The city of Veydrall was never truly quiet, even in the hours before dawn.
The serpent-forged city breathed with the soft hiss of its guardians, the shifting scaled bodies across cobblestones, and the distant clatter of blacksmith hammers in the forges that never slept.
But tonight, in the shadow of the great emerald banners, something else stirred. Something far more dangerous than the city's watch.
Deep in the barracks of the Emerald Fangs, the Jormungandr family's elite hunter cadre, a row of armored figures stood in the torch-lit hall, silent as statues. Each of them was handpicked, trained for one purpose:
…hunting down prey too dangerous for ordinary soldiers to approach.
A few days ago, a certain Jormungandr seed would have never been considered such. But after surviving an encounter with Valtheris, no matter how arrogant Halveth was, he had to accept the changed circumstances of his banished son. He was forced to acknowledge his strength.
At the head of the hunter cadre stood Captain Draeven Kaul, the 'Serpent's Maw' himself, a man with cold steel gray eyes and scars etched across his jaw like claw marks.
Behind him, twelve of Veydrall's finest hunters waited, every one of them an elite beast tamer of at least C Rank.
They had taken down rogue wyverns, serpent aberrations, even feral manticores in the northern marshes.
But tonight's prey was something rarer. An F-Rank exile with a dragon, though rumors said he was now E-Rank.
"Listen well," Draeven's voice cut through the hall like a whip crack. "The bounty is confirmed. Ryujin Jormungandr. He is to be captured alive, if possible. Dead, if not. His beast is to be destroyed on sight".
There was no murmur of dissent, only a shift of leather straps and the quiet click of weapon locks. Every hunter here knew protocol; they were already locked in, but still…
One hunter, a stocky woman with burnished scale armor stepped forward. "Captain, are we certain about the reports? A Lesser Drake obeying an F-Rank? That's like Whitebeard following Buggy the Clown. Sounds like tavern gossip".
Draeven's eyes narrowed. "You think Lord Halveth puts half the city on alert for mere gossip?"
The woman shut her mouth.
"Understand this," Draeven continued. "If the boy truly holds a drake, he is already more dangerous than half the Dominion's upstart heirs. And if the rumors of a… draconic curse are true…"
He didn't finish. He didn't need to. Every hunter there knew the Dominion's stance on dragon taming. It was not just heresy, it was an existential threat to the Jormungandr bloodline.
A faint ripple of anticipation passed through the room. This was more than a hunt, this was the cleansing of something unnatural.
"Move out," Draeven ordered.
In moments, the hunters mounted their beasts; sleek-scaled serpents, fang wolves, and winged basilisks, before melting into the shadows of the sleeping city, heading toward the wilds beyond Drakenshire.
…
The wilderness to the north lay under the shadow of the Frostveil Mountains, a range of jagged white teeth biting into the sky. Wind howled between frozen cliffs, carrying the distant cries of unseen beasts.
Ryujin moved through the snow-choked pass, Nox and Crimson keeping pace at either side. Nox's molten-gold eyes scanned the ridges above while Crimson's ember-glow mouth vented steam into the air, his tail lashing lazily behind.
He'd been moving north for days since their last serious fight, but the tension in Ryujin's body hadn't eased.
Something was following them. Since getting the Eternal Dragon Legacy, his instincts sharpened into something beyond mere senses. And experience taught him to trust it, it had saved his life a few times already.
This was not just beasts, not just bounty hunters…
This was something coordinated.
His mind flashed back to Valtheris… the killing precision, the soundless approach. The assassin was gone for now, but the Dominion had no shortage of hunters. Ryujin knew that having grown up here.
As for what necessitated his decision to go north…
"We can't keep circling the same hunting grounds," he murmured to Nox sometime after the battle against the Ironhide Direboar. "They'll box us in eventually. Let's go north".
The drake gave a low rumble, smoke curling from its nostrils.
And that was how it started.
As they moved, that was when Ryujin felt it; a faint hum in the ground, almost imperceptible, but steady. A rhythm.
He rose slowly, eyes scanning the tree line.
At first, there was nothing. Then, between the shifting shadows, he spotted it… stone. Not the weathered kind of an old ruin, but sharp cut, deliberate architecture half-swallowed by snow.
Ryujin stepped closer, pushing through a blockade of snow, and the sight made his breath catch.
An entrance appeared at the end of a winding ravine, jagged maw of ice and stone dripping with stalactites. The air that spilled out was cold enough to sting skin and heavy with the metallic tang of blood.
A system notification flared before his eyes.
DING!
~----~
[Dungeon-tier Lair Discovered – Frostgrave Hollow]
Classification: Dragon Lair (Wyvern Alpha – Potential A-Rank)
WARNING: Soul Strain risk critical if additional bond attempted within 14 days of previous.
Recommend: Delay bonding or risk permanent soul damage.
~----~
Ryujin's lips curved faintly. "So this is it… my first true lair".
Nox padded up beside him, claws scraping stone, its nostrils flaring at the scent. The drake's tail lashed once, muscles tensing.
The system's warning pulsed again, this time in crimson.
~----~
[NOTE: Dragons in lairs fight with domain advantage. Without preparation, survival chance is below 30%.]
~----~
Ryujin's mind was already working, churning with crazy, ambitious ideas. Ryujin had always been an ambitious man, but born in a noble household, to survive, he had to lay low to protect his head.
He stayed under the radar, till the Grand Taming Ceremony. But even that was a spectacular failure, right until he stumbled on the Eternal Dragon Legacy.
That encounter didn't just change his mind, it unleashed his true personality.
Ryujin had stared at the warning longer than he wanted to admit. E-Rank or not, this was pushing it.
Crimson's bond was still fresh, his soul threads aching at the edges where dragonfire had burned into them. The thought of forcing another so soon made his fingers twitch involuntarily.
But this lair was an opportunity.
A Wyvern Alpha was a war mount, an aerial terror. Even at E-Rank, simply fighting one would spike his experience to the edge of D-Rank. And if, against all odds, he bonded it…
He shook his head. No point thinking that far ahead yet.
He looked at the entrance again.
Crimson's head lowered, lips pulling back to show fangs.
Nox's shadowflame eyes narrowed, and Ryujin felt the rumble in his chest through the bond.
"Yeah," he murmured, scanning the cliff lines. "I feel it too".
His hand brushed the hilt of his short spear. "Let's take a look before we commit".