Chapter 104 THE AFTERMATH OF ASHES

Chapter 104 THE AFTERMATH OF ASHES
When Darren reached the house, he was surprised to see most of it still standing, though a good portion had been burned to the ground. It didn't make much sense to him. Fire had clearly been used against the village, yet dragons were supposed to be immune to it. The sheer power required for such a spell was mind-boggling. If a high-level and powerful spell like Incineration or Egnarious couldn't even scratch a half-dragon like him, what kind of flame could wipe out an entire village of full-blooded dragons? Perhaps it wasn't just ordinary fire. Maybe some kind of dark magic had been mixed in. Still, it shouldn't have been this devastating.

"Xerxes!" Darren called out, rushing inside. "Astrid!"

He hurried down the hallways, navigating past piles of charred wood and leaping over gaping holes in the floor. Despite his speed, Magnus and Xyra managed to stay right behind him. They did their best to keep pace, but him being half-dragon made him naturally agile, allowing him to weave through the wreckage with ease.

At the end of the hall, the trio reached a familiar sight: the entrance to the sealing room Magnus had stumbled upon before. Without a word, Darren headed straight down the stairs. The sealing room was the safest place left; its magic was designed to keep out demons and sorcerers. Because humans and dragons posed no threat to their kind, the room's defenses wouldn't trigger against them. Knowing he would be safe, Darren didn't hesitate.

At the bottom of the stairs, he looked into the white room, its walls etched with ancient symbols. He ignored the carvings, his eyes instantly fixing on the crowd gathered at the back. Relief washed over him when he spotted Xerxes, with Astrid standing right beside him. There were only about eighty dragons left in the room. From a tribe that had once numbered over six thousand, barely one percent survived.

"Darren!" Astrid yelled, a bright smile breaking through her distress.

Darren ran to her, and she threw her arms around him, tears welling in her eyes.

"What happened?" Darren asked. "Why is the village...?" Before he could finish, Xerxes's voice cut through the room.

"Don't come in!" the dragon king warned, looking toward the doorway.

The warning was meant for Magnus, but it came too late. The sorcerer had already stepped into the room. The moment his foot touched the petalite-lined floor, a symbol on the ceiling flared to life. Magnus collapsed, crying out in sudden agony of pain. Xyra was instantly on her knees beside him, completely unaffected by whatever magic was targeting her companion.

Darren started forward to help, but Xerxes was already moving.

"Dedisco Visporta!" the king shouted. Instantly, the pressure lifted and Magnus's pain vanished. With a heavy sigh, he dropped face-first onto the floor, panting heavily.

"Oh god, I hate this room," Magnus muttered between breaths, slowly pushing himself up. He managed to stand, though his legs were visibly shaking. When he stumbled, Xyra caught his arm to steady him.

The sorcerer and the thief walked over to join the surviving dragons. Astrid greeted them both with tight hugs, expressing how glad she was to see them alive. Under any other circumstances, it would have been a joyful reunion. But the weight of the disaster hung heavy over everyone. The remaining dragons looked completely hollow, staring blankly ahead and unresponsive to the world around them. No one could blame them; the tragedy was overwhelming.

"What exactly happened here?" Darren asked, finally getting his question out. "We saw the village. It’s..."

"Completely destroyed," Xerxes finished with a heavy sigh, his blue eyes dulled with grief. "It happened in an instant. He came out of nowhere, and before we could even react, the village was ablaze."

"But fire shouldn't harm dragons," Darren pressed, trying to make sense of it. "How could a flame kill our people?"

"It wasn't a normal fire spell." Xerxes turned his gaze toward Magnus. "What do you think it was made of?"

"Well..." Magnus rubbed his chin, mentally filtering through a long list of his knowledge of magic spells. "Given the sheer scale of the destruction, it might have been an Elkwandou. But that spell is incredibly difficult to cast. It requires a perfect blend of fire and dark magic. I don't think I could even pull it off effectively."

"Who could do something like that?" Xyra asked quietly. "Was it a hybrid?"

"We couldn't get a good look at him," Astrid explained, her voice stripped of its usual cheerful energy. Hearing her sound so defeated felt wrong. "But I can tell you one thing: whoever he was, he possessed a talisman."

"That explains the power and the damage," Darren muttered under his breath. "Step one, find the talisman. Step two, break it. Damn talismans!"

"Do you know which way he went?" Magnus asked, his tone suddenly urgent. It wasn't a surprise that he was anxious. There were only three talismans left to find, and the hunt was making him increasingly impatient.

"I'm afraid not," Xerxes replied, studying the young man. "Why? Are you after the talisman?"

"Of course I am, but it's more than that," Magnus's expression darkened, his eyes narrowing with anger. "Whoever did this broke the truce. Massacring this many innocent people is unforgivable."

"We have reason to believe," Xerxes said slowly, "that the attacker was Mr. Nixon, the leader of the Sorcerer's League."

"What makes you say that?"

"He had hybrids with him. He is the only man alive capable of twisting life into such terrible creatures."

"Hmm... then I guess my theory was wrong." Magnus crossed his arms and lowered his head, looking disappointed. "I was hoping this was tied to the burning of Drester. It would have made tracking him a lot simpler."

"Who burned Drester?" Xerxes asked, visibly shocked. He hadn't heard that news yet. If there were two separate entities traveling the world and burning down entire cities, it was only a matter of time before another one fell. If even dragons couldn't withstand this magic, ordinary humans didn't stand a chance.

"I'm not entirely certain," Magnus answered softly. "But I think it was Raheem."

A suffocating silence fell over the room. Every eye turned to the sorcerer. He had spoken the name so casually, without a hint of fear. Most people didn't even dare to whisper it. Raheem was a monster — a demi-god determined to eliminate anyone he considered a threat. A creature that powerful needed to be destroyed, yet no one alive possessed the strength to do it. If he had truly returned after all these years, hope would be dwindling. It felt like a matter of time before the demon destroyed everything and everyone.

The heavy silence stretched on until Darren finally spoke up, eager to shift focus. The attack changed everything, and they needed a plan.

"What do we do now?" Darren asked. He had never experienced a tragedy of this scale and had no idea how a community even began to recover.

"I'm going to look around outside," Magnus announced. "When I get back, we'll figure out the next step. This isn't the first time I've had to deal with the aftermath of a disaster."

He turned and walked out of the room, leaving the dragons to their thoughts. They watched him go until his figure disappeared up the stairs.

"Look at him, just taking charge like that," one of the dragons grumbled bitterly. "He doesn't belong here. This isn't his problem." A few others murmured in agreement.

"He is a survivor of Vekta," Xerxes countered, his voice firm. The murmurs died down instantly. The dragon king’s expression softened with deep sympathy. "That boy... is the only one among us who truly knows how to survive this."

Outside, Magnus walked aimlessly through the ruins, taking in the devastation. This was no ordinary attack. It hadn't just been a matter of torching buildings. Flames, even from an Elkwandou, couldn't account for all of this. Looking closer at the fallen dragons, he realized most of them had bled to death from deep, vicious wounds. It had to be the work of the hybrids. Only creatures like that could tear through a dragon's defenses so easily.

He dragged his feet as he walked, overwhelmed by the sheer grimness of the scene. After surviving the tragedy at Vekta and watching Drester burn, he had hoped the worst was behind them. Instead, it felt like this was only the beginning. Whether it was Raheem or the leader of the league, the perpetrator had to be stopped. No one deserved to have their life stripped away so brutally.

As he scanned the bodies, recognition hit him. He had gotten to know many of these dragons during his stay in the Andagon Valley. They had been kind, peaceful people who found joy in the simplest parts of life. Now, their eyes were dull and lifeless, their pure white robes stained a deep crimson. Words couldn't properly capture the horror. "Massacre" felt too clinical; even "slaughter" didn't fully cover the brutality of what had happened here.

A sharp ache tightened in Magnus's chest. Even if the survivors managed to rebuild the village, it would never be the same. Nothing could replace what they had lost today. The dragon tribe had suffered a near-fatal blow, leaving a scar that no amount of magic could ever truly heal.

Seeking a moment of peace, he walked up a nearby hill, wanting to put the ruins out of his sight. He turned his back on the valley and focused on the open fields and forest ahead. The surrounding nature was completely untouched; the attacker had targeted the valley with surgical precision.

As he stood there, a small black speck in the distance caught his eye. It was moving toward the valley at an alarming speed. As the shape drew closer, Magnus's eyes widened in alarm. You've got to be kidding me. Not now. They've already been through enough...

He clenched his fists in frustration. The creature’s form was shifting and unstable — the hallmark of a vepus — but it was massive. The league must have fused it with something else to create a new kind of hybrid.

The creature paused, its gaze sweeping across the landscape until its blood-red eyes locked onto Magnus's jade-green ones. A chill ran down the sorcerer's spine. The creature bared its sharp teeth in a wicked, unsettling smirk. None of the monsters Magnus had fought before had ever looked at him with such malice. Without warning, the hybrid lunged forward, moving with incredible agility for its massive size. Magnus took a deep breath and braced himself, drawing on his magic. This wasn't going to be an easy fight, but I had to protect the survivors down below.

Back in the sealing room, Xerxes and the remaining dragons waited. The king had deactivated the ambient defenses, handling the ancient runes with an ease that none of the others possessed. It was a strange ability, considering dragons were traditionally only supposed to control fire-based magic, yet no one questioned it. They simply accepted that their king was different — capable of wielding healing spells and other spells that defied the typical laws of their race.