Birthing Legends: My Womb Creates SSS Monsters-Chapter 126: From 1,000 Children to 142 Remaining — Part 2.
Spike begged, his voice rising to a shriek.
"Take me away! Hide me in the slums! I’ll be a beggar, a thief, anything! Just let me be a person! I don’t want to be a hero on a pedestal! I just want to be Spike!"
Percieval looked toward the mountain peak, where the clouds of Tiamat were already beginning to swirl. He saw the silver masked servants emerging from the Great Hall to gather the final 142. He saw the cold, mechanical inevitability of it all.
"If I could carry you on my back across the sea, I would..."
Percieval whispered, pulling the boy into a sudden, fierce embrace.
"But the King’s blood... it’s a tether, Spike. A chain. You can’t run from the fire, because the fire is already inside you. It’s been there since the day you were sown."
The old Dragonguard’s grip tightened slightly.
"But remember this... you are Spike. You’re the boy who made an old man run until his lungs burned. The brat who hated that statue because he had too much life in him to stand still."
Percieval slowly pulled back, placing both hands on the boy’s face.
"You’ve done so many things... enough that even an old fool like me—whose mind is too weak to remember his own birthday—can still remember the name of a white-blooded boy called Spike."
A faint smile crept onto his tired face.
"Tonight, when you stand before that altar... don’t think about being a hero. Don’t think about making the King proud."
His voice softened.
"You think about your brother. You think about Big Arms. You carry their names into that fire."
Percieval squeezed the boy’s shoulders.
"And if you’re going to burn, Spike... then burn so bright that the whole world has to look away."
Spike’s tears fell in hot, heavy droplets, soaking into Percieval’s weathered cloak. He couldn’t speak; his throat felt as though it were filled with the same ash he feared becoming. He simply clung to the old knight, a small, trembling boy in a young man’s body, spending his final hours of humanity grieving with the only person who had bothered to remember his name.
But the machinery of the Kingdom waited for no one.
The transition was brutally cold. Servants stepped forward and led Spike away. They moved silently, their faces blank and distant. As the days passed and the batches kept climbing the mountain only to vanish, the servants had learned something terrible: affection only made the work harder. So they no longer allowed themselves to feel it.
They guided the young boy down the long marble corridor with steady hands, never meeting his eyes. To them, the white haired children had become something else entirely, not sons and daughters, not princes or heirs. Just another batch walking toward their death.
They scrubbed the dirt from his skin and the tears from his face with the same detachment they might use to polish a piece of silverware. When they were finished, Spike was dressed in fine white ceremonial silks and seated before a rich, heavy meal.
The First Batch had once filled this hall with laughter. They had raised their glasses, cheering and roaring in excitement for their Dragonrite, boasting about the dragons they would become. But the remaining one hundred and forty two were nothing like them. No one spoke. No one laughed.
The tables were lined with untouched plates of exquisite food, each dish prepared with the finest care the kingdom could offer... yet not a single child dared to enjoy it. Because they all understood what it truly was. This was not a celebration. It was the last meal before the fire. And everyone in that room knew it—the final kindness granted to lives that would soon be tested and burned.
Then came the climb.
The final one hundred and forty two moved up the jagged stairs like a funeral procession. There was no boasting. No reckless voice shouting about godhood. No laughter echoing against the stone walls. No leader like Big Arms or Knots to stand tall and make the others believe everything would be fine.
The eyes of the Seventh Batch were hollow, reflecting the pale moonlight like shards of broken glass. They were not marching toward ascension. They were marching toward their descent. Their shoulders sagged beneath the invisible weight of eight hundred and fifty eight ghosts walking beside them.
As Spike reached the freezing summit, the fog parted to reveal the nightmare once more.
King Drakovitch stood there, his black sword already drawn, the eleven heads of Tiamat dancing behind him like giant, hungry serpents. The pressure of the mana was enough to make Spike’s nose bleed.
"My children..." 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚
Drakovitch’s voice rolled over them, cold and indifferent.
As one, 142 offspring dropped to their knees, their foreheads hitting the frost.
"FATHER! OUR KING!"
They cried out, their voices sounding like a collective sob but Spike remained standing.
His spiked hair whipped in the gale. He looked at his father, then at the eleven colossal dragons looming in the dark. He looked at the spot where Knots had stood, where Big Arms had flexed, where the Reckless Duo had breathed their last.
"So... this is what Brother Knots saw last. I guess it’s a fine enough view to die to."
Drakovitch didn’t wait for his son to kneel. With a sudden, violent swing, the King slashed the void.
SHHH-LINK!
The waterfall of glowing, crimson ichor erupted from Tiamat’s invisible chest. The moment that scent hit the air... the intoxicating, addictive smell of Primordial power, the depression vanished.
The "no-life" offspring suddenly snapped. Their eyes turned feral, their pupils dilating as they lunged like ghouls toward the falling blood. They trampled one another, screaming and clawing, desperate to taste the fire.
It seemed... everyone was more desperate this time to be that one—the single life among the thousand children. All thoughts of sorrow, fear, or mourning were devoured by a single burning instinct.
Drink... and live.
