The Truth

"Mmh..." The silver-haired girl barely managed to cover her body with the quilt, but a wide expanse of snow-white skin was still left bare. Gossamer fabric traced the graceful contours of her figure, leaving everything enticingly veiled. Only after several full days had their magical research finally concluded. Olivia was on the verge of total exhaustion. She had never imagined that researching spells could be this tiring—it felt as taxing as having survived a thrilling, desperate battle. Yet "Anhel," who had been conducting this research alongside her, remained full of vigor, as though he would never tire. "Don't you ever get tired?" Olivia turned her head to look at the side of his face, a petulant, reproachful expression surfacing on her features. Though this experience had been somewhat unexpected, she felt extraordinarily safe and content. It meant they could share so much more together and fulfill every vision she had ever dreamed of—a future far happier than the tale of the Scales of Promise. Her "fellow researcher" turned to look back at her, and a flash of crimson light flared across his golden pupils. Olivia suddenly shuddered. In his eyes, she caught the faint, looming trace of... sheer savagery. It was just like the abyssal demons she had once encountered, or the pureblood red dragons who burned, plundered, and slaughtered without mercy. Those were never the eyes an upright, noble gold dragon should possess. *Could it just be an illusion?* Olivia furrowed her delicate brows, wondering to herself. Yet "Anhel" smiled once more, his burning gaze fixed upon Olivia. "We dragons are magical creatures by nature. Conducting our research in humanoid form always feels somewhat stifling. "Teacher Olivia, shall we... continue our research in our true forms?" Olivia buried her fleeting doubts deep in her heart. Laughing softly, she tossed a pillow from the bed at him, feigning embarrassment and indignation. "We're inside a tavern! In such a cramped little room, are you trying to tear the place down?" To her bewilderment, "Anhel's" expression turned frigid, and he replied in a low murmur: "It isn't cramped here at all, Olivia. It's more than large enough for us to do whatever we please." "Anhel, what... what are you talking about?" A sudden chill welled up from the depths of Olivia's heart. The silver-haired girl looked around in bewilderment, only to find that at some point, she had already reverted to her silver dragon form. The cozy bedchamber, the soft mattress, and the flickering candlelight dissolved like popped bubbles. In their place loomed towering vaults, cold stone walls, and thick steel pillars. She had been inside this palace the entire time; she had never left at all. And the dark-haired, golden-eyed young man before her shed his disguise to reveal his terrifying true form. Amid a shower of sparkling magical glimmers, a colossal red dragon over thirty meters long, massive as a small mountain, materialized before her eyes, his unfurled wings blotting out everything above her. The silver dragon looked up stiffly. Floating above her head was that foul, nauseating black energy, hungrily siphoning away light and dispersing thoughts. She recognized that spell. It was an exceedingly malevolent eighth-circle spell—Mind of the Labyrinth—capable of imprisoning the subject's mind and creating an inescapable maze of bewildering illusions. "No..." "It can't be..." Olivia felt as though she had plummeted into an icy abyss. She shook her head incessantly, refusing to face the reality before her. The warm dreams and beautiful hopes were shattered in an instant, replaced by a reality that was infinitely more devastating and hopeless. Tears of despair welled up in the silver dragon's eyes. Mustering her last vestige of courage, she rasped in a hoarse voice: "Where is Anhel?" "What... what did you do to him?" Cassius walked slowly up to the silver dragon, lowered his massive head, and whispered close to her ear: "The silver coffin in Trifa Church, the corner of Fatri Hall, the waterfall south of Agur Forest, and the bookshelf in the Witch's Veil Tavern..." Olivia froze as if struck by lightning, her face stricken with disbelief. Those were the most intimate secrets she had whispered into Anhel's ear during their private moments, secrets no outsider could possibly know. Yet this Lord of Cinders was reciting every single one in exacting detail. A horrific thought struck Olivia's mind, yet she still desperately refused to believe it. The red dragon casually vented a puff of sulfurous white smoke. "Olivia, I told you long ago that once you learned the whole truth, you would only realize what a complete joke you are. "The Anhel you knew never existed... From beginning to end, the only one who was ever there was Cassius." He stared down at the silver dragon, pronouncing every single word with deliberate clarity. Olivia lay on the floor, thoroughly spent, her blue-gray eyes consumed by sheer confusion and despair. The sole lifeline that had kept her holding on had turned into the sharpest dagger plunged straight into her chest. Where was she supposed to turn now? "Why..." "Why would you do this?" After a long silence, Olivia finally spoke in a trembling whisper. Her voice sounded like a powerless interrogation, yet also like a desolate, weeping wail. Cassius offered no answer, only replying with cold detachment, "Come now. We still have plenty of time. "We can take our time and enjoy this..." Having been imprisoned for months and subjected to days of uninterrupted "research," the silver dragon was already completely drained. Against the red dragon's overwhelming size and strength, she could only let him do as he pleased, utterly powerless to resist. This bout of research was far more violent, like a raging tempest. Scorching energy surged through her body, and thick smoke even began to billow through the surrounding air. Cassius stared down at the silver dragon's slender neck. He suddenly felt the desire in his chest burn even more intensely—surpassing mere carnal pleasure. He felt a desperate urge to vent this raging hunger through pure violence. *Tear her apart! Destroy everything!* A frenzied voice seemed to bellow from the depths of his soul. *Could that truly be what I want?* Cassius failed to notice that his pale gold pupils were now webbed with crimson veins, radiating an endless thirst for annihilation. Viscous saliva even dripped from the corners of his mouth, and his razor-sharp talons had fully extended. Olivia suddenly sensed an overwhelming aura of lethal danger—a reaction born of primal instinct, the terror of a living creature before chaotic, incomprehensible horror. She had never been so terrified in her life. Summoning the last ounce of her strength, the silver dragon thrashed with all four limbs, frantically beating her wings. Yet her claws could only leave faint white scratches across his impenetrable scales. Cassius locked his thick, muscular foreleg around her neck, virtually crushing her beneath his mass. Veins bulged along his limb as his grip tightened with terrifying force. Facing imminent death, the silver dragon twisted her neck frantically and bit down on his arm, but her sharp fangs could barely pierce the outermost layer of the red dragon's defenses. To the silver dragon, this was a desperate struggle between life and death; to Cassius, it was nothing more than feeble, meaningless resistance that hardly even tickled. The silver dragon's breath grew faint, her life hanging by a thread. Everything seemed poised to end. Olivia glared defiantly at the red dragon. Gathering the very last shred of her courage, she screamed with all the strength left in her lungs: "No!" "This is what you chromatic dragons truly are—filthy spawn of Tiamat!" "Right now, you are nothing more than a beast ruled by lust! A demon straight out of the Abyss! Every living soul will revile you! A creature like you will be utterly destroyed by the gods one day!" Perhaps sensing that her life was slipping away, she cast all caution aside, cursing him straight to his face. "Demon of the Abyss..." Cassius murmured to himself. "Demon of the Abyss." He repeated the words once more, his colossal frame trembling faintly. Flames flared within his eyes, only to swiftly extinguish. He stood frozen in place, as if locked in a fierce battle against an unseen foe. Endless roars seemed to echo out of the void, and an invisible heat rippled outward. Terrifying tremors tore through the air, shaking the very ground beneath them. At long last, the tempest gradually subsided. Cassius opened his eyes once more, the crimson threads in his gaze fading away. Previously, under the red dragon's overwhelming dread presence, none of his minions had dared speak up—not even Trump, his closest and most trusted aide. Yet now, through her frantic curses, the silver dragon had unwittingly provided him with the sole wake-up call he needed. It was merely a slight spark, yet infinitely precious. Before this, Cassius had been walking through a thick fog. This rebuke had finally pierced the haze with a sliver of light, allowing him to pull himself back through sheer willpower before he was completely consumed. Cassius finally realized what was happening. Clarity returned to the red dragon's eyes. When comprehension dawned, his gaze filled with shock and fury—though none of it was directed at Olivia. *Damn it, it was Jezralslak!* *He must have tampered with the Heart of Garyx! That divine power of destruction and the consciousness of the Abyss actually influenced my mind!* Cassius felt a lingering chill grip his heart. The frenzied urge to destroy gradually ebbed from his eyes. Reflecting on his actions over the past few days, he had indulged himself without restraint, degenerating into a beast driven purely by desire, even entertaining the absurd thought of slaughtering the entire world. He had come within a hair's breadth of turning into an avatar of destruction—a surrogate for Garyx, an extension of the Abyss's dark will. Had that happened, he would have become an enemy of the gods and lost his very sense of self—a fate he would never accept. Moreover, he could clearly feel that this terrifying influence had not vanished. It would seize any opportunity to hijack his mind again and reduce him to an engine of chaotic ruin. Those violent crimson threads still lurked beneath his scales, and the fires of chaos remained coiled within his flesh, eating away at his reason, waiting for the right moment to surface and plunge him into absolute madness. He needed to find a way. A way to resolve this issue—or rather, this curse. Yes, a curse. In Cassius's eyes, this was practically identical to a curse like the Dracorage Mythal, insidiously warping his mind without his awareness, through a process that was nearly impossible to disrupt. Even now, the curse remained unlifted, ready to assault his mind at any time. But at least he could now actively suppress it and search for a cure, rather than degenerating into a beast driven by blind impulse. With that thought, he cast a deep look at Olivia. "Thank you." "I will loosen the restrictions of the Dragon-Binding Array." "From now on, you may move freely within this palace." Finally, under Olivia's shaken, bewildered gaze, Cassius beat his massive wings, turned, and strode out of the palace.