The so-called floor that we had been sitting on continued to colpse, although it seemed to fall at an angle. The pair of us were helpless but to slide down through a space that had opened up at the edge of what I had originally thought was a massive cavern. This had us falling into an even rger cavern, one that was so vast that I couldn’t see the walls within the darkness.

  We weren’t the only thing falling. There were also the piles of treasure, which were rolling down the hill and raining off into the darkness. We were sitting on top of the treasure, and thus we could only ride down with it.

  “Hold on!” I cried out as the pair of us followed the treasure off the edge of the cliff.

  It wasn’t so much a cliff but a point where our cliff flooring bent down too steeply, and with the angle of the floor sent us rolling off into a freefall. In other words, it was the point where the dragon’s body ended, and a steep drop began.

  At the st second, I shed out with an item in my hand. It was a golden hook, and I used it to stab into the dragon. I had grabbed the treasure as soon as the floor started moving. It had originally been part of my escape pn when I thought we were still in a drake treasure room. Now, I realized that this had nothing to do with the drakes. The drakes were paying a tribute to a dragon, and we were merely a random st-minute collection.

  None of that mattered for the immediate moment, because I was just trying to survive. With an arm around Lucil’s waist, the hook felt like it was trying to dig into the rock. As it scraped along the dragon’s fnk, we kept from freefall and began a steep decline down its sides. However, the bulge of its stomach eventually gave out, and the pair of us went into freefall.

  The fall wasn’t too long. The dragon wasn’t standing or anything like that. It was still a far enough fall that I was expecting to break something, so when we fell onto something unbelievably soft, it took me a moment to process that we had come to a stop without facing much damage. The material we were in felt like some kind of cotton. It was soft, plentiful, and thick enough that it was able to completely absorb our fall.

  I slowly crawled out of the fluff, trying to reach the top. As I looked around, I could see that most of the treasure had rained down around the fluff, almost like the gold was decorating it. The fluff had created a bowl, to which we had nded on one of the outside edges where the fluff was thickest. The bowl was seemingly carpeted with grass, rich sod that radiated warmth like it was under a noonday sun. There was various greenery around the bowl, and I could even see vines and trees that seemed to be inexplicably growing underground.

  “What is this?” Lucil gasped as she climbed out from the fluff behind me and looked across the massive cavern.

  “This is… a nest?” I offered, noticing simirities between this and what a bird might create.

  “Mmmm… correct.” A rumbling voice sounded out, the tone so low that it caused the ground to vibrate.

  I spun and looked up at the mass of scales next to me. Even after just falling off him, it was difficult to focus on him. Its size was so great that I could have just as easily been next to the wall. Its form shifted a bit, and from a distance away, a head appeared out from the dark. It was a massive thing. The head alone was the size of several drakes. It could likely swallow one of them in a single gulp.

  “You can speak in our nguage…” I commented.

  I had been told that drakes could be as smart as humans, and dragons were smarter still, but I hadn’t expected to be speaking to one, not just because they were supposed to be extinct. This was probably the st living dragon in the world.

  “Mmmm… yes… I speak. You have come, so I speak.”

  Lucil grabbed onto my arm, her body paralyzed by the appearance of such a beast. Her head was lowered, unable to make eye contact. I admitted I even struggled to keep from turning away. However, I forced myself to look forward toward it and meet its rge eyes, each the size of a wyvern.

  “Are you saying you brought us here to speak to us?”

  “The drake brought you here. I will speak.”

  That didn’t tell me what I wanted to know, but I didn’t want to push it either. “My name is David. I am the prince of Pria.”

  “Mmmm. Yes, I know who you are. You are the devil spawn of humans and fairies. You are the outcast and God’s chosen.”

  His words startled me just a bit. I didn’t expect something like him to get news of the outside world, so knowing of my existence was already surprising. However, the thing that left me speechless was his final comment. He called God’s chosen. Did that mean he knew that I was reincarnated from another world? Other than Baba, he was the only other person that seemed to have ever guessed about my origins. Of course, I wasn’t going to confirm that, especially with Lucil next to me.

  “I’m sorry, I do not know much other than you are a dragon,” I responded.

  The dragon bared his teeth and made a sound that I first thought was coughing. I quickly realized he was chuckling instead.

  “I am old. The st time I left my cave, the celestials still acted as world leaders. I do not bme you for not remembering much of our existence. You may call me Asmodeon.”

  “Are you the st of your kind?” I couldn’t help but ask.

  “Perhaps.” He responded. “Or perhaps not.”

  I frowned, and he made a chuckling noise once again. He started to move, and a long-cwed hand came out and moved toward us. Lucil’s hand tightened on my arm, and I had to admit that even I was terrified. The only reason I was able to keep my calm was the knowledge that whatever happened was in his hands. With the drakes, I might have fought until the bloody end, but when it came to the dragon, if he wanted me to die, I would die. I did not doubt it.

  However, he hadn’t killed us, and instead had spoken with me and even answered my questions. This convinced me that he wasn’t looking to cause us problems. Rather, he wanted exactly what he said he wanted. He wanted to talk.

  His hand stopped a distance away from us. Each cw was bigger than a wyvern, and the palm was of a size that the entire troop we had entered the canyon with could have sat within his hand without struggle. I had wondered what kind of power would have been able to create such a gash through the pteau, but seeing this monster before me, I felt I had an answer.

  “It is quicker to carry you than to walk.” He stated. “You seem to have fallen on the wrong side.”

  “You want us to climb on?” Lucil let out a high-pitched voice.

  I had thought that perhaps Lucil would have some kind of deep-rooted reverence or awe for the dragon, but instead, she was skittish and terrified. Without waiting for his answer, I grabbed her hand and began to pull her on. When a dragon asked you to do something, it seemed like a good idea to do it. We walked onto the middle of his hand, and then he started to slowly move it. It was a surreal experience. For him, the movement was slight, as if he was in slow motion, but the wind whistling across our ears showed were moving at nearly the speed of a car. I barely managed to remain standing as we flew around the dragon in his palm.

  If we experienced this much drag when being treated so delicately, I’d hate to see a violent and aggressive movement. Tall tales from my world used to suggest beings that made kes with their tiers and valleys with the sweep of their hands. In the books I had read, dragons had a simir function historically, except seeing this dragon in person, I already believed he’d create typhoons with the fp of his wings and crumble mountains with the swipe of his tail.

  As he brought us around the cavern, I was getting a feeling for the scope of this pce. It was a mountain-sized dragon in a mountain-sized cavern, under an actual mountain. Calling this pce a cavern was also inaccurate. The area around us wasn’t desote. Quite the opposite. Innumerable vegetation surrounded the nesting material, and little creatures from mice to deer seemed to happily be prancing around in their little self-contained ecosystem with the dragon at the center. I was just as likely to see a giant mushroom as I was to see a tree. The underground flora and fauna were as strange as they were familiar.

  I had wondered how the wyvern managed to continue to live on the pteau that had seemingly been stripped clean of everything living. It took only one look here to realize there was a thriving popution under the ground that lived in harmony next to the dragon.

  “David!” I heard a name cry out before I was able to see her.

  Standing in a meadow was none other than my mother. She was still wearing her nightgown, but she looked unharmed. She had a flower in her hair, and among the surreal underground environment, she looked almost like a faery.

  “M-mom!” Lucil cried out in shock but then shook her head. “R-right…”

  Although I had learned a bit more about Lucil and our past, there were still things I hadn’t figured out yet. After starting some kind of affair with the former David, she had been taken away and put under her mother’s care. That same mother who despised me tried her best to brainwash Lucil into feeling the same. One would think that this would give Lucil complicated feelings to her mother. Instead, she seemed to be extremely attached, to the point where she struggled to even see the difference between the two women.

  Well, I had no such qualm. I knew who my Mother was.

  “Mother!” I cried out as the hand gently stopped at a nearby hill allowing the pair of us off.

  I jumped off of the dragon’s hand and then ran down the hill to mother. The dragon had been right about needing to carry us. From where I had been, this would have been a thirty-minute walk. It was likely that without the dragon’s assistance, I wouldn’t have known mother was here at all. We could have walked right past each other without the other meeting.

  “Baby! I was so worried! I’m gd you’re here!” Mother didn’t hesitate to throw her arms around me, smashing her chest against me, and even raining down kisses as long as I let her.

  I did need to put my foot down eventually though. If I let her keep kissing, she was the type who would definitely take another step. When I finally calmed her down, I held her arms and looked at her. Lucil had a strangely awkward look, like she wanted to be involved in our conversations, but didn’t feel like she belonged there.

  “Mother, did a drake drop you off as a tribute as well?” I immediately went to the question that was burning to be answered the most.

  Mother blinked, and then her cheeks flushed. “That… I… left on my own.”

  I nodded. “They said that a drake must have lured you away.”

  “Eh?” She looked at me with confusion. “A drake? How could such a shameless creature sway me in the slightest?”

  It was my turn to be confused. “What do you mean?”

  “I… heard him. That’s why I came.” She responded, sounding somewhat uncertain.

  “Him?” My eyes flickered to the dragon, who had remained silent while we were reunited. “Oh, him?”

  “No.” She shook her head, reaching out and grabbing my hand. “No, someone else! I must show you.”

  She pulled me away, and I followed behind, still trying to work out what happened in my head. Lucil remained a distance behind, but she kept pace with us.

  “I’m not sure I understand, you left willingly?”

  “I heard him in the night, and I realized I had to come.” She responded. “I would never abandon my baby, but I had a feeling like if I didn’t go, then things would turn out bad.”

  “Things…” I repeated.

  “I’m talking about him!” She gestured.

  A rge reptilian creature came out from the treeline. When it id eyes on Mom, it jumped excitedly, racing toward her.

  Lucil gasped and pulled me back. “A wyvern!”

  “No, it’s not.” I immediately started to notice dozens of little differences.

  The creature reached mom and then began to pyfully lick her, jumping up and down excitedly. It was about the size of a wyvern, and while it had some simir shapes, it seemed to be proportioned differently. In fact, if I had to guess, the proportions more closely resembled a dragon.

  “Mmmm… This is my child.” Asmodeon’s voice washed over us.

  I looked up to see that Asmodeon was watching the little creature jumping around excitedly with a fondness in its eyes. It was hard to believe that this little creature came from that rge one. Even believing they were the same species was hard to fathom.

  “How old?” I asked.

  “His egg hatched after a thirty-year cycle only two weeks ago,” Asmodeon expined.

  “Two weeks… at two weeks, it’s as rge as a wyvern. How long before it is your size?”

  Asmodeon made that ughing sound again. “Dragons grow continuously throughout their life. That is their fate. Do not let my size fool you into thinking this is a normal size for dragons. I am extremely old, and have long since been unable to move under my own weight.”

  “You’re trapped here?”

  “Mmmm…. For many millennia I have slept under this mountain. As a final act, I decided to create an egg and raise the st of my children.”

  “The others?”

  “All dead, more than likely. They were killed by drakes, hunted by humans, harvested by celestials. Regretfully, my species contains many riches. When I die, this cavern will be a treasure that will finance and sustain some kingdom of the distant future. My bones will be used to build structures, my scales will be used to make armor, my heart will create a powerful tonic.”

  “You don’t seem upset about this…”

  “I have had a very long time to come to terms with the direction of my race. I have taken out my vengeance on this world a dozen times over, yet the little ones always rebuild themselves, and the world continues again as if I was never there. This is the nature of the universe. Time will wear everything away, including me.”

  “Why have you brought us here?” I suspected I already knew the answer, but I had to ask anyway.

  “I did not. As I said, it was a drake that brought you here. It was a cry that brought her. These are no actions within my control. We are all but instruments of fate, and it was that fate that brought us all together at this moment.”

  “I create my own fate.” I decred.

  It chuckled again. “Perhaps, you are the only one who does. I suspect that the fate of this world will rest on your shoulders someday not so far from now. Perhaps, if the fate of dragons was tied to your fate, then there might still be a future for my kind.”

  “So, that was your aim after all.”

  “My time is short.” It responded. “Once I die, the drakes that shower me with gifts and the wyvern that remain loyal like dogs would turn on me instantly. They would seek to devour my child for the benefits it may give them. I’m afraid it’ll be at least a hundred years before he will be rge enough to protect himself from them, and I likely only have a few left to live.”

  “You want us to take him.” I verbally confirmed what I had already guessed.

  As Lucil caught up with the conversation, her previous fear seemed to disappear, and she showed a sad yet hopeful expression, not unlike my mother who was still entertaining the little one. Women were like that. As soon as they heard an appropriate sob story, they could forgo any fear in the name of following their hearts. This is what made women much more dangerous than men. Man-made choices based on logic, and thus, in the end, he wanted to preserve his life. A woman who made choices with her heart could throw away her life in a second, and so she was hard to deal with.

  “The drakes are smart, but they will believe that I would keep him with me until the st second. The sooner I can send him away, the safer he will be.”

  “And why do you believe you can trust us? Aren’t I devil? As soon as we were outside of your range, I could turn on your child, or turn him into a weapon.”

  “David!” Lucil admonished, having already seemingly decided without me.

  My only blessing was that it was just Mother and Lucil along. Olivia would have been in tears crying and clinging to my arm saying she’d do anything if I agreed to help. Actually, I suddenly regretted she wasn’t there.

  The dragon chuckled once again, seeming amused rather than offended by my words. “You forget, young devil prince. I know what kind of man you are. I’ve met your mother.”

  The both of us turned to Mom, who was on the ground thrashing as the dragon licked her savagely.

  “Oi!” I cried out. “Stop licking her breasts!”

  The little dragon cocked its head up, giving an innocent look. I narrowed my eyes. I wasn’t buying it. This guy knew exactly what it was doing. After all, it was my mother then it was my mother it called out to st night, not me.

  “D-david… I’m all sticky…” Mom looked up at me tearfully, her body covered in thick slime.

  I rubbed my head. This was going to be a pain.

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