Epilogue: No more failures

Silence reigned in the Arapaina Gorge. Three days and three nights had passed since that fateful battle and all that time the clouds had covered the sun, as if the sky did not want the warm rays of the celestial body to touch that land where a massacre had taken place. There was not much noise in that area; normally a battlefield would have been extremely noisy, due to the calls of crows and vultures or the continuous buzzing of flies attracted by corpses. But this time there were no dead bodies around, and the animals were already scarce near the Arapaina Gorge due to the rocky and infertile terrain. Apart from the continuous roar of the water of the river released after thousands of years from its underground prison, not a single sound crossed the air of that barren land.

Suddenly a noise was heard. A loud rumble, as if the river were again splitting the rock that imprisoned him underground. But this time it was coming from a pile of stones placed on the side of the gorge, which was visibly shaking. Rocks began rolling away from the top and sides, as if immense pressure was emerging from within; then the whole mound seemed to rise, and finally exploded under some mysterious force. Stones weighing several tons were hurled in every direction as if thrown from a catapult, shattering everything they came in contact with and kicking up a great cloud of dust. When the dust cleared, the figure of a lizardman, or rather, a hybrid between a lizardman and a snakeman had appeared where the pile had previously been, his arms raised as if he had just pushed something heavy away and an expression of fatigue and anger painted on the face.

Finally free from his prison of stones, Carrion took a deep breath and let his lungs fill with the clean air of the outside, very different from the little vicious and stale air he had available under the rocks. He moved his body several times, stretching and cracking the bones, which had remained motionless for too long. His numb muscles were finally able to activate again and his limbs were once again able to revel in the ability to sit, stand or even walk.

It had taken Carrion three days to fully recover and finally be able to free himself. Haku had been able to debilitate him much more than he imagined. Even though he didn't have anything broken or seriously injured, it had still been really uncomfortable being buried all this time, and his body ached from the constant stillness. Furthermore, he hadn't been able to eat or drink for three days, and even if his physique was of a legendary level, he still suffered from the absence of these two precious elements. Consequently, the first thing Carrion did was trudge down to the river to drink some water.

Over the course of those three days, the river had made a whole new bed. Due to the collapse of the rock caused by the explosion of water, the tunnel had been closed and as a result the water was now continuously emerging from the hole in the center of the gorge, which had widened more and more as the force of the current eroded and it weakened the rest of the weak stone ceiling. So now there was a cascade of water emerging from underground and flowing halfway down the Arapaina Gorge, pouring out and going who knows where, until it probably would meet another river and pour in. It was likely that over the next few months and years the water would form a stable and lasting river, just like the ancient river that presumably flowed through the land thousands of years before. It was incredible to think that the plan of an immature dragon had reshaped the landscape completely and forever, something that nature would have taken millennia to do.

Carrion dipped his hands into the river and drew up a large quantity of water which he drank greedily. He repeated the operation a couple of times, then finally felt thirsty. Looking down he saw his reflection. The glorious high royal general was now reduced to an individual so heavily soiled with dust that his skin had almost turned white, or perhaps simply grayed from the absence of sunlight. Carrion took some water and dropped it on his head, cleaning himself at least a little. However, his image continued to disgust him, not so much for the dirt that covered his face, but for the horrendous lizard snout, the scales that covered it and the monstrous snake eyes that he kept seeing reflected in the water. A reflex that disgusted him to the point of making him want to vomit. Almost without realizing it, he punched the river water, generating a small wave, and his tail began to emit a rattle similar to that of a snake. Very quickly he reactivated his disguise, and the hideous lizardman/snakeman hybrid he was transformed into a handsome human; even if no one was there to see him, he still didn't feel comfortable showing himself for what he really was, walking around wearing that skin he hated so much.

And now?

He had freed himself, quenched his thirst and cleaned himself up. Now what was he to do?

He had lost, he knew it. That accursed dragon, that spawn of evil, was sadly right. Years of preparation, years of planning, years spent designing everything down to the smallest detail, calculating every contingency, evaluating every possibility, thwarted by the work of a single dragon. Now all her hard work had gone up in smoke. All his soldiers were dead and he didn't even have the chance to bury them, the prisoners had escaped and now had a lot of advantage over him, and once he returned to the king he would already know everything and would punish him by preventing him from doing anything else. action in the Province of Baudonia.

It had been a total failure. He had failed the goddess Heloisa, the one who had given him the task of cleansing the evil from that land, and he had been unable to fulfill his glorious purpose. He wouldn't have been surprised if the goddess had decided to punish him by depriving him of his powers, or by killing him on the spot with a thunderbolt. A legendary level that was beaten by a few years old dragon... if it had been known around, Carrion would have become a real joke. And it probably already was: the beastmen who served that malicious dragon were probably laughing at him now, taunting him at his defeat, and would have told that story to their children and descendants.

Carrion gnashed his teeth ferociously, mad with rage. It had all been that dragon's fault. It was he, the monster, the spawn of evil, the servant of destruction, the bringer of chaos, the embodiment of cruelty and deceit; he was the one who messed it all up. Without him, the plan would have worked out perfectly. But he had stepped in and screwed it up, thwarting years of ingenious schemes and plans. "Haku..." Carrion murmured almost chewing that name, and in anger he grabbed a stone and crumbled it between his fingers.

It had been his fault too, he knew that. Carrion was furious with himself for that. He had done the worst of crimes for a general: he had underestimated the enemy. He had deluded himself that since he was a young dragon, Haku couldn't do much against him and he could easily defeat him using his divine power. He had been a fool, a fool; he had allowed her strength to cloud his judgment. It was known how cunning and mischievous dragons were; Carrion should have foreseen that Haku would outsmart him. He should have acted more cautiously, assessed the situation better, sent more spies. Instead he had let himself be screwed like an idiot. And his men had paid the price for his huge mistake.

Carrion gazed stricken across the Arapaina Gorge, trying to at least glimpse a body anywhere, or even a piece of it, in order to give someone a proper burial, but he knew the dragon would leave nothing behind. He and his minions had killed everyone and taken everything away. It almost seemed to Carrion that Haku had only spared him to offend him further, as if wanting him to feel guilty for his failure and be fully aware of his defeat. Knowing dragons, it wouldn't have been so far-fetched. It almost seemed like the final line of a tragic poem: the lone general helplessly watching the battlefield where by now not a single man was still present, fully aware of his mistakes and with nothing left but his despair and rage.

His eyes gleamed with pure fury. No, he wasn't helpless. He had lost everything, but still had his divine power. He could still do something, he could still react. He had failed in his sacred purpose to cleanse the land of evil beastmen… but he could still prevent a far greater danger from befalling the kingdom in the future.

While he was angry at his defeat and the deaths of his men, he didn't care much that he lost and was discovered by the king. He knew he wasn't going to get too bad a sentence and that over the years he might get another chance. After all, the legendary levels had a slightly longer lifespan than normal mortals, and furthermore Carrion, as much as he despised his hybrid body, knew that his lizardman and snakeman blood gave him an even longer lifespan, since these two races they lived slightly longer than humans. So for Carrion, who was still quite young even by mortal standards, let alone those of the legendary levels, waiting a few years was no problem. He would calmly formulate a new plan and come to the fore when the time was right, and one way or another he would purge the accursed breed of beastmen from the land.

However, he didn't have that much time for his other purpose: kill Haku.

That dragon was too dangerous to be left alive. He was barely a few years old and still managed to destroy an army, blackmail a king, and humiliate to a legendary level, and he might as well have killed him if he wanted to. There was no doubt that the more time passed, the more it would become a huge risk not only for the Jurao Kingdom, but for every nation in the world. Haku had to die, and soon, before it was too late. If Carrion could afford to wait decades to exterminate the beastmen, he knew he couldn't wait too long with Haku: if that dragon reached adulthood, then not even he, a legendary level, would have been able to stop him. His power combined with his intelligence would have made him invincible. He would have eliminated anyone who tried to oppose him and level whole nations to the ground, and there was no doubt that he would have started with the Jurao Kingdom, the country that had offended him the most by imprisoning him for a year. Carrion could almost see Haku, now in his adult form, covering the sun with his wings and unleashing destruction on the capital, while everything and everyone was devoured by the flames and the dragon laughed maliciously in the sky reveling in all that suffering.

There was only one solution: to eliminate him now that he was still weak. If he waited too long, he would have had no other chances. Therefore he had to act now. Carrion knew that going back to the king and telling him this would have been useless: even if he had agreed to listen to him after what he had done, he certainly would never have moved against Haku. From what he understood, the dragon had the entire kingdom in his grip. It was impossible for the monarch to choose to endanger the people by pursuing the dragon. But Carrion wasn't the king, and he knew that sometimes it was necessary to make sacrifices. It was better to risk a part of the people by going after Haku right now than to risk everything by letting him live. Also, Carrion was a single man; he could hide well enough, and perhaps get close enough to slay that dragon before he could issue orders that endangered the nation... although he would hardly be able to fool a dragon's sense of smell or hearing.

In any case, he had to try. He wouldn't make the same mistake: this time he wouldn't underestimate the enemy. He would have faced him aware of his danger, and would not have wasted time chatting: he would have killed him immediately as soon as he revealed himself before his eyes. This was his purpose, his new task. And this time he wasn't going to fail.

The divine power stirred in his body and lifted him, sending him flying over the high walls of the Arapaina Gorge, and then he headed north following the tracks left by the enemy army.