Chương 132: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 132 - Ritual Complete

Dreams are the subconscious of living things. In dreams, you might experience details you never consciously noticed. And sometimes, dreams reflect the deepest beliefs buried in your heart. Dragons are proud creatures. Only a Dragon Slayer can withstand the power of a dragon's heart. But Anna was an exception. Because Su Nian gave it willingly. And because of something within Anna herself. At the very least, she had broken free from the shackles of the past.

This time, facing cruelty and harm, she held a dragon's power in her hands and raised the blade of resistance. The flames of her fury tore the eerily twisted Anya into cinders. Fire raged sky-high. Thick smoke rolled in waves. The entire Emerald Forest became a sea of flame. Only a small figure remained. Drifting through the ash. Her face was hard to make out. But broad dragon wings stretched wide behind her. And crimson-gold eyes blazed bright.

"It's over." The vast phantom of the Black Dragon materialized behind Anna. His low, hoarse voice echoed at her ear, carrying a whisper of a sigh and something tender, and shattered the dream entirely.... The ritual was complete. This was the first time the Kaguya Priestess had used this technique. The activation conditions were brutal, and no one in their right mind would willingly trade their heart to another. But succeeding on the first attempt still made her exhale with relief.

The Half-Elf girl's condition was good. The dragon heart had fused with her body perfectly and was already beginning to reshape it from the inside. The Black Dragon was another matter. He was still alive. But he had fallen into a deep coma. The Kaguya Priestess was worried. Her honest assessment was that the dragon wasn't going to make it. What she didn't know was that the System had already begun its work, modifying Su Nian's new heart according to a prepared contingency.

It couldn't increase the heart's strength, not enough System points for that, so instead it enlarged it, restructuring it into something a dragon's body could actually use.

"Brother..." Anna's pink lips moved faintly. Her consciousness surfaced. Her mind cleared. Sensation crept back through her limbs. Her heart beat strong. Everything around her felt crisp and vivid, nothing like the foggy haze she'd grown so used to. Was the curse lifted? Was she actually healed? Then why was there this hollow grief sitting in her chest. Her crimson-gold eyes opened. Anna looked for Su Nian immediately.

That massive dragon body was right beside her, as if it had been keeping watch over her the whole time. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"Brother... Anna, Anna thinks her illness might be cured... Brother?" She called out twice. Su Nian didn't move.

"Bro... brother?" Anna panicked. She pushed herself up, struggling to sit. Her body was sluggish and uncoordinated, the heart swap had just finished and she was still adapting to it, still finding her strength.

"Brother, don't scare Anna... Are you pretending to sleep again..." She laboriously crawled into the Black Dragon's embrace and laid her ear gently against his chest. A heartbeat. Extremely faint. And growing weaker by the second. Like a candle guttering in the wind.

"Brother is hurt?!" That was her first thought. Then she noticed the Kaguya Priestess and Serestine waiting nearby. The room was the same room it had always been. The cup of hot water she'd drunk before the ritual was still steaming on the table. Not much time had passed at all. Anna felt something cold move through her. A suspicion she didn't want to name. Could it be that brother... Her trembling gaze landed on the Kaguya Priestess. Her lips quivered. Her voice came out wet.

"Brother... what, what happened to him? Did he do something? Can you tell me?"

"Your illness was rooted in the heart, entangled with numerous vicious curses. To cure you, Master swapped hearts with you." The Kaguya Priestess was concise. The master hadn't told her to keep it secret. The mistress was asking directly. So she told the truth. Serestine, standing beside her, opened her mouth. Closed it. Then slowly shook her head. Too late. It was already out. Was this really something you just say outright?

"Sw... swapped hearts!?" Anna stared at the Kaguya Priestess. Her face went white. Her ears rang. A cold wave crashed up from her feet, climbed her spine, and broke inside her skull. Brother had swapped hearts with her. The words echoed through her mind again and again, each repetition another blade burying itself into her chest. A thin line of crimson appeared at the corner of her mouth. She had bitten through her own lip.

She stood motionless, like someone standing in a blizzard and under a scorching sun at the same time. The last embers in her eyes flickered, struggling to hold on through several ragged pulses, then faded to ash. Anna slowly raised her hand. Along her slender fingers, black scales pushed through the skin. Sharp dragon claws extended. Her gaze was dark. But gentle. Despair soaked through with love. These were brother's. How could she keep brother's things? He had already been so good to her.

Had already given her everything, every indulgence, every bit of warmth and care he had. She couldn't be this greedy. She had to give it back. The dragon claw turned toward her own chest and began to press in. Anna sank to her knees. She looked up at Kaguya with pleading eyes, sobbing as she spoke.

"Please. Swap them back. I don't want this... I don't want brother to be like this..."

"Mistress, stop!"

"This technique cannot be undone." The priestess raised her voice, finally showing some sense, she didn't say a word about the dragon heart being transferable again.

"Even if you removed it yourself, it can't be put back." Anna didn't hear her. All she knew was that the dragon was dying. And if that was true, she didn't want to go on living either. If the Black Dragon died, what did she have to live for? What use was this heart? The will to live had always come from him. Without him, there was nothing left. The Kaguya Priestess moved to intervene. Then a voice cut through the room. Low. Hoarse. Exhausted. But carrying an authority that left no room for argument.

"Anna. Stop." Su Nian's voice. Anna froze. While she had been waking up, the System had already done its work, rapidly recalibrating Anna's old heart, restructuring it into something compatible with Su Nian's physiology. The problem was that the heart was riddled with curses and weak to begin with. That was what had pushed him under, knocked him unconscious for those few minutes. Without all of that, he would have woken before Anna did.

Now he had a full stack of debuffs sitting on him, and for the first time he truly understood what the cheerfully smiling Anna had been carrying every single day. Basic Insight had never shown him the full picture. Now the full picture was his to feel. He opened his status panel.

[Heart Failure (Dragon Blood: Weakened)] [Weakness (72 hours) (Heart Adaptation)] [Paroxysmal Pain (Dragon Blood: Weakened)] [Heart-Stealing Curse — Overall Physical Condition -50% (Dragon Blood: Weakened)] [Eerie Poison Curse, Full-Body Ulceration (Dragon Blood: Weakened)] [Soul-Shattering Curse, Soul Tearing (Dragon Soul: Weakened)] [Combined Effect: Heart-Stealing Curse, Eerie Poison Curse, and Soul-Shattering Curse acting in concert. Capable of stripping the victim's soul and consuming all soul power within.] Every debuff on him was a weakened version. He was a dragon — a legendary creature — and his resistance to curses had softened the blows significantly. But before the swap. Every one of these curses had been sitting on Anna at full strength. Unweakened. Unmitigated. He lay there and tried to imagine it. All those nights he'd been asleep, how had she endured the soul-tearing, the waves of pain that must have rolled through her body at random? She had probably cried, he realized. Quietly, when he wasn't watching.

So he wouldn't worry. No wonder she had always seemed to know, deep down, that she didn't have long. Even on the days her color looked better, the pain had never actually stopped. It never stopped. Not once. ➤ Next: Let Anna Protect Brother From Now On