"Well?" Cra.s.sus gave Arran an expectant look. "Why do you think I can kill a dragon?"
Arran took a deep breath before speaking. Even if he was fairly confident in his suspicions, he knew what he was about to say would sound like madness. And if he was right, there would be some risk in revealing the secret.
Finally, he looked Cra.s.sus in the eyes, and softly said, "You"re a dragon yourself."
While Snowcloud looked at Arran as if he had gone mad, Cra.s.sus seemed quite amused, and a big grin appeared on the man"s face.
"You think I"m a dragon?" Cra.s.sus chuckled. "Any reason for that?"
Arran had many reasons for his suspicions. Cra.s.sus knew too much about dragons, showed too little fear of the dragon in the valley, and had returned with Snowcloud too quickly. And that was just the start of it.
Still, he didn"t mention any of this, instead only uttering a single word.
"Relgard."
Cra.s.sus frowned. "What about it?"
"This mountain range is filled with dragons," Arran said, looking intently at the Cra.s.sus as he spoke. "Given its location, the town should have been overrun long ago. Yet somehow, it still persists."
The fat man"s eyes narrowed. "Perhaps the town has a powerful protector. So what? Why would it need to be a dragon?"
"When I observed this one," Arran said, gesturing at the wounded dragon at the center of the valley, "I saw that it needed to spend every waking hour hunting just to keep itself fed. But then, I wondered how an even bigger one would accomplish the task, and I realized it would need to hunt something far bigger than sheep."
Cra.s.sus remained silent, though he looked at Arran with an expression of interest.
Arran gazed at the mountains that surrounded them, then continued, "Wouldn"t a larger dragon, intelligent from countless years of absorbing Natural Essence, want its own hunting grounds, filled with creatures large enough to sate even a t.i.tan"s appet.i.te?"
A thin smile appeared on Cra.s.sus"s face. "Why do you believe such a grand creature would choose to a.s.sume a pathetic human form?"
By now, Arran"s last doubts had disappeared, but he still answered the question as best he could. If he was right, annoying the man — or dragon — in front of him would be a very bad idea.
"Perhaps a smaller body requires less energy to maintain," he replied. "But more importantly, with its intelligence, centuries of solitude would leave it bored — especially if most of its own kind were dumber than rocks, unable to even speak. That"s why it would choose to surround itself with humans, and that"s why it would choose to help a few curious mages."
It was a guess, but Arran didn"t think he was wrong. Just the year he had spent in the Academy dungeon had been excruciatingly dull, and he couldn"t begin to imagine what spending thousands of years without a single conversation would be like.
Hearing Arran"s words, Cra.s.sus gave him a look that held both amus.e.m.e.nt and curiosity, as if he had just encountered a pleasant surprise.
"Very well," Cra.s.sus finally replied, a cheerful smile appearing on his face. "You said you could help me open a Realm. How?"
Arran breathed a silent sigh of relief. He had been fairly confident about Cra.s.sus"s background, but what had worried him was how the man would react to having his true nature revealed. However, as he had hoped, Cra.s.sus merely seemed amused by the unexpected turn of events.
He quickly reached for his void bag, then took out one of his few remaining Realm Opening Pills. "If you take this, any Realm you have will be opened instantly — although it will cause you some pain."
The possibility that Cra.s.sus would take the pill by force didn"t worry him. From what he could tell, the fat man had little reason to betray them — both defeating the injured dragon and taking the pill would be equally easy for him.
Moreover, it wasn"t as if Cra.s.sus actually needed the pill, or the Realm it would open. With the strength of an adult dragon, a newly opened Realm would make little difference, and Arran had already surmised that Cra.s.sus lacked the disposition to make any major achievements in magic.
If his suspicions were correct, the man merely saw magic as a toy — an amusing distraction, but no more than that.
"It will open any Realm I already have?" Cra.s.sus raised an eyebrow, a pleased expression appearing on his face.
"It will," Arran confirmed. "So do we have a deal?"
Cra.s.sus gave him a nod, then said, "I"ll take half the body. Now step back."
Arran did as the man said, rapidly retreating several hundreds of paces with Snowcloud at his side. As they ran, she gave Arran a curious look, but she didn"t say anything.
Only when they pa.s.sed the edge of the valley did they turn around, and Arran was unpleasantly surprised when he saw that Cra.s.sus was casually disrobing, then neatly folding up his clothes and laying them down by his side.
The sight of the fat, naked man was unwelcome, but Arran did not turn away — he wouldn"t risk missing what was about to happen.
When Cra.s.sus was fully naked, he stretched out for a moment, looking much like someone who had just awoken and left his bed.
But then, suddenly, the man"s body began to grow rapidly, shooting up like a sprout growing into a vast tree. As his sized increased, his ruddy skin turned a deep crimson, and large wings sprouted from his back.
The sight filled Arran with awe and terror in equal measure. Before his eyes, Cra.s.sus was transforming into a vast dragon that utterly dwarfed the injured dragon in front of it, and still, he was rapidly growing even larger.
As he pa.s.sed a thousand feet in height, his growth finally seemed to slow, but it did not stop completely. Only when he was nearly two thousand feet tall did the transformation end, and the sight filled Arran with awe and terror in equal measure.
If the injured dragon was like a hill, Cra.s.sus was like a vast mountain, tall enough to reach the top of the cliff at the end of the valley, with wings so gargantuan that they could blot out the entire sky.
Arran had been prepared for a shocking transformation, but this far exceeded anything he could have expected. It was a sight that could make the heavens tremble, and Arran had trouble even comprehending it.
Yet Arran wasn"t the only one who was affected. While Cra.s.sus transformed, the injured dragon had raised its head, appearing to sense that something was wrong even without its sight.
The smaller dragon let out a panicked screech, then raised its body, causing a storm in the valley as it flapped its wings in terror.
The t.i.tanic creature that was Cra.s.sus slowly turned its head toward its prey. Then, it opened its mouth, and its jaws suddenly snapped forward a moment later.
Although the injured dragon desperately tried to flee, it was no use — compared to Cra.s.sus, it was like a mouse facing a tiger, and it had no way to resist or escape. With a single bite, Cra.s.sus tore off its head and most of its neck, and the dead dragon"s vast body collapsed to the ground with a thunderous sound.
Just like that, the dragon that Arran and Snowcloud had spent weeks attacking died instantly, completely defenseless before Cra.s.sus. There was no fight or struggle, as its tough body was utterly unable to resist the single attack for even a second.
After the dead dragon collapsed to the floor, blood gus.h.i.+ng from its neck, Cra.s.sus"s giant claws tore it into two pieces. The t.i.tanic creature"s jaws shot forward once more, and in just three terrifying bites, it devoured the larger piece.
Arran was shocked at the sight, and his shock nearly turned to panic when Cra.s.sus turned towards him and Snowcloud. Yet his terror eased a moment later, as Cra.s.sus turned back to the b.l.o.o.d.y remains of the smaller creature and quickly tore it into a heap of smaller pieces.
Then, before their eyes, the gargantuan dragon began to shrink.
A moment later, the t.i.tanic creature was gone. A fat, naked man now stood in its place, reaching for the small pile of clothes that lay on the ground next to him.