Chapter 296: Reunion and the Enemy

Tangible pressure spread outward from the undead dragon, centered on its burning emerald soulfire eyes. Dust and sand rose and fell across the basin floor in breath-like pulses, stirred by its silent might.

Its very presence explained why no other undead creatures lingered in this secluded valley. As an undead lord of formidable power, the bone dragon reigned supreme here.

Its hollow skull turned to Sieg, who had taken on his full draconic form. The fire flickered in its sockets, jaws parting slowly as if pondering some distant memory.

Though its appearance was terrifying, and its name bordering on comical, the pressure it radiated was very real—enough to make even Wang Yu's group wary.

"Greetings. I am Sieg Wilsbach, brother to the silver dragon Aurelian. We've come to ask for your help in summoning my sister."

Sieg sent a mental transmission to the airborne bone dragon, its entire form wreathed in ghostly green fire as it circled slowly above the basin.

"That silver dragon's brother? I see. Sorry, sorry—I'm rather old, you see. Even my soulfire is starting to decay with age. I tend to drift off sometimes..." The dragon's voice rang out in surprisingly energetic and cheerful Common as it echoed down to the four travelers.

"And besides," it continued, "you're the first to visit me in over a century. I was surprised, that's all." The voice—hearty, affable, with a touch of absentmindedness—seemed completely at odds with the creature's horrific skeletal form.

"I was starting to think there weren't any dragons left these days. Luckily for me, another one showed up. Call me Old Bones. Fitting, no?"

"...Uh, Mr. Old Bones, could you please summon my sister? We agreed to meet here."

Sieg hesitated at first, caught off guard by the dragon's affable nature. So it hadn't been staring ominously at them in silence—it had just zoned out.

He repeated his request to the ancient dragon.

"Oh... right, yes, yes. A promise is a promise. Your sister saved me, you know, back when I was being hunted by three vile abominations. If not for her, they'd have ripped me apart and made soup out of my bones."

Old Bones's claim left Wang Yu and the others baffled.

A legendary bone dragon... hunted by three Abominations?

Wang Yu blinked. What sort of joke was that? A thousand of those Abominations wouldn't even have scratched this guy. Unless... were they some kind of hyper-mutants?

"Sorry, let me think... I remember she gave me something—some kind of beacon. Something with enough power to send an extraplanar message. That's how she'd know to come."

The bone dragon lifted a bony claw and scratched at its skull in a surprisingly humanlike gesture. The soulfire in its eye sockets pulsed as it strained to recall the memory.

"...What's going on with him?" Wang Yu whispered, gesturing to the ancient dragon, now flailing and clawing at its head like a confused old man.

He couldn't help but furrow his brows.

"It's not as bad as it seems," Avia murmured. "He can clearly still reason. He even introduced himself as ‘Old Bones.' That probably means he's existed for thousands of years already. Most undead that last that long go insane. Only special cases, like liches with phylacteries, manage to keep their minds intact.

"In his case," she continued, "his draconic soul is strong enough to sustain his deteriorating soulfire without resorting to devouring others. But over the centuries, even a dragon's soulfire can falter. The mind's the first to go."

"So basically... he's grown timid and forgetful?" Wang Yu said. "Could be worse. Beats going mad from devouring too many corrupted souls."

He understood what was going on now. Old Bones hadn't fed on other undead in ages. His soulfire had waned, but his soul had endured.

It was a fundamental weakness of the undead: while their lives seemed eternal, soulfire, unmoored from a living body, would always dwindle over time.

The only way to prolong their existence was to consume others—but in doing so, they risked absorbing the will, memories, and madness of those they devoured. In time, they would cease to be themselves.

"Makes sense," Wang Yu mused to himself. If becoming undead really meant eternal life with no drawback, who would stay mortal? Everyone would rush to lichdom and skip the bother of sleep, food, or fear.

He glanced skyward at the dim ring of fire that passed for this realm's sun. Just like the undead, it needed to consume fuel to persist—but someday, it too would sputter out, leaving only ashes and silence.

"Sorry," Old Bones said again, shaking his massive skull. "I truly can't remember what the beacon she gave me was. But I do recall her saying that, if I forgot, I should ask her brother. She said he was a clever young dragon."

Aurelian, it seemed, had expected that Old Bones' memory might decay.

Sieg stepped forward. "Mr. Old Bones, you said the beacon was something powerful enough to pierce the interplanar veil, correct?"

"Yes, that I remember," the bone dragon affirmed. "Only great power could reach her across planes."

"Then... isn't it possible that you yourself are the beacon?"

Old Bones froze in mid-air.

"I... am the beacon? Ah! Yes! That's right! I remember now! I am the beacon! But does that make sense for someone as weak as I am...? Well, forget it. That silver dragon claimed I could serve that role, so I must be able to."

He seemed unsure, even incredulous—but the realization belatedly struck home. His soulfire surged, igniting the broken bones of his wings, filling in the gaps with shimmering green flame. With a mighty beat of those blazing wings, the undead dragon soared high into the sky.

Up, higher, higher still. And then he began to chant deep, ancient syllables etched into the core of his soul, untouched even by centuries of erosion.

From below, Wang Yu and the others watched as the speck that Old Bones had become vanished into the clouds.

The ancient chant took effect. Deathly energy surged from every direction, drawn to him like moths to flame. Thick black fog spiraled skyward and converged above the basin.

And then, it formed: a colossal dragon's skull wrought entirely of necrotic magic manifested in the heavens. Its pressure alone sent waves crashing outward. Across the valley, even other undead fled in terror—including, unbelievably, several Abominations like the ones Old Bones had once mentioned.

"...He's terrifying," Avia breathed, eyes wide in awe. "Draconic spellcasting is done through the soul, not the mind. It's leagues beyond ordinary magic. With his raw power, Old Bones' spells might even outclass his physical strength. Most dragons are like that."

Wang Yu only watched, brow arched. A being so mighty, and yet his mind was already going. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth.

The necrotic dragon's head tilted back and howled, the sound laced with soul-rending force.

Though it wasn't aimed at them, the sheer aftershocks made Wang Yu's group stagger. They even annihilated countless lesser skeletons nearby by extinguishing their soulfire outright.

Old Bones was terrifyingly strong. The power of that spell alone justified Aurelian's choice to use Old Bones as a beacon.

As the phantom skull dissipated, Old Bones descended once more and landed in the heart of the basin. He lifted his head and gazed toward the sky.

"That... should do it," he said, half to himself. "She told me that would reach her. I hope I got it right."

He turned to Sieg, almost sheepishly. "I'd hate for her not to come because I forgot something again."

"It'll be fine," Sieg said gently, a faint smile on his lips. "A seventh-tier specialized draconic incantation is more than enough to send a message. We just have to wait."

Just then, Avia's voice rang out in Sieg's mind. "Professor, there are spatial fluctuations above our heads."

Sieg's head snapped up.

In the sky above the undead plane, a silver rift split the depths of space.

His memories of Aurelian's spellwork came rushing back. Silver dragons were naturally attuned to spatial magic, and his sister most of all. What would have been an insurmountable barrier for most was, for her, a matter of will. Sieg had no doubt that his sister was the one who had opened up the silver rift.

His gaze remained locked on the spatial rift as he waited for Aurelian to appear.

The next moment, a sleek, elegant form burst through the rift, her shimmering silver scales gleaming with radiant luster. Unlike the brutish bulk of many other dragons, Aurelian's form was lithe and graceful, that of a silver dragon in her full glory.

But the moment she crossed the threshold into this world, something strange occurred. All across her draconic body, countless translucent skeletal hands appeared from the void. Ghostly phantoms clung to her scales like the desperate grasp of drowning souls reaching for salvation.

This was the undead plane's suppression made manifest. Neither Sieg nor Avia had been affected in this fashion, but Aurelian's power clearly exceeded the threshold the plane could support. As a result, a physical force materialized to crush her as she passed into the plane.

"Wait, there's something behind her... Are those... Dragonfang Riders?!"

Sieg was about to call out to his long-lost sister when his voice caught in his throat. A host of black-robed figures surged forth in pursuit from within the rift she had opened.

They rode upon smaller draconic undead, creatures constructed from bones and fangs, bearing the features of dragons but lacking their size and majesty, as they chased Aurelian across the planar divide.

"Oh dear! It's those nasty fellows that were fighting that silver dragon—I'd better hide!"

Old Bones let out a high-pitched squawk of alarm and promptly began digging himself into the ground, flinging up clouds of dust as he frantically buried himself back in the basin exactly as they'd found him earlier.

"...So they are enemies?"

Wang Yu gave a side glance at the legendary bone dragon hastily entombing himself and deduced the truth from his panicked reaction. The black-robed figures were foes, pursuers who had followed Aurelian across planes.

"Those creatures they're riding—Dragonfang Beasts—are forged from dragon bones and fangs. As undead, they're immune to planar suppression. Judging from their numbers, we'll have to intervene."

𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Avia's eyes narrowed as she raised her hands. Mana flared at her fingertips as she prepared to cast.

By Aurelian's usual standards, these opponents would have posed no threat. But under the heavy suppression of the undead plane, her strength was severely diminished. In contrast, her pursuers seemed unaffected, leaving them a serious threat even to a dragon of her stature.

Aurelian twisted through the air, her flight graceful and swift as she evaded a barrage of obsidian beams and crackling spheres of necrotic energy. Then, with a sudden pivot, she opened her maw and unleashed a radiant beam of light straight into the enemy ranks.

An explosion of scorching brilliance tore through several Dragonfang Beasts and the black-robed riders atop them, reducing them to flaming fragments.

But the power of her breath had been blunted by the realm's suppression. It failed to scatter the enemy fully. Seizing the opportunity, the surviving riders fanned out, urging their mounts into a high-speed assault. In moments, they had surrounded her.

Unfazed, the silver dragon let out a low chant in the draconic tongue. Rings of silvery radiance shimmered into being around her, forming cross-shaped swords of light that hovered and spun—blades and shields at once, elegant and deadly.

More undead magic gathered as the black-robed attackers prepared for an aerial battle, but just then, a thunderous boom split the sky from below.

Before they could react, a figure sheathed in brutal crimson armor shot into the air like a rocket.

His ironclad fist, wreathed in surging fighting spirit, punched straight through the skull of a Dragonfang Beast. Its rider shrieked as he plummeted from the sky, his body smashing into the ground and breaking apart.

The other enemies turned in unison—only for another to be struck down in the very next instant.

A chain of hardened blood snapped outward, coiling around the neck of another undead mount and yanking the blood-armored knight forward like a bullet.

Wang Yu smashed into the next rider with explosive force, scattering bone and flesh in a crimson shockwave.

Avia and Sieg's coordinated spell had managed to launch Wang Yu, a grand knight unbound by planar suppression, into the heart of the enemy's formation...