Hidden within the spiteful country of Ruviko, a single man-made cave housed, or rather, imprisoned a dragon, appearing much like one would expect a dragon to look.
She seemed to be decaying while still breathing however, her once lustrous red scales had lost their glory and shriveled up.
Her wings, once spanning an enormous length, once capable of shattering stone by a single flap! They were gone.
'...'
Her eyes, which once glinted with bestial intelligence had gone dim, she may have not been a higher dragon, but her strength had been enough to go by.
Had been.
She limped over to the main source of her despair, even beaten down, stripped of her teeth and wings, she hadn't never been struck as hard as when seeing batches upon batches of her eggs unsuccesfully hatch.
Even now, as she surveyed the latest of her children, she didn't harbor any hope that one would break the vicious cycle by breaking through their husks.
The sound of a mettalic door opening made her turn her head before an electrical shock forced to back away from her nest as two small figures approached them with strange devices in their hands.
'...'
"Argh... Why do we even bother? We never got what we wanted! And even if one miraculously hatched, it is clear that this one is no good!" complained one of the two men present, clearly frustrated.
"Calm down Bob, we might have failed this time, but we'll capture other dragons in no time and then, even that bitch Foslauz won't be able to stop us! No one can stand against an army of both dragons and men" the other responded with a zealous look in his eyes.
Bob didn't share his excitement but agreed nonetheless, shooting dragons from the sky had never been easier ever since they managed to created those huge, bow wielding golems.
Nothing that could scratch the greater dragons but well enough to make the poultry crash down.
The zealous man pointed his strange device at the eggs before shaking his head negatively.
"No life force detected" he didn't push it any deeper but Bob, despite his attitude, was meticulous and inspected each of the eggs individually.
They had slight variations, except from one of them who was a pure white and seemingly perfectly smooth.
He tilted his head a bit, not remembering any of the eggs having such a distinct appearance from his previous inspections.
"What the hell? Look at this!" he called his colleague over, pointed at what his device was picking up.
"Yeah, no life like the rest-" he was dismissive, feeling the piercing glare of the mother dragon on his back, making him highly uncomfortable, they may be cocky about this ordeal and in total control, his instincts still knew that a puny human like himself shoudln't be messing with anything that had 'dragon' in its description.
Wingless or not, injured or not, depressed or not, one movement was all it would take for him to be turned into nothing but stain on the ground.
"There isn't any life!" Bob exclaimed, completely unbothered.
"Not even the residuals indicating that it suffocated in the egg" he went on.
"Well, perhaps this egg never developed or wasn't fertilised properly then-" the zealous man once again tried to dismiss Bob but to no avail.
"Bullshit! I know there weren't any of those during our previous visits, so you know what this could mean?!" it was Bob's turn to become overbearing.
His colleague stuttered incoherently as he tried to come up with something.
"Undead dragon! All this negative emotion from the mother dragon must have caused this, an undead dragon is worth much more than a living one! If we manage to keep its body structure well enough and feed it death force, we will have a perfect murder machine" he twisted something on the device, expecting for it to confirm his claim and detect some undeath, alas...
"Huh?"
"Fucking dumbass"
'...'
"What is this? No residuals of life force but no death force either?" Bob was truly shocked, his zealous colleague didn't know what was so strange but he did.
This white egg apparently, neither had life nor death force, which shouldn't be possible, things were either dead or alive, that was fundamental!
He tried something else with the device, he thanked the gods for having something so advanced to use but still, even after checking if this thing wasn't some sort of elemental spirit that was made of nothing but pure elemental mana or energy, he found nothing.
The egg was nothing or...
"Billy" he called the zealous man by his name seriously enough that the other man tensed up in response.
"This egg isn't normal... Back away slowly and carefully..." he instructed him as he demonstrated.
The mother dragon was puzzled by their strange behavior but was too tired to care, that is, until what Bob feared happened.
Only that even in his wildest nightmares, he wasn't expecting something like this.
"May the gods have pity-" Billy tried to pray to the beings above but apparently, even them didn't even want to glance in the direction of the creature that had just appeared.
At first, it seemed like the egg had melted into some sort of white substance, until a pair of eyes appeared on its surface, dark eyes, darker than dark whose only color was found in the irises.
A deep, enchanting and dreadful purple, billy turned on his heels and began running but Bob made the terrible mistake of staring into those eyes.
The already horse-sized, dragon-shaped molten mass of whiteness twisted its face into an horrible smile as the matter making off its body continuously oozed everywhere.
The drops quickly moved on their own back to the main body but Bob saw none of it as his eyes rolled back into his skull and he screamed like a maniac, damaging his vocal cords irreparably before falling on his back as he convulsed.
Eyes similar to the first two started sprouting all over its body, only, that instead of the alluring and deep purple, they were an intoxicating bright yellow.
As Billy tried to open the metal door, his hands trembling like never before, he felt a sharp pain on his lower back and his body being lifted off the ground.
Bringing him up to its face, the newly born dragon stared at him with its maniacal smile still plastered on its face.
"Little caterpillar, why run?" Billy reacted negatively to hearing the dragon speaking to him, as his eyes imploded and blood started flowing out of every pores in his body.
The dragon's voice had sounded as if it had both been inside of his mind and spoken directly as well, it was impossible for him to know.
Gulping both of the human corpses, the newborn turned to its mother, who was in utter shock at seeing a child of her own alive and well, not even noticing its horrific appearance.
The oozing white flesh it was made off gave off the impression that it was salivating.
"Mother... What is my name?" a mother could see past the appearance and many other things of their children, however, the moment it adressed her, this was all dispelled.
Instantly.
"Mother~~"
"I crave"
And thus, he fed.
Dramentia discovered what his favorite food was.