Chapter 1 — The fire on love
It had been three weeks since the Mysterious Village Incident.
January's cold wrapped the world outside in ice, but inside the small house, the crackling of firewood kept it warm — peaceful even.
Night had fallen.
Strom sat on the chair, leaning back, watching Dravyss — in her human form — peeling apples and removing the stems one by one.
Strom: "So we're eating apple pie tomorrow?"
Dravyss: "Yes. And I've got a new recipe too."
Strom: "Sounds tasty."
Dravyss (frowning): "Strom! Go to sleep — you're still running a fever."
Strom: "Come on, Mom, it's been four days already. I'm fine."
Dravyss: "No. Your fever's getting worse. Rest, now."
Strom: "Okay, okay… Mom wins again."
He dragged himself to bed, and after a while, Dravyss too went to sleep, the warm glow of the fire slowly fading.
Next Morning
The sun spilled through the window — golden and calm.
Dravyss hummed in the kitchen while Strom sat quietly on the chair, soaking the sun light.
That's when he saw her.
Wraith — walking toward the house, her face half-covered, hiding her horns beneath the hood.
But then—
A villager swung a thick iron rod at her from behind. Another followed.
Before Wraith could react, they surrounded her — fire torches, iron bars, and hate burning in their eyes.
Then came the smell — kerosene.
The flame roared.
Wraith screamed in pain as flame consumed her in seconds.
Strom's eyes widened — rage replacing shock.
He charged into the crowd, shoving people aside, spear drawn. His coat burned at the edges, but he didn't care.
He reached her.
With one arm, he lifted Wraith — burned, shaking, barely alive — and with the other, he aimed his spear at the mob.
The villagers froze.
That's when they saw it — no armor but with weapon, the rage in his eyes.
The truth spread like lightning.
Strom is not baker ,he was The Dragon Knight.
Step by step, Strom backed away — spear pointed at them, Wraith in his arms.
He didn't care about revenge.
Only Wraith matter for him.
He kicked his door open.
Dravyss ran from the kitchen, eyes widening at the sight of her son and half-dead Wraith.
Strom: "Mom! Water — now!"
Dravyss didn't ask questions.
Bucket after bucket, she poured water over Wraith's body. Steam rose. The smell of burnt flesh filled the room.
After seven buckets, Wraith finally gasped — weak, trembling, eyes full of tears.
Wraith: "I swear… I didn't do anything wrong…"
Strom (pulling her close): "I know, Wraith. I know."
Dravyss looked around the empty village streets.
Dravyss: "Where did they go?"
Strom's rage broke loose — his voice was ice and fire together.
Strom: "Mom, hold her. I'll be back."
But Wraith grabbed his arm, terrified.
Wraith: "Strom, please. Don't leave me. Please— not now!"
Her voice cracked — part pain, part fear.
The way she clung to him made his chest ache.
He hesitated, his spear still glowing faintly in anger but he lose infront of love.
Then, he sat beside her and wrapped her in his arms.
Strom: "Don't worry, Wraith. I'm not leaving you. Never."
The world outside stayed silent — too silent.
The fire crackled softly.
But something unseen was already watching them through the window.
Chapter 2 — Blood Loss
Next morning Strom tucked Wraith's cloak tighter around her and hefted his spear. She wasn't safe here. He walked her to Astrid's house, left her in good hands, and didn't bother to hide the truth anymore — if the villagers realized the baker was the Dragon Knight, so be it. Right now there was only one thing on his mind: Vengeance.
He almost reached his house when something caught his eye — a familiar shape, slumped behind a flower pot.
"Mom!" Strom didn't run. He moved like a living blade.
Dravyss lay there, blood dark on her clothes, marks from iron rods and knives gouging her skin. Her breathing was shallow, the kind of slow inhale that still meant a thread of life. That thread was everything. Strom scooped her into his arms and fell into a run.
Back home he worked like a man possessed: bandages, hot water, anything that would hold the bleeding back. He didn't leave her side. He sat on the floor and watched her, fingers locked around hers until sunrise.
A day passed.
When Dravyss finally opened her eyes, the room was quiet except for Strom's ragged breathing.
"Strom?" Her voice was a whisper, fragile as paper.
"Yes mom ,I'm here." He blinked away from exhaustion.
Strom: "Don't you dare—don't you ever do that to me again, you don't know how much its hurt to me when you bleed."
Dravyss: "Its nothing , they caught me off guard"
Strom ( asking ): "Who did this?, I swear, I'll— I'll cut their heads off and lay them at your feet."
Dravyss ( smile weakly ): "I believe you, Strom, but I don't know them. New faces."
Strom: "Any clue?"
Dravyss ( remembering ): "They came to the door. One of them asked for an address — I saw a scrap of paper. Before I could answer they struck. First a blow to the head, then blades. I didn't get a single second to breathe properly."
Strom: "They will pay for that"
He wanted to go find them right then. He wanted to tear those Villagers apart with his bare hands. But he put his hand on Dravyss's, because she mattered more. He refused to leave her like a broken thing.
Dravyss: "Rest, son, I'll be fine."
Strom sat at her feet and closed his eyes. Silence filled the room — a silence that tasted like iron and smoke.
Strom: "Sorry, Mom,"
Dravyss ( answered ): "It's not your fault, Strom,"
Something inside him snapped tighter. Two lines had been crossed: Wraith, then Dravyss — the people who meant the most to him. If those attackers showed their faces again, Strom would not be merciful. He promised himself that, and the promise burned hotter than any fever now.
Chapter 3 — Not This Time
Dravyss had told him about the address on the scrap of paper. Strom strapped his spear to his back, lock the door from the outside, and left the latch tight.
Strom: "Mom, I'll be back. Don't let anyone in."
Dravyss: "Okay,"
She wasn't the same woman who'd been taken by surprise. The attack had rattled her — but it had also lit something cold and hard inside.
If anyone came at her again thinking they'd find a middle‑aged baker woman., they'd instead find a blue dragon waiting for them.
Strom moved through the village, asking questions, following the crooked path the scrap hinted at. From Dravyss's window she watched the road like a hawk. His Dragon's eyes never left a single lane.
Then Dravyss saw Nia approaching, calm and careless as ever. A man lingered behind her — the sort who slung an iron rod like a promise.
Dravyss watched him. Her breath went still. Her anger snapped in seconds.
"Not this time."
She didn't think, she didn't hesitate. She became. Scales erupted, bones reformed, and in a burst of blue fury the house shattered as she tore out into the street.
Nia froze. "Aunt Dravyss— it's me!"
Dravyss's jaws closed around the air near Nia's throat, not to kill but to show how close she'd been to losing her. Her face — stark, terrible, majestic — was a nightmare pressed into flesh.
The man who had followed Nia was gone now. Maybe he ran away. Maybe he was never meant to be caught. The villagers, though, saw the dragon clearly now. They saw Strom's mother and they put two and two together.
Dravyss ( angery ): "No one will dare to touch my daughter,"
The revelation rippled through the settlement faster than any alarm. People backed away from blue scales and a fury that smelled of old war.
Meanwhile, Strom had reached the address. The house looked wrong in his memory and right — the same crooked table, the same cracked windows.
He pushed open the door and the past hit him like a meteor. It was his real parents' house. Things were frozen where he remembered them from fourteen years ago, as if time had been asked politely to stand still.
Strom ( whispering confused ): "Why they want this address?"
He searched every corner for a clue; a scrap, a footprint, anything. He found nothing but the old smells and the ghost of laughter. He locked the door after one last look and left.
When he came home later, half the place was ruined. The yard had been trampled, his walls scored by iron and boots. Inside, a letter — Dravyss's handwriting — lay on the table.
"Son — the same thing was going to happen to Nia. I couldn't wait. I transformed. I'm sorry for the loss but now we're heading to Astrid's. Come. — 'Mom'"
Rage lit Strom like dry tinder. He gathered fistfuls of rock and hurled them into the sky as if throwing his grief up at the moon.
Strom ( Blinded in rage ): "These insects don't deserve happiness,"
He let his hand fall.
The sky answered.
A rain of fiery stones ripped the village apart. Houses exploded into splinters. Screams were swallowed by thunder. Old civilian, children, innocent people,anyone in the square — none had a chance against that sudden, terrible justice.
This was not the measured strike of the Dragon Knight. This was the raw, animal howl of a boy whose family had been hunted.
When the dust settled, the village was a ruin of ash, broken wood and dead bodies. Strom walked through it like someone passing through the bones of a defeated world, cold and unblinking. He left no mercy in heart, he leave kindness behind and walk away.
He turned toward Astrid's house.
The hunt for whoever had sent those men had just become blood on his hands.
Chapter 4 — The Maniac
Strom walked toward the Valkyrie territory, cold as ice ,no mercy ,his heart a frozen shard of fury and grief. Every step echoed the emptiness inside him. Then he saw it—flames licking the night sky, smoke curling like serpents into the darkness.
It wasn't just any fire—it was Astrid's house. Without a second thought, Strom sprinted toward it, ignoring the burning embers biting his skin, ignoring the pain in his hands as the heat singed his cape. His vision was tunnelled on one thing: finding them.
Inside the inferno, he saw the charred bodies of his friends, his family, his love....
Sam, Nia, Flowra, Wraith, Dravyss… all lifeless. He froze, chest tightening as his world shattered, but the question that burned brighter than any flame: Where is Astrid?
Then, among the ruins, a figure. Astrid lay bleeding, her massive sword plunged into the ground through her chest, her body trembling and barely holding on.
Strom reached her, trying to pull the sword free, but Astrid stopped him, her eyes faint but determined.
Astrid: "Strom… please… its hurts more."
Strom: "But Astrid… this will kill you!"
Astrid: "I have nothing left to live for… only because of you, Strom."
Strom ( confused ): "Me?"
Astrid: "You left us… to die here. It's your fault… you failed us…"
Her body went cold and still. Strom's hands trembled as he realized she was gone. Everyone, everything… erased by some unknown enemy. Rage and despair collided in his chest.
He grabbed the hilt of Astrid's sword, pushing it further into the ground, and then—he laughed. A chilling, maniacal laugh, the kind that twisted the air around him.
Strom: "I failed you all… I couldn't save anyone… all are dead."
The sound of his laughter echoed like thunder across the Smokey landscape. He fall in his knees, grin stretched into something terrifyingly inhuman.
Strom: "No one is alive… and no one will be."
His dragon blood boiled in his veins, his vision blurred with rage, and finally, the world went black as his mind and body surrendered to fury.
He laughed until collapsed on the ground.
Chapter 5 — The Ash of the Village
Strom awoke—not beside Astrid's body, but amid the ashes of the mysterious village, the same place he had come to solve a case for money, the same village where illusion had trapped him before.
His eyes glowed red, blood trickling from nose and mouth. As he tried to rise, a headache unlike anything before tore through him—a pain so sharp it threatened to make him scream. He fell, struggled, tried again. Only on the third attempt was he finally able to stand again.
It wasn't three weeks later. It was the same night, the night he had solved the village mystery. The night everything had begun.
Strom: "But… how is that even possible?"
A voice echoed in his skull, cold and mocking.
Demon Lord: "Hey, Knight… enjoying my little play?"
Strom: "So… it was you."
Demon Lord: "Yes. One small mistake, and look… you're scared now. I didn't even have to touch your little world to break you apart."
Strom: "What mistake?"
Demon Lord: "Why should I tell you? Hahaha!"
The voice vanished. Strom's eyes caught a glimmer—a tiny cut on his knuckle, almost invisible in the darkness. The truth hit him like a dagger: his blood had allowed the Demon Lord to possess him.
He ran towards the mirror in the burning forest, every step agony. And there it was— the broken mirror and a shard of broken glass with a single drop of his blood, and inside it… the Demon Lord, watching, waiting, hunting.
Demon Lord: "Did you understand now?"
Strom: "You think you can control me?"
Demon Lord: "You're angry now. Your dragon blood shields you… but when it cools… I'll kill you."
Strom: "This all because of a drop of my blood…"
He gritted his teeth, trembling with both exhaustion and rage. Without hesitation, he picked up the shard and ran toward the river. The shard felt impossibly heavy, like carrying the weight of his own mortality.
He reached the flowing water and hurled the shard in, watching the blood dissolve and the mirror sink into the dark, rushing currents. Slowly, the headache began to fade. The Demon Lord's influence loosened, shrieking in frustration as it lost its hold
Strom: "No one can controls me."
Demon Lord: "You will still… regret ki—"
The voice cut off. Strom didn't listen properly and he don't even want to, washing his face in the cold water, and turned away—not toward his home, but toward the burning pit in the forest.
Strom: "Goodbye, Rose."
He threw his steel bangle into the flames and walked away, leaving the ashes behind.
Aftermath — Return Home
It took days to reach his house. Each step was heavy, his body aching, exhaustion clawing at him, but as soon as he saw her, all the pain, all the tension, all the horror of the past weeks melted away like ice under fire.
On the bench in front of his house sat Wraith, quiet and still, her posture heavy with longing and sadness. Her eyes were fixed on the horizon, as if hoping against hope that someone—he—would come.
Then, she saw him.
Her face lit up like the first sunbeam cutting through a dark morning. Heart pounding, she ran towards him, feet barely touching the ground, wind playing with her hair.
Before she could speak, before she could even ask a question, Strom caught her in a tight embrace. His arms wrapped around her like the world itself could not tear them apart.
Strom ( pure love ): "I love you, Wraith."
Her eyes widened, her heart soaring. For her, it was not just words, but a pure, sacred promise—no cruelty, no harshness, just pure love that she ever wanted.
Dravyss appeared beside them, calm yet strong as ever.
Dravyss: "Strom… I've been waiting here too."
Strom: "Sorry, Mom…"
Dravyss leaned forward, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead.
Dravyss: "My dragon knight."
And in that embrace, in that moment, all the horrors, all the nightmares, all the fires and bloodshed felt distant. For the first time in weeks, the world seemed whole again and it's not a dream.