In response to the Dragoness' words, the Elder revealed a mocking smile as he slowly got back to his feet and pointed the tip of the glowing azure sword towards her. "Ha, like you were going to let me walk away."

The Elder swept his arm around, indicating his fallen subordinates. "Now its come to this, no I guess it has never been a possibility, I know it's foolish to try and take you alive. Only one of us will be leaving this cave alive."

The dragoness didn't respond, her cold, reptilian eyes analysing the Chosen in front of her causing the Elder's hairs to stand on end.

"Anyway," continued the Elder, uncomfortable with the silence. "Can you even stand after using that taboo spell? Your presence is so faint I can barely sense it, and I am certain your weakness isn't fake this time."

While his words sounded arrogant and provoking, it was an act. The Elder knew he couldn't afford to commit the same mistakes that had led to the current situation.

In the past, common sense would have told him that the dragoness wouldn't be able to stand, let alone fight. That the essence inside of Kaltheia's body, as well as her core, was all but gone but he still couldn't feel at ease.

Having reassured himself that he would not underestimate the dragons again, the Elder's eyes watched for the slightest of movements, his muscles twitching, ready to attack, dodge or retreat at a moments notice.

Meanwhile, Kaltheia's breathing had become fainter, sweat dripping down her face revealing thin streaks of her pale skin through the coating of blood and gore.

Her last attack had almost entirely consumed the remaining life essence in her body and, with her injuries, she felt it wouldn't be long until the last of it flowed from her.

A grim smile, utterly chilling, was revealed on her face as she glared at the Elder with unbridled hatred.

She knew that if she did not rest and enter a regenerative state soon, that there would have no chance of recovery but how could she have predicted that the seemingly inexperienced man was quick enough to dodge her kinds most feared, and costly attack.

All it had taken was one moment, a crude duck and roll, and her plans had almost been ruined.

Keltheia shook her head slightly, causing the Elder to twitch, as she reminded herself that it didn't really matter. She had prepared her to resolve before entering the cave, and her primary goal had not changed, not in the slightest.

"Activate" The dragoness' word was spoken in such a quiet tone that it was barely audible yet, within moments of the sound, the cave's dim light dimmed further.

Black mist rose from the blood-soaked ground surrounding her and creating a scene that seemly had come from the pits of hell.

The sudden change shocked the Elder, who quickly took a cautious step back, only to realise that he was retreating further into the cave. He knew that if he wanted to escape whatever was happening, he would need to pass the dragoness but at this moment in time, he couldn't find the courage to do so.

The mist flickered across the dragoness' body as if it were a comforting lover, eating away the gore that had marred her beautiful features while the Elder felt a deathly chill fall upon his soul as he mumbled and retreated even further. "Formations, black mist, the blood of the fallen... No... how can this be?"

Ignoring the man's almost insane rambling, a hiss of air, much darker than the surrounding mist escaped the Dragoness' throat.

Kaltheia couldn't believe that she had been driven to this point. While she had prepared herself for the worst case scenario, to use it when she was soo close to achieving an overwhelming victory caused her stomach to flip and her insides to squirm in regret.

A tear once again dripped down her face, this time, crystal clear.

She was so close to surviving alongside her egg. So close, but at the moment, it felt as if it had been an insurmountable distance.

Her hate-filled eyes returned to the Elder, blaming him for forcing her hand and at the same time, herself for not timing her attack better. The dragoness knew that if she had caught him with her flames, even the tiniest amount, he would have died and she would have won.

Taking a deep breath and letting the black mist enter her body, reluctance appeared on her features as the dragoness' voice boomed outwards, seemingly shaking the stone beneath them. "Domain of the immortal dragon."

Reacting to the command, the mist that had been hovering around two foot of the floor, exploded upwards, forming a spider web-like network as it spread throughout the cave.

The further it got from the dragoness, the weaker the spell became. However, each time the process looked like it would end, one of the marks she had set up, small runic formations empowered with her blood lit up in an eerie red light and revitalised the spell.

Within moments, the entire cave, all the way up to the collapsed entrance, had been covered with intangible, void-like black spider webs.

Only able to see a small portion of the dragoness, the network of black lines almost blotting her from his vision, the Elder's face paled while he felt as if his spirit had left his body. "You... you're... You're of the royal bloodline? A descendant of the primordial dragon, Aion?"

Kaltheia sneered in response.

Being forced to use her bloodline's ultimate attack by a mere Chosen, an ability that in her current state, would cost her life, sickened the dragoness but she knew that she had no choice.

A faint crack resounded from her scaled chest as she heaved a significant amount of black blood onto the floor.

Just as she looked like she would topple over, a bright, red ring pulsed out of her chest and swept outwards.

Seeing the energy ring's approach, the Elder turned, passing through a few of the black spiderweb-like lines, and started to run. Every fibre of his being screamed that he should not let that ring touch him yet, even with his years of cultivation and mana enhanced body, he was too slow.

As the ring moved through the black strands, small red runes appeared across their surface and, just as the Elder took his second step and the red light passed him, he froze.

It wasn't just him, everything the ring of light swept past in the cave, even the blood from the other Chosen dripping down the walls, halted as if time had come to a standstill.

However, even though he couldn't move a muscle, the Elder despaired in his mind as he felt his insides turn green from regret.

Not even in his wildest dreams would he have believed that the Dark Clan had a descendant of the primordial time dragon in their ranks. A presence that even the draconic bloodlines would consider as royalty.

The ten of them, and the other groups that had already perished on the hunt, never had a chance.

In fact, if the dragoness hadn't been critically wounded before they gave chase, he was pretty sure she wouldn't have even put them in her sight.

With this display of power, a flick of the wrist might have been enough to end their lives.

For the first time in years, the Elder wanted to cry.

Not only had he been sent to his death, but the method of his demise was beyond cruel. It was so harsh that he even felt a slight amount of envy for those who had been granted, at least in his mind, a mercifully swift end.

To an outsider, it would look as if time had been frozen yet, proven by the fact that the Elder could still think, it was far from it.

While weak, his heart continued to beat, and his lungs still pulled in the oxygen-rich air keeping his body and mind alive.

Terror threatened to take control at the edges of his consciousness as he knew that there was nothing he could do.

He had fallen into an almost legendary formation, one that some Chosen scholars even debated its existence and plausibility.

From what he had heard, with a dragons vitality, only secondary to their legendary patience and ability to sleep, this magic domain was, at least to the royal dragon bloodline, their ultimate ace card and impossible to break.

When in dire straights, all a dragon had to do was activate the domain and wait for their opponents, who would be trapped with them, die or for the situation outside of its range to change.

It wasn't even a controlled domain, like the ones most Chosen and Monsters could wield. It was an active variant, an extremely rare type, which meant that anything that entered its space, even if it were to lightly brush against it, would be locked into it and suffer the same fate as those initially trapped inside.

If the legends were right, there was no known way to dispell the domain, relying on either the dragon to release it or for the energy invested into its formation runes to run out.

The Elder knew that although dragoness was weak, pretty much at death's door, she had used the life essence of not one but nine high levelled Chosen cultivators to power the initial formation. Not only that but if he was correct in his assumption about the origin of the crack he had heard earlier, the spirit of a dragon core.

The Elder internally whimpered.

The mana in his body, even if he couldn't use it, would be able to sustain his body for a very long time but even then he doubted it would be enough. In fact, in his despair, he had started to debate on what he would die from first.

Starvation or old age seemed to be the most likely outcomes.

The fear of being trapped for countless years, unable to move an inch started to collapse the Elder's sanity as he stared into the cave's depths through his eyes that were stuck eternally open.

Meanwhile, the life in the dragoness' eyes started to fade, having used everything in the activation of the dragon's domain yet, unlike the Elder, she was at peace.

"This is the best I can do for you, my child. Inside this domain, even if found, you will be safe. I can only hope that when it finally fails, and it's your time to hatch, the world will have changed enough for you to live a good life."

Katherine was bound by the same magic that the Elder was and couldn't move, not even her eyes, to look a where she had hidden her egg. "May your wings reach the heavens, and your roar shatters the earth... I'm so sorry I can't be there when you hatch... So sorry..."

Kaltheia passed away with regret in her heart, willing to do anything just to hold her egg, even for a moment, one last time.

This regret gave birth to her final gift, and a tiny amount of black mist floated from Kaltheia's corpse and shot a few dozen feet away, past the ash that had been the Chosen warriors and into the narrower section of the tunnel.

Nestled in a crack, a clutch of white and black eggs, exactly the same as the one she had crushed, were tucked away on a bed of moss.

At the centre of these hard-shelled eggs, a completely black, leathery egg, slightly smaller than its counterparts, lay.

While the inhabitants of the other monster eggs were doomed to the same fate as the Elder, due to the domain, this was probably one of the safest places in the seven worlds for a slow growing, dragon's egg.

The black mist that had come from Kaltheia entered the egg, causing it to glow slightly and vibrate.

Deafening silence flooded the cave, no creature able or element were able to make the slightest bit of noise inside the dragoness' domain while outside, the storm intensified in its rage.

Lightening scorched the earth as thunder rumbled through the mountains and a torrential downpour of rain washed away everything it could.

It was as if the heavens were weeping at the outcome of the battle that had transpired deep within the bowels of the mountain.

Whether it was due to the death of the dragoness, the demise of the Chosen or, because something far more horrifying, a being created by the ignorance of its parents, merging their two primordial bloodlines into a single, monstrous entity, only time would tell.