Baby System: I'm the Beast World's Only Hope!-Chapter 286: Episode 284: Meeting Vipersan Again

The journey to the Dragon Peaks took less than an hour for a creature as massive and terrifyingly fast as Zarek.

The air grew thin and bitterly cold as the black dragon breached the cloud line, his massive, leathery wings cutting through the freezing winds. Below him, the jagged, snow-capped mountains of his territory stretched out like the broken teeth of a sleeping god. But as Zarek banked toward the main nesting caldera, his crimson eyes narrowed.

The Peaks were eerily silent.

Usually, the caldera was filled with the roaring challenges of young drakes and the heavy, thudding impacts of territorial disputes. Today, there was only the hollow howling of the wind.

The drakes and elder dragons were huddled near the entrances of their sealed caves, their usually brilliant scales looking dull, ashen, and dangerously close to turning the sickly grey of the Wither-Rot. Paranoia hung in the air thicker than the mountain mist. They were starving, terrified, and ready to kill anything that approached their hoards.

They had not been able to go out and hunt because of Roxy’s warning.

Zarek didn’t bother with a gentle, diplomatic landing.

He folded his wings and dropped from the sky like a meteor, slamming into the absolute center of the stone caldera with a thunderous, earth-shattering crash. The impact fractured the stone beneath his claws.

Dozens of drakes instantly poured from the caves, their eyes wild and feral, thick smoke billowing from their jaws as they prepared to defend their territory from the intruder. But the moment the dust cleared and they recognized the towering form of their King, the hostile roars died in their throats, replaced by a tense, nervous silence.

Zarek didn’t shift back into his human form. He didn’t have the time or the patience for a royal address. His mate was pregnant, alone in the Iron-Wood Manor, and every second he spent on this freezing mountain was a second he wasn’t standing guard outside her bedroom door.

With a low, vibrating growl, Zarek unhooked the massive wooden crate from his heavy talons and let it drop onto the stone. He used one giant claw to rip the wooden lid clean off, exposing the hundreds of green, leaf-wrapped parcels of chicken, rice, and the Wither-Rot cure.

The rich, savory scent of Kaelen’s cooking immediately flooded the caldera.

Stomachs rumbled violently. The starving drakes took a collective step forward, their vertical pupils dilating at the smell of perfectly roasted meat. But their paranoia held them back.

Zarek let out a sharp, furious huff of smoke. Roxy had spent hours meticulously planning how to trick them into eating the medicine, worrying about their pride and fear. Zarek, however, opted for a much more direct approach.

"Eat," Zarek’s draconic voice boomed telepathically, echoing off the mountain walls with the force of an avalanche.

A young, particularly feral red drake near the front hesitated. He took a cautious step toward the crate, lowering his snout to sniff one of the leaf-wrapped parcels, his tail twitching with distrust.

Zarek’s patience instantly disappeared.. The thick plates of armor along his throat began to glow with a blinding, white-hot intensity. The air around him shimmered and warped from the sudden, catastrophic spike in temperature. He leaned his massive head down until he was practically nose-to-nose with the young drake, his crimson eyes burning with the promise of absolute, fiery annihilation.

Zarek bared his massive fangs, a low, terrifying rumble vibrating in his chest that clearly translated to: You have exactly three seconds to put that in your mouth before I incinerate you into ash.

The young drake shrieked in sheer terror. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t inspect the food. He lunged forward, grabbed the leaf parcel in his jaws, and swallowed it whole, chewing frantically out of pure, unadulterated fear.

The rest of the dragons, seeing their King preparing to literally roast them alive if they refused his hospitality, panicked. A chaotic, scrambling stampede ensued.

They rushed the crate, furiously grabbing the parcels and stuffing their faces with chicken and rice as quickly as physically possible, terrified that if they stopped chewing, Zarek would turn them into a bonfire.

Zarek was very capable of that.

Zarek watched them inhale the cure, a grim, highly satisfied smirk curling the edges of his scaly snout.

Task complete, Zarek thought, already spreading his massive wings. He didn’t even wait for them to finish swallowing.

With a powerful, deafening thrust, the Dragon Alpha launched himself back into the sky, banking sharply toward the Iron-Wood. He was going home.

Hundreds of miles to the south, the atmosphere was entirely different.

Syris slithered through the dense, suffocating humidity of the Southern Swamps. He had maintained his half-serpentine form, his massive emerald coils gliding silently over the murky, stagnant water and the twisted roots of the mangrove trees.

The Snake Beastman had not set foot in this territory since the day he was violently exiled. He had spent years harboring a cold hatred for the kingdom that had thrown him into the mud to die and even bullied him.

Syris was deeply, visibly distraught.

The Swamps were not just dying; they were rotting. The Wither-Rot had originated here, and the devastation was absolute. The usually vibrant, algae-filled waters had turned a sickly, necrotic grey.

The ancient mangrove trees were withered and blackened, their roots crumbling into ash. The air smelled strongly of sulfur and decaying flesh. It was a complete, horrifying violation of nature.

The subtle snap of a branch overhead was the only warning Syris received.

Three figures dropped from the decaying canopy above, their fangs bared and their eyes glowing with the manic, cloudy haze of the Wither-Rot infection. They were feral snake beastmen, driven entirely mad by the corruption burning through their mana cores.

They lunged at Syris, their claws extended, aiming directly for his throat.

Syris didn’t even blink. His emerald eyes narrowed into lethal slits.

Moving with a blinding, liquid speed that the infected beasts couldn’t possibly track, Syris sidestepped the first attacker, whipping his massive tail forward. The heavy emerald coils struck the feral beast squarely in the chest, sending him crashing violently into the murky water.

Syris ducked under the second attacker’s claws, grabbing the beast by the wrist and using its own momentum to hurl it into the trunk of a dead tree. The third beast hissed, lunging for the wooden crate secured to Syris’s back.

Syris simply raised his hand. A highly concentrated burst of green, paralyzing vapor shot from his palm, hitting the beast directly in the face. The snake-shifter’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed into the mud, completely immobilized but breathing steadily.

Syris straightened his robes, looking down at the subdued, rotting beasts with a mixture of pity and disgust.

"Your reflexes have slowed, old man," a cold, raspy voice echoed through the dying trees. "Or perhaps the Surface has just made you soft."

The murky water parted.

Gliding forward with an arrogant, imposing grace was the Snake King. Vipersan’s scales were a dark, mottled brown, his face sharp and cruel. He wore an elaborate crown of woven swamp-vines and bone, though the Wither-Rot had clearly begun to take its toll on his kingdom.

His eyes were sunken, and his usually terrifying aura felt thin and desperate. Vipersan looked at his exiled son, a cruel, mocking sneer twisting his lips.

"Look what the rot dragged in," Vipersan mocked, his forked tongue flicking out to taste the air. "I never thought I would see the day my disgrace of a son returned to the mud. Has your mate finally realized you are nothing but a poisonous burden?"

Looking at the arrogant, desperate King now, Syris felt absolutely nothing but a cold apathy. He had a Queen who adored him, a daughter who possessed unimaginable power, and a pack that respected his genius. Vipersan was nothing to him anymore.

"I am not here for small talk, Vipersan," Syris hissed, his voice utterly devoid of respect or warmth.

Syris reached back, unhooking the heavy wooden crate. He let it drop unceremoniously into the shallow mud between them. The impact knocked the lid loose, revealing the highly concentrated, leaf-wrapped cure.

"This is the cure for the Wither-Rot," Syris stated clinically, looking down his nose at the Snake King. "Distribute it to your people immediately. And I highly suggest you leave a portion for yourself. Your scales are losing their luster."

Vipersan stared at the crate, then back up at Syris. The sheer, unapologetic nonchalance of his son, the way Syris spoke to him not as a subject addressing a King, but as a god dropping breadcrumbs to a starving beggar, ignited a violent, explosive rage in Vipersan’s chest.

"You dare speak to me with such insolence?!" Vipersan snarled, his brown coils thrashing aggressively in the muddy water. "You walk into my dying kingdom, drop a box of weeds at my feet, and expect me to grovel?!"

Syris simply turned his back on his father, completely dismissing the threat.

"Eat or rot, Vipersan," Syris replied coldly over his shoulder, already preparing to slither back toward the borders. "It makes no difference to me."

"It should make a difference!" Vipersan roared, the desperation finally bleeding through his arrogant facade. He lunged forward, pointing a trembling, furious claw at Syris’s retreating back.

"If you had brought that child back to our kingdom," Vipersan screamed, his voice echoing violently through the dead, rotting swamp, "we wouldn’t be like this!"