. Its maw snapped downward, swallowing several fully plated soldiers.

Last but not least, I—I turned back, used Burst again, and made a run for it.

***

The Mother Dragon was beyond furious. She could no longer be stopped, for she had found her little baby. Or what was left of her beloved child.

An army of Hnoll had been seen ransacking the ruins of a human camp when she resumed her search for her baby’s corpse. Even if she couldn’t find her beloved alive, the least she wanted was to be buried alongside it. So she did the only reasonable thing she could think of: the Mother Dragon tore down the Eserian.

The fae’s home was no more. She could still sense a few lucky survivors, but their existence was of no importance to her. Not when her baby was waiting for her.

The Mother Dragon tore through the Eserian, burned a path through it until she found the human camp. The smell of her beloved child was there, so was its blood. But her baby’s corpse was nowhere to be found. All she found were barrels filled with dragon blood and despicable Hnolls drinking it in big gulps. They may not even have been aware of their actions, yet none of it mattered.

They desecrated the blood of her child and paid the price. Her flames consumed the clearing. They spread further and tore through the Eserian.

All that remained was ash, charred ground, and the dungeon entrance. Maybe it would have caught her attention if it had been a few decades ago, but the Mother Dragon no longer cared. Her child was all that remained on her mind.

Knowing that someone took her child’s blood filled her with fury. Dragon blood was valuable. It was filled with everything a monster could wish for. Elixirs could be concocted from their blood as well, making it an invaluable resource for humans and the other races too. But it had been centuries since one of the races had been foolish enough to capture a young dragon for their blood.

Yet that was clearly what had happened here. The Nature Dragon’s offspring had been captured and tortured, its blood drained. It had been cycles since they had seen each other, and the dragon could only scream and roar at the thought of its baby going through that kind of torture ever since. She did not want to believe it, but the blood and the smell of fear and despair were all she needed to know the truth.

The humans had to die.

The Eserian deserved death just the same, but the humans were her real enemy.

Hence, once it was certain that the dragon’s corpse was nowhere near the dungeon entrance, the Mother Dragon left for the camp outside the forest. It spread far and wide, but it mattered little. All she cared about was her child.

And when she found it, sensed it with her draconic senses, she should have rushed over to burn everything to the ground. That she did, or would have, when the smell of a blade drenched in her child’s blood reached her.

The tidbits of rationality she’d retained disappeared like a flood through a broken dam. Her head snapped to the right, all thoughts of burning the soldiers forgotten. She leaped into the air and leaped at a young human carrying a bag. The young man turned around, his eyes widening in terror.

His death was certain. It was a promise burning deep in the Mother Dragon’s heart.

Her maw was wide open, yet no flame gathered within it. Of course, there were no flames. She wouldn’t kill him that easily. Burning him to cinders was too light of a punishment. Instead, he was to be swallowed one piece at a time, because he deserved a death much worse than anyone else. He killed her child after all.

But as soon as she crashed into the ground before the young man, something odd occurred.

The young man died before her face. No, he did not die. His body expanded. Scales grew from his skin as a cacophony of breaking bones rang through the camp.

One moment, a young and half-broken human stood before her. In the next, the human...turned into a dragon. No, not just any dragon: a Juvenile Nature Dragon.

Her child.

Their connection flared to life once more, but that couldn’t be. Her child was dead. She felt their connection snap. Even now, she could still sense the presence of her child on the other side of the human camp.

Yet there it stood. Her little baby was right before her.

Then, like the massive waves of the Ocean God, memories flooded the Mother Dragon.

Memories that belonged to her child, as well as another person.

Fragments of her child’s life, the torture it went through, and how it ended. How the human that killed it didn’t want to kill it, but did so to free it from agony.

The dragon’s eyes drifted to the bag lying beside the juvenile dragon. She sensed the presence of two eggs, followed by a third creature residing within the juvenile dragon.

He fulfilled my child’s request, she thought as glimpses of sanity returned to her.

Then the juvenile Nature Dragon transformed once more. This time another young man appeared before her. A familiar man. The human wielding the Cursed Power. The man she’d seen in the fae’s home the day before.

Fate sure is cruel.

But was it really fate that had been so cruel...or was it her? She had burned the Cursed Child’s home and was sure to earn his ire.

She should kill him, and maybe she would have if he hadn’t honored her child. But that he did. The human had been sorry for her beloved child. He never wanted to kill it. It was her baby who forced his blade.

And he invaded the camp to free the eggs, to fulfill her child’s request when he did not have to. It was dangerous, suicidal even, yet he tried.

He transformed back, with blood oozing from all orifices. His screams echoed in the Mother Dragon’s ears.

She would not kill him. For he was a friend of her child. A friend of the Nature Dragons.

Thank you. The Mother Dragon’s words thundered through the human’s mind. A moment later, she cut herself and placed a droplet of blood in the human’s mouth.