Starting out as a Dragon Slave

Isaac didn’t even have time to register the danger. A crimson flash tore through the air like lightning, and before his brain could process what was happening, a titanic force crashed into his chest with the power of an avalanche. The impact was unimaginably violent so intense that for a moment, Isaac thought his soul had been ripped from his body. His bones cracked under the blow like dry wood, and his body was hurled at breakneck speed against the nearest wall.

The ancient stone shattered upon collision like glass, a wave of debris and dust dispersing in a deafening shockwave that resonated throughout the entire structure.

His breath was knocked out of him, his vision blurred by pain, and Isaac collapsed heavily to the ground with a wet thud, his body trembling with uncontrollable spasms. His fractured ribs burned with every breath, like white-hot blades carving into his flesh, his breath ragged and wheezing, each inhalation an indescribable agony. He tried to push himself up, but his arms betrayed his will, shaking violently before giving out under his weight, his scarlet blood trickling from his mouth in a thin stream that pooled onto the cold stone.

Belgaroth appeared before him, his heavy footsteps echoing in the ash-laden air like the beat of a funeral drum. His aura had intensified, transformed now a purple flame with violet hues danced around his hands like living manifestations of his cruelty, crackling with destructive energy that made the very air vibrate. Isaac, half-conscious, lifted a blurred gaze towards the red dragon, his pupils dilated with pain, his vision veiled by a crimson haze.

- "It hurts, doesn’t it?" Belgaroth murmured, crouching before him with incongruous grace for his size, his glowing eyes shining with a sadistic gleam that seemed to feed off Isaac’s suffering. "Did you really think you could fight me? A miserable human rat daring to stand against a noble of the Scorching Fangs? Against me?"

Isaac did not respond, his teeth clenched so hard they threatened to shatter, suppressing the scream of agony that clawed at his throat. His body desperately tried to regenerate, the familiar warmth of mana pulsing weakly through his veins like a dying heartbeat, but it was not enough to counter the extent of the damage.

The blow had been too powerful, too brutal, too precise. He tried again to rise, his will fighting against the limitations of his flesh, but his arms gave out beneath him, sending him crashing back to the ground with a dull thud that resonated like a death knell.

Suddenly, a scream pierced the air like a silver blade:

- "Leave him alone, you monster!"

Akane appeared in a flash of movement, her silhouette cut against the shadows like a blade of silver. Her saber, catching the few rays of light filtering through the hall, gleamed with a supernatural glow, almost alive, as if the steel itself shared her newly unleashed rage.

She dove toward Belgaroth like a raptor in full dive, her entire body aligned in perfect precision, every muscle, every fiber of her being coordinated in this desperate attack. The regained grace of her movements evoked a deadly dance, her feet barely touching the ground as her blade sliced through the air with a sharp whistle, tracing a silver arc that seemed to tear through reality itself.

But Belgaroth did not even bother to move. A contemptuous sneer distorted his features as his massive arm comparable to the trunk of a gnarled tree rose with deliberate, almost insulting slowness. His fingers, with protruding joints tipped by semi-retractable claws, opened like the jaws of a deadly trap before clamping down brutally around Akane’s delicate throat.

The impact halted her charge mid-air, her body suspended like a broken marionette, the force of her attack obliterated in an instant. A strangled gurgle escaped her parted lips as oxygen fled her lungs. Her hands suddenly minuscule by comparison clutched desperately at the titanic wrist that imprisoned her, her nails digging into skin that felt like thick leather.

But despite all her will, despite the strength born from her newfound freedom, Belgaroth’s fingers did not give an inch, as unyielding as fate itself. Her saber an extension of her warrior’s soul slipped from her numb fingers, falling to the ground with a cruelly clear metallic clang that resonated through the cavernous hall, its echo reverberating like the toll of a funeral bell.

- "Poor little creature," Belgaroth murmured, his voice dripping with the honeyed condescension mingled with the venom of cruelty, his bloodshot eyes gleaming with a predatory glint that called to mind the embers of a forgotten hell. "Do you still imagine yourself capable of defying me? After all these years when I broke your body, your spirit, your very soul? Have you so quickly forgotten who I am, what I am?"

Akane struggled with desperate fury against the lethal grip, her feet kicking frantically at the empty air, thrashing in a macabre dance. Her boots occasionally struck Belgaroth’s chest with as much effect as if she were kicking solid granite. Her face, once serene in its beauty, contorted under the pressure and lack of oxygen: her fine features twisted into a mask of suffering, the veins on her temples bulging beneath skin that was slowly turning purple.

Yet even in that agony, even at the edge of unconsciousness, her eyes those windows to a soul too long imprisoned remained locked onto her tormentor’s, burning with a hatred so pure, so visceral, that it seemed to radiate from her like a palpable aura.

- "I... would rather... die... shredded by a thousand blades... than go back with you..." she spat out in a ragged breath, each syllable torn from her compressed lungs, her throat vibrating painfully against the unyielding fingers that clenched around it.

Belgaroth raised a single arched eyebrow, his smile widening to reveal too many teeth too sharp to belong to any human. The crimson scales that peeked through his skin pulsed with a sickly glow.

- "Oh? Really? How... entertaining," he articulated, savoring each word like a delicate morsel. "I thought you were finally tamed, resigned to your condition. A mere toy between my claws... a distraction for the long, boring centuries. But if you insist on rekindling that flame of rebellion..."

He let the sentence trail off, the implicit promise of unspeakable torment hanging heavy in the corrupted air. Then, with deliberate, calculated slowness, meant to maximize her terror, his fist clenched tighter, the knuckles of his hand cracking ominously under the pressure. Tendrils of crimson magic seeped from between his fingers, wrapping around Akane’s neck like fiery serpents seeking to burrow into her flesh.