While the palace was a hive of political maneuvering, Livius remained in a deep, meditative state within the Origin Vault. He sat on the floor of the crystalline chamber, his back against the jade sarcophagus that held his mother's body. The air here was silent, save for the rhythmic humming of the mana-crystals that kept the room at a constant, freezing temperature.
He was no longer seeing the vault. He was walking through a forest of glass.
In this "Genetic Memory," the sky was a permanent twilight, dominated by a moon that seemed five times larger than the one he knew. The trees were white-barked and slender, their leaves crystalline and translucent. This was the ancestral home of the Silver Dragons—the Hidden Valley of Argentum.
He saw a group of people moving through the trees. They were tall and lithe, their skin shimmering with the same iridescent scales he had manifested during the battle. They weren't warriors; they were scholars, poets, and keepers of the world's natural flow. They didn't use magic to destroy; they used it to record. Every leaf, every breath, every drop of rain was stored within their "Aetheric Library."
Suddenly, the twilight turned to fire.
A swarm of Golden Dragons—his father's ancestors—descended from the sky. They didn't come to talk or trade. they came to consume. Livius felt the heat of their flames, a violent, expansionist fire that wanted to turn the world into a mirror of their own greed. He saw the Silver Dragons being systematically hunted, their crystalline libraries shattered, their memories stolen to fuel the Golden line's growing power.
"The fire consumes," a woman's voice echoed through the vision. It was Elara. She was standing before the Great Altar, her hair silver-white and her eyes a piercing, sorrowful violet. "But the moon remembers. Livius, you are the son of the arsonist and the victim. You carry the spark that burns and the ice that preserves. You must decide which one will be your legacy."
Livius reached out to touch her, but the vision began to dissolve into silver mist. The fire of the Golden Dragons grew hotter, more oppressive, until he felt like his very soul was being melted down and recast.
He snapped his eyes open, his breath hitching in his chest. The vault was cold, but his skin was burning. He looked at his hands—gold and silver sparks danced between his fingers, clashing and merging in a chaotic display of elemental discord.
"I am the bridge," he whispered, his voice echoing in the hollow chamber. "But a bridge that carries too much weight will eventually snap."
He stood, his legs trembling slightly. He realized that the "Dragon God" his ancestors worshiped wasn't a benevolent deity. It was a primal force of hunger that had been fed by the blood of the Silver Dragons for a thousand years. The Argentine throne wasn't just a seat of power; it was a hungry mouth. And it was starting to get hungry for him.