"Where is this...?"
Abir slowly opened her eyes, feeling a profound exhaustion that left her barely able to focus.
Yet alertness quickly surged back as she recalled her final memory—being clutched tight in the claws of that monstrous dragon, crushed into unconsciousness.
"Damn it!"
Abir instinctively reached toward her hip, but failed to find her familiar dagger. Even the emerald-green cloak she had been wearing was gone, leaving her in only her base garments.
Sitting on the floor, she warily scanned her surroundings. It was an unfamiliar palace where everything seemed scaled up to gargantuan proportions, cavernous to an intimidating degree.
Suddenly, a massive shadow loomed over her.
"You're awake, elf."
She stiffly turned her head and saw the red dragon's colossal frame and ferocious head.
Terror seized Abir at once, the nightmare of the red dragon about to devour her still vivid in her mind. Yet she mustered her courage, clenched her sweat-slicked fists, and stammered, "Evil dragon, w-what do you want?"
Cassius parted his jaws slightly, exposing a maw of razor-sharp teeth.
"What do you think?"
Abir's body trembled uncontrollably as certain rumors gathered by the Harpers flashed across her mind:
In the accounts of Northlands nobles, this red dragon was not only a Dragon of Tyranny, but also a Dragon of Lust. It was said he would transform into a towering, hideous humanoid several meters tall to ravish beautiful maidens before shifting back into his true form to swallow them whole.
Abir was only in her thirties—for a long-lived race like the elves, an age still in the bud of youth.
Such humiliation was far more terrifying than death itself!
She had envisioned dying a heroic death, but she refused to be reduced to a tool for an evil dragon's lust.
At the thought, Abir gritted her teeth and spoke word by word:
"I... will never let you have your way with me!"
With a desperate lurch, Abir threw herself toward the hard stone wall, seeking to end her own life.
This was her final struggle, and her only remaining way out.
Yet before such an overwhelming disparity in power, even death became an unattainable luxury.
The red dragon merely closed his claw slightly, and a giant taloned hand woven of shimmering magical force clamped tight around the elf, holding her as if in a cage, unable to budge an inch.
She didn't even have room to struggle.
"No..."
"Evil dragon, retribution will find you!"
Despair flooded Abir's gaze. Her eyelids sank, amber eyes clamping shut as glistening tears spilled from their corners.
The young elf dared not imagine what horrors awaited her. She could only keep her eyes squeezed shut, her shoulders shivering violently.
In the darkness, Abir felt a draft reeking of sulfur wash over her.
Could this be...
the end of everything?
In what she believed to be her final moments, she thought of the grand ambitions she held when departing the Elven Kingdom; the solemn oath she swore when joining the Harpers; her chance first meeting with Richard; the two of them infiltrating the Red Wizard Tower together in search of intelligence; and the serene beauty of watching the sunrise in Kadawen'er Forest...
*I can't accept this... I still wanted to see so much more,* Abir thought.
Yet the anticipated agony never arrived.
"Elf, do you wish to live?"
The dragon's deep voice rumbled, accompanied by scorching sulfurous breath.
Abir did not breathe a sigh of relief, knowing full well that this red dragon likely had other designs for her.
Perhaps he lusted after her body, or perhaps he sought intelligence on the Harpers. Yet the former was already within the beast's grasp at any moment, making the latter far more probable.
She remembered the oath she had sworn upon joining the Harpers:
"Seeking no reward, acting solely for justice."
The Harpers were a loose organization, yet they still harbored countless vital secrets.
She could never allow this red dragon to pry loose any secrets of the Harpers, nor could she ever serve the forces of evil. That was the singular resolve in Abir's heart—a conviction she was prepared to lay down her life for.
*I will not cling to life in disgrace...*
And so, the young elf kept her jaw clenched and her eyes shut tight, retreating entirely behind a wall of silence.
She was determined not to yield a single whisper of information, even if it meant being eaten alive!
Yet the dragon's next words instantly threw her into disarray, shattering her guarded composure without her even realizing it.
"Don't you want to know what became of Richard?"
Abir's eyes snapped open, and she blurted out anxiously, "What—what did you do to him?"
"His situation is quite fine. Couldn't be better, in fact."
Cassius sneered and conjured a magical projection before the elf, within which the figure of the half-elf ranger appeared.
*Thank goodness, he's alive...*
Seeing that familiar face, Abir breathed a sigh of relief, a wave of comfort washing over her.
Immediately afterward, the red dragon's voice rang out from the projection: "I want you to return to the Harpers and serve as the kingdom's double agent..."
Abir's heart leapt into her throat once more. She prayed silently, *Richard, you won't agree to this.*
Yet she also began to dread that the following scene would show Richard being brutally slaughtered by the dragon for refusing, leaving her emotions in a tangled knot.
Before long, Richard's familiar voice spoke again.
"Yes... my lord."
"How could he..."
Abir murmured to herself, utter disbelief written across her delicate face.
"Evil dragon, you bewitched him! Or is this nothing but a deceptive illusion?!"
Abir glared furiously at the red dragon. She still refused to accept reality, desperately chalking it up to enemy lies.
Richard, the companion she spent day and night with—how could he betray the Harpers without hesitation and become the very thing she despised most: someone willingly serving an evil dragon!
Cassius looked down upon the elf with a mocking smirk, slowly drawing closer.
"Do you truly believe I have any reason to deceive you, little snack?"
"I merely wished to strip away your pointless delusions and wake you from your laughable fairy tale."
"This is reality, stripped bare. The so-called convictions and oaths of you Harpers crumble at the slightest touch. To save their own lives, people will casually sacrifice anything. Even behind those radiant elven deities of yours lie heaps of blood debts owed to countless mortals."
"Tell me, have you righteous Harpers ever held them accountable for those deeds of the past?"
"No, that's not true at all!"
Panicking, Abir shook her head, frantically trying to defend her beliefs.
Yet before the looping magical projection and the dragon's deep, resonant words, her defense rang utterly hollow and feeble.
The red dragon's head drew nearer and nearer, his scorching breath drenching the elf in sweat.
"So... tell me, elf."
"Do you choose life, or death?"
Chapter 231