Chapter 14
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Surpassing the Invitation
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A world where countless races, including humans, lived together forming their own ecosystems.
The Mortal Realm.
Among them, one of the most powerful and fearsome beings was the dragon.
And even those dragons bowed their heads and revered them as gods.
The ancient dragons.
They were not mere rumors or legends.
They were the primordial beings who had actually participated in the creation of this world.
Entities granted permission to enter the celestial realm known as the Heavens, where the gods resided.
Aurelion was one such being.
He was the white ancient dragon.
The one symbolizing the warmth and light of life.
When the gods bestowed blessings and warmth upon the Mortal Realm, it was his role to refine that flow and allow it to seep into the world.
Thanks to this, he held a certain status even among the gods' society and sometimes acted on behalf of higher deities when needed.
Yet lately, he had begun sensing something strange.
It was not a problem of the Mortal Realm.
Not humans, not dragons, nor any other race.
'...The gods are dividing?'
The currents flowing from the Heavens were gradually going astray.
The once-harmonized authorities were clashing subtly, tension building in the silence.
There is a saying that gods were modeled after humans, and humans after monkeys.
In their imperfection, even gods are mere creations.
Close to immortality, but not omniscient.
Thus, factions and conflicts had arisen among the gods multiple times in the past.
But—
This felt different.
This was not mere rivalry or posturing.
It was more overt, more relentless, flowing inexorably in an irreversible direction.
Yes, like the air just before the 'war' waged by mortals in the Mortal Realm erupted.
Aurelion could not ignore that ominous premonition.
'If a full-scale conflict truly breaks out among the gods... not only all life in the Mortal Realm, but even dragons would face total annihilation.'
To dragons, those tiny beings with vaguely similar forms were insignificant.
However.
They were undeniably a race born in the world where the dragons' footsteps lingered.
How could one, from the gods' perspective, so casually discard those who revered them daily as deities?
But in truth, Aurelion was the only ancient dragon who thought that way.
In a situation where even all five ancient dragons united could not guarantee safety against the gods' great war,
two others worried about the dragons' fate but had no intention of stepping in to change it.
And the remaining two simply did not care whether they went extinct or not.
'Even all five together, and it's like this.'
Aurelion had no choice but to acknowledge that harsh reality.
Thus, he turned his gaze not to the gods dwelling in the Heavens, but to the world that had yet to be fully formed: the Mortal Realm.
Insignificant creatures who never reached the gods' domain from birth to death.
Beings who would rejoice and leap for joy at being chosen by even a minor goddess.
Yet among the Mortal Realm's races, one in particular stuck in his mind.
The frailest, yet with the strongest reproductive power, currently holding the widest territories in the Mortal Realm.
Those who endlessly fought and killed even among their own kind, advancing ceaselessly beyond limits in the process.
Humanity.
Their potential had always astonished the Mortal Realm's lifeforms and, at times, even made the gods wary.
Aurelion saw that possibility.
An unfinished race, capable of evolving in any direction.
For the first time, the thought took root in his heart: perhaps among those lowly mortals born in the Mortal Realm lay the key to mending the rift in the Heavens.
"It was 1,000 years ago."
Aurelion spoke calmly, as if recalling something from yesterday.
"I witnessed a human called a hero kneel before me after slaying dragons one by one."
A human defeating a dragon?
Normally, an absurd notion.
Even if a thousand soldiers charged, one great dragon taking to the skies and breathing fire once would reduce them all to ash.
Magic was the same.
Human incantations could scarcely scratch a dragon's scales.
But under the name of the Holy Sword Legend, it was a tale passed down like a fairy tale in the human world even now.
The founding hero of Valenhardt.
He did not retreat before countless dragons, cleaved through their flames, charged forward, and ultimately severed a great dragon's neck, or so the story goes.
This is the epic humans know of their hero.
However, no one knows what followed.
"He was a human wise enough to be called a hero."
Aurelion said.
"He could have grown arrogant after felling the great dragons, but he did not."
The frozen north dominated by a harsh world.
The founding hero of Valenhardt standing atop dragon corpses.
There, driven by the desire to eradicate any future threats, he ventured deep into the dragons' lair.
And there, for the first time, he encountered them.
The observers who looked down from the skies upon all.
The ancient dragons.
In that moment, he must have realized.
That between the dragons he had slain and these beings lay an insurmountable gulf.
So he did not fight.
He did not raise his sword or his spirit.
Instead, he laid his sword on the ground and knelt.
Humbling himself to the point of making the title of hero seem unworthy, he bowed his head to the earth and dared to make a request.
"I gladly offer my life."
Was his voice trembling, or calm?
"So please, no longer lay hands on humans."
In that instant, the human hero was but a mere mortal before the divine.
"From the start, we ancient dragons do not intervene in the Mortal Realm's affairs—even if involving our own kind—unless total annihilation is at stake."
No emotion colored Aurelion's voice.
"So I sent that human away. On the condition that he not rampage further inside the lair."
And he added,
"I made it clear we would not intervene in any subsequent wars."
Thus, the founding hero, realizing for the first time that realms existed beyond his reach, staggered out of the ancient dragons' stronghold.
Having gained nothing.
Having changed nothing.
Watching his retreating figure, the five ancient dragons of that time, including Aurelion, felt only mild surprise.
Oh, so there are humans like that.
That level of recognition.
But looking back now, that moment was no mere incident.
A single possibility.
"Even by mere human nature, he wielded that much power."
Aurelion's gaze deepened.
"How much more if the bloodline of an ancient dragon, elevated to the rank of higher god, were mixed in?"
The fusion of human and god.
Demigod.
Theoretically impossible.
No one in this world had ever seriously imagined it.
From a human perspective, no matter how strong, it was no different from mating with a beast to produce a mongrel half-human, half-beast.
However, for the white ancient dragon who governed life.
For Aurelion, tasked with light and birth, that taboo was no absolute barrier.
If the gods' decisive battle erupted anyway, existing common sense would become meaningless.
And to protect the dragon lairs, stronger power was needed.
A new possibility transcending the old framework.
Thus, he decided to bring Elysia.
To infuse the nearly fading hero's bloodline with the genes of a being called a god: a dragon.
But.
"However."
Aurelion's voice lowered ever so slightly.
"I did not expect the descendant inheriting that founding hero's bloodline to be this foolish."
There was no disappointment or anger in his words.
Only the cold assessment of an experimental subject falling short of expectations.
Aurelion looked straight ahead.
Normally, the moment a human faced the divine presence they could not endure,
she should have knelt, bowed her head, and begged to bear his seed.
Yet the Elysia in his view had become entirely different.
She gripped the fully restored Holy Sword Balmung tightly, standing unwavering before him.
And above all, her eyes were not those of a tamed female.
A gaze free of corruption or resignation.
The eyes of a warrior woman yet unbroken.
Standing not as a lady bound by convention, but as a woman choosing for herself.
"From your family's perspective, it is not a bad proposal."
Aurelion said calmly.
"A noble divine bloodline added to a purely human lineage. Done right, it could found not a duchy, but an empire."
He spoke as if merely stating facts, slowly relaxing his hand.
And then he asked.
"Why do you oppose me to the end?"
At that question, Elysia caught her breath for a moment, then—for the first time, truly for the first time—a faint smile curved her lips.
"Because you are not the man I love."
It was an answer that cleaved through divine logic with human choice in a single stroke.