Birthing Legends: My Womb Creates SSS Monsters-Chapter 135: Draculeus Meets His Mother.

"My prince! Tell the King I am your mother!"

A woman cried, grabbing his arm.

"If you do, the King will grant me the Great Estate! No more taxes for my family! My house will be elevated to nobility!"

Another woman was desperately licking her fingers, using her saliva to try and slick her hair into a messy, spiky mess.

"Look! See? My hair is just like yours, Draculeus! We are the same! Tell the King!"

"Please... move back!"

Draculeus stammered, his blue slit pupils darting in panic.

"I am just here to see... I just want to find my mother..."

"I AM your mother!"

They screamed in unison, a chorus of ambition that made his head spin. Suddenly, a heavy, familiar voice cut through the chaos.

"BACK AWAY! ALL OF YOU!"

Percieval stepped into the light, his armored boots thumping against the floor. He shoved through the crowd of women with the practiced ease of an old shepherd. He didn’t use his sword, but his gaze was enough to make them freeze.

"You lot of greedy vultures!"

Percieval barked, his face red with anger.

"You think the Firstborn is a ticket to a tax free life? You think a Dragonborn doesn’t know his own blood? Get back to your seats before I report your ’disrespect’ to the King!"

The women whimpered and retreated, bowing their heads in fear. Percieval turned to Draculeus and sighed, his expression softening instantly. He whispered,

"Forgive them, lad. They see a legend; they don’t see the boy."

He placed a gentle hand on Draculeus’s scaled shoulder.

"Come. I know where she is. I’ve watched over her since you were taken."

He led Draculeus to the far edge of the Nursery grounds, away from the noise, the greed, and the unrelenting machinery of the King’s ambition. There, in a quiet sunlit corner, sat a small, simple garden. Rows of plain stone markers rose from the earth—a cemetery for the mothers who did not survive the strain of the King’s "harvesting."

Percieval stopped in front of one grave, clean but achingly lonely.

"Your loudness and chaos... it came from her. She was so loud that even on her belly she declared she would be the one to fly. She... she died shortly after giving birth to you..."

Draculeus knelt. His heavy, scaled haunches sank into the soft grass. He folded his massive wings behind him, trying to make himself as small as possible. Trembling, he reached out with a clawed hand, a hand capable of crushing stone and lightly touched the cold cement of the headstone.

There was no name. Only a number: Mother 990.

His glowing eyes flickered with a storm of emotions—guilt, sorrow, awe—all mingling until his chest ached under their weight. He traced the smooth, cold surface of the marker, as if seeking some fragment of the woman who had given everything for him.

"She... she wanted me to fly... so Tiamat gave me these wings."

His chest heaved as he lowered his forehead to the cold stone.

"Mother 990... your name isn’t even written here... this is so... wrong. But I will make sure that in every flight I do, you will be with me."

Percieval stood a few paces back, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. He braced himself. He expected the boy to break. He expected to hear the same jagged, childish wailing that had echoed in the courtyard when Spike feared the mountain. He waited for the tears to wash over the scales.

But the air remained still.

Draculeus did not tremble. He did not let out a single sob. He simply knelt there, his massive obsidian wings casting a long, sharp shadow over the grave of Mother 990. When he finally spoke, his voice was not the cracking voice of a boy. It was the steady, low hum of a predator.

"You expected me to cry, didn’t you, Percieval?"

The old knight blinked, caught off guard by the sheer coldness in the air.

"I... I thought the grief would be heavy, lad. You were always the one to wear your heart on your sleeve."

Draculeus stood up slowly. His joints did not pop like a human’s; they hummed with mana. He turned to face the old guard, his midnigh -blue slit eyes reflecting the sunlight with a terrifying, matured clarity.

"The fire did more than change my skin. It... burned away the part of me that cries. When I was Spike, I wanted to hide from the world, to run from my fate. But now? I want to chase it."

He looked back at the nameless stone marker.

"She died so I could be the Quality, my father spoke of. If I spend my life weeping for her, then her death was for nothing. She wanted a son who could fly. I will not weigh my wings down with salt water."

Percieval stared at him. He realized with a jolt of fear that the "Spike" he knew was truly dead. The transformation had not just aged the boy’s bones; it had hardened his soul into a diamond. The brat who set statues on fire was gone. In his place stood a general.

"You speak like the King now."

"I speak like a survivor,"

Draculeus corrected. He reached out and gripped Percieval’s shoulder. His claws were sharp, yet his touch was careful and controlled. Then he turned, leaving his mother’s grave behind.

Percieval was still staring at the stone of Mother 990, his eyes quiet and distant. The old knight did not move for several breaths.

Not because he was sad. Because something inside him felt... proud. The loud, reckless boy he had guarded for years was gone. In his place stood someone sharper. Stronger. Dangerous.

Then the deep voice behind him broke the silence.

"Hey, old fart."

Percieval’s eyebrows slammed together instantly. Slowly, he turned.

Draculeus stood a few steps away, one wing half open, sunlight sliding across his midnight scales. Percieval exhaled.

"There it is..."

Draculeus tilted his head slightly.

"What?"

"The disrespect. For a moment I thought the Dragonrite burned that out of you too."

"Nah. That part survived."

Then his tone sharpened.

"My father said that after I came here, I should meet the candidates for my... Dragon Guards. The ones who want to follow me into hell."

He crossed his arms, wings shifting with a heavy rustle.

"Where was that again?"