The Dragonlands cooled off over the period of a few days, with Icy and the group stuck inside the whole time as they prepared to collect his dragonstone and what came after all this. In particular, they came up with a few ideas, but the most popular ones immediately looked to other worlds for more resources and less trouble.

The dragons possessed teleportation arrays across worlds, and a handful of materials from the group easily paid for its usage. Icy actually still had that grade 1 material to collect as well, a free pass to the teleporter easily matched the usage price.

However, that all came down to how long the elders forced them to stay in the Dragonlands. With relative safety in this place, even if the majority of dragons here treated him worse than dirt, their group could just amass power over the course of months. That really just meant that they either continued their previous plan or took a chance by teleporting across worlds.

“Are you sure you’re ready today?”

Icy nodded towards the silver-scaled dragon who stood in the cave’s passageway, he truly forgot about her existence until just last night. Adret never once bothered him since the first battle against Lostradus, and while she showed a bit of shyness around him, that abhorrent attitude hardly changed. One of a hopeless fool who threw away all her personality and individuality for ‘the clan’, whatever such a thing meant.

“I’m ready. Tell the elders as necessary. I also have my own words to say,” he replied to her respectfully. Since she came for these formalities, he could present a similar behaviour.

“Understood. Please follow me then, and bring everyone along,” she nodded awkwardly to the five humans and turned to fly away. Icy flapped his sweet and sticky wings to lift up and join her, the others easily walking on air with a spell from Mala. They reached the central mountain not even half a minute later, leading to the teleportation array set for a place Icy hadn’t visited in a month now.

Even though it stood as the most defined location here, it was only specially used by all five elders, quite rarely at that.

Icy didn’t even need to take a second look at the amassed cloud of dragons who swarmed the peak though, unable to fly any closer as countless barriers blocked off almost all methods of entry besides that single array. That didn’t stop anything from hovering just slightly beyond the range of such barriers and the noises created still penetrated within. None of the group even had to approach the mountain as they heard the endless complaints and hundreds of dragons, even though Icy proved his strength, they threw out any argument possible to reject his identity.

At this point they just hated him because it stepped on their ego, any reasonable belief long since struck down by overwhelming power for his age.

And this was the age he pretended to be! In reality, Icy fought for a dragonstone an entire generation ahead of himself, other dragons at his tender age hardly completed their second growth phase about now.

Of those who survived the hunting period at least.

“I’m going to drain them dry. Complete bastards, all of them,” Icy mildly swore as they approached and walked into the teleporter. The others just nodded with immense understanding, only Adret kept a passive face as she simply could not choose between either side.

Protect the clan… Or complete her mission?

Neither of those answers rang through her heart though, and only a handful of her thoughts ever did so in Icy’s experience.

Once on the array, a flash of light blinded their vision as they appeared up top once more. Above the ramp in front sat the five elders, their eyes all so similar but vaguely different. None of them looked at him with the malicious or repulsed gazes from dragons all around though, something which seemingly made no sense given how unified the clan was seen as by outsiders. However, just as hundreds of dragons came to look down on him here, hundreds more remained within their caves and ignored this entire event.

These dragons possessed more meaning in their life than harassing a young mishap who presented immense power.

“Step forth, Icryladrom, it is time to allocate the rewards. The matter of the dragonstone comes first,” said the first elder, whose name Icy did not actually know. As he took several steps forward, complaints arose from the swarm of dragons all around.

At a time like this, they appeared more like nauseating flies instead of a proud race. This scene alone probably broke the disillusioned stories their race inspired across countless years, after all, everything had a bit of dirt if you dug deep enough. Fortunately, all five elders completely ignored these roars of resentment towards him, and a glare from the first elder set them all straight. Things returned to relative silence.

As always, flourishes in ceremonies weren’t a thing for dragons, leading the dragon immediately on the right to present things, the same as last time, Bolnarstinum.

He spoke clearly and perfunctorily, “To move things along quickly, we are first revoking your right to take the dragonstone. Neither will you be allowed to take the stone through its usual manner.”

Silence fell. A quietness so intense that a feather could drop and all those present could hear it.

Shock so great and overwhelming that Icy blinked several times and frowned for a moment before he actually comprehended the words and looked towards the five elders with a sneer. However, by far his gaze focused on Dreisetno, the elder who opposed him obtaining the stone since his first day on the island.

“Don’t look to him, I suggested this matter in the first place,” Icy turned his head slightly left, speaking to the furthest dragon who originally changed their vote due to his impressive feats regarding the demon elves. In fact, as Pritaslo’s master, he thought that she was the most reasonable and wisest of the elders. Now that presumptuous idea crumbled to ash. She followed up in response to his furthered gaze of anger, “We have no choice. I spent some time analysing your bloodline, and we’ve concluded that using the dragonstone is highly likely to kill you. However, we are prepared to offer you grade 0 items to make up for it.”

“Five,” Icy replied near-instantly with a grim growl accompanying his word. The elders looked towards him in a touch of confusion, wanting some clarification, to which he answered, “Five grade 0 items. I’ve had enough of this place, give me my stuff so I can leave.”

Any desire to argue or fight for his rights dried up so fast that no one truly expected it. To spend a month and multiple near-death states just for this ending… It felt so weak, even if he clearly earned a fair bit with so many highly valued objects. None of the elders wanted to give away so many though, and everyone knew the dragonstone wasn’t worth five of these items. Bolnarstinum spoke up to negotiate with him, “We considered three to be a fair trade. You’re also welcome to stay in the Dragonlands for your own protection as long as you wish.”

Icy gritted his white, speckled teeth. Clearly angry at the five, he shouted back, “Six items. I’ll keep on raising the amount every single time every time you vapid remnants keep up this charade.”

In response to this, Bolnarstinum was clearly ready to speak up, but the first elder stopped him. Chortling under a breath before saying, “Fine, we have to make up for this false promise. What’s the other matter you wished to speak of?”

Before moving on, Icy asked while suspicious, “Six of them?” The first elder’s nod cleared up this matter immediately and none of the other elders opposed it. He continued, “From today I wish to be completely exiled from the Dragonlands. There should be no reason in my life I have to step on this repulsive ground again.”

Bolnsarstium replied without so much a hint of emotion, “That’s a bit extreme, no?”

He didn’t get to reply though. Instead, Adret stepped forth and interrupted with her own point, distressed for some reason, “Elders, I’ve accompanied him long enough to know the clan can’t let him go. Icryladrom’s potential is no lower than your own.”

Of course, ‘Anything for the clan’.

Just as Icy was prepared to shush her, annoyed that she currently imposed on his plans, Mala instead interrupted at this point. And while he hadn’t expected this, the way she stared at the left-most dragon could not be mistaken. That spiteful pair of eyes also passed over Adret, but she snorted promptly before refocusing on Casstilandri who did not take kindly to the human wizard’s impudence. But after a month of time spent in the Dragonlands, Mala already formed a rather robust sense of scale regarding the dragons here. For so long she looked up to very few races as their natural magical talent utterly overwhelmed humans.

“I gave it some thought, and you little fucks really are egregious. Spouting platitudes to soothe us whilst making away like bandits, is it pride you dragons have or a lack of shame?” Her sudden outburst to the elders already drew shouts from the dragons outside, but she ignored their wasteful words.

“And what exactly is this about? Small, human wizard,” Casstilandri responded to Mala’s direct insults.

“I’ll get back to your ridiculous ‘observation’ later,” Mala’s words preceded a scoff as she turned to Adret. “Who do you think you are? Do you think that just because you have the ‘oh so powerful clan’ behind you back it gives you free reign to complete their will? Icy has enough common sense not to explode on someone with the mental faculties of an isolated child, but I don’t care if you’re the clan lord’s spawn. Stay the fuck away from us if you see a relationship as a means to an end.”

Unsurprisingly, it was Icy who turned in surprise most of all. While Mala did struggle to hold back her words quite often, she very rarely blew up to such an extreme. He expected her to be mad, but not to this degree.

But the insulted wizard now glared back to Casstilandri, ready to continue her attack on this dragon. One might question why the elders did not use a hint of their supreme tier power to suppress everyone instantly, but that came down to diplomacy. Even without Raccelline’s presence, the problem remained that Icy and his group absolutely deserved immense respect from the Dragonlands.

And so, Mala’s shouting returned after a brief interlude of silence, with Adret frozen in place from indecisiveness. “I’ve been analysing Icy’s bloodline for years now, gathering every scrap of information and performing experiments in the thousands. He verified that not a single part of his bloodline contains elements pertaining to great languages, so now, you want to tell me that you know his bloodline better than me? Better yet, you dared to say my research was wrong?”

“We didn’t claim that, we directly tested what might happen if his bloodline was metamorphosed by the dragonstone’s pow–” Casstilandri tried to speak calmly, but another interruption came from Mala straight away.

“Go fuck yourself. I’ve heard better lies from promiscuous wizards who couldn’t even muster up a single damn ring. Do you think I’m like those plebeians watching this show? I would bet my life he’d survive the dragonstone without a single fault. Would you be willing to bet your own that he’d fail it? What a joke of a supreme,” Mala continued her cursing towards the five elders who now similarly looked at her in confusion.

How in the world had this young dragon found a human willing to curse out five supreme tiers?

“We understand you are sure, but we wish to take no risks. Under no circumstance can Icryladrom be allowed to perish, the loss to our race would be immeasurable,” claimed the first elder in an attempt to pacify the situation.

He realised the mistake of allowing Casstilandri to talk of this matter. She, as a dragon who valued knowledge above all else, would hear out a human wizard like Mala. A driven individual whose ability exceeded so many dragons, her future could be boundless if born as one of their kind instead of artificially limited by a human body.

Nevertheless, his words caused the wizard to snort and roll their eyes. She finally stopped.

“First thing you can do, stop calling me by that name.” Icy tapped his ice cream claws against the stone bricks a few times before turning around to the group to say, “Feel free to call me Icy though, it doesn’t bother me at this point… It’d probably sound weird if you changed.” His words obviously didn’t include Adret who insisted on using a shortened form of his name as opposed to the simplified version. Why did she choose that?

He never bothered to ask.

Dreisetno spoke up, not mockingly but in exasperation as though he made everyone wait far too long. The dragon with a green glowing body said, “You have selected your name then? While an amusing title, it is best you picked something more serious and related to your records.”

“Yes, it took me a while to figure out my greatest achievement, and my future is too far to see its end… But with some help I’ve grown to understand what path I walk. From now on, I declare myself Akevorax,” his words stated in Draconic contained a will to look down on all those who watched this display. And they in turn rioted in response, immediately roaring out about the ostentatious words.

None of the elders reacted so expressively though, they only focused on his eyes which minutely glowed white for a moment. A small sight which so few dragons noticed, but this glow faded as soon as his gaze lowered.

All the while, Mala translated most of what everyone said through a Soul Network, allowing them to keep up with this conversation, but this time she stumbled. Mumbling as she came across words never taught by him. Her words audible to those nearby, “Vorax? Is that a shortened Voraxum? So either ‘race winner’ or ‘[one who] walks there’? Would help if you went over this stuff beforehand,” she sighed as the full name hardly appeared so incredulous as everyone else was making it out to be.

Adret did speak up though, her mottled voice answered what they all wished to know, “Vorax means Endwalker, it’s a niche title used for those who usually reside in the realm of destruction.”

“So he actually chose that for his name?” Mala asked for further clarification, and the others either sighed or rubbed their heads when the full name came to light. None of them disagreed though, and Raccelline beamed in agreement.

Akevorax, when translated properly, meant,

The one who walks beyond the end.