Supreme BeastTamer: I Can Copy and Upgrade Skills 10x!-Chapter 594: The Truth about the Ninth Element
For a long moment, silence hung heavy in the room.
The tension was thick enough to choke on. Valkor's eyes were locked on the stranger—Ashren—whose gold dragon eyes flickered with something that wasn't quite hostility, but certainly wasn't peace either.
Dark scales crawled along his arms and neck. It was clear he was a Dragon as well. Was he a Shadow Dragon? It was the only known race to possess black scales.
Celestis slowly stepped forward, water dancing at her fingertips. "You said you're the last… sane dragons? What does that mean?"
Ashren didn't answer immediately. He turned, walked toward a broken dais at the center of the chamber, and knelt.
The girl in green stood at the edge, watching silently.
Ashren finally spoke in a low and calm voice. "Yes, me and a few people like her."
Everyone turned towards the little girl Ashren was referring to.
Ashren turned slightly, his eyes glowing faintly in the crystal light. "When the others descended into madness, a few of us went into hiding."
Valkor tensed, eyes narrowing, but before he could speak, Celestis beat him to it. "What madness are you talking about?"
Ashren's lips curled into something between a smile and a grimace. "You'll know. Soon."
He flexed his arm. "I hold it back. Barely. But this body... it remembers what it means to resist."
Valkor didn't like the sound of that. Resistance meant he wasn't immune. That meant he could snap at any moment.
Ashren seemed to sense the tension. He raised a hand slowly, non-threatening. "I'm not here to fight. I brought you here because this city... this graveyard. I thought you and the others might be of help."
"What really are you? That's the most important question. Do you belong to one of the eight elements?"
"Eight elements, huh?" Ashren chuckled and said in a somewhat bitter voice. "It's such a shame the Dragon Realm moved on so quickly and forgot about us."
At that moment, Celestis's eyes flashed sharply as she seemed to connect the dots. ƒrēenovelkiss.com
"You... you're the ninth element, aren't you?" she questioned, her eyes narrowing.
Ashren didn't respond. It seemed he didn't want to talk about it, so Celestis decided to change the topic.
"You said there are others, right? Where are they?"
Ashren nodded once and waved his arm, gesturing for Celestis and Valkor to follow him.
"The ones who haven't fully turned are scattered into a few factions and they're hiding within the city."
The others didn't speak and simply followed him quietly as they descended a flight of stairs that led underground.
The walls were lined with arrays of glowing torchlights and trembled from time to time.
As they reached the bottom, the corridor widened into an open underground chamber. And what awaited them inside made Valkor stop dead in his tracks.
There were at least a dozen figures gathered there.
Some sat quietly against pillars, others leaned against rusted weapons or dormant statues, their expressions filled with anxiety, and the black circles under their eyes showed that these people hardly had any sleep.
But what stood out the most—each one had dark scales.
This confirmed both Valkor and Celestis's theory about what the ninth element could be.
They weren't really sure, but believed it was somehow related to corruption, which was confusing as she didn't know how a few of them could still be sane while the majority had gone mad and become pawns of the Scourge Alpha.
Ashren gestured at them one by one. "These are the survivors, at least for now."
Celestis took a step forward. "But how? Why haven't you turned completely?"
A woman stepped forward. Her hair was bone-white, falling past her waist like a waterfall. Her voice was calm, melodic.
"We don't fight the corruption," she said. "We learned to live with it. We suppress it… together."
Another male—larger than Ashren, with dark scales on his face—grunted. "Takes everything we have, every day. Most of us don't sleep. Some forget what we were."
Ashren nodded. "But we remember enough to know what's coming, and that's something we want to prevent at all costs."
Celestis felt a headache coming on as she tried to make sense of it all. Although these people claimed to fight against the corruption, what made them special? Why didn't the others resist it as well? Most importantly, was the ninth element truly corruption or something more?
"You said you brought us here because we could be of help to you, right?" Celestis spoke. "Then I need you to tell us everything from the start. Is the ninth element truly corruption? What's the history behind this city? How are you fighting against the corruption? And most importantly, who is the Alpha Scourge?"
Ashren looked at her for a long moment. His gold-dragon eyes dulled slightly, as though the weight of her questions pressed on something buried deep in his chest.
"You ask too much for one breath," he said quietly. "But I will answer what I can."
He then proceeded to lead the others to a much more secluded room, as if he didn't want the rest to hear. Valkor and Celestis followed him silently into the chamber.
The little girl in the green robe also tagged along.
Ashren pushed open a heavy door at the back of the chamber, and it creaked like it hadn't been opened in ages. The hallway inside was narrow and dusty, cobwebs clinging to the ceiling.
Celestis wrinkled her nose. "This place smells like rot."
Ashren only chuckled. "We've gotten used to it. In fact, there are people who would call smelly things pleasant."
Once they reached a smaller room lit by a few dim crystal shards, Ashren stopped and turned to face them. The little girl took a seat on a rock nearby, swinging her legs like she didn't notice the tension in the air. Ashren exhaled and finally spoke again.
"A long time ago—before the Eight ruled over the lands—there were Nine. Nine elemental forces. Most people only know fire, water, wind, earth... all the basics. But the ninth was different. It wasn't flashy. It wasn't beautiful."
He paused as he inhaled and parted his lips: "It was..."
