Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1121: Chapter 1120: Gradual Awakening

A surprise?

Melita looked at the radiant smile on her friend’s face. Despite being full of things she wanted to share about her experiences on the Loren Continent, she couldn’t help but feel curious and expectant about the ”surprise” Nuoletta mentioned. With this anticipation, she returned with Nuoletta to their dwelling at the coastal camp.

The temporary house, made from recycled materials and large coastal rocks, was still simple, unable to compare to the once resplendent Upper Talronde Palace, and even less so to the houses in the current human countries on the Loren Continent. However, these shelters, built brick by brick by her fellow kin, still gave Melita a sense of peace. Passing through the now significantly expanded camp, she returned to the ”home” she had not seen in half a month. As she reached out and pushed open the door, that ”homecoming” feeling welled up inside her, making her break into a small, relieved smile, her mind easing.

Then she saw the dragon egg standing on the largest empty space inside the house, with magic symbols arranged around it — they evidently had functions of maintaining constant temperature and storing energy, emanating a warm aura and arcane circulation that slowly released, nurturing the egg with its pale yellow shell and light purple spots.

In a corner of the room, there was also an ovum cultivation capsule that was already in an open state; it was clear that the dragon egg was previously placed inside this container, but now, it had lost its function, with its hatch open and being used as a storage bin filled with Nuoletta’s personal belongings.

Melita: ”...”

”I adopted a dragon egg!” Nuoletta’s voice suddenly came from behind, startling Melita out of her daze, ”It’s a beautiful blue dragon, just like you — actually, at first, I wanted to adopt a white dragon, but after thinking it over, I wanted to watch a little version of Melita grow up bit by bit...”

A dragon egg, a dragon egg... Melita’s heart skipped a beat, and somehow, she was reminded of the moment not long ago in Dragonwatch Keep when she suddenly received a message from the Cecil Clan, her mind echoing with two phrases: ”About that dragon egg sent from Talronde...” ”It’s speaking...”

For the first time in her life, she realized she was allergic to the word ”dragon egg” — not to the dragon egg itself, but to the word.

”Melita?” Nuoletta noticed her friend fall silent and couldn’t help but show a worried expression, ”What’s wrong? Are you too tired from the long journey? Sorry, I only thought about giving you a surprise and forgot you needed rest...”

”Ah, no, it’s not that I’m tired, I just...” Melita opened her mouth, completely at a loss for where to start, and could only point at the dragon egg in the room, her mouth twitching twice, ”So, this is the surprise you prepared for me?”

”Yes,” Nuoletta nodded, a bit at a loss, as it was clear her friend’s reaction was far different from what she expected, ”Didn’t we discuss adopting a dragon egg before? But the application hadn’t been submitted when you suddenly got the task to go to Loren — during this period, the situation at the camp improved, food supply and everyone’s survival capability developed, and more dragon egg adoption quotas were opened by Agondale, so I applied for one, and unexpectedly, it got approved quickly...”

At this point, the White Dragon Lady looked at Melita with some concern in her eyes, ”Could it be that you don’t want to adopt anymore? But adopting a dragon egg is a very serious matter, once you apply, you can’t...”

”Ah, no, of course not,” Melita finally snapped out of the loop of those two phrases in her head, realizing that her reaction had led to a misunderstanding with Nuoletta, quickly waving her hands, ”I’m very happy, yes, we did talk about adopting a dragon egg before, and hatching another young dragon is also contributing to Talronde’s revival, which is a good thing — I was just a bit... surprised, and a little bit jumpy.”

”Jumpy?” Nuoletta looked Melita up and down suspiciously, ”What’s there to be jumpy about?”

Because the egg I sent to the Cecil Clan recently has already started talking, you know! Because the Dragon God has now turned into an egg that drinks tea, reads newspapers, and can even speak!!

Melita’s complexion changed a couple of times, but in the end, she swallowed all her words back — these matters must not be casually disclosed before reporting to higher-ups, even if Nuoletta is her friend.

”It’s nothing, maybe it’s just that I’ve experienced so much on the Loren Continent that I’m not quite adjusted yet,” the Blue Dragon Lady tugged at the corners of her mouth, giving an awkward smile, then focused her attention on the dragon egg in the center of the room. Once her thoughts calmed down, she finally began to feel the reality of the situation in front of her. As she looked at the dragon egg, her gaze softened involuntarily, ”A dragon egg... not long ago, I never thought I would ever choose to hatch a dragon egg... I always felt this kind of thing was far away from me, at least for the next twenty millennia wouldn’t have anything to do with me.”

Nuoletta watched Melita’s expression, seemingly sensing that the other party was hiding something, but their years of friendship made her stop herself from probing further into this issue, simply nodding gently, ”Of course I understand, after all, just like you, I’m a high-tier employee custom-made by the bio-company, without parents, without siblings, without inherent social relationships, with genetic adjustment making family inclination weaker. Normally, for upper-class Dragonkin like us, custom-made by the company, we might never hatch our own ’children’... but now everything has changed.”

Melita chuckled, curiously looking at the dragon egg, ”By the way, have you thought of a name yet?”

”Not yet, I’m planning to wait until the little one hatches,” Nuoletta shook her head, ”There are two other families in the camp who have also claimed their dragon eggs, everyone is waiting to name the young dragons after they hatch.”

”Family... it’s truly a distant concept for custom employees,” Melita couldn’t help but whisper a sigh, then suddenly became curious, ”But speaking of which, does this mean the young dragons we hatch have two ’mothers’?”

”And what’s the problem with that?” Nuoletta blinked, ”The young dragon next door will even have three fathers! After all, everyone’s adopting their dragon eggs — there aren’t many conditions for forming normal families in this wasteland now...”

Melita thought for a moment and suddenly felt that this didn’t seem all that wrong...

She immediately thought of a question: ”By the way, how much longer until our dragon egg hatches?”

”This dragon egg has already reached the third stage of incubation in the factory. Afterward, its protective capsule has been maintaining the egg’s viability, so it seems it will successfully hatch soon—perhaps in less than a month,” Nuoletta quickly responded. ”Now I have set it in a temperature-controlled environment, and I use my own magic power to supplement the consumption of these magic symbols every day—if you also come to help later, we can take turns staying by the egg’s side, which might even increase the incubation efficiency.”

Melita imagined the scene of herself trying to hatch the egg soon, and her expression involuntarily became strange. She couldn’t tell if it was anticipation or nervousness, but when she saw the smile on Nuoletta’s face and heard the sounds of her kin building the camp outside the door, those turbulent thoughts gradually calmed down, and her strange expression finally turned into a smile.

”Of course, I will come to help as soon as possible—but before that, I have to make a trip to Agondale; Speaker Andar and Leader Heragor are still waiting for my report.”

...

Highland City, Agondale—this was once the glorious name of this place. However, with that devastating war, the magnificent palaces that originally stood atop the mountain peaks have all turned to ashes. The sanctuaries and temples that citizens once prided themselves on have become mere echoes of the Mythological Age, preserved only in memory.

Nowadays, the reborn Agondale lies at the edge of the old city’s ruins, right at the foot of the main peak of Agondale. This area was once part of Lower Talronde. Before the war, it was crowded with densely packed, overlapping buildings and web-like three-dimensional traffic bridges that blocked the sky. Even on days of constant daylight, this area would be shrouded in an artificial twilight for most of the day—then, everything changed. The war destroyed everything, and it also shattered Talronde’s stratification. Those gigantic buildings and traffic grids that once blocked the sky have been melted into the earth’s surface. The remaining or newly constructed rudimentary buildings in the ruins... today are equally bathed in sunlight brought by the giant sun.

Heragor stood on a high platform in the center of this temporary ”capital,” and the distant scenes of the city were reflected in his pale golden vertical pupils: a group of dragons was cleaning up a large area of the ruins in the southwest corner of the city. In the absence of heavy machinery, they could only rely on their innate strength and magic to complete this onerous task. Fortunately, after such a long period of adaptation, even the Dragonkin who had been pampered to the point of nearly losing all survival skills by the ”cradle” had begun to grasp the labor skills. In terms of cooperation, the debris of the ruins, mainly composed of molten metal and high-strength polymers, is being cleared away in an orderly fashion.

The items cleared from the ruins would not be destroyed but are first sent to the nearest ”Disassembly Ground.” Under Andar’s guidance, the young Dragonkin were constructing large elemental smelting pits there using ancient wisdom. Balogar, before leaving, left behind blueprints and other materials to help the mechanics learn how to dismantle functional basic materials from decommissioned facilities.

The ”junk” dug up from the ruins would get a new identity at the disassembly ground: they are extremely valuable resources in the city’s rebuilding process.

Heragor watched the increasingly scaled architectural group in the city. Everything here was an expansion based on the recent ”Refugee Camp.” Although the scale has expanded several times, in essence, it still resembles a much-enlarged refugee camp: rugged yet practical temporary houses, public facilities built using the sturdy framework of old factories, simple machine stations and medical stations distributed throughout the city adhering to the ”barely enough” standard—even if they are arranged tidily, they don’t possess much aesthetic appeal.

Since the last time the ”fire beacon” was lit, Agondale has become the largest gathering place on this plain. More and more distressed kin are gathering in this refuge, some being found by patrol teams, others actively coming for asylum. These kin have alleviated the urgent need for labor, but they also severely test Agondale’s carrying capacity, so everything here strives for practicality—no matter how it looks, it must first ensure that the kin have a roof over their heads.

However, in Heragor’s view, this hastily established refugee city might lack aesthetic appeal, yet it carries another kind of soul-stirring ”beauty.” Those buildings, rough and even somewhat unsightly, are imbued with a certain vibrant energy—a ”soul” Dragonkin had lost for 1.87 million years. Compared with that, the once splendid and magnificent Talronde seemed more like an intricately carved mausoleum in Heragor’s eyes—its buried remains long since decayed.

The sound of footsteps came from beside him, waking Heragor from his thoughts. The former highest Dragon Priest turned towards the sound and saw the figure of Andar appearing at the high platform.

”The delegation led by Melita has returned from Loren,” Andar said to Heragor, ”They are now resting in ’Coastal Shire.’”

”Coastal Shire” is the name Dragonkin gave to the former advance camp on the Broken Shore. Now, as the scale of the camp gradually expands, the safety zone boundary around the Broken Shore is also becoming more stable. This name, which carries a hint of poetic beauty and hopeful longing, is slowly gaining some authenticity.

Heragor nodded: ”Their last message was the official formation of the theocracy Authority Council and the first batch of supplies from the Food Committee gathering at Cecil Northport soon—both pieces of news are enough to boost everyone’s morale, especially the second one.”

”We never expected the Loren Countries to organize such aid forces on such a large scale and so swiftly,” Andar said with emotion. ”Originally, according to our estimates, even if Melita convinced the wealthiest human countries in the shortest time, it would still take until the end of summer in the Northern Hemisphere—or even until late autumn—for the aid supplies to be ready. We would face a possible long duration of months of food shortages before then.”

”Gawain Cecil... this time, Talronde owes a significant favor,” Heragor said solemnly.

”Our gods seemed to have determined that this season’s greatest variable in civilization would focus on that human being before they left,” Andar mused. ”They even handed their legacy into his hands for this—even though we have escaped the Chains of Faith, we must still admit that the gods’ judgment reaches much further than that of mortals.”

”Legacy, huh...” Hearing Andar’s words, Heragor’s expression suddenly carried a bit of peculiarity, ”Actually, I am still not entirely certain if, when the god left, the message said to hand ’all of this’ to Gawain Cecil, whether that ’all’ included that egg—after all, that sentence can be interpreted in two ways, where ’all’ could also refer to the knowledge and intelligence aspects of ’all’...”

”Why did you suddenly think of this?” Andar couldn’t help but ask, ”We’ve already sent the egg over.”

”...True,” Heragor thought for a moment, then smiled in relief, ”Perhaps I’m just somewhat sensitive about this matter—regardless, this land was not only our former cage but also bound Him for millions of years. Now His ’legacy,’ left behind, can leave here for the distant Loren Continent; if He is still aware, He would likely be happy.”

”I think so too.”