Walking through the forest, finally alone, Oathria took a long, sorrowful breath.
She looked down at her still-intact left hand, clenching and unclenching it. Then her gaze fell to her torn right arm. Seeing her own reflection on the river's surface had been a brutal reality check.
Oathria knew she had always been a monster. The terrifying kind whose mere presence made the forest's critters burrow into the ground and the very trees tremble in fear.
Now she wasn't just a monster. She was an ugly monster.
A mangled cheek and jaw… a torn arm, a broken leg, not even intact horns.
She had a hunch Sees was avoiding asking what happened to her. Perhaps out of pity.
Pathetic.
Rubbing the center of her chest, she felt the bond with him, his name etched into her very soul.
Such a good man…
No! He was just a little boy seventeen years ago!
"GRH!"
CRASH! CRACKLE—
Oathria's face grew paler as she slammed her forehead into a nearby tree, splintering the trunk in two.
"You've outdone yourself, Oathria!" she snarled at herself.
Shameless!
Why would the gods answer her dying wish, the whim of wanting to bond with a good, talented man like him? She had been ready to die! Why become so pathetic in her final moments?!
Well, yes, she would be considered young for a dragon, but she was still ancient for him. Twenty-five years… he had barely lived. She never understood how other beasts her age could take young human men as their grooms, though she supposed the logic was there… to bond with them while they were still in their prime.
After bonding with a human, a beast could extend their mate's life to match their own.
A dragon's life expectancy stretched for three, four thousand years. The oldest could reach five millennia. And the stronger they were, the longer they could cling to life.
To be bonded with her… that would be a special kind of cruelty for a human. Their minds and souls weren't made to endure for five thousand years. And to be shackled to her on top of that would be a fate worse than the death she had originally sought.
Unless, as she had so jokingly mused last night, it was fate.
Oathria coldly scoffed. Fate? Her?
But at the very least, she could still be of use to him. This divine intervention, saving them both… it had to mean something.
And that something was clear. It means, the news about the emergence of the "real" prophet had to be a lie.
Last night, she was truly about to die. It was strange that when she woke, her wounds no longer festered. Yes, there were still exposed bones and mangled flesh, but there was no pain. She was… fine.
Well, of course she was functionally fine. She was a dragon. These outer wounds could be fixed with enough mana and self-medication. Even the torn bits could be restored in time.
No, what she was talking about was her inner wound. The reason her outer wounds had festered, refusing to regenerate and burning with a constant, searing pain, was because the damage inside was killing her. A rot that no poultice or spell could touch.
This was why she now believed, with every fiber of her being, that Cecilius Araceli was a true Prophet.
He had healed something even a Dragon Empress, Lord of the Dragons, could not heal herself.
There was a certain point in a dragon's life where they knew their own body better than any other being. A miracle doctor? Dragons were so rare that even the best physician in the world wouldn't have enough experience to cure them. Nor would they live long enough to gain it.
That was how dragons had survived as a long-living species. They evolved to become their own healers, inventing new medicines from mythically rare ingredients, pioneering regenerative magics, and becoming the one superior race that could take a form closest to humans.
But Prophet Cecilius had surpassed all of that.
Somehow.
So, how could anyone dare to call him fake?
Alright, perhaps this 'real' prophet they'd brought in to replace him could see the future. But could he do what Cecilius did?
Not only that, Cecilius was the only human—no, the only person she knew who could live without a heart, and bond without a heart.
Wouldn't that, by definition, make him something closer to a god?
Thanks to their bond, he could now extract her magic and continue living. Humans couldn't use magic without a bond to a beast. But never mind his current achievements. Even in the past, without a bond, he had answered a question of hers that no one else could.
After that, he had ventured out to become a figure people looked up to, solving both problems of the mind and problems of the heart.
The peace between Werebears and Werefoxes… solving the murder of a human kingdom's Prime Minister… stopping the attack on the Werejaguars' Tribe a full week before it happened…
If people claimed he had no foresight ability, then wouldn't his accomplishments be even more impressive?
"Unfair…" she darkly chuckled to herself. For a man of such caliber to be born in a human body…
His human form must have been a cage. A limitation. And now, thanks to 'fate' or whatever this was, he could use her magic… and finally reach his true, unfettered potential.
And such potential required sustenance.
She floated quickly under the shade of trees, her feet touching the ground only when necessary. Her heightened senses caught something half a mile away, and she stopped, blinking once.
Her narrowed eyes pinpointed a lone boar. Disgust, mixed with a flicker of regret, painted her half-mangled, still-devastatingly-beautiful face. "If I bring you to Prophet Cecilius… he'd actually believe I have a taste for orc meat."
The boar was lucky today.
After wandering a while longer, she found herself at the edge of a large clearing where a herd of elk grazed. These animals had evolved to sense the presence of dangerous beings like her, but not so well that she couldn't mask her aura with a simple breathing exercise and a suppression of her mana. No need to scare them off just yet.
She stopped at the tree line and unhurriedly opened her mouth.
"Hear."
One word, spoken with the weight of her Dragon Tongue, and the elk herd froze mid-movement, turning their heads in unison toward the sound of ultimate authority.
Wild animals might not form complex thoughts, but in the presence of the Dragon Empress, the Lord of the Lords of Beasts, instinct took over. They knew they couldn't outrun her. They knew their only choice was to obey.
"In the name of the God who made me, I, Oathria Alicei, offer you an opportunity," her voice echoed in their minds. "Sacrifice your body to be sustenance for myself and my beloved. In return…"
She stood at the edge of the shade, looking down upon the herd. "Whichever of you dares to step forward, I will grant you the most painless death this world can offer. You will be free from the burden of existence, the worry of growing old, the biting cold, the gnawing hunger, and the fear of illness."
She whispered her compelling promise.
"Come to me."
Her left hand reached forward, palm open, calling forth. Her cold eyes warmed, a gentle smile gracing her lips.
Then she blinked, her majestic composure faltering for a second as the entire herd began to walk toward her.
"Ahem…" she cleared her throat. "...one. One of you."
It occurred to her that she had never actually gone hunting for food before…