Chronicles of Forgotten Extra Chapter 359: Call Your Pride, We will Wait.

Alden and Aemirya waited at a safe distance, close enough to hear the sounds of battle but far enough to run the moment things took a bad turn.

Aemirya constantly kept glancing at the sky, because whenever someone was eliminated, the sky would blink for the briefest moment. It was enough for them to understand that someone had fallen.

Amid the deadly still silence, Alden just couldn’t suppress his curiosity any longer.

"By the way, Aemirya... unlike our previous battle, where we made my existence seem like something accidental and completely independent from you, the way we fought against Vareth and Valerie would give our cooperation away, wouldn’t it? Won’t that create problems for you?"

She looked at him with a tilted head.

"Why would that be a problem?"

"You know, since you, a dragon, were taking help from me to fight stronger dragons. Won’t that be considered against the rules or something?"

Alden explained.

Aemirya looked at him for a few moments before answering with a knowing expression.

"You don’t know dragons that well, do you?" She said. "Otherwise, you would never have asked such a question."

She continued in the same tone.

"Dragons possess more arrogance than the Heavens themselves. There was even an ancestor among dragons who once tried to eradicate the sun and the moon simply because they stood higher than him in the sky. Naturally, that foolishness didn’t end well for him. But nothing explains a dragon’s pride better than that."

"Do you think a species arrogant enough to challenge the celestial bodies would be foolish enough to admit they lost to a human and a half-dragon? No, they are far too prideful for that. Especially those descended from the pure bloodline of the Dragon Queen herself. If they ever said such a thing, they would become a laughing stock even greater than me, who was already considered a stain upon the family."

She said with a cold chuckle.

"They stand to lose far more by speaking of it. Besides, the rules of the coming-of-age ceremony clearly state that whatever happens within the sacred grounds remains here. So I am certain they won’t utter a single word."

"That does make sense."

Alden nodded, even as he thought that she could have simply mentioned the rules of the coming-of-age ceremony and ended the explanation there.

But ever since he had asked her to tell him about the world when they first met, he had come to understand that she loved explaining things like a history teacher, often starting from the distant past before finally arriving at the point.

He didn’t mind the extra explanations, though, because they helped him understand many things.

Right on cue, the sounds of battle began growing softer and softer as Aemirya immediately stood up. Alden didn’t hesitate either. They nodded at each other in silent understanding and moved in unison.

The sky had blinked from the direction where Vareth and Valerie had been fighting. Whoever had won, they couldn’t afford to give them time to run away and heal.

Within a few minutes, they finally arrived at the battlefield and saw massive craters spread across the ground.

Half of the forest around the area was gone, while the other half was engulfed in orange flames. In the center, within the largest crater, stood Vareth, his body bloodied and one of his arms missing. Rage was evident on his face as he saw Aemirya and Alden emerging from the forest.

"Oh, how low you have fallen, Aemirya. Not only are you taking help from some no-name human who infiltrated our sacred grounds but you are also attacking like a coward while I am injured. Even if you carry the blood of some disgusting human, have you no pride or shame left to stoop so low?"

He roared despite his condition.

Aemirya remained silent, but before she could say anything, a smug voice echoed from beside her.

"What use is all that arrogance, buddy? Just admit that you’re scared and humiliated as fuck to be beaten by someone else. And you know, having a brain is also part of battle. Whose fault is it that your lizard head came without one?"

His smirk deepened.

"And go ahead, call on your pride to save you now. We will wait. Come on, call it, the thing you love so much. Wait a minute..."

He looked around exaggeratedly.

"Huh. I don’t see anyone here except your ugly, battered ass."

Vareth’s face twisted in anger, and it only intensified as a chuckle echoed from beside Alden.

It came from Aemirya.

She looked at Vareth with a condescending gaze.

"For someone who never recognized me as a dragon, you sure are pathetic to be using a dragon’s pride as a bargaining chip now. And unfortunately, I have already fallen low enough since the day I was born. There is nowhere lower for me to fall, even if I have allied myself with a human pervert."

She said as Alden frowned beside her.

"Excuse me? Why are you doing friendly fire here?"

She didn’t reply.

Instead, she moved, leaving a crater in her wake as pitch-black flames burned around her fists. Her face remained composed, but her fists burned with rage as the memories of her life flowed through her mind.

It wasn’t just anger directed at Vareth. It was hatred toward the entire draconic species that had taken everything from her merely because of the blood flowing through her veins.

The days when Vareth bullied her, the days when others mocked her, the times she was called worthless, the times they cursed the father she had never met, the day they hanged her mother merely for giving birth to her and the day her mother sacrificed herself for Aemirya’s future, everything surged through her mind as her speed accelerated even further.

Vareth barely managed to react with his broken body as the fist carrying years of repression and anger exploded across his face.

His head snapped to the side.

Crack!

The bones in his face fractured everywhere as several teeth flew out of his mouth. His entire body was hurled backward uncontrollably, skidding across the ground and carving a long trench in its wake before it finally vanished as the sky blinked, signaling his elimination due to receiving fatal damage.

Meanwhile, Alden stood off to the side with a small smile.