Chapter 258: The Unexpected Spot

Maybe he was having a fever or something, because when Riley came to, the first thing he saw was Kael’s face above him.

Huh?

He blinked slowly, eyes unfocused. Something warm cupped the side of his face—a hand. Kael’s thumb brushed lightly against his cheek as if checking whether he was conscious.

Riley’s voice came out rough. “What… what happened?”

“You blacked out,” the golden dragon said. His tone was calm, but his eyes were sharp, watching him closely.

Riley frowned, confused for a moment, but then everything rushed back into his mind. The story. The fire. The servants. Lord Rueben. The replica. The screams.

His heart clenched so tightly that he curled inward without meaning to. His face scrunched up, and he looked like he was about to cry all over again.

Kael exhaled slowly, as if choosing his next words with care. “We can visit their graves if you want,” he said. “But it would be better if we do it once you can actually see, because right now, you can barely open your eyes with how puffed up it is.”

“But—” Riley made a sound to protest.

He wanted—

He wanted many things. He wanted everyone revived and a future free of things like death and sacrifice.

But just because he wanted all of those didn’t mean he’d be able to get them.

It was a depressing contemplation that was only shattered by Kael’s voice.

“Knowing them, they probably did it because they liked you too. After all, you often played with them as an egg.”

Riley made a slight sound, half sob, half breath. He sat up with Kael’s help, only to realize that his parents were still sitting across from him at the table.

His green eyes widened in shock before his mother smiled at him gently.

“Sorry, sweetheart,” Renee said. “I did not mean to make you faint like that.”

She reached for a glass and held it out. “Here. Drink some water.”

Riley took it with trembling hands. “It is not your fault, Mom. I just… I did not expect anything like that.”

How could he? How many people had sacrificed themselves just to keep him alive? And he had the nerve to complain about anything in his life?

His perspective was shifting so quickly that it made his stomach twist.

He swallowed, put the glass down, and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Please,” he said quietly. “Can we continue the story?”

Renee blinked in worry. “Are you sure? We can stop for today. You can rest, and we can talk again tomorrow.”

Riley shook his head at once. “No. If we stop now, I probably won’t be able to sleep for days. I need to know. Someone needs to know what they did. I have to honor them properly.”

His voice shook, but he didn’t look away.

Kael stayed beside him without saying anything. His thumb moved again, brushing away a tear Riley had missed.

Renee exchanged a look with her husband, then nodded.

“All right,” she said softly. “Then we’ll continue.”

The trembling yet determined listener sat again, shoulders tight but eyes steady, ready to hear the next part of the story. This time, it was about how he was finally found.

At first, Lord Rueben had not understood why the servants kept telling him to go to the courtyard. Of all places, that was the most exposed and unprotected area in the entire estate. There were no heavy wards, no reinforced passages, no clever illusions to hide behind. Just open space and a few surviving trees that had stood long enough to be considered markers of the old land.

But much to his surprise, that was exactly where he found the egg.

Under one of the remaining trees, surrounded by scorched soil and drifting ash, something rather small sat half-buried in soot.

The courtyard was blanketed in grey, everything reduced to the same lifeless shade. If not for the faint tremble beneath the layers of ash, Lord Rueben would have walked right past it. The vibrating shell was the only sign that it was not a stone. The egg was covered so thoroughly that even its usual color had been muted.

Renee remembered how, when she first heard this part of the story, she thought it was clever. Either the servants had moved the egg there deliberately, hoping the monster would ignore the most obvious location, or the little egg had gone there on its own because it was familiar with the space.

After all, the courtyard was the only place without those private wards. Anyone searching for something valuable would assume no one would be foolish enough to hide it in such an open area.

But perhaps it was that very assumption that saved him.

Lord Rueben had bent down, brushed away soot with shaking hands, and found the only survivor left trembling under a tree that still refused to burn.

There was no time to spare; he lifted it into his arms and prepared to leave. He took only a few steps when the air suddenly shifted.

A violent burst of forbidden flames erupted from one of the rooms close to where they were, tearing through the remaining structures and throwing debris across the courtyard. The impact hit with such violent force that Lord Rueben crashed to the ground, instinctively curling around the egg as a storm of ash and burning debris rained down on them. His vision snapped white for a moment under the sheer pressure of it.

All he could hear was ringing.

In that moment of fear, terrified that the shell would crack or shatter, he acted without hesitation. He used the dragon fang to open the small space hidden within it and placed the egg inside, praying it would survive as everything around him blurred and blackened.

It was a simple act meant to protect, but unbeknownst to the old vassal, it would trigger a chain of events the moment a certain bond couldn’t be felt through a change in space.

Who knows how long it took, but as if jolted by panic, the vassal woke and searched for the fang, thankful it was still there.

However, what alarmed him was the sudden difference in the area.

The forbidden fire that had flooded the manor was beginning to weaken. It flickered as if something had washed over it. That alone told him something catastrophic had happened while he was unconscious.

He struggled but managed to stand up. Whatever caused the sudden change was strong enough to interrupt the flames that should have consumed everything.

And when he turned, he realized the culprit.

Blue flames.

He had no choice but to hasten his movements to escape because blue flames could only mean one thing: someone else was there.

Lord Rueben turned back toward the hidden path he had used earlier. He sprinted while lying low across the courtyard, but he never reached the entrance.

Because just as he rounded a corner, a powerful force struck him from behind and sent him crashing into the outer wall.

His ribs cracked as he slid down the stone, dazed, and that was when he saw what had attacked him.

A grotesque figure stepped out from the smoke. One wing torn. Half of its face melted and was running like wax. Its remaining eye gleamed with wild malice. It looked down at him and curled its mouth into something that might have been a smile.

“An escaping rodent?”

Even without hearing the words, the intent was clear. Then with unbelievable speed, its hand closed around his throat, lifting him as if he weighed nothing.

The pressure tightened. Bones strained. Lord Rueben struggled, but against such a creature, his resistance meant little. The attacker paused, head tilting.

In truth, none of them knew what the monster had been thinking, but the old vassal said that from that eerie grin alone, he was certain it had reached some sort of conclusion.

But in that moment, Lord Rueben cared only about one thing. He prayed the assailant wouldn’t discover the dragon fang he had been hiding.

Then again, maybe the monster had thought of using the old man for something else, because the intruder suddenly changed its approach.

Before Lord Rueben could react, the monster’s hand ignited. Forbidden fire poured into him, forced past his fading barriers. He tried to fight it at first.

But realizing and knowing it would be futile, he simply decided to remove his last shield to bolster the fang’s protection against the forbidden fire.

They were so close after all, provided he could just keep the fang safe from the fire, then it would be fine.

The flames broke through his weakened resistance and entered his body with a deafening scream.

Even in the haze of it all, he understood immediately what it meant.

And he became desperate.

Renee, remembering this part of the story, once thought the pain must have been unimaginable. But when she glanced at Kael now, she saw his face had turned pale in a way she had never seen before. The burning must have been far worse than anything she had imagined. Forbidden fire did not simply burn the skin. It burned from the inside out.

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