June is the month of harvest.

It marks the annual hatching season for the Dragon Clan.

It also signifies three and a half years since the stone giant Dominic accepted the Adventurers’ Guild’s Class A contract—tasked with escorting the son of Duke Ponce de Leon to the edge of the Chaos Abyss in search of inspiration.

Yes, they’d been searching this remote, perilous abyss for over three years. Yet Dominic still hadn’t grasped what exactly they were seeking.

“We seek predestined fate, my friend. The diviner said I’d glimpse the meaning of the future here. Aren’t you curious about your own destiny?” declared the spiritually inclined young noble. “If the future has form, I hope it resembles the legendary wyvern.”

Beneath the pitch-black sky of eternal night, the stone giant—a master of wilderness skills—finally kindled a roaring campfire, banishing the chill for his human employer.

Humans are truly difficult to care for. Too hot is unbearable; too cold is equally intolerable. Mr. Giant was truly pulling out all the stops to ensure his employer survived.

His employer, a human named Job, shivered while wrapped in a brightly colored woolen blanket, warming himself and slurping from a bowl of red stewed vegetable soup. His unkempt beard bristled as he boasted: What do you think a wyvern looks like? As mighty as an aery dragon? Speaking of which, have you ever seen a flock of aery dragons soaring over the Endless Sea? I have. You know, my cousin Valérie is a dragon knight of the Glorious Empire—a truly great profession with odds of one in a million!”

In Lord Job’s previous version of the story, the employment rate for dragon knights was still one in a million.

Dominic sorted through the ancient ignition kit, checking each item: fire steel, flint, tinder—silently listening to the household tales he’d heard countless times before. He neither refuted nor resented the embellishments, for beyond the eternal darkness and the occasional raging hurricane, the Chaos Abyss offered only the vivid stories spun by his employer.

The evening breeze swept through, swirling away some of Dominic’s tinder and dry twigs. He scrambled to his feet—the day of departure remained distant and uncertain, making every resource precious.

His employer joined the effort to gather the scattered embers. Though a frail human, Lord Job was no idle noble; he generously lent a hand wherever he could.

As they gathered, Job continued his animated tale: “She met her dragon in the Timaath Breeding Grounds. Though it was only an elemental wyvern, it was already formidable among wyverns—no, the most formidable one! True dragons never bestow their gaze upon humans. Even forging a contract with an elemental wyvern is an incredibly, incredibly remarkable feat.”

“Do you know how tall that elemental wyvern was? A full twenty-seven feet! Twenty-seven! Getting hit by just one of its wings wouldn’t leave you with a few bruises—it’d leave you in pieces.”

“Who?” Dominic drifted off. Even if his not-so-sharp mind hadn’t wandered, he’d struggle to process all this information—even though he’d heard this dragon-taming girl’s tale countless times.

“Valie.”

“Valie? Who?”

“My cousin! Valeria of the Flames! The pride of our Ponce de León family!” Job was getting annoyed. You could insult him, you could insult his story, but you couldn’t insult his cousin! He flung the dead branch in his hand, ready to settle things with Dominic at the edge of the abyss.

But he misunderstood Dominic. This simple-minded stone giant wasn’t asking who Valie was in the story. His train of thought had been abruptly interrupted by the phantom that suddenly appeared before him.

That must be an illusion…

It had to be an illusion.

Dominic thought uncertainly. How else could he be in the Chaos Abyss—the most dangerous, chaotic wilderness on the continent of Farres, repeatedly plowed by sky-darkening magical hurricanes—and see a five-headed human cub standing perfectly upright on scorched earth?

To be precise, the child stood right beside the young Lord Job.

Lord Job even accepted the slender, withered branch offered to him, responding with a natural, polite, “Thank you.”

Only after speaking did the slow-witted Lord Job finally snap to attention, his eyes widening in disbelief. No, wait—where did this child come from?

Having lived nearly a thousand days in this pitch-black hellhole, Job’s eyesight had long begun to deteriorate. Seeing anything now was an effort. But no matter how poor his vision, he couldn’t be mistaken. Standing right before him was a child, a living, breathing human child.

To be fair, it really was an adorable little one.

A head of tousled white curls, eyes as round and golden as the setting sun. Clad in a striped short-sleeved shirt that seemed slightly odd for the continent of Farres, yet this flaw was easily overshadowed. That face—with rosy lips and pearly teeth, transcending racial beauty standards—made up for everything. It was like a meticulously carved divine artifact, yet carried a unique, retro charm reminiscent of the Art Nouveau era.

This was precisely why the stone giant Dominic thought he was seeing an illusion. The child was simply too beautiful—even among the elven race, renowned for its stunning beauty, he possessed an almost unreal, dreamlike quality.

Hardly something that could exist in reality.

And now, “reality” was beaming at them, waving cheerfully. Though they couldn’t understand his words, his gestures made it clear he was asking if they wanted him to continue gathering dead branches for them.

“Who are you? How did you end up here?” Lord Job’s voice had grown hoarse.

Alas, before the child could respond, thunder rolled from the thick clouds above the night sky. Such scenes were commonplace in the Chaos Abyss, where extreme weather patterns played out in relentless succession. Yet this time felt different. Alongside the thunder, pale, fleeting afterimages darted through the darkness.

They were unstable, twisted, cast off by the ancient past.

They were…

“Serpents!”

Job’s eyes widened. Three years—a thousand days and nights—had passed in this desolate land. Not only serpents, but even living creatures were rare sights. What extraordinary luck had brought so many of them forth today?

Dominic felt compelled to remind his employer that being surrounded by a restless swarm of vipers hardly counted as good fortune.

These ancient beasts, said to exist only in legends from before the Art Nouveau era, resembled grotesque, monstrous creatures. Their forms constantly shifted through the air, creating rippling fields of residual energy. Within these shadows flowed the glorious, radiant lives of magical beings alongside the twisted, suppressed negativity of human emotions. Past existences merged and fused within their silhouettes, keeping their appearances perpetually suspended between magical collapse and rebirth.

They tore at each other, wailed incessantly, and began advancing toward Dominic and Job with a dangerous aura. A one-eyed serpent, seemingly the leader of the pack, raised its head under the full moon and let out a roar—like the bugle call signaling the start of a charge.

Lord Job instinctively stepped in front of the child.

Thankfully, the child hadn’t cried from fear yet, remaining remarkably steady.

Before the snakes could launch their collective howl, erratic magical whirlwinds arrived with thunderous claps. Amidst successive, thick bolts of lightning, a raging vortex swirled, engulfing the sky with yellow sand. It swelled and shifted, rampaging closer and closer.

That hurricane, which changed the very color of the sky and earth, was like a ravenous, ferocious beast, swallowing everything in its path without restraint. Its deafening roar and overwhelming force finally reminded the viper swarm that they were actually fleeing. This made them abandon further combat, and they immediately scattered once more in their desperate flight.

The one-eyed viper charged ahead, yet in a baffling turn, hooked its scorpion-like tail around the child’s waist before fleeing. Dragging the boy along, it joined the others in sprinting toward the heart of the dark abyss.

“Wait! Let go of the child!” Job instinctively broke into a frantic chase.

Dominic tried to stop him, but to little effect. A single sentence from Job drew him into the chase—the snakes were heading straight for the heart of the Chaos Abyss!

The most terrifying and uncontrollable aspect of Chaos magic was also…

The lair of the demon dragon Nidhogg!

It was the last of the ancient dragons of Farres.

Legend held that at the height of the ancient dragon race, the Prell, they possessed power capable of shattering worlds, rivaling the gods themselves. Undying and indestructible, they were mad and mighty. They struck down paladins with their fists and crushed heroes underfoot. They had ignited the War of the Gods and personally extinguished the gods themselves, leveling continents with their near-brute physical might, nearly unifying all of Farres.

Or perhaps they already had.

They unified currency, unified orbit, unified magic, then with a wave of their sleeves, declared the end of their entire race’s existence with effortless, mocking ease.

It was an era of absurdity and madness, so preposterous that many historians still question the very existence of the Prell clan.

Not that anyone doubts the might of these ancient dragons—Nidhogg stands as living proof.

Born after the Art Nouveau era, long after the ancient dragons had perished, the dragon clan mistook him for a dead egg and revered him as a sacred artifact. Unexpectedly, one day the “sacred artifact” hatched, and from birth possessed the power to instantly slay anyone who dared raise a blade against it out of fear of the Prell clan.

In their zeal to protect Nidhogg, the dragon clans nearly single-handedly ignited a war against the entire continent.

Ultimately, this plan was thwarted only because the demon race—that bunch of lunatics—launched the Continental War first.

Like every demon lord destined to be vanquished by a hero, the demon lord of that time also harbored a grand vision to destroy the world. The dragon clan finally rallied on this side of the continent, united in purpose—after all, no one wanted to be annihilated.

The demon dragon Nidhogg joined the dragon clan in battle, almost instantly shifting the one-sided tide of war and driving the demon race into retreat. Yet Nidhogg’s flaw became evident in this grand confrontation—his overwhelming demonic power often plunged him into madness.

Just as the human classic chronicles describe the Evil God: He is foolish, blind, mad, and unspeakable.

He won the war, yet remained forever in the Chaos Abyss born from the former Demon King’s plan to destroy the world.

No one knows why Nidhogg chose to remain in this eternally lightless place. Yet countless adventurers who dared venture into the Abyss paid with blood and tears, managing to relay, before their deaths, one lesson after another—a thousand words distilled into a single plea: Do not disturb the Lord’s slumber! Do not disturb!

“Do you want to die?” Job asked Dominic.

Dominic certainly did not.

Then they must stop the reckless Viper Clan. After all, the dragon cares not who disturbs his slumber—he will simply kill them all indiscriminately!

Job swiftly drew the staff from his spatial pouch. It was an ashwood wand passed down from court mages, encrusted with multicolored magical crystals. Massive as a greatsword, it radiated potent magic that Job could barely contain now. This was one of his lifelines, besides Dominic.

The frail human drew a deep breath, then raised the staff—which resembled a melee weapon more than a magic tool—high above his head before driving it forcefully into the excessively hard ground. Though it appeared as effortless as planting a thin stick in sand, Job’s veins bulged across his body. The sudden surge of the storm swept him like a broken kite without strings, tossing him wildly through the air.

Miraculously, his hands never left the staff’s grip, as if glued to it by some unyielding force.

Golden light surged from the staff, serpentine and sword-like, violently breaking through the earth. It cracked the ground, leaving forward-spreading fissures, and propelled Dominic toward the viper swarm at the speed of light.

Job now resembled a luminous firefly, his entire body crackling with holy light emanating from his tightly clenched hands. The blindingly bright patterns had spread across his entire form. Gritting his teeth against excruciating pain, he shouted his final warning to Dominic: “I can barely hold on! Hurry! Up!”

Dominic was racing against time too. Not only was his employer behind him nearing collapse, but the closer he drew to the abyss’s heart, the more he felt a fierce tearing force—the oppressive weight of Chaos itself.

Even his thick, stone-like skin felt as if it would shatter into pieces any second.

Yet the vipers remained unscathed, including the child still tightly clutched around the waist by the one-eyed viper.

This reckless swarm of vipers had drawn dangerously close to the dragon’s lair. Amidst the darkness and thick, low-visibility fog, the aura of the great predator washed over them. This wasn’t the Stone Giant’s first time venturing near this perilous zone, yet he still couldn’t fathom what these threadlike wisps of mist truly were. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was snatching the child and luring the viper horde off course.

He figured it out: wherever the child was, the one-eyed viper commanding the horde would be there too.

Though seemingly clumsy, the massive stone giant possessed a keen, observant mind honed through years of adventure. On ever-shifting battlefields, he instinctively assessed situations, striking with pinpoint precision to exploit his foes’ weakest points.

Just as Dominic succeeded in halting the viper horde at the edge of the wilderness by fighting the leader for the child, before he could even feel relieved, a blinding, scorching golden light suddenly filled his vision. That radiance far surpassed the luminous power of Job’s staff, making him feel as if his entire stone body was about to be burned to ashes. Unable to open his eyes, he swiftly lost consciousness.

He had no time to do anything but instinctively muster his last ounce of strength to cast a magical protective barrier, shielding the child in its rapid descent.

Much later, having narrowly escaped death, Dominic finally understood: what he had witnessed that day was merely an eye.

A golden eye, dazzling like the sun itself—the eye of a dragon.

And that was merely the dragon opening its eye once, utterly casually and by chance, during its millennia-long slumber.

Then, he dared not move another inch.

That single eye fixed unwaveringly on the young cub before it—a cub with golden pupils identical to its own.

━━━━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━━━━

In nature, many animals engage in egg-stealing behavior.

The reasons driving them to this “crime” vary: some seek sustenance, others usurp nests to ensure their own offspring survive, while some are simply driven mad by their longing for young.

You thought I was talking about dragons?

No, I’m referring to the harpies, known as the swift-footed ones. Serious face. I swear upon the Goddess of Youth, whom the Ponce de León family has served for generations, that I harbor not a shred of disrespect toward the great dragon kin. I merely wish to engage in rational discourse with you, my dear readers, about what constitutes parental compensation behavior in animals…

—Century of Monsters Anthology BY: Job Ponce de León.