Cold wind swept through the shattered forest, like the cries of souls freshly torn from their bodies.
The adventurer party withdrew from the Forbidden Dragon's domain in silence. No one spoke. Only the weary crunch of blood-soaked boots echoed on the scorched ground.
Kael glanced back. Far behind, shrouded in the swirling mist, a faint violet light flickered the arcane prison where Lania was still held, her presence a dying flame amid the abyss.
His heart clenched with helplessness.
Louis led the way, carrying a fallen comrade on his shoulder. He didn't cry but his red, swollen eyes and the bloodied fists clenched tight at his sides screamed louder than tears ever could. Behind him, one by one, adventurers bore the wounded, dragging their broken bodies without a word of complaint.
At last, the group emerged from the Ancient Greenwood Forest just as dawn broke over the horizon.
At the forest's edge, they halted to assess their losses.
There had been twenty of them.
Now… only twelve remained capable of holding a weapon. Five were dead. Three lay unconscious, too wounded to fight.
"Twelve combat-ready," Louis said hoarsely, his voice dry and ragged.
Kael lowered his head in mourning. Though he had joined them only recently, the names and faces of those who fell were etched into his memory.
As daylight finally poured down upon them, they returned to the city of Lumielle.
At the Adventurers' Guild recovery center, healing mages stood in shifts. Restoration circles glowed along the floor, flooding the room with bluish-white light as life was breathed back into those on the brink of death.
Kael sat quietly by a window. His arm was torn open, blood crusted on his leather armor. But his eyes remained locked on the far-off forest where the soft violet glow of the prison still pulsed faintly.
Where Lania remained trapped.
"…We failed to save her."
Draven sat beside him in silence. His wounds were severe, but he had refused healing until the others were taken care of.
Louis stood at the Guild's war room table. His hand gripped the wooden edge so tightly that blood dripped down from his knuckles. Spread across the table was a map of the forest dozens of red ink marks indicating battle sites.
Every single one had been lost.
"We can't just sit here and wait to die," Kael muttered under his breath.
He shut his eyes, mind racing. The immortal dragon. Each time they killed it, it came back stronger. Even the combined might of dozens of adventurers couldn't end it.
Why?
What made it unkillable?
Then, in a moment of stillness a flash of clarity.
"If it can't die… then what we've been attacking must be just the shell."
"The heart. The core must be somewhere else," a voice echoed Longlong.
"But how do we find where the heart is?" Kael asked in frustration.
Suddenly
Kael's eyes widened. A name sprang to his mind.
Eiden.
If there was anyone in all of Lumielle who understood ancient beasts, forbidden magic, and the inner workings of catastrophic dragons…
It had to be him.
Without another thought, Kael burst from the Guild Hall, racing through the busy streets of Lumielle. The cold wind tore at his face, but his mind was focused, crystal-clear:
"Eiden… only he can help me stop that thing."
There was no more time for fear or hesitation.
Memories of the fallen flashed through his mind Louis's bloodied hands, Draven's trembling fists, the despair in Lania's eyes as she was sealed within that violet spell.
He had to act. Now.
The gates of Astra Academy rose ahead. He didn't stop. He tore through the entrance, sprinting down stone corridors toward a familiar place the library.
He charged past ancient wood shelves and the smell of parchment and dust.
His heart thundered not from exhaustion, but from a sliver of hope.
If anyone could understand the anatomy of an immortal, ancient dragon it was Eiden.
There in the dim glow of a mana lamp he saw him.
Seated at the far end of the library, surrounded by piles of old books, Eiden flipped through a cracked leather tome with unwavering focus, as if the world outside simply didn't exist.
Kael stopped at the table, chest heaving.
"Eiden!"
The young scholar looked up, his expression instantly sharpening.
"I need your help. It's urgent."
Kael quickly recounted the battle the dragon, the regenerations, the losses, the trap holding Lania.
"We fought it. We destroyed its body again and again. Head, limbs, wings burnt it to ash. But it just… keeps coming back. Stronger. Each time. It's not just dangerous it's immortal."
Eiden didn't respond at first.
Instead, he asked:
"Why did you come to me?"
Kael didn't hesitate.
"Because… I know you're not just some bookworm. You're the only person in this city who could possibly understand what we're up against."
A brief silence.
Then Eiden closed his book, stood, and said in a low voice:
"…Follow me."
They moved deeper into the Restricted Archives, where forbidden texts written in ancient script were sealed behind enchantments. The air here was thick saturated with old mana and silence.
Eiden stopped at a locked shelf, runes glowing faintly on the wood. He raised his hand, tracing a sigil to break the seal.
Click.
He pulled out a heavy tome, its cover bound in faded gray leather.
"There's an old record," he said, opening the book, "of a subspecies of ancient shadow dragons. Creatures created by forbidden magic."
He flipped the pages until stopping at an aged illustration a pitch-black dragon floating in midair.
Beside it, drawn separately and outside its body a glowing heart.
"They are immortal," he said, pointing. "Because their hearts don't reside inside their bodies. Certain ancient dragons especially ones of the Forbidden lineage can store their core elsewhere. As long as that heart remains intact… they'll keep regenerating."
Kael clenched his fists.
"Then… is there any way to find the heart?"
Eiden frowned, then slowly nodded.
"Possibly. But we'll have to return to the forest. I'm coming with you."
[End of Chapter 16]
Next Chapter 17: The Dragon's Heart