"Ah?"
Seraphina's words seemed somewhat cryptic, prompting Ed and Willow to simultaneously express their bewildered confusion.
At this moment, the Dragon Girl was indeed no longer as flamboyant as before; that feeling of " Seraphina Unlimited Prominence " had been briefly subdued.
She looked at the lich and... what appeared to be human in front of her, and said seriously:
"I felt the severing of my own bloodline."
Bloodline severed?
Ed frowned. This was a difficult question to define; it could be described as the extinction of a race, or as the extinction of a family line.
"What exactly does that mean? Do you sense the death of every dragon? Or is it only within a certain range? Or only the last one?"
"Only the last one will apply, and it must be the last one for a specific group."
Seraphina sighed:
"Although we belong to different dragon races, what's the word again? Subspecies, yes, we belong to different subspecies, but in essence, our ancestor is that Original Dragon."
"That ancestor exists in our memories. It differentiated its powers and body to create all dragons. This is a memory fragment we are born with."
"Whenever a species of dragon becomes completely extinct, the remaining dragons sense it—a profound loneliness and sorrow that runs deep in their bones..."
Ed felt that Seraphina was acting a bit like a pretentious, eccentric teenager today, but considering her age according to dragon standards and the death of a distant relative, he could understand.
He recalled the knowledge about dragons that Seraphina had shared before, and then asked:
"But you said before that dragons also fight each other?"
"These are two different things. Even if a clan has only one dragon left, it will still fight decisively when the time comes, even if the opponent is another dragon, even if the opponent will feel lonely after death. As long as it still acknowledges its identity as a dragon, it should not choose to run away."
Ed now understood that the dragons' infighting and sorrow were not contradictory; they were simply a matter of killing when necessary and crying when necessary.
"You mean, the High Tier expert who died was a Blue Dragon? And the last Blue Dragon at that?"
The dragon girl nodded silently.
Ed immediately began to deduce based on the available intelligence:
"And that aurora that covered half the sky..."
"It's an anomaly caused by the release of a large amount of Psionic Energy that wasn't completely depleted within its body when it died."
"Does only Blue Dragon do this, or do all dragons do it?"
"If you're referring to Psionic Energy leakage, then only Blue Dragon would do that."
Seraphina found a chair and sat down. She seemed somewhat calm or perhaps down today, and answered Ed's questions without reservation.
"And it's not just Aurora; this Blue Dragon isn't very strong, much weaker than me. If it were a powerful Blue Dragon, it wouldn't be just a simple aurora."
What else could it be?
Upon hearing this question, Seraphina gave a somewhat strange smile, and at the same time asked a seemingly unrelated question in return:
What is the Demonic Tide?
Ed didn't know why she suddenly asked that question, but Willow beside him answered seriously:
"The tidal phenomenon of Chaos Psionic Energy worldwide."
Seraphina nodded:
"If a fully grown Blue Dragon dies, then this world will definitely experience a small surge of Demonic Tide —the kind with relatively pure Psionic Energy."
A minor global Demonic Tide?
Could a fully grown Blue Dragon really do that?
Ed frowned and asked:
" Psionic Energy is a field that Blue Dragon excel at?"
"Yes, part of the Blue Dragon's Authority lies in the realm of Psionic Energy, overlapping somewhat with that of the Lich, while another part resides in the realm of frost."
"I see, "Ed, with his studious nature, silently memorized this piece of knowledge.
Blue Dragon excel in Psionic Energy and ice magic, Red Dragon excel in fire and contracts, Amber Dragon excel in creating a false sense of time stop, and the equipment found in the Great Labyrinth City by [ Lion Hidden in the Eyes ] indicates that at least part of the Green Dragon's Authority lies in the realm of "poison."
These guys are all incredibly skilled, but it seems the Blue Dragon are now extinct, Ed's dragon-collecting plan is unlikely to be completed.
Fortunately, the idea of collecting dragons was just Ed's wishful thinking. Judging from Seraphina's personality, dragons are clearly the kind of solitary creatures.
If there are two dragons in your territory, they might end up like two cats in a family, hissing and fighting each other every day.
Humans only watch cats fight, but if dragons fight, Valhalla would probably be reduced to ruins.
Thinking of this, Ed asked again:
"Are the unusual phenomena at the time of a dragon's death related to their Authority? What about the other dragons?"
Seraphina gave a meaningful smile:
"You're asking me? If I were to die one day, a raging inferno would engulf at least half the continent. You seem quite looking forward to that?"
Seeing that the dragon girl had misunderstood, Ed quickly shook his head:
"It wasn't you, but the Amber Dragon —according to records, the Twin Kings of the Eternal Domain once killed the Amber Dragon that occupied that area. So what unusual phenomena occurred when the Amber Dragon died?"
"This happened within the last hundred years. If you can sense the death of a juvenile Blue Dragon, then you shouldn't be completely unaware of the death of a renowned Amber Dragon."
Seraphina paused, lost in memories of what followed the Demonic Tide.
After rummaging through her memories for a while, she said with some doubt:
"No relevant memory."
Does this mean the Amber Dragon wasn't the last one? Or did it mean the Amber Dragon never died at all?
"Anything is possible."
Seraphina answered seriously:
"It has nothing to do with whether it's the last one. The strange phenomena when a dragon dies are one thing, and the other dragons' perception of the last member of their kind is another. Regardless of whether it's the last one or not, as long as it dies, theoretically I will have a perception of it."
Ed felt that his previous guess might not have been entirely illogical. Xilǐ'er and other knights of the Eternal Domain would revert to their original saved state upon death, which was similar to the Amber Dragon's ability.
He thought for a moment and then asked:
So the Amber Dragon didn't die at all?
"That's possible. It might have just been defeated. Amber Dragon are quite mysterious among dragons. I've only seen one before the Demonic Tide. If these sinister races wag their tails and beg for mercy, they might actually be recruited by powerful figures and become useful tools."
Seraphina thought for a moment and then said:
"Actually, there is another possibility - in order to avoid the Demonic Tide, I compressed my perception and domain to the extreme (I even gave up my tail). The Amber Dragon's Authority, which is almost like freezing time, is not obvious, so it is normal that I did not perceive it."