Awakening (Part 1)

"I finally escaped." Tinia shook her frost-white wings, stretched her neck, and threw her head back in an exhilarated howl. "Awoo—" As if something crossed her mind, her slitted pupils flickered. Gritting her teeth, wisps of biting chill seeped through the gaps between her razor-sharp fangs. "Hmph! Those wretched humans actually forced me to study etiquette. One day, one day I'm going to freeze them all solid and gobble every last one up!" She tilted her head and instinctively glanced toward the royal palace not far away. "But if I do that... Master will definitely be furious." "A beating would be fine, but if Master locks me in that 'cage' again..." Tinia couldn't help shivering, shuddering from head to toe, and immediately dismissed the thought. In truth, over these past three years, this white dragon bearing a faint trace of progenitor bloodline had caused no trouble. Instead, she had obediently studied various spells, etiquette, and even languages. Unlike ordinary white dragons whose bloodlines had degraded, Tinia possessed an intellect comparable to that of an average human—she was merely stupider in certain regards. And her learning speed had even taken the ogre archmage quite by surprise. Trump had merely dangled the bait that "Master favors cultured vassals," and the white dragon had become extraordinarily enthusiastic, as if pumped full of adrenaline. By now, Tinia had already mastered enough Common for basic conversation, the most rudimentary kingdom etiquette, and had even learned Polymorph. Among the generally dim-witted race of white dragons, she was practically a bona fide high-level intellectual. "Just when will Master wake up?" At the thought of that unprecedentedly mighty red dragon, her true master, Tinia's face flushed slightly red. The white dragon crept closer, pressing her body tightly against the palace's outer wall. Due to the influence of the red dragon's slumber, the metallic wall was often glowing red-hot, hot enough to cook raw meat, so that even the tiefling guards on watch nearby dared not touch it lightly. As creatures that craved the cold and would only eat frozen food, white dragons had very little heat resistance. The moment she touched the city wall, a sizzling sound came from Tinia's side, and her pure white scales were scorched black. "Awoo—" Tinia let out a pained whimper, yet she still rubbed persistently against the wall. Feeling the heat emanating from the metal was like feeling the red dragon's powerful, massive, and burning body—feeling that violent, surging strength. "Master..." At this thought, strands of draconic drool dripped from the corners of Tinia's mouth, and even her dense coat of scales could not conceal the infatuated, enraptured look on her face. The tiefling guards originally intended to check the source of the commotion—catching an intruder came with a handsome reward—but when their sharp eyes caught sight of that white dragon, they turned and walked off in disgust as if seeing an omen of misfortune. After all, this kind of thing had happened many times before. In a sense, this white dragon was completely beyond help. Suddenly, a fierce blast of hot wind radiated outward with the palace at its center, and the ground began to tremble violently as fissures split across the earth. *Crack, crack...* *Boom!* With a thunderous roar, Tinia, still lost in her reverie, was jolted awake. Startled out of her wits, she flapped her wings and leapt up, fluttering clumsily in midair and letting out a panicked shriek: "Awooo—!" The tiefling guards stationed near the palace were equally terrified, scrambling to conduct an emergency retreat and evacuation, terrified of following in the footsteps of their poor predecessors who had died in the palace. *Glug, glug.* Bubbling lava actually welled up from the cracks in the earth, turning the surrounding ground into pitch-black magma rock. "No! Run!" "We're getting out of here right now!" Ekmon, the tiefling captain recently in charge of palace security, suddenly turned pale. The cracking ground, erupting lava, and sky full of ash—the scene before him was almost identical to the disaster from a year ago. He had been present during that incident as well, witnessing with his own eyes outside the perimeter wall as an inferno swallowed those unfortunate tieflings inside the palace. He had been powerless to stop it, forced to watch helplessly as they died. And now, that same catastrophe seemed to have fallen upon his own head. To Cassius, this was merely a tiny sliver of power unintentionally leaked during his slumber, completely beneath mention. But when this mere "mote of dust" of individual might fell upon mortals, it became an absolute calamity capable of snuffing out lives with ease. "Run! *Cough, cough!*" Ekmon shouted, but fine particles of ash had already gotten into his nose and mouth, suffocating him. Following his prior training, he quickly covered his nose and mouth with his clothes and bent low as he moved, trying to escape this hellish place as fast as possible, with the other tieflings close behind. Yet with a series of sharp cracking sounds, the ground ruptured again, deep chasms opening before them, each bubbling with scalding lava. "*Cough, cough.*" "No, I don't want to die..." Gazing at the dense ash filling the sky, Ekmon murmured in despair. "Am I really going to die from His Majesty's 'morning grumpiness'? How utterly ridiculous." Yet the ash choked nearly half the sky, blocking even the slightest sliver of sunlight. On the ground, rivers of lava and yawning fissures mercilessly cut off their escape routes; the vicinity of the royal palace was like a vision of the apocalypse. Tinia struggled to fly through the shroud of volcanic ash, her entire body coated in soot until she looked almost like a "black dragon." Fortunately, white dragons could fly, and her vitality was far greater than that of mere mortals. Though she looked in a sorry state, she could still flee in panic without her life being threatened. The tieflings, however, had no such luck. What they faced was utter, inescapable doom. Just as Ekmon was about to sink into total despair— "ROAR—!" Suddenly, a clarion dragon's roar rang out, resonant as though echoing from antiquity. Accompanying the sky-shaking roar, an invisible pulse of domain energy expanded at blistering speed. Wherever the wave washed over, all agitated magical phenomena were abruptly quelled. The rolling ash that choked the sky dissipated before their eyes; the flowing lava receded back underground or cooled into solid rock; the searing heat that distorted the air gradually ebbed away; even the scorching ground slowly cooled down. In just a few breaths, the scene that had looked like an infernal apocalypse returned to normal. "I... I actually survived!" "*Pant, pant!*" Ekmon patted his chest, gasping for air to calm his wildly pounding heart after surviving the ordeal. He turned his head toward the magnificent palace within the walls. "His Majesty... he has awakened..."