Ch.3 — Planning (Updated)

("Do you know what happened?") She asked calmly in her slightly pleasant voice.

The baby dragon though surprised at the new voice it could somehow understand responded and shook its head.

("I see…") She responded before ultimately looking back at the child with growing fondness. She had suffered an injury in a battle many years ago that made her unable to reproduce, so she had no children of her own. Besides, this child and the other eggs needed someone to take care of them. Even if the clan really wasn't gone it was still within her rights as a clan elder to take a member of the clan as a disciple so long as his parents don't object... And well... they couldn't.

Ultimately she sighed, looking at the other temples around the chasm. Each of them had arrays engraved on them to activate portals to minor dimensions where other immortal elder black dragons survived. The majority of them were damaged so those elders were probably trapped in their minor dimensions, the others were still in seclusion blissfully unaware of the fact their clan was gone.

This made her frown deepen as she realized the clan was truly annihilated instantly. They didn't even manage to get a message to the elders of the clan.

She decided to remedy the ignorance of the elders she could reach. Soon within a few minutes, 5 temples had their archways filled with black marble transformed into doors and slam open revealing red portals.

Several immortal black dragons appeared from the portals that formed shortly after the opening of the gates. They all looked in sorrow as they sensed the scene of destruction around them. In the end, they looked over to the elder who called them out of seclusion… Reina Black, the youngest black dragon in the clan to cross her 3rd immortal tribulation in her generation. In fact, she was currently a peak 7th tribulation immortal.

Looking back at the baby dragon Reina had decided to adopt she asked him a question. ("Do you have a name?")

The baby tilted its head in confusion. It obviously didn't even know what a name was.

("It's like a title, though given by ones parents upon birth.") She explained causing the baby to shake its head looking longingly in a certain direction.

Reina spread her senses in that direction and realized what it meant, its mother was dead. She could feel the faint connection between those 2.

It was then the baby's stomach growled, it was hungry again. Reina smiled and decided to look through her spatial storage to see if she had anything it could eat. Unfortunately, she only had immortal beast meat. These immortal beasts had condensed their vital energy into vital essence and evolved their vital essence into prana. This prana would harm the baby as it's simply too strong for a 1 week old baby dragon to bear.

She looked at the baby apologetically ("I'll get you some food in a bit, good job surviving until now.")

The baby gave a pitiful glance at her before simply curling up on the ground. It had had enough excitement for today, it was still a baby after all. It was used to bearing with hunger anyways. Until now it had merely been getting enough food to survive, only occasionally getting enough to grow like it should be.

While this was happening the other elders were communicating with each other.

("All of you, come here.") Reina's voice resounded in their heads and they obliged, not minding her slightly rude tone. They all understood this situation was enough to unsettle any one of them. Besides, out of the 6 immortal elders who aren't trapped in their minor dimension she was the strongest presence. As dragons, they respected this strength of hers so they didn't mind her tone so long as she doesn't insult their pride.

Flying over, the other 5 dragons soon arrived in front of her. They gave a light bow of respect before deciding to begin the talks.

Seeing some familiar faces her eyes softened briefly before going stoic again. She started speaking in dragon tongue. "We need to decide on a course of action, I don't need to remind you that people will eventually find out about our massive decline. Greedy individuals may come looking for treasure."

The other 5 elders nodded with a frown. Every one of them was an immortal, with the weakest of them having completed their 3rd tribulation. However, fighting wasn't an option. They noticed that some eggs had indeed survived, and as the last members of the clan, it was their duty to take care of those eggs. If they were to stay here and fight anyone who comes, they run the risk of killing the remaining children. All of them could at least agree on this.

"I say we focus on repairing the arrays on the other temples and get the other guardians and leave." One of them, the only other 7th tribulation immortal spoke.

The others nodded, it was then that one of them, a 4th tribulation immortal spoke hesitantly. "What if we take the resources from the treasuries and run? Fewer people means more resources for all of us…"

Reina couldn't help but inwardly agree that he had a point. However, she snorted in disdain and spoke up against it. "No, quite frankly if we do that then we're compromising our security and it will take that much longer to recover. Besides I only count about 1000 corpses, the clan should have 10,000 members which means the others are safe."

Another shook her head and spoke. This dragon is the youngest of the elders currently out.

The dragon that shook her head at Reina's statement informed Reina that the clan had in fact been declining for a while. Of the 12 treasuries, only 3 had anything in them. The 10,000-dragon-strong black dragon clan Reina was familiar with had declined to just 1000 dragons over the past 500 years. Reina had been in seclusion for 1150 years so it was understandable she didn't know.

The clan that used to have several dozen drake clans and several wyvern clans under its rule was also long gone. Only a few drake clans and 1 wyvern clan remained under their direct lordship.

Reina was mortified hearing this. "Why was I not informed?!"

"Well, despite your seclusion you had come out several times. Each time you never asked about the dwindling numbers… we thought someone had already informed you." The youngest of the elders who had become an immortal elder of the clan 50 years ago explained.

Due to being one of the youngest elders, this dragon was in fact only a 3rd tribulation phase immortal.