The Dragon Lord's Aide Wants to Quit [BL] Chapter 429: Heavy Lifters

Well, apparently, somewhere so absurdly inconspicuous that even with that many cultists searching for it, the wyverns had been left completely stumped.

Riley silently clicked his tongue.

He was honestly getting tired of skulking around like some sort of shadow.

From their hiding spot, he and Kael watched yet another excavation come up empty.

Well, not empty, but more like devoid of the thing they were all looking for.

The wyverns they’d been quietly monitoring had initially looked almost excited every time they uncovered another set of dragon remains, eagerly carrying the bones back to present to their Queen, only for that excitement to gradually disappear as one excavation after another yielded nothing but more claws that were most definitely not the one they were searching for.

Riley leaned against a large rock overlooking the cavern, his eyes following another group of wyverns hauling yet another collection of bones toward their increasingly displeased Queen before he finally turned toward Kael.

"I think they don’t actually know what the thing looks like," he muttered.

"What?" Kael asked.

"They keep digging up literal bones and bringing them over to present to her instead of looking for something much smaller that could actually be housing the gift."

"To be fair," Kael replied, "we don’t know the exact design they ultimately used either. The ancient white dragons could’ve modified it for safekeeping, but at the very least, we know it’s unlikely to resemble the actual talons."

Well...

That was assuming the white dragon clan’s gift followed the same logic as the ring and necklace he already had.

See, this was exactly why Riley had been hoping for more time.

He’d long since figured they’d eventually have to search for the White Dragon Clan’s gift as well, but he honestly hadn’t expected the day of reckoning to arrive quite this soon.

And for the sake of accountability, he was more than willing to admit that part of the blame for all this rested squarely on him. He’d grown complacent after learning that the clan safeguarding the missing gift had supposedly gone extinct alongside his own.

In his mind, it could wait while he learned to control his abilities, so searching for the relic hadn’t seemed that urgent when he first learned of its existence.

Who would’ve thought that the Wyvern Queen, of all beings, had turned out to be one of them?

Now, instead of having months or even years to gather information, resources, and enough strength to prepare themselves properly, they were somehow participating in an extremely high-stakes scavenger hunt against an entire battalion of stitched-up horror-house part-timers.

But just as he was thinking of apologizing to his mate, a loud, sharp echoed through the ruins, sounding exactly like a whip hitting a body. Riley grimaced at the sound, instinctively flinching.

Strangely enough, Riley even found himself developing a bizarre sense of employee camaraderie with the poor lackeys.

Because good grief.

The Wyvern Queen’s temper somehow made his own mate, that monster of a boss, sound like a saint.

At this point, the wyverns practically looked desensitized to getting screamed at. The longer the search dragged on, the more frustrated and desperate their Queen became, her furious voice repeatedly echoing throughout the cavernous crypt until even Riley was beginning to wonder whether she’d eventually bring the entire place down herself before they ever found what they were looking for.

It sounded rather tragic.

Though admittedly, this particular situation was a double-edged sword for Riley and Kael.

Of course, there was the probability of the wyverns finding it first and them being unable to snatch it back up.

But on one hand, the same guys were also doing most of the literal heavy lifting for them. Every wall they tore down, every burial chamber they dug through, and every dead end they confirmed was one less place Riley had to waste time searching himself.

Though at this point, watching them practically turn the entire crypt upside down without finding anything couldn’t help but plant an unsettling thought in Riley’s mind.

What if they were looking for it the wrong way?

At that point, he couldn’t help wondering whether they’d have been better off pursuing an entirely different approach instead. Maybe they should’ve remained at the archives a little longer. Hell, maybe they should’ve visited his own clan’s crypt first to see whether they’d overlooked some clue hidden among the records or the gifts already in their possession.

Because what if this wasn’t even the correct place to begin with?

And even if it was, shouldn’t someone, somewhere, have stumbled across the gift by now after digging through practically every burial chamber in sight?

Honestly, if they knew anything at all about the last white dragon who’d possessed the relic, then they might’ve been able to narrow the search considerably. Personality, habits, preferences... anything would’ve helped.

The problem was that they knew next to nothing.

Which was honestly bizarre when Riley stopped to think about it, because even the archives contained remarkably little information regarding the white dragon clan, considering they were one of the originally favored factions.

Definitely suspicious, alright.

Unfortunately, they simply didn’t have the luxury of digging deeper into why that was the case, so all he could do was redirect his efforts.

But what do you know? Sometimes, people really shouldn’t overthink too much.

Because not everyone would have elaborate schemes like his ancestors’. Sometimes, they were simply vain enough to think that the world would revolve around them.

And what led to such a discovery was a rather careless oversight by the grave robbers.

__

The hooded wyverns, with their lumbering physiques, struggled to fit inside the confined space, causing the ground to tremble every time they shifted around. Worse, they were so singularly focused on digging that it genuinely seemed to be their sole purpose in life, leaving them with little regard for what happened to the crypt around them.

Every time they drove their claws into the ground or forced another section open, the walls shook, statues cracked, and chunks of marble crashed onto the floor until the constant sound of collapsing stone had practically become background noise.

Admittedly, Riley hadn’t noticed it right away either.

It simply became harder and harder to ignore.

Compared to the surrounding walls and the rest of the original embellishments decorating the crypt, there was one particular thing that kept getting struck yet never seemed to sustain any damage. It was subtle enough that nobody paid it any attention. The exposed portion was so small that noticing something unusual about it would’ve honestly been stranger than overlooking it altogether.

But then it happened again. And by this time, the rather nosy black dragon couldn’t ignore it anymore.

One of the wyverns carelessly swung its barbed tail, sending it crashing into the surrounding wall with enough force to shatter marble.

Everything around the impact crumbled.

Well, everything except that one protruding piece.

Riley’s brows slowly knitted together.

Beside him, Kael noticed his twig’s attention suddenly fixating on something overhead and quietly looked in the same direction.

"Kael..." Riley whispered. "Tell me you’re seeing this too."

"Mn?"

Growing increasingly suspicious, the black dragon narrowed his eyes and simply waited for another bumbling idiot to make the same mistake. Sure enough, it didn’t take long before another wyvern slammed into the area, and Riley immediately pointed toward it.

"That."

Kael followed his finger.

Sure enough, that exposed marble tip hadn’t even shifted in the slightest.

Despite everything around it collapsing piece by piece, it remained exactly the same.

"I don’t suppose someone would want their hiding place to be easily destroyed, right?" Riley muttered.

Kael gave a slow nod before his gaze continued following the marble.

The small protrusion wasn’t isolated.

It continued.

The golden dragon traced its path across the wall until he realized they weren’t looking at some random decorative flourish but what appeared to be the tip of a dragon’s tail sculpted entirely from marble. His eyes continued following its shape as it climbed the cavern wall before disappearing across the ceiling, and only then did the full picture gradually come together.

It wasn’t merely a tail.

It belonged to an enormous dragon statue.

Or rather...

The marble outline of one.

Okay, that was a rather odd situation, considering most embellishments found within a dragon clan’s crypt would typically be made of their own remnants since those were among the few things capable of surviving the passage of time...

But perhaps there had once been dragons who’d used other materials to create equally elaborate tributes.

Even so, how did it withstand impacts that shattered everything around it without so much as a peep?

Almost as though the crypt wished to answer them, another violent tremor rippled through the chamber.

Stone rained down once again.

Only this time, neither Riley nor Kael looked toward the destruction below.

Both instinctively looked up.

Sure enough, nothing happened to the massive marble dragon.

Not even a scratch.

Yet neither of them sensed any defensive formation activating.

"...?"

Still staring upward, Riley felt a ridiculous thought slowly take shape inside his head.

"Honey..." he said after a long pause. "Okay, hear me out..."

He pointed toward the enormous marble dragon stretched across the crypt.

"I think I know where it could be."