Shut Up Malevolent Dragon I Dont Want To Have Any More Children With You Chapter 744

[ … words ]

It would take about four days for the messenger dragon to fly from the Golden Thunder Clan back to the Silver Dragon Clan, whereas for Leon and his group, it would only take one or two days to reach the Empire’s border from here.

So they could afford to rest here for a few more days. After all, they’d been on the road for over a month now, spending most of that time rushing from place to place without pause.

It was rare to be able to stop and rest in the peaceful lands of a calm, friendly clan.

And they could also continue investigating the matter of the Thunder Spirit Core while they were at it.

For now, all Leon knew was that the Thunder Spirit Core had been stolen thirty years ago by a traitor named Hera, and her last known location was somewhere in a human empire.

Although that “test range” had been narrowed down to “the Empire,” the actual clues and intelligence were far too limited. Leon had to gather more information.

On their second day with the Golden Thunder Clan, the one assigned to act as their “guide” was a dragonkin named Anie.

“In the end, the High Priest judged that we had successfully repelled the dangerous species attacking the clan, and we became our people’s undisputed heroes.”

However, everything Anie said that entire morning completely failed to capture Leon’s interest.

It was either how many grand legends Zeus had left behind for the Golden Thunder Clan, or how incredibly badass the High Priest was.

General Leon thought: you may be badass, but can you possibly be more badass than me? Could we maybe talk about something that everyone’s actually interested in?

Like, say, the Thunder Spirit Core?

Even Noa, who usually loved listening to extracurricular lectures, was starting to look drowsy.

And the only one among them who didn’t have an obvious “please stop talking about this boring crap” expression on her face was Rosvisser.

That kind of excitement-this was the queen herself, someone who always remained calm no matter the situation, except, of course, in major crises, the end of the world, and naturally-any discussion involving her ancestors’ ruins or ancient relics. “What you see before you now is our clan’s Five-Spirit Altar.

Legend says that this altar is the sacred seat of the God’s divine spirit.”

Hearing that, the group, who had been on the verge of nodding off, instantly perked up.

Finally-finally they were getting to the important stuff!

Leon and Noa immediately pulled out their notebooks, ready to take notes.

“It is the most precious inheritance left to us by our ancestor Zeus.”

Just like High Priest Dimo, every time Anie brought up Zeus, her face filled with pride and admiration.

Leon was already used to it, so he simply pressed his curiosity and asked,

“Miss Anie, may I ask-what exactly is this altar used for?”

When they arrived at the clan yesterday, things had been too rushed, and Leon hadn’t had a chance to properly examine the altar.

From the front, its scale was modest.

At its center stood a round stone platform, the surface of which was engraved with a magic array that had not yet been activated.

Behind the stone platform were five tall, rugged stone steles. Each one was inscribed with ancient incantations and symbols, vastly different from the inscriptions found in the modern magical system.

The runes of the magic array on the platform extended outward in five directions, eventually connecting to the bases of the five steles.

Leon narrowed his eyes slightly and studied the steles more carefully.

At the top of each stele was a shallow recess-something had clearly been placed there before.

“Is it used to house the Spirit Cores?” Leon thought aloud.

“Ancestor Zeus created the Crown and the Cores to resist that unknown and mysterious danger. But he also foresaw that after his fall, such powerful artifacts would inevitably be fought over.”

Anie explained,

“So he set up this Five-Spirit Altar to help our Golden Thunder Clan search for and collect the Cores again in the future.

And the purpose of the Five-Spirit Altar is to extract the Spirit Core from various material forms.”

Hearing this, Leon raised a curious brow.

“Extract the Core from various material forms? What exactly does that mean?”

As the designated “guide” for the day, Anie naturally didn’t hesitate to answer all of Leon and the others’ questions.

“When Ancestor created the Thunder Core, Samael Continent’s magical system had already begun to take shape. Living beings could even use their own developed magic to claim powers that did not originally belong to them.

Foreseeing this, Ancestor realized that by the time people started fighting over the Thunder Core in the future, it might no longer retain its original form.

At that point, even if we managed to find a Core, its physical state might no longer match the Crown, meaning it couldn’t be used to its full potential.”

As Anie spoke, Leon followed her logic closely.

“To put it plainly: the people of Samael in later generations, when fighting over ★ Novelight the Cores, might alter the form in which the Core exists.”

Take the Fire Spirit Core, for example.

When Leon’s group discovered it, it had already been absorbed by the Sacred Beast of the Fire Spirit Divine Stallion Clan and only revealed itself when the Core’s power was released.

Most of the time, it remained hidden inside the Fire Spirit Stallion.

This kind of “mutation,” where the physical body of the Spirit Core was completely concealed, depended entirely on the will of the being possessing it.

It was fine if the owner, like the Fire Spirit Divine Stallion Clan, was reasonable.

But what if they weren’t?

“You Samael folk can do whatever you want-anyway, the Core is mine! I’m not giving it up, nyah nyah nyah~~~”

If you ran into someone like that, the only option was brute force.

“So this altar is designed to avoid exactly the situation you just described.”

Leon said, “It can extract the Core and return it to its original form.”

Anie nodded. “That’s right.”

After a short pause, Anie sighed softly and tucked her hair behind her ear, casting her eyes toward the altar.

“But it’s already been so many years, and we still haven’t recovered the Thunder Spirit Core. The other Cores are completely missing too… who knows when we’ll be able to fulfill Ancestor Zeus’s final wish.”

Seeing Anie’s troubled expression, Leon was about to offer her a few words of comfort.

But suddenly, her tone changed:

“It’s all that traitor Hera’s fault. If she hadn’t stolen the Thunder Spirit Core,

our Golden Thunder Clan wouldn’t have fallen to such a pitiful state.”

“…Fallen?”

“Yes. The Thunder Spirit Core’s power was immense-it was the foundation and lifeblood of our clan. Ever since Hera stole it, we’ve been in decline. Even the High Priest struggles to maintain the glory we once had.”

To have carved out a place on the once-chaotic Samael Continent, the Golden Thunder Clan clearly had strength.

And that strength came from their possession of the Thunder Spirit Core.

Now that the Core was stolen, they had no choice but to retreat from the world and avoid getting caught up in its conflicts. Still, Leon remained a little curious.

“Do you know why that traitor Hera stole the Core?”

Anie didn’t hesitate at all and immediately answered,

“Of course-Hera wanted to monopolize the Core’s power. She betrayed us, and she betrayed Ancestor Zeus.”

It was the same answer Dimo had given them yesterday—he too believed Hera had stolen the Core out of selfish greed.

But that was exactly what Leon couldn’t wrap his head around:

If the Core was that powerful, then why would Hera run away after getting it?

She could’ve used it to rule the Golden Thunder Clan-or worse, used it to eliminate anyone who opposed her.

And if she was going to run, fine-but why flee to the Human Empire of all places?

Leon remembered very clearly: thirty years ago, the Empire had been locked in a fiery war with the Golden Dragon Clan. It was definitely not a safe place for a fugitive.

He had wanted to ask Dimo or Anie about this doubt directly, but after hesitating for a moment, he decided against it.

Because after staying here for two extra days, Leon could clearly feel it-this clan possessed a kind of unity no other tribe could match.

What Dimo thought seemed to be what the entire tribe thought.

And in Dimo’s eyes, Hera was simply a greedy, ungrateful traitor. If that was the baseline, Leon doubted he’d get anything useful from asking further.

Better to ask Hera directly himself.

“Let’s keep going, everyone. Our clan still has many ancient ruins worth seeing.”

“Alright, please lead the way, Miss Anie.”