---

Chapter 323

Nea flailed her wings and tail wildly to shake off Yeon-woo, who clung to her back like a pesky bug. The revulsion she felt made Yeon-woo’s tears flow down his cheeks.

‘First impression: the worst.’

But what could be done? There’s no better way to drain power than to provoke the enemy’s anger.

Look at her now, flailing her wings and tail inefficiently due to the rising disgust. Every little movement was sapping her stamina.

Would that dreadful expression recover after fusion? Or not? What should I do? I don’t know.

In any case, just the fact that Nea was here gave Yeon-woo enough strength to dance with joy. Wasn’t she the one he would only see a decade later on the first day of his return?

‘This is definitely different from before the return.’

Riley, who would have died lonely in a few years, was alive, and Baek In-hwa was alive too. The vampire’s perception improved faster than before his return, and Louis, who would have betrayed humanity and leaked information, was dead.

It felt like all these facts were coming together to lead to the conclusion that Nea was alive.

Suppressing the overwhelming emotion, Yeon-woo dodged the wings and tail, jumping down to the ground at Nea’s feet.

With a powerful swing of the Aura Blade that wrapped around his sword, he clashed against her scales. The aura shattered into pieces, but her scales couldn’t remain intact either. They cracked and broke under the force.

This was none other than the Aura Blade of an Aura Master. Even dragon scales couldn’t withstand it.

However, since the Aura Blade disappeared before it touched the flesh beneath the scales, it could be said that the pain conveyed to Nea was minimal.

“Ugh, that is really hard!!”

[Ugh, stop being so fidgety…!!]

Yeon-woo thought that but ended up making a surprisingly painful sound.

Well, having spent over a thousand years in a cave, she probably hadn’t felt pain at all. If someone’s used to pain, even a little bit will feel immense.

[Dad, big magic! Watch out below for me!!]

In that moment, Yeon-woo heard Shar’s voice in his head.

The dragon’s body had a magical aura flowing throughout, making it hard to see the flow of mana. But as Yeon-woo focused his magical energy upon hearing Shar’s words, an unusual feeling surrounded his eyes.

Everything looked sharper than usual. It was almost as if he had a telescope; he could see far away.

Mana appeared to be graspable, distinguished among various colors even within the same hue.

Golden mana split off into multiple branches in an instant. Yeon-woo recognized this phenomenon. It felt similar to the sensation he experienced right before using clairvoyance while training at Geumomun.

“Whoa, I used it!?”

Is fighting the way to grow as a martial artist? Or was it some other influence?

He didn’t know, but what mattered was the fact that he could use it. If he could use clairvoyance, it meant he could also use teleportation.

Anyway, the critical point was the immense mana concentrated underground caused by Nea. The earth started to bubble up in response to her mana.

“Whoa!?”

It was of a scale that could only be described as a major spell. With a rumble that sounded more like a landslide than an earthquake, a massive rock hidden underground erupted upwards.

The giant mound of dirt collapsed and swept everything away. The machines forming the protective barrier were swept away, causing the barrier to shatter into pieces.

“Whoa, this is bad!?”

Yeon-woo screamed as he soared into the sky using his wings. The protective barrier wasn’t just to prevent the two of them from causing damage outside.

The dragon’s massive body would be visible. That’s why the protective barrier had concealed spells that wouldn’t be seen from the outside.

If things continued as they were, Nea would be exposed to all the residents of Hwangsik. But if he tried to fix it himself, the scale was so vast and he was sure there wouldn’t be enough mana left.

If he had accounted for that, it was clear that the intelligence of a dragon was a terrifying weapon. The machines didn’t even know what they were dealing with, yet here Nea was already figuring out their weaknesses and cornering him!

“What in the world is this chaos?”

Fortunately, Yeon-woo’s worries dissipated with the voice that came from outside. It was Claire’s voice. She had sensed the mana that spread as the protective barrier vanished and rushed over.

Claire’s mana quickly replaced the location where the barrier had been. Even for an elf with abundant mana, maintaining the barrier seemed burdensome, as she staggered.

“How dare you cause such a ruckus in my territory without saying a word? I thought it was just a simple experiment, so I let it slide…!!”

Yeon-woo trembled at Claire’s furious voice. No, he couldn’t have predicted that it would turn out like this… In any case, since Nea was after Shar, he thought there wouldn’t be a major incident like when they fought the Demon King.

“Where has the chaos led us…!”

Thinking that, Yeon-woo dodged the rising rocks from mid-air. Damn, how high is this going!?

Left, right, dodging the rocks and mounds of dirt that shot up like missiles from the military base made him feel like an ace pilot.

“Gah!?”

The problem was that for Yeon-woo, wings were originally an unfamiliar thing. With a booming sound, he felt a heavy blow to his back. He forgot he had to avoid considering the size of the wings.

While he had practiced quite a bit in general, when it came to using them in battle, he mostly relied on the ice elemental mana, causing him to overlook that difference.

Yeon-woo’s wings transformed and sprouted giant apricot-colored wings, bending this way and that, only to revert into ordinary wing bones as if being absorbed.

Naturally, Yeon-woo, unable to maintain flight, began to fall hopelessly to the ground. Coincidentally, the ground he faced was being bombarded from above.

“Ugh!!”

Despite losing his balance, Yeon-woo flapped one remaining wing desperately and swung his sword at the ground.

With the four arms—including the shadow arm sprouting from his shoulder—moving freely, Yeon-woo started to slice through the rocks and earth projectiles flying from all directions.

“It’s just like the Boryeong Mud Festival…!!”

With a metaphor that made no sense, he landed on the ground, which had transformed into an abyss. No, a whole new mountain had sprouted upon a mountain… Is this even okay?

*

The battle concluded when the poison of the Dang Sa-ryeon waited for Nea to exhaust herself. They thought she wouldn’t want to fight if she got tired, but on the contrary, she seemed more eager to attack whenever someone approached her.

Even though he tried to show Nea, who was waiting just in case, she burned with aggression toward Yeon-woo, as though she saw nothing.

Reluctantly, he had to rely on the poison of Dang Sa-ryeon. The paralysis poison, designed to minimize side effects and aftershocks, crept along the scales that had peeled away at her feet.

No matter how small, she didn’t seem to have the mindset to brush that off.

Soon enough, with a loud thud, Nea collapsed to the side. Though it was pitiful to see, Yeon-woo thought it couldn’t be helped as he fell backward too.

“Hah, heh, cough.”

Yeon-woo’s body was in shambles, to the point where he felt like begging for death. The ritual that began in the daytime only concluded at dawn.

Fortunately, having two stigmata, he was still holding on; without them, he would have collapsed much earlier.

[Why… Why can’t I capture even such a small thing…!!]

At the sight of Yeon-woo, Nea’s golden eyes blazed with fury.

I might have been a bit swift. Probably the fastest I’ve ever been since birth. The best way to ensure Nea couldn’t half kill me, while I also couldn’t kill her, was to remain on the defensive.

I mixed in a few attacks to make her angrier occasionally, but those were merely for intimidation.

“Well, you seem to have calmed down a bit.”

Approaching Nea were two figures. Shar, pushing a wheelchair, and Nea, sitting in it.

Nea, seeing her own doppelgänger… Should I just call her temporary Dragon Nea? Dragon Nea’s eyes widened.

[What have you been doing all this time…!!]

“I’m sorry. But understand, everything was for your sake, the original you.”

[For me…!? If that’s the case, you should have brought Shar back quickly! You never did…!]

“That couldn’t possibly be for your sake!!”

Nea, now confronted with the anger of Dragon Nea, shouted back. Then she coughed up a mixture of blood. The children nearby were startled and rushed to her side to check if she was okay.

As Nea, with care from the children, somehow regained her composure, she quietly spoke up.

“…You know that being trapped there isn’t happiness.”

[…What do you mean.]

“Is being asleep for a thousand years happiness? Do you think it would be this child’s happiness to repeat such a life over and over for Shar and her child?”

[…….]

At those words, Dragon Nea fell silent. The Nea before the return had also realized such thoughts while talking to Yeon-woo.

The doubts that had accumulated over generations. Living life isn’t merely surviving; she had believed her life merely amounted to existing without truly living.

Though she always had such thoughts, she had simply been searching for an opportunity to break free.

Most importantly, before the return, she had no time left. If only she had arrived a bit earlier, could she have broken out as well? That sobbing voice stayed etched in Yeon-woo’s memory.

“You managed to come outside like this. Even Shar wasn’t bound by some coercion to contract with that child. Look at this adorable child…. You could never see her face from within there, could you? You probably couldn’t even bless this cute child.”

Feeling Nea’s affectionate gaze, moisture formed in the eyes of Shar, who was near her. Nea gently stroked Shar’s cheeks a few times. It was a warm touch.

“The memories and love created in this world are here. We aren’t just surviving; it’s time for us to live a true life. We’ve broken free from the empty gray cave and can finally spread our wings.”

Slowly, Nea rose from the wheelchair. The two children supported her as she stumbled. The two Neas took slow steps toward each other.

“I will return to you the heart that was born from you. If you receive my heart, you will understand.”

[You… What in the world….]

Nea approached Dragon Nea’s head and tenderly embraced it.

That moment was of a mother, yet also a child. The only person who could truly understand the lonely golden dragon in this world was her.

For that reason, she was both a child and a mother. The child understood the child, and the mother understood the mother.

Softly, golden mana flickered like fireflies. The dragon’s massive body vanished, and another Nea appeared.

The two Neas embraced each other. Like sisters, two very similar beings held each other tightly.

The body of the doppelgänger Nea slowly began to fade away. Starting from her toes, she began to disappear, causing the children to burst into tears.

Both were Nea. It was merely the original Nea returning to her body. Nonetheless, the children and Yeon-woo felt sadness.

The two couldn’t possibly be completely identical. Thinking that, the children’s first mother seemed to meet her demise. Thus, tears flowed down.

As the doppelgänger was enveloped in bright light, she, Nea, thought.

‘Still, the love you gave me is mine to hold.’

No matter how much of a doppelgänger, she could afford to be a little greedy.

(To be continued.)

 

---