Seeing that his attempts to ease in were useless and that she was still the same, he sighed and got straight to the point. Bella widened her eyes, she had not even eaten much yet, and the good part was already ending.
"This is really important, so I have to say it this way. Let me ask first," he said. "You know a Black Dragon, right?"
The keyword hit immediately, and both Lilith and Bella looked at him with surprise. To them and to Safas, the Black Dragon he mentioned was clearly not an ordinary Great Dragon. There was only one such Black Dragon that came to mind.
"So you really do know it," he said. "I confirmed it through some information from someone else and the aura on your Magic Staff."
Lilith fell silent for a moment, and Safas watched her relax slightly before she spoke. "You have seen it?"
"In Demonkind territory. Only from far away."
So that dragon had finally appeared, and it was recent. That meant the difference in time flow was not too large. Lilith had once considered asking her teacher to try going into that Extra-Dimensional Space to see if they could retrieve the dragon, but since it had come out on its own, there was no need.
What Safas said next dropped a heavy bomb on the two of them. "Next, I need to tell you some things about that dragon's origin and background."
"You know? Tell us quickly," Bella said, eyes lighting up. "I checked so many records and could not find anything similar."
Both she and Lilith had wondered what that absurd dragon really was, and now they might finally know. Safas continued in a steady tone.
"That Black Dragon is related to the Dragon God of Fate and the creator god of Dragonkin, BahHamt. Back then, the Dragon God abandoned the divine throne and became mortal, giving rise to ordinary life, but due to some small accidents, it split into two reincarnated bodies. One of them lost its soul, but the body continued to hatch."
"That body eventually grew into the Black Dragon you know. This is the result I obtained by directly tracing bloodlines through certain connections and secret methods among the Dragonkin."
"So it really is related to a Dragon God?" Lilith asked.
"Does that mean that Black Dragon counts as half of Bahamut?"
Lilith had once thought the dragon might be some kind of favored being of a Dragon God, but this status was even higher than she imagined. Still, she caught the problem in his words, a lost soul and reincarnation. Was it really that simple, or did a true god retain such power even after losing its soul?
"However, that Black Dragon only has that kind of origin in its body," he said. "Its consciousness should be independent. What I am about to say next is even more important."
"There is a man named Edward. He did a lot of terrible things. Actually, I had a hand in it too," he admitted. "That man is very likely being helped by the Abyssal Gods now."
"He may be trying to fuse the Authority of all high-tier dragon species and reclaim the shattered Shard of the Fate godhood. Before that, after he devoured a Bronze Dragon, he was killed by the Black Dragon you know."
"Abyss? Edward?"
Both Lilith and Bella frowned as they caught the keywords. They were very familiar with both, since many of the dangerous events they had gone through before were caused by that group. Later, they had even dragged Belial into an Extra-Dimensional Space strongly connected to the Abyss, which was why the two of them had been traveling across the continent to retrieve the dragon.
Hearing that he had been killed by Black Dragon again made their brows relax, though they did not know why those people always seemed to run into that dragon. But Safas was not finished.
"But that is not the end. I have checked, and there are no traces of the Bronze Dragon or other Authority and Dragon Soul he consumed before. He must be hiding somewhere, and he could return to godhood at any moment."
"The other half of BahHamt has already fallen into slumber because of this outcome. Once that monster ascends and reaches the Fate throne, he will be able to alter the past and control the present."
"With that power in hand, the entire future will fall into his grasp. At that point, it will be too late to say anything. No matter how strong the force used, it will be impossible to eliminate that monster at the root of Fate."
"It is a twisted thing parasitizing on Fate. Even if you kill him now, he will be observed by his past self and decide the future again from the past."
"That is not comparable to the reviving gods you have encountered before. That is a true being with Authority, a Divine Kingdom, and the newly ascended godhood of Crimson God."
"A real god?" Bella murmured.
Both of them were stunned, especially Bella, whose pupils trembled as something inexplicable triggered within her. She seemed unusually sensitive to the words Crimson God and godhood. Perhaps it was a fear left behind by lost data, but what exactly was the essence of Crimson God?
Safas's expression and tone grew heavy. A monster that parasitized time itself and manipulated Fate from an untouchable past was indeed beyond imagination to kill. The enemies they had faced before usually stayed dead once destroyed, relying more on raw power differences, but this kind of mechanism-based foe weighed heavily on everyone.
"The only chance is right when he has just ascended, before he has revived the Divine Kingdom and before his existence spreads into the past," he said. "We must seriously wound him then."
"So I need you to persuade that Black Dragon to deal with Edward before he ascends. I will try to awaken the other half of BahHamt so that it can compete for the divine seat, while neither side has fully claimed true godhood."
"We must completely destroy him, leaving not even a fragment of soul. This is almost the only method we can think of."
The two of them paused,Reorganizationing what they had heard, and finally understood why the old man had come. They took back their earlier thoughts, this old man had really caused a huge mess and come to them to clean it up.
…
"By the way, Icelis sis, do you know why my family is leaving?" Nefit asked curiously while licking a popsicle, looking at Icelis beside her eating spicy skewers.
The little girl did not understand why they were leaving a perfectly fine hometown, even abandoning their ancestral house, to go all the way up to the distant Rohn Empire. Unfortunately, her father had not explained the reason, and while Icelis knew more, she could not be bothered to think deeply about it.
After a moment, she raised one finger. "When the wind gets fierce, you run."
"?"
The two continued shopping as a group of strange people passed by, dressed in white cloth, wrapped tightly, and carrying a coffin as they hurried along. Nefit glanced at them and felt they were odd, especially since they were heading in the direction of her family home.
Was her father discussing something there with the parents from Ice Lily Grove? Icelis looked around, then her eyes lit up as she spotted a figure in robes with a strand of black hair hanging down in the distance. It was that interesting older sister.
"Chloe sis...?"
Before the girl could call out, the figure vanished without a trace, as if she had never been there at all.
"All the assets we reorganized last time have all been dumped and sold. Now we can finally leave, right?"
Holding a thick stack of lists and sale certificates, Lyles Edward looked at the black-haired girl who was still doing final settlements in front of him. To be honest, his heart bled when he sold them, since those were all properties passed down through generations. All of it was because that mad Augustus, forcing him to sell nearby assets in bulk at low prices or even at a loss.
Recently, that man had acted like he lost his mind, pulling troops toward the capital without regard for the borders. Along the way, he slaughtered hundreds of nobles and families who opposed him, along with more than a dozen Gold-rank experts, and even several Ascendant Hall. The capital itself had become a river of blood.
He even shouted about hunting dragons. What kind of dragon needed such a lineup, with so many experts? This was not dragon hunting at all, it was an attack on the entire Dragonkin. At a time like this, the most miserable person was someone like Lyles Edward who carried the honorary title of Dragon-Hunting Duke over his head.
Now that inherited honor felt like a burning lump stuck on his scalp. What if that emperor went mad again and forcibly ordered his entire family to join such a suicidal campaign? He was a dragon hunter, emphasis on hunting, not throwing his life away, and he was only a Gold. How could he possibly match that kind of madness?