Adventures of the last Wild Dragon

Chapter 237 237: A Growing Princess

Time passed by swiftly for Vithrax following his appointment as a royal guard. His time would be split between growing his strength with the aid of teachings from the dragon king, something that was honestly terrifying for the red dragon as the king did not believe in the slow and steady approach to growing strong.

Instead the king would throw one or multiple of the royal guards into deadly situations that they would have to resolve by themselves, oftentimes with severe limitations on their abilities. One such being the disablement of any key draconic abilities such as flight, aura or their breath.

When not fighting for their lives in one of the kings 'tests' Vithrax would be overseeing the princesses growth. Be this through teaching her about the world or helping her to develop her own speciality.

Years soon passed like this, with the princess growing in both power and mischief as she grew older.

She developed a taste for both pranks and delicious food. Often times even managing to get one or many of the guards involved in her schemes, if discovered by the king this would naturally result in punishment of all parties involved. Yet the king was nothing if not a doting farther, so even his harshest of punishments on his daughter could only be considered a light slap on the nose.

Saddly this only caused the princess to up the ante in her pranking ways, often spending days at a time to set up the perfect trick.

Similarly her desire for the finer foods in life also led her to many a unintended situation. One such one involved her effectively culling the top political figures of an entire enlightened city, yet she somehow came out of the whole situation being revered as some kind of saint by the population of said city. Vithrax truly had no idea how such a situation came to be and preferred not to dwell on the strange situations that the princess oftentimes found herself embroiled in.

Saddly however, these peaceful days could not last forever.

Soon reports of increasing monster activity began cropping up all around the world, this caused the dragon king to be absent for prolonged periods of time as he and his army would be trying to resolve the hotspots of trouble.

This naturally led to the princess becoming all the more outrageous in her actions which caused Vithrax and the other guards no end of headaches from her antics. Still they could not help but love and care for the rambunctious girl.

By this point the guards had all advanced into sovereignty before the age of 150, quite the achievement for any aspiring dragon. The princess had also advanced in strength, now in the late stages of lordship herself. Plus with all of the natural treasures and benefits provided to her by the king she had grown into a true monster for her level. She could easily defeat any foe of similar level to her, even against other elite fighters.

Her strength had become somewhat legendary, even having fought and won in several tournaments when she infiltrated some cities in her humanoid form which granted her some anonymity, well at least from the enlightened, any dragon present would instantly recognise the lingering presence of the king on her and would naturally treat her with the due respect.

Yet her childish attitude did eventually get her into trouble. Vithrax knew this all too well, as it was this trouble that resulted in the death of two of her royal guards.

With the dragon king so often away from home, the princess had taken to exploring the wilds on extended adventures. She would fly around with no set destination in mind, on one such adventure she ventured far to the west, passing over the spine and venturing deep into the western half of the continent.

She eventually spotted a lonely mountain amidst a flatland of forest, this mountain stood tall by itself, the highest point in thousands of miles.

Morzania decided to select this mountain as a secondary home of sorts, carving a cave into the peak and making the area suitable for her.

Yet this lonely mountain was not the only landmark of note in this region, sure the elemental valley was a curiosity, but its lacking mana levels for a being of her level made the effort of exploring that region not entirely worthwhile.

No, it was a location further west that truly caught her eye. A desolate wasteland lay in that direction, in the center of that wasteland lay a gargantuan hole in the world. Its depths obscured in eternal darkness.

Vithrax and the other guards tried to dissuade her from exploring that desolate pit, yet the princess was not one to be dissuaded. She managed to sneak away from her guards one night to explore that pit herself.

The guards only discovered her disappearance some house after she had already left, even with their greater strength and speed it was quite some distance to catch up.

Vithrax raced towards the desolate pit with all his might. He was not the fastest of the guards, that was Rhydel and Kana, a lightning and wind dragon respectively. Vithrax and Yvonne were fire and ice specialised.

The first two were the fastest and thus raced ahead to try and catch up with the princess first, soon distancing themselves from the slower two. Yet when Vithrax reached that desolate pit he only saw hell.

The thick magical darkness that dominated the pit was currently lit up with powerful magics, lightning strikes as thick as vithrax's torso rained down on a veritable hoard of monsters, wind blade sharp enough to cut mountains joined the onslaught whilst the powerful flames of the princess flickered precariously as she caught with her everything to stay alive.

In the center of this pit stood a desolate tree, it. Dominated the vast pit, its ebony limbs reaching out like the grasping hand of a skeletal god as they swayed around trying to catch the fleeing dragons.

Vithrax and Yvonne joined the ongoing battle with a veritable explosion of power, providing enough time for Kana to extract the princess. Yvonne and Rhydel staying behind to allow Vithrax to aid in the extraction of the princess.

As the three escaped that desolate tree a wail of incomprehensible desolation rang out, a surge of power erupted from the tree, only then revealing its true power.

It was an existence beyond that of a sovereign, or a tyrant for this monstrous tree, no this was the strength of a true Titan, an existence on par with the dragon king himself.

With the tree unleashing its true power the two sovereign tier dragons inside of its domain held no hope of escaping. Vithrax, Kana and the princess could only watch in muted horror as the two royal guards were torn apart by the might of the corrupted being living in the bottom of the pit.

That was the impetus that caused the once playful and mischievous princess to truly grow up into the respected and powerful dragon that she was always meant to be.