The Dragon Lord's Aide Wants to Quit [BL] Chapter 437: Bargaining Chips

They might as well have asked Kael whether he’d be willing to let another dragon into his mating bond with Riley.

Because wasn’t asking if this could be anything other than another attempt to free the Wyvern King practically inviting a curse upon themselves?

Unfortunately, while the golden dragon would’ve answered with an immediate and extremely decisive ’no’ before charbroiling the unfortunate soul bold enough to ask something so mortifying, the wyverns would’ve answered ’yes’ with equal conviction.

The only difference was that they were charbroiling entire villages as part of their resurrection project.

Yeah, what a leap, right?

But to beings who’d long since abandoned all reason, this wasn’t insanity.

It was survival.

Their true nature had been exposed for the entire continent to see. The mystery and illusion they’d painstakingly maintained for so long had crumbled in a matter of days, leaving behind nothing but revulsion and hatred.

At that point, what kind of peaceful coexistence could they realistically hope for? The moment everyone learned what they truly were and how they’d sustained themselves all these years, there would be no place left for them beneath the same sky.

The only future they could envision was one where they stood alone at the very top.

And for that to happen...

Their king needed to return.

Which, regrettably for everyone else, also meant they suddenly needed a great many sacrifices.

Because after one failure after another...

Good news had finally reached Wyrmfall.

Their great queen had made a significant breakthrough.

__

Rhazira knelt so low before the ancient prison that her forehead nearly touched the freezing ground, both hands trembling as tears blurred her vision.

The barrier that had imprisoned her beloved for ages was changing.

No.

It was disappearing.

The impossibly ancient seal that had resisted everything they’d thrown at it no longer fought back. Instead, it steadily thinned before her eyes, most of it dissolving away as though countless years of imprisonment were finally reaching their end.

Regrettably, it didn’t disappear altogether, but unlike most cases, this was understandable considering she possessed only half of the relic.

Yet even just a fragment had already accomplished what none of them had ever imagined possible.

Then what could the complete relic have achieved if it’d been in her hands all along?

Apparently, they’d been searching for the wrong thing this entire time. Not that everything else had been for nothing, since there was still the matter of finding her beloved a new heart, but this alone was already more than enough reason to celebrate.

"You’re coming back to me," she whispered, her voice trembling so badly it scarcely sounded like her own.

She slowly lifted her head.

Before her stretched a frozen prison so enormous that it disappeared into the mountain itself, its immense body entombed beneath layer upon layer of ancient ice.

The countless terraces carved into the glacier made the excavation resemble an enormous stepped quarry, each level painstakingly cut by generations of wyverns so they could reach another section of the ancient prison. Even the chamber they now called the throne room existed solely because it’d been carved beside the Wyvern King’s face. They may not have been able to break the blasted seal for a very long time, but they had remained as close as possible, practically buried there with him.

Slowly, Rhazira pushed herself to her feet, her trembling legs barely able to support her. Even then, clad in her flowing robes, she looked no larger than a speck standing beside one frozen cheek.

She cautiously reached forward, her fingertips hovering just above the translucent ice, almost afraid that even the gentlest touch would somehow shatter the miracle unfolding before her.

Then, without the slightest warning, the ancient eyelids that had remained shut for ages slowly lifted.

"!"

Glowing irises, vast enough that each pupil dwarfed her entire body, gradually focused with an overwhelming pressure that seemed capable of crushing the very world itself.

And despite the impossible difference in their size, those ancient eyes settled directly upon her.

Rhazira’s breath caught.

For one terrifying moment, she genuinely thought her heart had stopped.

The sheer weight behind that gaze nearly made her collapse where she stood, every instinct screaming at her to bow lower despite already lying almost flat against the ground.

Then laughter burst from her lips.

Wild.

Broken.

Utterly overjoyed.

That day, the shrieks echoing throughout Wyrmfall sounded almost celebratory.

Unfortunately...

Their jubilation came at everyone else’s expense.

As hope returned to the wyverns, so too did their desperation, driving them to double down on everything they’d already been doing.

The first to suffer the consequences were the merfolk.

Because cooperation was no longer being requested.

It was being demanded.

__

It was shortly before the Merfolk’s unusual statement, and the council had been forced to convene without Lady Stella for a matter allegedly too urgent to postpone. Yet who would’ve thought that criminals would have the audacity to march straight into their council chambers demanding things they had absolutely no intention of surrendering?

An esteemed elder slammed both fists against the table, his weathered face flushed with fury as he glared at the intruders.

"This isn’t what we talked about!" he roared. "The wyverns promised that all we had to do was stay back and not interfere! We were only supposed to assist you! That covenant was established ages ago, so who are you wyvern lackeys to suddenly show up here and start ordering us around?!"

Determined to stand his ground, the merfolk elder immediately turned toward the rest of the council, intending to convince everyone to reject such an outrageous demand. Why would they have to suddenly act as meat shields for these creatures, and worse, why would they have to give up resources and their very own people?!

They’d already made such sacrifices before, and it wasn’t supposed to happen ever again!

Only, the words died in his throat before he could even speak.

The council members he was looking to berate weren’t looking at him anymore.

Instead, every single one of them was staring toward the doorway behind him, their expressions twisted with horror as though they’d just seen the worst possible thing they could’ve imagined. Some had already gone pale, others visibly trembled in their seats, and not one of them seemed capable of looking anywhere else.

A terrible feeling settled in the elder’s chest.

Slowly, he turned around, only for his composure to crumble at the sight that greeted him.

Standing at the entrance was a hooded wyvern whose robes failed to conceal the grotesque deformities jutting from its body. The exposed patches of mismatched flesh and malformed limbs looked even more horrifying in person than they had in the notices that’d recently spread throughout the continent.

But what was more terrifying than the mismatched parts was how clutched within one set of uneven claws was a tiny figure suspended helplessly in the air, a frightened merfolk child who couldn’t have been more than half the height of anyone gathered inside the chamber. The little one struggled desperately before finally catching sight of the elder.

"Grandpa," the child cried, tears streaming uncontrollably down his face. "I’m scared."

The elder felt every ounce of color drain from his face.

"N-no..."

His entire body began shaking as he stared at the familiar little face. His mind desperately searched for some explanation that didn’t exist, but before he could even move, the wyvern slowly tightened its grip.

Its claws dug into the child’s shoulder just enough for blood to immediately well from the wound.

The child cried out in pain.

The elder nearly collapsed.

The wound wasn’t fatal. It wasn’t even particularly deep. But somehow that only made everything worse because the wyvern hadn’t acted out of rage or impatience. If anything, it looked perfectly composed, as though calmly demonstrating that it could’ve ended the child’s life whenever it pleased and had merely chosen not to.

The grotesque creature tilted its head before its raspy voice echoed calmly throughout the silent council chamber.

"Now," it asked, sounding almost courteous, "do we have your cooperation?"

The chamber remained silent.

The council members looked from the crying child to the wyvern before lowering their heads one after another. Whatever resistance they’d been prepared to offer disappeared the moment their own families became bargaining chips. Several elders slumped back into their chairs while others simply covered their faces, unable to bear looking at the child any longer.

What else could they possibly do?

Fight a war they were guaranteed to lose while ensuring that the very people they wanted to protect died before it had even begun?

They couldn’t.

Not anymore.

Regret settled heavily over every member of the council as they thought back to the choices that had gradually led them to this point. They’d convinced themselves they could work with monsters without becoming their victims, believing they would forever remain useful enough to be spared.

Instead, they had simply become the next hostages.

And now, there was nothing left for them to do except obey.