Who Are You?

Time returned to the present.

The White Dragon heard only an angry roar from one of his own kind and turned toward the sound.

The next moment, an endless torrent of starlight met his gaze.

Seeing this, Merlin could no longer spare any attention for Sovell's injuries. He immediately worked with the Holy Spear's radiance to cancel out the dragonfire directly ahead of it.

Merlin dealt with the remaining flames as well, guiding them aside with a dozen or so petals.

The White Dragon was astonished to see the Holy Spear pierce his dragon breath, but it was already too late to react.

In desperation, he raised both claws before him, sacrificing them to protect himself, yet the Holy Spear's pillar of light still drove him back over a hundred meters.

When the pillar dispersed, blood streamed from the White Dragon's claws, and his wings hung limp.

Where the light had struck him directly, his dragon scales had been charred to cinders and peeled away onto the ground.

Ignoring the agonizing pain in his body and his already wavering consciousness, Sovell pressed his advantage.

He leaped up and forcibly opened the magecraft seal for another instant. The renewed shock to his brain threw his movements out of alignment in midair.

But the next moment, Sovell strengthened Invisible Air with fairy magecraft and released it directly from the butt of the Holy Spear, hurling the weapon straight at the White Dragon's chest!

By then, Sovell no longer had the strength to move at all, and his body plummeted from the air.

Just as Merlin was about to launch his next attack against the White Dragon, a terrible pain pierced his flesh, as though an enormous mass of magical energy were hurtling toward him.

He looked toward it and only then realized-

It was no mere impression. That enormous mass of magical energy was Sovell, still in midair!

Merlin immediately abandoned his chance to attack and chose to catch the falling Sovell.

With so much magical energy raging out of control inside Sovell, if he suffered an impact like that...

There was no doubt: the instant he struck the ground, that immense magical energy would cause his body to collapse.

Driven by the magical energy, his soul would also become fuel for an even greater chain explosion, leaving him no chance to return to Avalon.

But the next moment, as Merlin drew closer and sensed the intense heat radiating from Sovell's body, he immediately chose to cushion him with petals.

Sure enough, the petals that touched Sovell's body burst into flame a moment later.

Merlin could only keep dissipating the magical energy spilling from the boy, turning that scorching power into harmless petals. It could not solve the problem outright, but it was better than nothing.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, the White Dragon saw the Holy Spear hurtling toward him, its tip gleaming blue, and dared not take it lightly.

He immediately reverted to Vortigern's form and narrowly evaded the blow Sovell had launched at the cost of his consciousness-a strike that, while not necessarily fatal to his true form, would at least have gravely wounded him.

Neither side had the strength to continue fighting.

The accumulation and turmoil of magical energy had turned Sovell into a dangerously volatile explosive.

Though Merlin himself was entirely unharmed, the need to stabilize Sovell's condition had temporarily rendered him unable to fight.

The White Dragon was hardly any better off. His upper limbs were half-crippled, and one dragon wing was broken, requiring a long period of rest to heal.

Merlin and the White Dragon stared at each other, neither daring to attack again.

The White Dragon feared Merlin might have another trick up his sleeve, while Merlin worried that the White Dragon might still intend to fight. He had no way to spare himself for anything else.

The two simply stared at each other without a word.

Suddenly, a voice as faint as a thread broke the tense silence:

"White... Dragon of Britain, I'll... make you... join Father in death."

Hearing this, the White Dragon laughed in fury and addressed Merlin:

"Incubus, tell me, what exactly did my past self do to make this defective product throw away his life for him? Surely he wasn't actually fed some magic potion."

Merlin gave a deep sigh before answering:

"First, Sovell is certainly not the defective product you call him.

Second, Vortigern never fed this child any magic potion.

He merely gave this child something you could give him, but never would."

"Oh? And what was that?"

The White Dragon already had a suspicion, but he dared not-or rather, refused to-accept that such a fragile thing could be what the powerful dragon offspring before him needed.

But Merlin's answer confirmed his suspicion outright:

"A father's care and companionship."

"A father's...

Care?

Companionship?

Ha ha...

Hahahahahahahahaha!!!"

The White Dragon sat on the ground, clutching his stomach with laughter, as though Merlin had just told an exceptionally good joke.

Merlin, an inhuman being who had lived for decades in a state approaching utter emotionlessness, looked upon another living creature with sorrow for the first time.

"What an outrageous joke! Hahahahaha!!!

A noble, powerful dragon offspring turned against his own birth father over something like that, crying out for vengeance for this man and demanding his father join him in death?

Incubus, that truly was a fine joke.

Hahahahahahaha!!!"

Indeed, the White Dragon of Britain occupying Vortigern's body, who had attacked Sovell so mercilessly-

Was Sovell's biological father!

Though the White Dragon appeared to be laughing wildly in mockery, his mind had slipped into memories from fifteen years ago:

It had been a quiet night. To achieve my ultimate goal, I decided to conduct an experiment-

Mix the bloodline of humanity with my own dragon blood to create the finest weapon-or rather, a pawn.

So I chose to take human form and raped a beautiful human woman.

The experiment ultimately succeeded. After carrying the child for ten months, the woman died in childbirth, but successfully delivered a baby boy born with white hair.

That baby boy, or rather, that raw material, was the troublesome defective product before me now.

I left the raw material in the nearest Demon Beast Forest, waiting for the island's second-most-powerful king, Vortigern, to come hunting beasts.

Vortigern successfully noticed the raw material.

The plan proceeded successfully.

But!

But why had it ended up like this?

Could it really be because of that so-called care and companionship?

Hah. Impossible.

"Incubus, I'll let this matter go for now. Next time, I will reclaim that defective product."

With those parting words, the White Dragon rose and left.

Merlin breathed a sigh of relief at the White Dragon's departure, but a moment later, he suddenly noticed that the heat and magical energy throughout Sovell's body were drawing inward, until they no longer leaked out at all.

What was happening?

Just as Merlin was about to examine Sovell's condition, the Holy Spear embedded in the distant sea of flowers suddenly flew back.

Sovell, who had been lying unconscious on the ground, rose straight to his feet and seized the Holy Spear.

The boy opened his eyes. The lively silver irises were gone; all that remained were pure, calm eyes of radiant gold!

Sovell pointed the spear at Merlin and declared coldly:

"I am the Storm King, the Lord of World's End, the White Dragon King.

Answer me-

Who are you, and why have you come?"