Birthing Legends: My Womb Creates SSS Monsters-Chapter 123: The Dragonrite: Drakovitch’s Brutal Method of Creating Children — Part 3.
A small crack appeared on Big Arms’ forehead. A bright, fiery light began to leak from it.
"No... I... I can’t... I cannot bu—burned... I drank more than anyone... I am... strong... I am... worthy... Tiamat, please... a-accept me..."
She reached out a hand to Knots.
"KNOTS, HELP!"
Her fingers touched his shoulder, and as they did, her entire arm turned into ash. Her massive shoulders, her proud face, her shimmering white hair—everything turned into a cloud of dust in the wind.
Knots reached out to catch her, but his hands only met the empty air.
"B-big Arms...? No... No, Oh God... Why?"
THUD.
A head fell from the sky, landing squarely in Knots’ arms. He looked down. It was... Raspy. His eyes glowed with a terrifying golden light. Despite the heat and pain, he was still smiling—that cocky grin he had always worn.
"Heh... Guess... I lost... Brother..."
Raspy whispered. Then, a flame shot out of his mouth. His face cracked like a broken mirror. Knots watched as the boy’s head turned into a handful of cinders in his palms.
"RASPY!!!"
Knots cried out. He looked down at his feet as a weak, choking sound reached him from below.
"B-big Arms... R-Raspy... Knots... I-I cannot h-hold it... a-anymore..."
Sloppy was there, his body already mostly consumed. The fire had started at his feet and devoured its way upward. He reached for Knots, his eyes reduced to ash. The last part to go was his tongue—the same tongue that had tasted the god. It flickered one final time before turning into a spark and vanishing entirely.
Knots pressed his blood streaked, dried hands to his mouth, his tears mingling with the grime on his face.
"No... not you too... E-everyone... Please... no..."
The summit was now blindingly bright. It wasn’t the sun—it was the fire of a hundred burning children. Knots turned his head in every direction, desperately searching for his remaining siblings.
"This cannot be... There must be someone else... beside me...!"
But all he saw were flames consuming flesh, ashes drifting on the wind. He stepped back, his boots crunching on the skulls of those who had died before even tasting the blood.
"This is not real... this is not real... Mother... wake me... up..." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞
He was the only one left. The silence was heavier than the screams.
The fog finally cleared completely. Knots looked up, and for the first time, he saw the true form of Tiamat. The dragon was too large for the world. Its wings stretched wide, blotting out the horizon, and its eleven heads loomed over him, regarding the tiny, lone survivor with cold, draconic indifference.
Knots began to cry harder, his knees buckling beneath him.
"Why...? Why am I alone...? Why did you not choose my other siblings... Big Arms... Raspy... Sloppy... they are all gone..."
He looked at the piles of ash that used to be his family. The wind blew them away, mixing the "First Batch" into the mountain snow.
A heavy footstep sounded behind him. King Drakovitch walked through the smoke. He looked at the empty plateau with eyes of cold silver. He didn’t look sad. He looked... disappointed.
"A hundred and forty three and only one remains to face the dawn."
Drakovitch reached out his hand to touch Knots’ shoulder. Knots looked up at his father, his eyes searching for a "Photograph" of love, for a sign that this was worth it.
But then, Knots felt a sharp, stabbing heat in his chest.
"Ah..."
He gasped, the air leaving his lungs steaming in the intense heat. Slowly, he looked down at his fingertips... they had turned charred black. The fire had finally found him. The dragonfire hadn’t been defeated; it had only been waiting, coiled deep within his heart...
Drakovitch placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder just as the first crack appeared on Knots’ neck.
"Tch!"
Knots turned to his father, eyes wide with pain. His skin itched, then stung, then roared with unbearable agony.
"Father... what is happening... I thought... I was the one. I was the smartest... the strongest... I did everything you asked! Why am I burning? Father... WHY?!"
Drakovitch did not flinch. He watched with cold detachment, his gaze calm, as if he had always known this would happen.
"You lasted the longest, son... You almost held it. You almost became a Dragonborn..."
Knots clung to his father’s cloak, desperately seeking a final word of comfort, a sign that his life had mattered. But Drakovitch’s eyes only darkened with hollow disappointment.
"What a shame... but ’almost’ is still... UNWORTHY."
A single tear formed on Knots’ cheek, but before it could fall, it hissed and evaporated in the white heat consuming his soul.
"So... that’s it... I am unworthy after all... M-Mother... I wish... the—warmth... of your hug... was the one... that... would... burn... me..."
With a final, soft hiss, Knots’ body shattered. The wind caught his ashes, swirling them around his father’s cape before carrying them off the edge of the cliff.
The summit fell silent, save for the whistling wind that carried the dust of a hundred and forty-three lives into the abyss.
Drakovitch looked down at his hand—the one that had touched Knots’ shoulder. Slowly, he curled it into a fist.
"A success rate of 0.1 percent... and it shows. The blood of a Primordial is unforgiving... especially to the unworthy. It seems even my ’best’ was merely mediocre."
The ground beneath him groaned as the eleven heads of Tiamat descended from the mists. The central obsidian head lowered until its massive, slitted eye was level with the King’s.
"YOU SHOW NO EMOTION FOR THE FALLEN. YOU TRULY UNDERSTAND THE COST OF THE RITE. VERY GOOD, KING. THESE CHILDREN WERE MERELY FUEL FOR THE GREAT FLAME. SACRIFICED FOR THE GREATER GOOD."
"YOU SHOW NO EMOTIONS FOR THEM... YOU TRULY UNDERSTAND HOW OUR DRAGONRITE WORKS... VERY GOOD, KING. CHILDREN WERE MERELY SACRIFICED FOR THE GREATER GOOD."
Drakovitch met the dragon’s gaze without a single blink, his silver eyes reflecting the monster’s abyssal scales.
"I shed no tears for failures. They were a necessary loss. The ’rightful one’ is still out there, waiting to be forged. And I will find them, even if I have to burn through every life in this kingdom to do it."
