Escape

"Impossible."

Caesar curled his lip. No matter how confident the other two hatchlings were, their mother could never be a match for the Green Dragon. That Green Dragon was about to enter old age, while the black dragon mother had only just entered adulthood—a difference of nearly an entire age category.

"So what now? Hide in the nest and tremble?"

Garon and Blakeshia clutched their heads and stared at each other. Hatchlings and adult dragons seemed like entirely different creatures. Still undeveloped, they posed no threat whatsoever to the Green Dragon, as helpless as rabbits watching fierce beasts fight.

As it happened, the two dragons were at the most embarrassingly adolescent stage of a dragon's life. Whenever they felt powerless, they instinctively indulged in unrealistic fantasies.

In their imaginations, facing the vicious, ugly Green Dragon, their mother was clearly at a disadvantage but refused to yield. Yet in the end, for the sake of her children, she had no choice but to leave behind her treasure...

Though they had to flee, the final scene would go something like this—

The black dragon mother put on a cool expression and said coldly, "Hmph. My treasure can stay with you for now." Then she took her children and spread her wings to leave...

Probably something like that...

The hatchlings waited for their mother to return. However, while the two hatchlings watched the battle in the sky and became lost in their fantasies, they discovered that their nominal elder brother, Caesar Ortorenso—

Had slipped away.

He had slipped away and never looked back...

"Farewell."

After a brief consideration, Caesar immediately made a stylish escape. He knew that even if he did not leave now, the black dragon mother would eventually notice his abnormality and drive him away. The outcome would be the same.

Besides, if that moment truly came, he might even be killed by his enraged black dragon mother.

So he had to make plans early. Ever since noticing the black dragon mother's gradually changing attitude, Caesar had been considering how to leave the swamp nest. Now was the best opportunity.

After a short deliberation, he chose a direction completely opposite to the Green Dragon's approach and slipped into the dark forest without a sound.

Once he started running, Caesar realized something seemed different. When catching flies before, his movements had been too slight for the effects of the "genetic modification" to be obvious. Now, sprinting through the dense forest, he felt the change most directly.

His stride frequency and rhythm had clearly become much faster.

Dragons were most renowned for their immense strength and innate magical abilities. Yet correspondingly, human adventurers' records also described dragons with words like sluggish and cumbersome.

But Caesar had now cast off those labels. He moved with light steps and a tight rhythm, completely overturning the sluggishness that his massive weight had previously brought him.

When this black dragon hatchling ran, he absurdly gave off the smooth, fluid impression of a sprinting cheetah.

"Let's see how much I've changed."

Caesar muttered inwardly, and his running rhythm abruptly accelerated. The range of his movements instantly increased. The boost in speed was not obvious to the naked eye, but he could feel it with absolute clarity—the speed at which his limbs shifted through the forest.

His dragon claws rustled across the humus-covered ground, while the wind howled past his ears. Earlier, he had merely been familiarizing himself with his body. Now that he went all out, his speed increased by a huge margin.

Caesar was certain that if he hunted a jungle tiger again now, he would not struggle as much as he had last time.

Dragons possessed astonishing stamina. Only after running a great distance did he stop, ready to catch his breath.

Caesar felt no psychological burden whatsoever over abandoning the black dragon mother and his so-called siblings. Dragons were already cold toward family, and besides, the Green Dragon had come for treasure. Under normal circumstances, she would not truly drive the black dragon family to their deaths.

As for the black dragon fighting the Green Dragon to the death over treasure, Caesar scoffed at the idea. Though he had inherited dragons' fondness for treasure, he was not lacking in rationality at heart.

"Staying alive is the only truth. What use is treasure if you're dead?" That was Caesar's way of thinking.

By that logic, he was probably the only dragon in the world who did not value money above life. Then again, who knew whether there might be a few other oddballs among dragonkind?

Putting aside his wild thoughts, Caesar knew that his most urgent task was still to run away—as far away as possible.

Ideally, he would find somewhere without ferocious species or high-level aberrations, hide there, and lie low for a few decades. Once he truly reached adulthood, he could consider philosophical questions like, "The world is so vast. Should I go take a look?"

Though he had failed to become a true dragon, as a half-finished product, Caesar had still inherited a dragon's powerful body. Even as nothing more than a black dragon, once he reached adulthood, his physical strength alone would be enough to protect himself.

As long as he did not quietly court death, he could still live a pretty comfortable life in the future.

What was more, Caesar had the mysterious Black Dream in his head.

"Develop cautiously. Don't get cocky."

During this brief stretch of fleeing, Caesar had already made a simple plan for his future life.

But reality did not always go as one wished. So when he casually glanced back, he found his siblings, Garon and Blakeshia, flapping their wings and huffing as they caught up.

"What's going on?"

"You can't escape."

Before Caesar could ask, his younger sister Blakeshia had already sneered. At the same time, she beat her wings desperately to keep up with the hatchling ahead. "That Green Dragon is evil and powerful. Without Mother keeping her in check, I guarantee she has ten thousand ways to deal with you."

???

Caesar looked utterly disgusted. He could not help worrying about the future of dragonkind, while giving his sister the concerned look one reserved for an idiot.

Adult dragons were generally lazy by nature. The fact that the black dragon mother could not even be bothered with her own children proved it well enough. That Green Dragon had come for treasure in the first place. Only someone with too much time on her hands would bother playing extermination games.

Making a mortal enemy of another dragon did not suit a Green Dragon's profit-first nature.

Of course, if they had been dragons from opposing camps, such as silver dragons or brass dragons, then it might have been another matter. Dragons were not beasts. They were intelligent creatures, not brainless villains from knightly novels. They had their own thoughts and rules of conduct.

Garon and Blakeshia, with their comprehensive knowledge of dragonkind, should have understood this better than he did. So what exactly did these two fools think about all day? Tasty maggots?

Seeing how adorably stupid they were, Caesar reluctantly endured it and patiently gave the two hatchlings a free lesson.

After finishing, Caesar lifted a foot to continue onward. "So, why did you follow me?"

Garon and Blakeshia choked. Come to think of it, even they themselves did not know why they had followed Caesar for such a long distance.

When the Green Dragon attacked, the hatchlings had frozen in panic and lost all sense of direction. In that state, they were easily influenced by others. Caesar had been the first to act and had immediately bolted. Garon, that thick-headed idiot who had no idea what was going on, instinctively followed Caesar.

Blakeshia saw her two elder brothers leave, felt muddled, and followed them as well.

If there had been a group of hatchlings at the time, Caesar would probably have led every last one of them astray, with all of them rushing after him in a crowd.

Under the herd mentality, such a situation was theoretically entirely possible, and reality had already proven half of it.

"Can we still go back now?"

"Probably not. Mother should have already left."

Blakeshia wore a miserable expression, her nose drooping limply. Once she learned that Caesar had merely been running away, her impression of him worsened even further.