It was only after Leo had returned to the destroyer and the fleet began its ascent toward Ixtal that he finally allowed himself a quiet moment to examine the cloth-wrapped bundle Moltherak had tossed to him, as seated alone in the dim cabin, with the low hum of the engines vibrating through the metal beneath his boots, he unwrapped it carefully.
*Unwrap*
The moment the fabric fell away, his breath stilled, for resting in his palm was a blade he recognized instantly.
’Isn’t that...?’
His eyes widened as the polished edge caught the cabin light.
Grudgekeeper.
The final masterpiece crafted by Supreme Master Argo before his death. One half of the twin daggers Soron had wielded in his last battle.
Leo ran his thumb lightly along the flat of the blade, careful to avoid the edge, as he felt the faint pulse of Origin Metal that had tasted God Blood in its last battle.
’So you managed to pass one half of the set on... even while surrounded by seven enemy Gods?’
A quiet respect surfaced in his chest.
Soron had truly thought ahead, even in his final moments.
To be honest, Leo had never expected to see Grudgekeeper again—certainly not in Cult hands.
He had assumed that once Soron fell, the blade would have been seized by Mauriss, or Kaelith, or another opportunistic God eager to claim such a relic.
And yet here it was.
In his hand.
’This gives me leverage.’
He exhaled slowly.
Origin weapons were not mere artifacts..... they were strategic assets, political weight, and divine bargaining chips in the game of universal domination, and for Moltherak to hand one over instead of claiming it for himself was not a small gesture.
’The old Dragon must already have what he needs.’
Leo concluded, as he recalled their earlier conversations in the Time Stilled World where Moltherak had once mentioned that the teeth of his original body were coated in Origin Metal.
If that was true, then the Dragon King possessed a personal arsenal embedded within his own being that was far more practical to him than a human-crafted dagger.
Which meant this gift had cost him little in utility, but much in symbolism.
’Not bad....’
Leo thought, as he allowed himself a faint smile.
’With this, I will consider your debt to Soron repaid.’
He concluded, as he wrapped Grudgekeeper carefully in its cloth once more, before securing it within his storage ring.
*THRUMM*
The hum of the destroyer deepened as it entered warp.
Ahead lay expansion, war, and uncertainty.
But now—
With a God Killing weapon by his side, Leo felt just a little more reassured about facing those uncertainties than he did a few moments ago.
—--------------
(Meanwhile, within the Time Stilled World, Aegon Veyr’s POV)
While Leo met Moltherak, within the Time Stilled World, Veyr had already begun his life anew as a nameless soldier.
He stood alone inside a dim barracks chamber, staring at his reflection in a sheet of polished metal, as mana gathered beneath his skin in controlled currents.
With a steady breath, he activated [Shapeshift], feeling bone structure soften and reform, jawline narrowing, cheekbones shifting, hair darkening by several shades until the face staring back at him no longer belonged to the Dragon Aegon Veyr.
It belonged to no one.
Just another recruit.
Per Leo’s instruction, he shed the title of Dragon entirely.
No body tattoos. No special robes. No acknowledgement from those who believed in the prophecy of the Dragon, as when he stepped into formation the next morning, he did so in plain Cult armor, his nameplate bearing nothing but a single word chosen at random.
No one bowed.
No one stared.
No one knew.
And that was exactly how he wanted it.
Captivity had stripped him of more than freedom.
It had carved humiliation into his pride and forced him to confront a truth he had long ignored, which was that strength borrowed from title was not the same as strength earned through will.
When Leo had needed him most, when the universe itself seemed poised on a blade’s edge, Veyr had been chained, powerless, irrelevant.
That memory burned hotter than any forge.
So he trained.
He trained before dawn, when frost still clung to the grass of the Time Stilled World and most soldiers were asleep.
He trained after drills ended, long after others retired to rest.
He sparred until his knuckles split and mana pathways trembled under strain, and he ran circuits across uneven terrain until his lungs felt aflame and his vision blurred at the edges.
He did not pace himself.
He did not calculate comfort.
Every spare moment became fuel.
In the training grounds, he was not Dragon Aegon Veyr. He was a soldier whose strikes were sharp but not yet sharp enough, whose footwork was precise but not yet lethal enough, whose mana control improved daily yet still fell short of Monarch perfection.
And that infuriated him.
When exhaustion forced him to his knees, he forced himself back up. When instructors dismissed the session, he remained behind, repeating drills in silence.
When his body finally collapsed, it did so on the cold floor of the barracks, armor half-removed, muscles trembling from overuse.
Day after day.
Without complaint.
Without recognition.
The other soldiers began to notice the quiet intensity of the unnamed recruit.
They spoke of his discipline in hushed tones. Some avoided sparring him. Others sought him out, eager to test themselves against the man who fought like he had something to prove.
And they were not wrong.
Veyr did have something to prove.
To Leo.
To himself.
To the memory of the chains that once bound him.
Monarch Tier no longer felt like an aspiration.
It felt like a deadline, and until he reached it, he had decided that he would not rest.
’I need to do this! I need to prove to the whole universe that the prophecy of the Dragon is not a farce.
That I am more than just a political pawn.
That I am the Cult’s Dragon!’
Veyr thought, as it was this singular motivation that turned him from just another talented boy who tried to work hard, to a man obsessed with improvement, to the point where nothing else mattered in his life.