Gronn flew in place, innately directing the flow of wind generated from the beating of his enormous wings around himself in such a way that he could hover naturally despite his sheer size. His yellowed eyes narrowed as he clenched his armor-plated jaws. He sensed the air around him, feeling the vibrations of movement flow past him from the wind.

It reminded him of the past, when he was a little salamander trying to survive in the harsh waters of the Valian mountain ranges as the humans called them. His senses had always been alert to the flow of power in the water, the vibrations of every creature that swam and dove, for at a moment's notice, he could be killed.

It was a feeling of alert instinct that came only to those that were hunted. The type of instinctive feeling that came only when death was near. A feeling he had long thought he had forgotten.

Gronn grunted and drew his wings together in front of him. They were almost as large as his entire body and were like twin greatshields, plated in thick black scales as they were. At their ends, two long, serrated, and curved spikes of bone sprouted.

Valerikynthimos would not lower herself to fighting him unless she had to. She would send her emerald wing dogs to do the job instead.

One of them approached, speeding forwards in an eager rush to obey his higher. His long, serpentine form streaked through the night sky. His for long, insectoid wings fluttered rapidly beneath his carapace plated head. His draconic eyes lit up green in the dark, and when they trained on Gronn, the pincers at the sides of his head opened up in a shrill roar before he curved his lengthy body, shooting out several spines attached along his back.

Gronn pushed his wings back, propelling him forwards as he closed his eyes, letting his armored eyelids cover the soft organs beneath. Three spines bounced off his sturdy armor, durable even among dragon kin, and he thrust out his wings, crashing the bone spikes at their tips into the body of the emerald clan drake.

The drake shrieked as the two spikes crunched through its carapace without meeting a shred of resistance, tearing through the length of its thin body and popping out the other side. Gronn opened his jaw, and sparks showered from his lips as the armor plating them scraped against each other.

Gronn's jaw was enormous, comprising nearly half his head in a strong overbite, and it was heavily padded not only with thick black armor-like scales, but also highly dense and powerful muscles.

Among dragons of his tier, Gronn's bite force ranked near the top, and combined with his brute force and immense regeneration, he did not think himself prideful to believe himself near the top of the normal dragons, especially within a close ranged brawl.

Though, compared to Valerikynthimos, a higher blood even among the higher ones, he was still nothing.

Gronn bit down into the emerald clan drake, and his jaw completely snapped the drake in half. He spat out a chunky mass of crunched up carapace and bloody flesh, and the two halves of the drake fell lifeless and curled up down to the ground so far below.

Gronn growled as he covered his head with his wings. Countless spines battered him from every which way, but none of them could pierce his hide. Notably, though, they all aimed near his head, knowing to try and gouge out his eyes. From the flow of vibrations in the wind, he guessed there were seven drakes from the amount of spines hitting him and the direction they came from.

They were all pitiful weaklings, and stacking seven of them together would do nothing to Gronn. But they knew he had to take the offensive for Valerikynthimos was coming.

Gronn pushed his wings forward, blowing himself backwards, as if to escape. Immediately, he could feel a difference in vibrations in the air. One of the emerald drakes was surging forward, trying to cut off his escape with its pincers, for though its spines were unable to harm Gronn, its pincers could pierce his scales and potentially even impart enough venom to harm him through his regeneration.

Gronn expected this, and when he sensed the drake was near, he flicked his wide, flared tail back, stopping his flight and turning him right around to bite down on the drake's head. He spat out a pulped up drake head as another corpse fell down below.

"Valerikynthimos!" roared Gronn. "You would let your dogs do your work for you!?"

Gronn only had a moment's notice to raise his wings up in a guard before he saw blinding light fill his vision. He felt searing heat at his wings, then at his chest, and then at his back, and he knew that within the span of a single second, an attack had torn through his entire body.

"You are as much a dog as any of them." Valerikynthimos did not so much come into vision as she did materialize, her form piecing together from a tornado of sparkling flakes of light. Her body was long and serpentine. Entirely white and smooth without scales, and instead, light shone from her body, forming in an aura of brightness that shone iridescently like a rainbow at its ends.

She was far larger than the emerald clan drakes that were half Gronn's size, matching him lengthwise, though her serpentine body was necessarily much thinner. And yet, Gronn knew that her power did not lie in her bulk.

No, her power came from her magic. The queen drake of the elements, as she was called by the mortals here, many of whom worshipped her. Her face was angular and sharp, her eyes inky black with no pupils. Pink whiskers swayed from the sides of her cheeks, and around her neck, four long, tendril like pink protrusions emerged, each of them surrounded with frills that glowed a different color.

"The only difference being that you are in need of more disciplining," said Valerikynthimos as the frills around her neck curled towards Gronn, each of them channeling enormous amounts of magical energy in the form of elements. Fire, water, wind, and earth all.

Gronn felt blood trickle from his jaw. His vision shook, and his body shuddered. She had fired a thinly concentrated beam of heat that had pierced through his heart. But he clenched his jaw firmly shut and called up his power.

The hole in his chest sealed up as his heart regenerated, and in a moment's notice, he was fine again, for as a dragon with a salamander base, he had never forgotten his roots, and the regenerative power he had cultivated ever since he was a salamander was second to none.

"You dare to enter these lands without fulfilling your duty?" said Valerikynthimos. "Without the quarry I asked for?" Her eyes narrowed. "But I am feeling rather generous today. I know there are a few of the unclean ones you have hidden away. Bring them to me along with the prey I assigned you, and perhaps, I may spare your life. For you do not truly believe you can defeat me, do you? You are not that stupid, are you?"

Gronn squinted at Valerikynthimos, seeing the radiant halo of light around her, feeling the prodigious amount of magical energy packed in them. How much stronger was she than him? Two times? Three? No, perhaps even four.

The now six emerald clan drakes fluttered around her, lowering their heads like the obedient dogs they were to her presence.

Gronn began to think.

He had always thought of the simple way forwards. A side product of his upbringing. Kill or be killed. Do or die. But the past few years had forced him to think beyond such a simple dichotomy. If he obeyed her now, he could live again, and he could try to escape from her watch and rescue the hatchlings. But he doubted she would let him travel alone anymore.

But perhaps, if he could reach that human, no, not human – he knew that by now – that greater one, the seer, as the mortals called him, perhaps things could be different.

And yet, as he looked upon Valerikynthimos, deep into the dark voids of her eyes, he knew what wanted to do.