Dragon Gods Reign

[Darganth's cave]

After a while of simply staring at the water ball, now turned stone pebble, Allaire looked at Darganth.

“The basilisk is here? Since when?” She asked, slightly panicked.

“Since a few minutes. While faster than I had anticipated, his arrival here is not completely unexpected.” Darganth calmly replied.

“You knew that he would come here and stayed? That is a peak second rank beast.”

“Yes. And while dangerous to you, it has very few ways to kill me. Of course the reverse is also the case, so I am going to wait till tomorrow before taking action. If he remains here, I will force him away, otherwise I will ignore him.” This made her calm down quite a bit. At least until a few minutes later when she noticed a problem with this situation.

“Fuck, how am I going to return now? I already had to be careful when the strongest beast was a peak first rank one, but now the basilisk is running around.”

“Just wait till tomorrow, then I will go with you. Staying here no longer has any advantages for me, so I can just spend my time at your tribe.”

These words made her rejoice. With a dragon living in their camp, only beasts like the basilisk would attack them. Searching for a place where the ground was as even as possible, she lay down.

Darganth meanwhile remained awake, never keeping his eyes from the basilisk. While he was quite sure that his dragons fear would make him think twice before attacking, he knew that it wouldn't even stop him for a second. Thus he was limited to staying awake and holding guard.

After around six hours Allaire woke up. By now the basilisk had given up on his attack, opting to return to his own cave. While he was sure that he would have to fight him one day, every day this confrontation was delayed gave him a bigger advantage. After all, the basilisk was limited by the mana in the surroundings to grow stronger, while he just had to wait. Once she was ready, he collapsed his cave, before making his way towards the tribe with Allaire.

“Why did you keep from fighting the basilisk despite being confident in driving it away?” She asked after a while.

“Because just like with nearly all dragons, time is my ally. Nearly all other races grow weaker with increasing age, even dying as long as they don't do something to keep this from happening. We don't have such a weakness. While today I am confident in forcing him away, in a month or two, I am quite sure that I can kill him.”

“In two months?” She exclaimed in shock. Seeing him nod in confirmation, looked at him as if he had grown a second head.

“Reaching peak second rank at three months old. That's ridiculous. Are you even a normal dragon? Not some sort of new super dragon, created to take over the world?” She joked.

“Of course not, advancing that fast is impossible in this environment. But who said that I need to be at the peak of the second rank to fight it?” He said.

Continuing their journey for a few hours, Darganth suddenly called Allaire to stop. Despite her irritation, she did as he told her.

“I know that you are there, you can come out.” Initially surprise by his words, Allaire became shocked when three lion-beastmen came out of hiding a few meters in front of them. Seeing them already holding their weapons, she quickly drew her bow and knocked an arrow.

“Ha, that guy has some good senses. What are you, some form of lizard beastmen?” This question made Darganth want to rip the man's heart out. While not exactly such a comparison, it was close enough to being compared to a lizard that it enraged him. Dragons generally hated being called beasts and comparison to lizard were even more so the case. Even the title 'King of Beasts' that dragons held due to beings with stronger instincts, like beasts, being more affected by dragons fear was something that many dragons disliked.

“Why care for him? When we bring that girl back with us, the boss may let us take her for a round.” With those words one of them stepped forwards. Already annoyed by the encounter with these Red Lion Tribe members, he wanted to dispose of them quickly when Allaire already shot an arrow at the man before he could attack.

Surprised by this attack, the beastmen didn't manage to react, dying due to the arrow piercing his heart. Seeing their comrades death, the other two froze. They had lived so long in a tribe where women were barred from learning aura that they forgot that this wasn't the case everywhere. This together with the fact that they were only at the second order made them easy targets for Allaire.

“To think that these idiots would already send scouts out till here.”

“You know them?”

“Yes, a tribe that recently moved to the coast. Had a small encounter with them and tricked quite a few treasures out of them. Oh, don't use my name in their presence, they already hate me because I killed the chiefs son and I don't want to bother with them.”

“You killed one of them? Why? And why wouldn't you want to attack them when they have treasures?”

“The idiot tried to use a control artifact against me. As for me not wanting to attack them, its because I plan to give someone else the opportunity for her revenge.”

“Her?” Allaire asked with a smirk. Ignoring her, Darganth continued walking.

“Hey, I am not judging. I am just wondering how it happened.”

“Nothing you have to know. Even if you would, what do you want with this knowledge? Try yourself?” His words caused Allaire to glare at him.

“Now stop your useless questions and continue moving.”

With this, they continued towards her tribe. During the rest of the journey there were no more interruptions, with Darganth's second rank presence keeping the beasts at bay. The next day, they reached the camp. Due to them arriving already quite late, they found no workers in the forest. Thus when they reached the camp, the guards quickly called the chief when they noticed Allaire and someone unknown approaching.

Arriving in a hurry, he was visible nervous. While he had hoped that Darganth would help them, he didn't expect it. Thus, when he was notified that Allaire had returned together with someone else, he was quite unprepared.

“I greet you Lord Darganth.” Playing it safe, Elstan decided to greet him with utmost courtesy, going as far as bowing.

“No need for such useless gestures. I have already told her by conditions. Decide whether you want my help or not.”

“Allaire, I if it isn't to stressful after your journey, I would discuss this with the rest.” Nodding, Allaire followed Elstan.

Arriving in the same tent where they had held their last conference, the third order warriors gathered listened to her recount of the events that transpired. When she told them about the dangers Darganth mentioned and his condition, they instantly became surprised.

“No treasures or anything else, we just have to wait a little longer to receive his help?” One of them asked to which Allaire nodded.

“Then I think it is settled whether we should accept it or not.” To his words, Elstan received a nod from everyone in the room.

“Then I will tell him about our decision.”

“Wait. There is still another matter we should discuss.” Allaire interrupted him. Turning to her, Elstan motioned her to continue. Recounting her encounter with the three members of the Red Lion Tribe, she also told them the things Darganth had told her about the tribe during their way back. Finishing, everyone present silent and digested these news.

“So we now have to worry about a tribe causing us trouble?” One of them asked after a few minutes.

“Not necessarily. While they have a grudge against him, Darganth is by now powerful enough to be confident if fighting the basilisk that attacked us, an early second rank is not his opponent. The reason why I even mentioned this is that they attacked us not because they recognized him, instead they had hoped to capture me. I think that we should, at least initially, protect those of us who go into the forest with larger teams.”

“Allaire is right. A tribe that treats women like this is not one we can expect decency from. While it will slow us down, we now have time to spare. We will try avoiding causing a conflict, but under no circumstances are we going to sacrifice even one member of our tribe for this.”

With this, the meeting came to an end. Pleased by the lack of any real demands from Darganth, he made his way to inform him of their acceptance. Walking to the place he had met up with Allaire, he noticed quite a few tribesmen already talking about it. While most have heard about the idea to ask him for help, few truly held any hope that he would accept.

“What is your decision?”

“We accept the conditions for your help.” Elastan answered Darganth.

“Then to a good cooperation.”

With these words, Darganth made his way into the camp. While he noticed the stares he received, he ignored them as they held no ill intend. After a while, he found a good place to create a place for him to stay. Using wood magic, he created a small wooden house, something that was totally out of place in this camp completely made out of tents.

Stepping inside, he created himself a soft surface by letting larger leaves grow out of the wooden walls, before sitting down and once again focusing on his training. Like this six days passed. While he did little to actively help the tribe, the attacks on them reduced drastic. This was mainly because he didn't suppress his presence. The few times he did intervene was when a peak first rank beast got brazen.

During this time, he interacted little with the tribe, keeping mostly to himself. The only contact he had were his, by now, frequent talks with Allaire. During their journey here, they had talked quite a bit and she had grown to enjoy his company. In this time, she had begun to be completely herself even to him. While she grew quite nervous after she accidentally made a joke about him for the first time, he only let out a small laugh, which calmed her down significantly.

By now they have already become quite good friends. From time to time he would help her with reaching the second rank in aura, despite her mana quality only being around half way there from the beginning of the third order.

He had even offered her to optimize the training technique she used, which she accepted but not before adding, “Don't think that something like that will get you into my pants” with a laugh. Of course he shot back, repeating the pattern of friendly jokes about the other most of their conversations followed.

Currently he was sitting in his house, when he noticed a group approaching the camp. Recognizing the mana signatures to belong to one of Gervas sons he had met during his stay with their tribe, he made his way there. Already from a distance, he could see the group of guards opposite of them being annoyed by them, but they didn't dare to act rashly due to Gervas son being in the third order.

Even though he was an idiot, Darganth had to admit that Gervas was far from untalented. Had he been born in a tribe that could teach him a training technique of decent quality, he may even have reached the mythical rank. Maybe he can still reach the second order once he leaves this area with its low mana density, but otherwise he will forever be stuck.

“What is going on here?” At his words, both the guards and the group from the Red Lion Tribe turned to him.

“We are sorry that this matter has escalated enough that it reached you. But they demanded that...” The guard started.

“Shut your worthless mouth and let me speak.” The groups leader interrupted while flaring his third order aura.

“Now, as you seem to hold some authority here, I will repeat myself, but just this one time. The reason we are here is because a member of your tribe killed three of our scouts, so we want compensation. Just let us pick a few of your women and hand over the culprit and this can be resolved peacefully.”

This made Darganth sigh. He could already tell that this man was just like the young masters in some of the books he had read as Viktor. Thinking about how to deal with him, he decided to not instantly kill him. While he doubted it would work, he hoped that the right balance between being diplomatic and a show of force may solve this problem for a longer time.

“You should know yourself that that is not going to happen. Apart from the fact that you have shown us no proof, you don't even have the power to try to make us comply.”

“Why would we need proof? My father is the chief of our Red Lion Tribe and a second rank individual. Either you do as we say or he will destroy you all.”

At these words Darganth had to focus on not laughing out loud, after all the leaders sibling tried to threaten him with the same thing. Just as he wanted to continue, he noticed Allaire approaching. Turning around, he greeted her while internally already throwing his diplomatic approach out of the window.

“What a beauty. As you seem unwilling to follow my demand, I am going to take her as alternative.” With these words the leader walked towards her. Managing to only make it three steps, he was stopped by Darganth who held him at his shoulder.

“Your tribe should really focus more on educating their members. Stupidity was already the reason your brother died, just as it is now for you.” With these words, he activated his external aura. At the same time he returned to his true form, leading to the man now being in the grip of a nearly four meter long dragon.

Throwing him back a few meters, Darganth slowly walked to his landing spot, watching as the man started to panic. The three that had accompanied him were already running away, not even looking back. Noticing him trying to activate a magic tool, Darganth let out a laugh.

“What is it this time? Your brother tried using his little mind control toy against me, maybe this is something similar. Not that it matters, after all controlling a dragon is extremely difficult.” While Darganth ridiculed him, the leader managed to activate his magic tool.

“You better stop before I unleash hell onto you.” While shouting these words, he pointed his arm towards Darganth. Despite this threat, Darganth continued onwards. After a few second the leader activated his magic tool. Seeing the build up mana disperse, nearly everyone present looked at the scene with confusion. Darganth meanwhile started laughing.

“Using a voice recording tool to intimidate someone is really something new. Your brother at least new how to use it, instead you simply filled it with mana before letting it disperse.”

Without further words, Darganth swung his claw and decapitated the groups leader. Not bothering with the other members of their group, he let them flee.