Chapter 363: Ashes Before Answers

Now it would be best to bear in mind that Riley didn’t get told any of this. At best, he was shown an extremely rough account of the events leading up to the moment his ancestors realized just what the hell was really happening.

Like having an out-of-body experience where memories he never asked to see kept forcing themselves into his mind, Riley most definitely saw the moment that son of a gun ripped through the skies and marked the beginning of the Great War.

What he saw wasn’t complete.

It came in fragments.

But those fragments were more than enough.

The sky didn’t simply darken. It split.

Not with clouds, not with storms, but with something far worse.

Fire.

It poured from above as though the heavens themselves had ruptured, spilling relentless waves of burning light that consumed everything beneath them. The air trembled under the force of it, and the land followed not long after.

He saw forests that had probably stood for ages igniting in seconds, entire stretches of land swallowed whole as the flames spread faster than anything natural should have allowed. Mountains cracked under pressure they weren’t meant to bear, while the inhabitants found no chance to escape.

And the blood.

There was just so much of it.

It spread across the ground in wide, dark pools, soaking into soil that had no time to reject it.

Figures moved within the chaos.

There were those who tried to flee, tried to rise into the air, only to be struck down before they could even gain distance. Some didn’t even make it off the ground.

Everything happened too quickly. At least in Riley’s visions, it unfolded in a way that elicited learned helplessness.

He could do nothing but watch.

He definitely didn’t hear every sound, but he felt everything else.

The urgency.

The panic.

The desperation that gripped his ancestors, who realized far too late what they were facing.

Because in the end, the greatest losses came from those who never survived the initial hit.

Actually, even without seeing everything, the sheer terror that was conveyed to him was more than enough to underscore the gravity of the situation.

While dragon fear wasn’t something unusual and could even be expected, seeing fearful dragons definitely was.

And it was evident in the reactions of the surviving clans that they too hadn’t expected such a thing.

At that point, they were nothing more than sitting ducks who had to rush to figure out what they were up against.

Thankfully, it didn’t take forever.

Soon enough, and only after experiencing that same kind of destructive power thrown back in their faces, the dragons finally realized what they were truly up against.

“Remember when you told me more about that war and mentioned the immortal abomination?”

Riley looked at Kael with a really bitter expression as the memories he had seen lingered at the front of his mind.

“Well, that, in part, involved the desecrated corpse of the Primordial Dragon.”

He let that sit for a moment before continuing.

“Someone actually decided not only to reanimate what they could recover of the deliberately scattered remnants, but also to fuse it with an existing being…”

Truly some next-level insanity.

After discovering that part and sharing his ancestors’ disgust, Riley ended up with far too many questions, and most of them centered around the whys.

And just like Kael, who looked like he wanted to interrupt and ask, the black dragon heir felt the same compulsion at the time. The only difference was that Riley had already realized there was no one he could really ask. Or, well, he could ask, but receiving a response from someone would be even scarier.

So he had no choice but to brace himself.

Soon enough, he became aware that the memories he was seeing followed some sort of progression.

From the point where his ancestors had no idea what that revolting creature even was, to the point where they were grasping at straws and eventually arriving at something more concrete.

But because of the nature of those memories, Riley had to piece everything together using context-frigging clues.

What actually happened?

Who did it?

How did they even do it?

And what did all of that have to do with him?

With them?

The black dragon, who didn’t think he’d have to use his brain this much while inheriting, ended up working through everything feverishly.

Now, much like his ancestors, he still had a lot of questions he needed to find answers for.

Like the logistics behind how the wyverns had even learned where to find the remains that had been deliberately scattered all over Eryndra.

Or how they even got anything to work, given the nature of the primordial dragon’s body.

As for the other things, he had a few guesses, but even then, he couldn’t guarantee one hundred percent accuracy when it came to his interpretations.

But as of the moment, he figured they should consider themselves fortunate to have any sort of information at all.

He was aware that misinformation could be dangerous.

But so was having absolutely nothing.

Imagine if he had never received his inheritance.

Or worse, if he had opted to wait for who knows how long.

Then wouldn’t they have ended up as sitting ducks all over again, right in the middle of what should have been a very long honeymoon?

Ugh.

The thought alone was frustrating.

And it only got worse with what came next.

“Now, from what I’ve gathered, that someone just so happened to be the actual Wyvern King.”

With the kind of hubris found only in those who clearly had a few screws missing—not even loose—the leader of the wyverns had actually decided to experiment on himself.

Now, Riley had to give him some credit for taking that kind of risk.

But at the same time, it became painfully obvious that the kind of enemy they were dealing with was the type of being who simply didn’t give a shit.

In short, it was the kind of enemy that couldn’t be threatened with the possibility of death or loss.

And that became even more evident in how long the war lasted, as well as the extent of damage the continent endured at its height.

Battered by loss and consumed by immense grief, Riley could only watch helplessly as his ancestors continued searching for a solution despite repeated failures.

To him, it felt like a brief moment. With memories rushing in one after the other.

But based on what Kael had told him, it must have stretched across several thousand years.

In all those years, there were definitely times when allegiances were made, only for them to be broken.

With other beings trying to save their own hides, Eryndra ended up divided into unexpected factions as the others realized they couldn’t possibly fend off the Wyvern King.

Yes, they could hold off the much weaker wyverns, but the moment the leader got involved, they would surely lose.

Many reluctantly allied with the Wyverns just to buy themselves time, while those who couldn’t tried to figure out ways to live far from their scrutiny, like underground or underwater.

Eventually, the dragons could only really rely on themselves.

Just imagining what that must have been like for all of them was enough to dim even his usually bright eyes, and he found himself seeking reassurance from Kael, who simply held him.

Thankfully, in the end, their efforts bore some sort of fruit.

Now, calling it that was actually being generous, since it happened by accident rather than as a result of their strategies. But at least they eventually realized a few important things.

Like how immortality became conditional when it was obtained through theft.

Or how they could expect periodic breaks, because even nature itself wasn’t something that could be trifled with so easily.

Because who would have thought that right in the middle of a fight, the abomination’s body would show clear signs of rejection?

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