Mom wanted me to get stronger, especially the wings, and she knew why.

She herself being a female, she had a good feel for the problems that were to come and as an excellent mother, she had foresight.

"Torin... your mana is filling you up and it hurts your heart, doesn't it?"

"Yes, Mom... My arrow still hurts."

"Mmmm. I see...you'll break down and you won't be able to hold all that mana.... you have to get it out without exhausting yourself..."

I was crying and I could feel my head, my teeth with this huge forked tongue... This burnt taste and this smell of sulfur...

I wasn't ready, I couldn't accept myself... not like this, not like that... It was unfair, brutal and violent.

All my dreams, hopes, dashed and when I looked at my friends... I wanted to kiss them, to hug them and make hugs but I was too stupid or too slow and I ruined everything...

Mom, who saw me blushing and crying and also staring very briefly at the female attributes, came to find me.

She knew.

She was anything but stupid.

"Mom!!!"

"Torin... I feel like you regret it but if it's sexual, it's arrow damage.

The effects were devastating. It stopped you from loving, from falling in love, but it also took away your draconic nature, your dragon-like way of thinking, your motherly love, your powers and your mana reserve but it also destroyed your life expectancy, your eternity. You were going to die and I had to act. In time, I'm sure we'll find a solution to your problems.

Lord British, he may have known the answer. Your daddy told me about a spell that would allow you to temporarily take on a human appearance, at least to be able to have offspring with humans. Unfortunately, I don't know this spell and your daddy took the secret with him to his grave."

Mom had a way of cheering me up every time.

I can't imagine my situation without her or my two friends.

It's a horrible ordeal but alone it's a thousand times worse.

Rubix was thinking and sad.

"Rubix? What are you thinking about?"

"I never knew mom... or dad... .... I'm jealous of you... a little..."

"You know what? We're going to free our fellow creatures from the salt mine and we're going to look for the lost dragons or those hidden in the dungeons..."

Immediately, her face lit up and a smile up to her ears emerged.

Valtrax: "Very good idea...I feel your mana going down..."

So off we went north, towards the dungeons sealed by Amon.

After half a day,

humans whipped dragons that refused to move. None of them moved.

We approached and they became frightened.

Rubix, her magic axes in her paws, charged in.

Magic missiles and spinning axes were hurled at the mahouts and "healers" who did everything but heal.

Next to the dragons, slaves and criminals were chained up.

There were hundreds of them.

Wagons full of salt waited to be transported to the boats that would distribute the goods to the four corners of the kingdom.

On the ground lay officers, mahouts and whips, dead, their skulls cracked or their chests split open.

Rubix landed and immediately noticed why the slaves weren't running away from the nobles and miners:

They were all blind in various stages.

It was horrible.

Half were desiccated, dehydrated, and had only skin on their bones. Unrecognizable.

Rubix could see the dragons... It was horrible. They all had their wings sawed off and the wyverns cut and sewn into their bodies.

Their legs were reduced to stumps surrounded by leather.

Their tails were also cut, lost and damaged in various stages.

Many had scales torn off and their horns sawed off.

But all were blind and like... lobotomized.

Some, no... most had their submission collars tucked into their flesh which was raw and salt burned.

Some had almost half of their heads burned and eroded to the bone.

Many had no eyes left in their sockets...

There were also a lot of dragons still alive but paralyzed, crammed into a "morgue".

It was worse than a concentration camp.

Flies.

The starvation.

powdered skin and scales mixed with curdled blood and raw salt covered the ground in front of the mine.

I arrived with Valtrax who gagged and saw Rubix prostrate, in shock.

She had escaped this!

She had let go as in her nightmare and I took her in my claws, all trembling and carried her against my heart.

The human slaves were in the same state as the dragons, but they were less damaged because they died before reaching the stage of the dragons.

We were followed by Gamblin, who had to turn his head when he saw this spectacle of horror and desolation.

The humans were also crying.

I had to do something.

I was going to the living mass grave first...

So I touched the first dragon on the pile. Untransportable, it would have broken if I had moved it.

"By the power of Thor!"

and in an instant the area swelled ten times its volume.

The living skeletons "re-inflated."

Flames ran through their beings, melted flesh reappeared, torn skin and shapes returned to their places and the whole mass began to breathe and then to moan in pain.

Valtrax and I lifted all these stunted, mutilated beings, alive and unable to die. Yes, to rot and become a zombie...or a lich.

The mass was indescribable. There were well over 100 dragons, all badly mutilated.

They caught their breath and then there was a litany of moans of pain.

It was awful.

One by one, I breathed mana, blew a divine breath of restoration and fire on their heads.

The eyes swelled back into their sockets, the muzzles regained their shape, the horns grew back from the stumps.

Claws reappeared and scales resurfaced;

The tails grew back and... the wings reappeared in divine flames.

My mana was falling fast but circulating all the more and swelling up again.

He was unconscious, physically rebuilt but in what state?

Next.

For the whites, it was primal ice and frost fire.

Small ones

Big ones

Old men

Children and young beasts.

It was endless and there were still all those who were still alive.

I was exhausted and passed out after the 10th.

Mom comforted me and Rubix too. The ones who had recovered were also sleeping, out of shape.

1 day passed then 10 and so on.

My mana stabilized and hurt less. Mystic scars? I don't know but I was the only one who could lift this carnage. I didn't want to forget anyone. I didn't want to forget anyone!

My first order as Dragon Lord was to send the goblins and orcs into the dungeons to search for lost, stranded, or battered dragons. Even the remains.

I wanted ALL the dragon remains. As long as I had power to spend, it was less energy for the cataclysm.

Humans and lines and camps were established.

Misery and suffering were everywhere on Brittania. And while I could, I had to use my divinity to get my life back to normal.