Draconic Awakening

Ragnar's breath hitched, and he couldn't help but think through his possible choices—and there wasn't much to be done.

This made him frown further and turn to his shadow, particularly the dancer.

"Scout the other three and tell me if they are coming this way. Be smart about it and predict before they get here," he commanded.

The dancer immediately broke off his toes and danced its way out of the space he was in.

Now he stood, glaring at the stone Wendigo, stretching out his hand and calling to it—his despicable short sword—and then he waited.

The Wendigo seemed to be standing in place, as though it was asleep or something, but the young Lord was not fooled. Just because it seemed asleep did not mean it was.

However, this was a similar situation he had encountered before—it was blind. The Silent Mother was blind and incapable of detecting him...

By sight, that was.

But considering other senses like hearing and smell, he knew the Mother of the Nest could tell he was there but was being cautious not to harm its eggs. That's why it kept still.

'It thinks I can't see it through the camouflage, and like another predator, I would come closer to devour its younglings.'

A bold move, truly.

However, not the right opponent. Ragnar let out a brief sigh, and as he did, he noticed the ears of the Mother of the Nest twitch slightly.

Something he had learned from his encounter with the Grade One Wretchborn: their ears were so sensitive they twitched at the slightest movements.

So, if Grade Threes were Wendigos that were blind—and probably mothers—what was the one he had killed doing in front of a cave so badly wounded? It was a mystery, but Ragnar had not enough information to follow that thought completely.

He needed to close the space between him and the Grade Three Wretchborn and kill it as soon as possible. But before that, he had to confirm if the other three were coming his way. If not, it would truly be an issue.

So Ragnar stayed at his exact spot for a while, not moving a single muscle or causing any noise that would instigate the monstrous mother or the nest.

Not until the dancer arrived.

The slick shadow danced to the base of Ragnar's foot and latched onto it. In the next moment, the information that would decide Ragnar's fate sprang right in front of him.

His heart palpitated, and then what looked like an uneven grin formed on his face. 'This is good at least,' he thought. The other Wendigos had gone the other way and thankfully left just him and the Mother of the Nest to their own squabbles.

Now he could concentrate solely on killing the massive deviant.

The massive Mother of the Nest was like a statue, its body towering high and its milky eyes just staring at nothingness. But it remained tense, its massive claws twitching uncomfortably and ready to pounce on anyone that came its way, to be torn to shreds.

Beside it were two rocks—particularly, its eggs. One would not hear or notice, but there was a slightly sickening heartbeat that could be heard in the eggs beside their mother.

Ragnar could not hear the beating but could see there was a difference in the eggs beside the demonic figure of a mother.

The other eggs seemed to be hollow, having a yellow-type aura that circled around their cores. However, the eggs beside the Mother of the Nest seemed to be throbbing, boiling with numerous auras—and one of them held a deep, dark corruption that, just by sight, made Ragnar's entire being shake. He bent over and almost threw up his entire breakfast. If not for holding himself and hunching over, that would have been the case.

He recovered quickly without looking directly at the eggs again. And when he was fully himself, he raised his gaze again at the eggs, not taking long stares before withdrawing his gaze.

Now he knew something was very disturbing about this sight.

The corruption in the eggs seemed to have subdued the other auras within them, and visibly, they began to throb.

'What the hell is this? What is their mother doing to them?' The young Lord held his mouth and kept his gaze on the eggs this time for long, witnessing both eggs there crack open—and out of them stepped two newly born Wendigos...

No—what was he insinuating? Two newly born terrors. Disabled freaks that looked like mangled corpses of Wendigos.

The poor beings had their hands decayed, faces filled with teeth, and half of their bellies torn apart, letting their guts hang down. All in all, they were a grotesque representation of horror.

Ragnar now could not hold back, bending over his back and coughing—not vomiting. He was irritated but knew the importance of food.

Turning back to the corrupted horrors, one of them had fallen to the ground and the other limped forward, the two of them slowly finding their way to enclose the space between themselves and Ragnar.

The Mother of the Nest followed from behind, taking short steps and following the noise made by her children.

So this was its plan all along.

Ragnar had not seen this coming. The Mother of the Nest was much smarter than he had imagined it to be. It wasn't stupid and did not behave on primal instinct. Rather, it was a mastermind of its own caliber.

'My only mistake was thinking it was a mother because of the system's description. This thing is a fucking predator,' Ragnar grimaced.

The Mother of the Nest was a Wretchborn that likely hid its entire being in the shadows, camouflaged and waiting. It did not needlessly go out to hunt but stayed and laid its eggs.

While many predators would come to steal eggs for food—seeing no mother—some would even attempt to eat the eggs right there and then. However, it would sneak up from behind and kill the monster, even if it were its own kind.

Noticing its nest had been invaded by another intelligent being, of course it had pulled the trick of hatching two of its own right off the bat to help it find its prey.

This was a wretched fiend of a mother—a true demon of a beast willing to sacrifice its own offspring to kill a prey.

'Truly, the realms know no end to their insanity.'