Chương 48: Reborn as the Dragon: — Chapter 48 - Assault on Silvermoon Swamp

"Demons?" Su Nian blinked. If his Inherited Memories were accurate, demons had been completely eradicated 1, 500 years ago. How could there possibly be any left?

"Yes. Demons..." Something in the memory made Anna flinch. Her small body shrank back, and the arms wrapped around Su Nian's neck tightened their grip.

"Those demons looked very strange. Most of them were human-sized, surrounded by pitch-black shadows. A few were like enormous patchwork monsters — they howled as they tore apart my home..." Her voice went quiet.

"They killed Daddy. Mommy. Big Brother... Big Sister died trying to save me."

"I still remember their faces. Black veins pulsing across their skin. Dark red scale armor covering their necks. A pair of gray ram horns curving backward from their foreheads." While listening, Su Nian searched through the dragon Inherited Memories. He found nothing. No record of anything like what Anna was describing. In the era when demons had existed, they were a brutal race reeking of sulfur, their heads full of nothing but muscle and violence.

Only a small minority had any interest in schemes — those were the ones who practiced curses and toyed with souls. But Anna wouldn't lie to him. Perhaps certain demons had survived, and dragons simply hadn't known.

"Hey, it's alright." Su Nian wrapped a wing around her.

"I'll always be by your side, Anna. The Dragon's Nest is your home now." It was all he could think to say. He drew on his past life's experience and offered the kind of soft, uncomplicated comfort that didn't solve anything but still helped.

"But... Dragon Brother, Anna might not live much longer." Anna lifted her head. Tears fell in heavy drops. She pressed her lips together, and her eyes were full of grief and something that looked like reluctance to leave. She had always been sensitive to certain things in ways ordinary people weren't. She knew. Su Nian knew too. No matter what medicine he tried, Anna's Heart Failure refused to budge. Her remaining lifespan had been stuck at 63 days for some time now — not a single day longer.

The herbs he gave her improved her color and eased her pain, but they couldn't touch the Heart Failure itself. There was simply no cure for that. Based on what Anna had just described, Su Nian suspected the Illness was a demon's curse. To break a curse like that, they would need to travel to a human kingdom and find a high-ranking priest willing to perform Purification. The problem was that a Black Dragon traveling with an elf wasn't exactly a welcome sight anywhere in the Southern Continent.

The Winter Empire on the Northern Continent was a different story, they weren't nearly as particular about race. Should he carry Anna there? He thought through the routes. By sea: cross the dangerous Northern Cold Sea, then the Thunder Mountains, then traverse the Northern Wasteland before reaching the Winter Empire. Brutal even for him. With Anna's constitution, the Northern gales would freeze her solid halfway through.

By land: cut through at least three or four Southern Continent empires, then cross the Death Desert. That was worse. The only real path forward was to hunt more players, accumulate system points, unlock his magic inheritance ahead of his age, or evolve other abilities. Get stronger. Find another way. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"I won't let you die, Anna." Su Nian lowered his dragon head and nuzzled her cheek carefully. His tongue slipped out and licked away the tears on her face.

"I've already found a way to save you. Don't worry." The heavy atmosphere dissolved on the spot. Anna wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, blinking her large bright eyes slowly. A shy smile crossed her face as she ducked her head.

"Dragon Brother..." Her mood had lifted. She wrapped both arms around the Black Dragon's head and pressed her soft pink cheek against his hard, scale-covered face. Her gaze held a quiet sincerity, and when she spoke, her voice trembled just slightly.

"Can you... can you always keep Anna by your side? Anna... Anna doesn't want to leave you."

"Don't worry." Su Nian nodded.

"I promise."

"Mr. Dragon, people who tell lies have to swallow a thousand needles, you know..." A beat.

"But Anna is generous. I won't make you swallow a thousand needles."

"You just have to always remember Anna. That's enough." They talked a little longer. Su Nian soothed her, kept the conversation light, and gradually the tension in Anna's small shoulders faded. Between the calmed emotions and the herbal medicine working through her system, she started to drowse. Su Nian draped the bear hide over her, told several elite gnolls to keep watch over the Dragon's Nest, and slipped out. He was only going for a short while. It barely counted as leaving.

By the time he got back, she'd probably still be asleep.

The sun was brutal. Autumn had technically arrived, but Silvermoon Forest sat at high elevation, which meant it caught the full force of the scorching sun before anywhere else. In heat like this, every creature had retreated to whatever shade it could find and refused to move. That included the Rock-Armor Crocodiles. Which meant now was a good time. Su Nian intended to have a friendly discussion with them about voluntarily surrendering the potatoes.

He stopped first at the Flame Arrow Tower still under construction and found Kobold Chief Polikli.

"Polikli. We're heading to Silvermoon Swamp to find that plant you mentioned. Go tell Grey Wolf to bring twenty gnolls. Have the other monster leaders each bring fifty of their best." At that moment, Polikli was staring at the rapidly rising Flame Arrow Tower with wide eyes and a series of quiet, disbelieving clicks of his tongue. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't figure out when exactly his kobolds had learned to build one of those. But an order was an order.

He snapped to attention, feet together, chest out, threw a sharp salute, then let out a short howl and launched himself off the cliff wall to carry it out.

By the time Su Nian arrived at Silvermoon Swamp with the monster army in tow, it was past two in the afternoon. Silvermoon Swamp sat directly south of Silvermoon Forest, close to the base of the Silvermoon Mountains. Su Nian beat his wings and climbed high, scanning the terrain. What he saw was a broad, sun-baked basin, cracked and dry on the surface, releasing a strange blend of rotting vegetation and thick animal musk. Something in Su Nian responded to it immediately. Warmth, almost.

An instinctive pull, like the smell was familiar in some bone-deep way. He had the sudden urge to dive into the swamp and roll around in it. He was aware that this was the Black Dragon's nature at work. He suppressed it and stayed calm. The dryness was only surface deep. Anything that stepped onto that cracked earth would be swallowed in seconds. Hovering overhead, Su Nian counted nine Rock-Armor Crocodiles below, all adults, organized under a single chief. The pack members ran about two meters in length.

The chief was nearly three, broader, heavier, built like a wall of living stone. Every one of them was encased in the distinctive bluish-gray rock armor that gave the species its name. Their level wasn't anything special. Roughly on par with gnolls. That said, they held the terrain, and their natural armor was solid. Gnolls and kobolds would struggle to crack that defense without weapons or tools. Su Nian was already calculating as he looked them over. Lackluster fighters on their own.

But if they could be tamed, they'd make excellent mounts for the gnolls. The kobolds already had spear boars, so they were covered. But gnolls on Rock-Armor Crocodiles, that had potential. Below, the crocodiles had already spotted him. The moment the Black Dragon appeared in the sky, every one of them moved. Without a sound, they pulled together into a tight fan-shaped formation, jaws pointed toward the threat above. They didn't spare a single glance for the kobolds and gnolls surrounding them. Kobolds were food.

Gnolls were slightly larger food. Neither was worth attention. The Black Dragon was the only real threat. Nine heads tilted upward. Jaws cracked open just slightly, exposing rows of teeth that caught the afternoon light in cold flashes. Their dark yellow pupils showed nothing. No fear. No hesitation. Only the stripped-down killing intent of cold-blooded predators at the edge of a fight. But Su Nian could read past the stillness. The slow lash of their tails.

The way every muscle along their flanks was pulled tight as wire. They were frightened. Dragon blood carried a pressure that reptiles couldn't ignore, no matter how thick their armor. It was absolute, instinctive, and ran deeper than any learned fear. Rock-Armor Crocodiles. ➤ Next: Beat Them Down