Chapter 150 | Born as a Dragon, Sorry About That?

Completely oblivious to her gaze, Daviel stared in brief shock at the numbers on the cards before roaring in utter disbelief,

“Holy crap, you've got to be kidding me!”

He sat up and craned his neck forward, his massive eyes almost pressing against the tiny stone table in disbelief.

As if a thought had just struck him, Daviel squinted at the female elf sitting across from him. He pulled his head back, a smug look of revelation on his face, and demanded in an interrogating tone, “Charlotte, confess! Did you secretly use magic to cheat?”

“When I was back in the Empire, I never lost a single card game to my Imperial Guard lackeys!”

“No, I didn't cheat.” The elf named Charlotte smiled and shook her head, spreading her hands in mild amusement. “Tell me, is there a slight possibility that your lackeys were just sparing your feelings?”

Daviel froze for a second, then quickly shook his head, his tone making it clear he wasn't buying it.

“No, impossible!”

“Absolutely impossible!”

“I, Daviel, am a master of both the pen and the sword! How could I possibly need my lackeys to go easy on me to win?”

He pointed a single claw toward the cloudless blue sky. “It must be because the weather is bad today. That's why I'm off my game.”

Smack!

Giving Charlotte absolutely no chance to poke holes in his logic, Daviel slammed his remaining cards onto the stone table. “Another round! Another round! I refuse to believe I'll lose again!”

“Sigh, you really are something else.” With a helpless sigh, Charlotte lowered her gaze and reached out with her fair hands to gather the cards on the table.

As she deftly shuffled the deck, she asked, “This is already our two-hundredth game, and I've shuffled every single one. Can't you just use Polymorph to shrink down and shuffle for once?”

“No way.”

Daviel crossed his claws over his chest in a comical, human-like gesture, raising his head proudly. “How is a human form anywhere near as handsome as this? Look at my majestic physique! Look at my domineering appearance! This is an Immortal Holy Body that took me countless epochs to forge. Turning into a human would be a complete waste!”

Charlotte's hands paused. She slowly looked up at the colossal beast before her, her gaze filled with a complex mixture of emotions.

Unlike the dark, leathery scales of a normal black dragon, this mutated, aberrant black dragon had scales that looked as if they had been scorched by roaring flames, leaving them a dull, ash-like color.

Crisscrossing across his hide were countless dark red veins that resembled glowing cracks in cooling lava.

Whenever Daviel grew excited, these veins would brighten from dark red to a fiery crimson, making it look as though liquid magma was flowing just beneath his skin.

Beneath those scales lay a massive, heavily muscled frame whose sheer size was terrifyingly exaggerated.

With her vast experience, she was certain that this young adult black dragon, in terms of size alone, had already surpassed some red dragons who had just reached adulthood.

And when her eyes met Daviel's fiery, lava-like gaze, she was met with a seemingly profound look that appeared capable of piercing the soul and seeing through all secrets.

He believed that if not for the silver dragon blood flowing in his veins, which gave him a natural affinity for magic—especially Polymorph—surpassing other races, his elven disguise might have been seen through right then and there.

Revealing his true form...

An adult white dragon who had dual-classed as a mage and a ranger, named Christine.

Yet, whenever he remembered that his silly son had become this powerful all because of his own fire element core, Christine—disguised as the elf—felt a painful pang of regret.

When he had first left the Dwarven Empire and arrived in the God-Forsaken Land, his plan was to secretly slip into the Black Dragon Empire.

He wanted to quietly watch over his two dragon pups and make up for all the years he had missed.

Thanks to the indelible psychological trauma his ex-wife had inflicted on him, Christine had spent centuries mastering the arts of escape and stealth.

As a result, slipping in had been incredibly easy.

But when Christine, disguised as the elven mage he usually used to travel the world, snuck into Daviel's newly dug, extra-large lair, he was greeted by a damp, filthy cave.

For a black dragon, this was a perfectly comfortable environment.

But to Christine, a half-white dragon with completely opposite living habits,

it was absolute hell.

Terrified that his dragon pup would catch a cold, his paternal instincts flared up. He secretly took out the most precious treasure left to him by his adoptive silver dragon mother:

a Legendary Rank fire elemental lord core.

His mother had casually “picked it up” when she took him on a trip to the Fire Elemental Plane when he was just a hatchling.

Christine had figured that if he buried this core radiating intense heat in Daviel's nest, the warm energy would keep his pup from catching a cold.

And that was exactly what he did.

Having done his good deed, Christine felt a little less guilty. True to his principle of doing good anonymously,

he quietly left Daviel's lair

and set off to sneak into the lair of his other pup, Irene,

to see how his daughter was faring.

But before he could even slip inside, the scrying magic he had left in Daviel's lair alerted him that the boy had returned to sleep.

If he had just gone to sleep, that would have been fine.

But the idiot actually sleepwalked!

And if he had just sleepwalked, that would have been fine too.

But the idiot actually ate dirt while sleepwalking!

And if he had just eaten a little dirt, that still would have been fine.

But he had sprawled flat on the ground with his mouth wide open like an automatic lawnmower, pushing himself forward with his hind legs and shoveling massive chunks of earth into his maw!

The sight almost broke the sentimental white dragon's heart.

He wept for his poor child, convinced that Daviel must have starved so much in his youth that he had developed a habit of eating dirt.

Even in his sleep, the poor boy was desperately trying to fill his stomach with dirt.

But before Christine could drown in his own tears, his scrying spell showed his pup shoveling up the buried fire elemental core along with the mud...

and swallowing it whole!

Christine's mind went completely blank.

He rushed back to Daviel's lair at breakneck speed, desperate to stop him.

But in his haste, he made a careless mistake.

Daviel, still sleepwalking, mistook him for a fly and slapped him flat against the cave wall.

As he slid down the stone wall, Christine could still hear Daviel mumbling in his sleep, “Sis, don't steal my dirt... There's some fresh stuff I just pooped out over there... Go eat that.”

“It's still warm...”

By the time Christine peeled himself off the wall, the fire elemental core was already deep inside Daviel's stomach.

Unable to complain, he could only wait in the lair like a resentful, wronged wife, silently praying for the day Daviel would poop the core back out.

But as the days passed, Christine watched in horror as Daviel's body began to swell like a balloon.

Glowing, fiery veins began to spiderweb across his dark hide,

radiating a thick, stifling heat.

It was then that Christine realized, to his absolute despair, that his idiot son had actually digested and fully absorbed the core...

And so...

he completely lost his mind.

In a fit of sheer frustration, Christine packed his bags and ran away from home in the middle of the night. He fled the God-Forsaken Land and headed straight for the Dwarven Empire to drown his sorrows with the Dwarven King.

That was until the mutated creatures crawled out from the underground and began invading the Eastern Continent.

Fearing for his children's safety, Christine immediately smashed his glass and, leaving the bewildered Dwarven King behind, packed his bags to rush back to the God-Forsaken Land overnight.

Only after confirming that the empire his children had established was safe did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.

In his free time, he had wanted to visit his daughter, who was still deep in her slumber.

But before he could even set foot in her lair,

he was spotted by an undead creature.

Feeling as though he had been cursed by the Goddess of Misfortune, Christine immediately fled to avoid having his children discover his true identity.

Unfortunately,

his own son had ended up chasing him down.

Fortunately, his silly son was not the sharpest tool in the shed. After leading him in circles around the God-Forsaken Land for a few days, Christine managed to figure out his pup's simple-minded nature.

With a few minor tricks, he easily befriended Daviel.

According to the slang Christine had picked up while traveling the Human Kingdoms, he and his pup had now become... “companions” bound by friendship and a deep bond.