Despite being pushed out of the memories he was probing, Sameshita showed no signs of anger, speaking casually. “I was curious about the situation, as the power I bestowed upon my disciple seems to be fully ingrained in you.”
As Rezette caught his breath, returning his forearm to its original state, he grimaced. Sameshita only referred to Gallian as his disciple. There was only one conceivable reason for Gallian’s power to linger in Rezette: Elise.
The dragon was aware of Elise’s existence.
“How do you know about my wife?” Rezette demanded.
“Her scent resonates throughout your entire being,” the dragon replied, a fleeting, sinister greed passing through its elongated pupils.
Sameshita’s irises swirled with possessive desire tainted with affection. To the dragon, Gallian being a human male and Elise a woman seemed inconsequential. Dragons were enigmatic beings, fundamentally asexual and capable of altering their appearance at will. Thus, their concept of “love” transcended conventional notions of sexuality or romance; it was a yearning for existence itself.
Surely, the dragon wouldn’t equate the student who had betrayed him with Elise?
“What did her bloodline look like?”
As Rezetted openly displayed his animosity, the dragon burst into laughter, the booming sound echoing through the mountainside. “Wasn’t she adorable, Rezette?”
“Stop speaking nonsense.”
“Wasn’t she irresistibly adorable from the moment you first saw her?” the dragon persisted. “You must have been driven to madness with desire.”
Rezette fell silent, taken aback, as the dragon continued, “You could hardly resist looking back. When you came to your senses, you must have been bewitched. After all, you were born as part of me, so it’s only natural.”
Struggling to find a response, Rezette watched as the dragon occasionally concealed ancient memories that surfaced.
The dragon, an entity akin to a god, saw the happy times spent with the five disciples as nothing more than a fleeting twenty years. Among them was a faintly scented, naive boy who approached without fear, even to one almost divine. Cheeky and endlessly arrogant, he was therefore even more adorable.
But swiftly, the boy matured, and the carefree laughter that once filled the air vanished in an instant. “I will no longer stay by your side. It’s all your doing, Master,” he declared, becoming the cruel human who had pushed him into a trap and then turned his back on him.
“Rezette. Shall I tell you something that might help you?” the dragon suddenly spoke, its eyes glowing with meaning. “Don’t trust humans. Especially those with Gallian’s bloodline.”
The statement seemed to penetrate Rezette’s situation, the dragon’s eyes holding a significant weight. “Those who have grown by consuming my power inevitably become ensnared by those bloodlines. But the moment they take their eyes off, they soon slip away. Just when they think they have everything!”
As if lightning had struck, Rezette’s vision flashed. The cheerful laughter from moments before was replaced by Sameshita’s fierce rage. With the dragon’s ever-changing attitude, Rezette’s head began to throb as if it would shatter.
“How do I break free from these shackles? I have to kill her! Or let me die! Rezette, what about you? Do you want me to release your bond?”
“It’s unnecessary, so don’t meddle…” Rezette replied, his tone firm.
“Meddling? No, no, Rezette. It may not be now, but someday, you’ll want to kill your wife too. Whether it’s because she’s overly adorable or because you’re burning with unbearable betrayal. It’s just a façade; humans are nothing more than ungrateful leeches,” the dragon insisted.
“When that time comes, you will inevitably come to me. I’ll be waiting, so come anytime. I’ll welcome you warmly.”
Suddenly, the dragon’s pupils shifted to the sky above without warning, revealing the blue expanse. “But she’s truly beautiful… Like being buried in the middle of a field of blooming flowers…” the dragon mused softly, his gaze wandering aimlessly.
“Rezette, your wife often calls out to me,” the dragon added, a mischievous glint in his eye.
Rezette furrowed his brow uncomfortably, finding the dragon’s words increasingly absurd. However, as he dismissed the ramblings of the insane dragon, the yellow pupils narrowed into slits, and the dragon smiled with satisfaction once again.
“I cannot kill Gallian. But I can know where he is, what he’s doing, where his bloodline originates, and what he does with my power, and how he lives.”
“What do you mean?”
“The moment they call out my name,” Rezette explained, referring to Gallian and his descendants’ use of Sameshita’s power.
The dragon, previously coiled like a snake, now stood tall, its long and ancient body pointing towards the sky. Lightning struck the dry sky, and the mountainside, once occupied by the dragon, turned into black ashes, swirling like volcanic ash in all directions.
“It means that the path for me is open,” Sameshita concluded, his last words drowned out by the sound of the wind, barely audible.
