The Dragon of Dreams

Chapter 314: A New Sapling

N/A - N/A : The Mallory Area | Lunar Derelict District

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*Vwowowowoom* Within the silent depths of my mind, all I could make out was the hypnotic hum of mana being ripped through a sea of matter. The sound of a vortex so strong it ripped the mana out of atoms, forcing them to decay into their most basic form. Pure hydrogen.

Without me knowing, it had become the melody of my unconscious mind, keeping thoughts from flowing and allowing my mind to listlessly drift through time as my body attempted to rebuild itself from nothing.

But it could only last for so long.

*THOOM* I instantly darted into the sky before finding myself looking over a vast empty crater of dust and rock hidden beneath a dense grey fog of hydrogen, leaving nothing but a potent mix of awe and confusion in my mind.

I was.. alive?

But the moment I looked down, I was met with the sight of my own body, mutilated beyond recognition as if having decayed over countless years, laying next to a conglomeration of unrecognizable flesh I could only assume was what was left of Ilios.

It instantly destabilized my mental state before plunging my mind into the depths of despair and agony without warning.

Within the unfathomable vortex of mana centered around my body, there was another. A suction that absorbed every drop it could grasp while resisting the pull of my dragon sleep in its entirety.

*FWOOM* Instantly darting to the ground, I looked over the unrecognizable mound of flesh with a mix of hope and heartache. -Is he.. alive?-

A part of me didn't believe it right away, but after looking more deeply into his full, flowing mana core, I saw a faint cloud flowing freely within the ever-growing sea of mana. -Is that his soul?-

It was a far cry from anything special, especially compared to the Fenrir that had previously possessed him, but while it was nothing more than a thin cloud, it felt familiar, and it felt warm.

After just looking at it for a moment, a subtle wag even found its way into my tail.

However, as my mental state began to stabilize, memories from before I passed out started returning to vividity, and the swaying of my tail was halted by a wave of anxiety. -Wait a minute... If I'm really alive.. what happened to...-

Quickly expanding my senses, I tried to find him, the Fenrir I could only assume was Dagr, fully expecting him to be in the air, watching over me like a cat playing with a mouse, only to find he was nowhere to be seen. -W..what? Am I dreaming? Where did he go? Why would he just.. leave us...-

At the time, the last thing I could remember prior to falling unconscious was the feeling of his cold gaze on my body after I failed to stand up and finish him off. Had he willed it, I would have been dead. -But not only is my dragon sleep still proceeding.. even my tether is untouched...-

Looking back down at the thin thread tying my soul to my reserve, I glanced toward Ilios's body and noticed his flesh was regrowing like mine. He was evolving, but no matter how I twisted it, it still made no sense. -What is he even evolving into? Wasn't he already an Ancient Fenrir?-

Slowly falling into thought, my gaze shifted to the ground, but after a moment, a set of large, ethereal wolf paws came into view, and after having my mind jolt out of my body for a moment, I found that they were mine.

The form my soul had taken upon itself, rather than remaining an amorphous blob as it was previously, was what could only be described as a Fenrir with a slightly elongated neck, massive furred wings, and a very long but fluffy tail. A cross between a Fenrir and a dragon. -It feels weirdly natural.. but...-

Glancing over at my physical body, I watched as countless strands of flesh continued to weave through the web of divinity, tracing the figure of a dragon with every fiber of muscle and layer of bone before letting out a breath of relief. "Phew..."

Although the form my soul took felt truly comfortable, I much preferred the dexterity, strength, and, most importantly, appearance that came with the body of a dragon. -It looks like my body is going to grow quite a bit in size too...-

From what I could tell, all I needed to do was wait.

For how long, though, I didn't have a clue. -But even if it's just a few days, I will need to kill time with something...-

Yet, as I sat on the desolate lunar surface, watching my body absorb more mana than I could fathom for a moment, finding something to kill time became the least of my worries.

*Vwoom* Feeling a presence instantly appear behind me, I froze.

"Don't you look different..." His deep voice echoed through the fabric of space with ease while time around us started to slow. "I expected your soul to rip itself apart.. yet there you are, sitting as if nothing ever happened..."

Slowly turning my head, I met eyes with the familiar, colossal fenrir, looming over me as if I were a human gazing upon a towering dragon.

"It seems you didn't lose your sense of self either..." His eyes carefully scanned my form as he lowered his head next to my body. "How impressive."

For that moment, I was simply paralyzed, my previous confusion about his absence now seeming foolish. "I… What do you want?" I stammered, trying to maintain composure. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, there was no way I could fight back if he really wanted to kill me, even if my body was untouched.

But thankfully, his hostility was nowhere to be seen. "Curious, are we?" His smile sent a chill down my spine as his massive eye gazed into the core of my soul. "Well, let's just say I decided to.. observe you for a little longer."

Slowly mustering up the courage to speak under his gaze, I muttered, "W..what about Ilios..."

"If I left him to reincarnate, we wouldn't be able to speak here so calmly, don't you agree?" Finally pulling his head away, a flicker of interest appeared in his gaze. "Although I was the one to initiate the connection between you two, I still find it fascinating how much the bond strengthened without my intervention." His tone wasn't condescending, but rather contemplative, like a researcher observing an interesting specimen. "In any case, for now, I intend to watch you. To see if you are still a fruit to be eaten or already a seed already laying in the ground."

Each of his words seemed riddled with hidden implications, but before I a chill could even pass down my spine, my attention was drawn elsewhere.

*Vwowooom* "Hm?" As we heard a subtle disturbance in the hum of mana behind us, I felt a tingling sensation in the deepest parts of my core and turned around.

Around my physical body, there had formed a film of mana so dense that it flowed like a liquid, crushing and shredding the cells and atoms in my flesh to reach my reserve, even if it meant destroying my body in the process.

Back then, I didn't have a clue as to how bad such a thing was, especially during a dragon sleep, but thankfully I wasn't alone.

"How unfortunate.. I had hoped to speak with you a little longer, but it appears we are out of time for now..."

His tone quickly turned blunt as confusion filled my mind. -W..what does he mean?-

But before I could react, his figure appeared over my body, and he tapped his paw against my reserve.

The next thing I knew, my head was spinning, and I was looking straight down at the ground in a daze. *crackle-VWOOOM* My reserve had exploded like a strained water balloon the moment he touched it, heavily straining my tether before I was forcefully pulled into the center of where my reserve once was.

Before I knew it, the unbelievably scattered senses of my destroyed body forced their way into my mind, numbing my thoughts and causing the light in my eyes to fade to nothingness until I once again woke up.

It was an endless cycle of remembering and forgetting that went on for an indescribably eternity.

Each time I woke up, I was presented with the horrific sight of our mutilated bodies before finally having my memories return, just for Dagr to appear and destroy my reserve right afterward, once again tasking my soul with repairing it before restarting the cycle.

But with each successive cycle, our bodies would repair themselves more and more, and my soul would become more and more defined until finally, rather than waking up in the form of my soul, I opened the massive, deep purple eyes of my physical body.

*GASP-VWOOOM* Jolting awake, the gate around me was shredded, sending a colossal surge of mana ripping through the dense air around me: a grey atmosphere of hydrogen that had formed around the moon during my sleep.

"Hah... Hah..." -I'm.. awake?-

Looking on the ground just in front of me, I saw a colossal fenrir still sleeping soundly with a faint mana suction still leading into his reserve, but I didn't exactly have time to even think about it.

At that moment, it felt as if I had just woken up from an eternal slumber, a dragon sleep that was extended over eons because of Dagr's actions.

But as my condition stabilized and a soothing sensation reminiscent of my reincarnation coursed through my mind and body, a number appeared in my mind, a number that couldn't be right.

-W..what?- It was supposedly the amount of time that my body said had elapsed since my sleep initially started. -But... No.. my body must have just.. made an error or something after being reconstructed so many times...-

But no matter how many times I tried to check it, the numbers never changed.

Each time my reserve was shattered, seven and a half years passed, with an additional thirteen years passing before I first awoke.

At the end of it all, it totaled almost exactly 103 years.

A number that did more than simply loom over my mind.

-If that number is right... Just how long has passed in the outside world...-

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