Local Dragon Ruins History 2 (Waifu Catalog, Nasu!Mythology)
If my life was a video game then there would have been no point in resetting it repeatedly just to defeat the tutorial boss. Having recalled games like Sekiro where it was possible to defeat the tutorial boss with immense skill, doing so would yield no reward outside of bragging rights, as the plot would continue on as intended with a slightly changed cutscene.
Thing is, my life wasn't a video game, and even a nominally 'consequence-free' loss by virtue of having an overpowered guest party member-
"Looking cool, Nikaias!"
- for combat support available after the initial loss had occurred, wouldn't always be an acceptable outcome.
"Yaaa! Die dragon!" "Such power…!" "Lord Nikaias, avenge us…!"
Case in point, the people we had 'adopted' after telepathically introducing ourselves (bypassing language issues, thanks Sothis) to the hunter-gatherers and the people they returned to, were now watching me dispense justice upon the Phantasmal Beasts that have killed their people and are very active threats to their safety.
I couldn't afford to embarrass myself in front of them.
Naturally, I had gotten myself curb stomped and did just that.
But that was kind of the plan as rewinding time to before the battle took almost nothing out of Sothis and she thought that fighting against an overwhelming opponent that I had a small chance of defeating was a great idea to gain experience!
I'm glad that I agreed since this would accomplish many of our starting goals in one fell swoop.
I wasn't as glad when I had been placed on the verge of death repeatedly.
The pain and dread of death, however, was nothing compared to the rather humiliating ways I had lost against the bigger and much scarier gigantic Shadow Dragon right here.
My first death was swiftly delivered after I was easily pinned down and had a breath attack blasted right through my eyes, resulting in swift brain death.
Sothis yelled at me for thinking that I could even halt the charge of a much larger enemy with the idiotic way I was standing my ground. To put it simply, I learnt the value of dodging from that.
My many deaths after that taught me a lot about dragon physiology and the kind of bullshit that I could expect from long-lived dragons that had all sorts of magical tricks attached to their being.
I quickly learnt to control my dragon body, rapidly change between my smaller bipedal form and my larger quadruped form to maximize my evasiveness (and confuse my enemy), learned how to actually fight and dodge efficiently, avoid civilian casualties, and of course, use my underdeveloped breath attack intelligently.
Not that my laser breath could do more than partially redirect some of my enemy's dark necrotic energies, but I was getting there!
Changing direction at the last second as I shrunk back down to my human form just after building enough momentum in the air and holding the power of my charged up breath attack even in this form allowed me to evade my enemy's sky-splitting torrential mana.
With much of its vision impaired by its own attack which seemed to absorb the light around it, I sky-dived towards my enemy while narrowly dodging the pillar of darkness using my small form, then immediately transformed to my largest dragon form just as I was upon him.
By then, his attack had ended, just as I had calculated from my previous observations in our past battles.
I unleashed a focused, short burst of light through my mouth right into its eye.
It roared in pain as its eye was blown back into its own skull!
There was no point in using sustained attacks when my 'Breath of Light' (a holdover from my initial, pre-conceptual element of Light) could barely damage its scales and would only knock the dragon back a few dozen meters or so.
It spun around using its wings with force that would ordinarily knock me into the ground, but I was used to this, and swiftly transformed to my smaller form, used some of the remaining breath charge as a concussive blast to redirect my trajectory and 'ride' the wind generated from my enemy's movement.
I came around him and then latched unto the tip of its horn, pulled myself up, changed to my full dragon and used my longer neck to blast my remaining charge into the same destroyed eye.
Payback is a bitch. Enjoy your terminal case brain damage!
The cessation of its brain functions didn't satisfy me and I strangled its neck with my tail as we began to fall back to the ground. Feeling the well of power within me, I breathed and collected enough energy was a full breath attack, then blasted it all through its head to make sure it died even after I killed it.
This was the Nasuverse afterall, you can never be too careful.
I unfurled my wings and kicked off its brain-deprived falling corpsed. Slowing my descent with controlled flapping of my wings, I watched with pride and satisfaction as the dead dragon fell to the earth like a fallen star.
Sothis's power contained the impact's destruction and spread of the dragon's miasma.
Descending upon my foe's larger body, I gave out a victory cry and allowed my power to flare out from my body without restraint!ler
The humans that have followed after us were struck with great fear for a moment, their fear soon turned into overjoyed cries. They were in awe of my feat much like they had been when Sothis demonstrated her power and wiped out several other Phantasmal Beasts a few days before.
It had been my turn to prove my own 'godhood' by slaying a powerful foe, and I had done it… after, well, a dozen or so tries. But it's not like they could prove that I was a save-scumming bastard so it doesn't matter.
Sothis's reaction was one of pride and… lust? I could imagine her saying 'well done' in a sarcastic manner as she reminded me of my failed attempts at beating the dragon that radiated 'death-like' power. I couldn't quite imagine half her face being beet-red instead of the smug satisfied look I was expecting from her.
Sothis gave a speech to the jubilant tribe through telepathy (while putting me on 'mute' so that I don't think something stupid outloud, 10/10, better than Steam Voice Chat) and instructed them to return to their dwelling place as the area was still dangerous. She declared that the two of us would be 'purifying' the dark energies left behind by the monstrous dragon, which was honestly a disservice since it was hardly a mere monster (not that I cared all that much since I was still salty about the times it killed me), but nonetheless did the job in giving us some privacy.
When she had completed her task, she walked down into the crater by stepping on the air as if there were invisible steps there, and levelled me an expectant look.
"Thank you for all the retries."
She smiled, obviously pleased that I didn't forget to thank her for saving my life again… although she did put me up against an enemy that I was definitely going to die against until I got good.
"Well now, I had to find some way to teach you how to protect yourself. However, I do hope that you won't throw your life away in such silly ways again."
"Telling someone that had never gotten into a fight to kill something several times bigger than him is overall a silly thing to do."
"And so next time when someone tells you to do it, you should at least try to argue against it, hmm?"
Ah, so it's that kind of double lesson.
"I concede the point. Though the benefits of killing a dragon sort of outweighed the cons of dying until I got it right.
Sothis had a thoughtful look and gestured for me to go on.
"In this universe, humans try to become dragon slayers for some kind of benefit, either for their treasure, for their power or because it accomplished something else. I'll focused on the potential direct benefits. Siegfried bathed in the blood of the Fafnir and gained something close to invulnerability to anything but conceptual dragon-slaying attacks, though a linden leaf stuck to his back during the process and it became a weakness to him. Sigurd killed the same series of evil dragons, Fafnir, which by the way is born again when anyone exhibits overwhelming greed… and devoured its heart, gaining the ability to produce mana like a dragon and 'wisdom'."
Dragon-kind Modification was attained by swallowing the heart of a dragon, and somehow, Sigurd ended up getting wisdom (or extreme intelligence gathering capabilities) from it too. I guess that would be the 'natural' way for a human to gain the core of a dragon without it being implanted artificially like in the case of Arturia.
Sothis clapped her hands together, "Well, then. I suppose that we should make good use of your mighty foe before we begin the celebrations. You take the heart and I'll set up the blood bath."
With a flex of her arm, the dead body of my short-lived nemesis came apart as if it was being prepared by a butcher and a professional chef! Scales were torn from the skin, its flesh was taken apart until I could see the organs and bones within.
Sothis floated its heart to me, which I began munching on in my Dragon Form, as she continued her work by filling the lungs of the dragon up with its blood, intending to use it to contain the blood.
The world became 'clearer' to me as I became much more capable in deducing the potential uses of the dragon's body. Power began to course through my being, I reached to my core where I would draw upon the power for my breath attack, and found it enlarged dramatically with another similar yet distinct energy being produced alongside my usual 'dragon power'.
After I finished my examination, I stretched out my body and realized that I could grow much larger than my current form. Of course! Gaining more power increases my maximum size too!
Looking back at Sothis finishing up her blood bathtub using the dragon's lungs and other pieces of flesh, I recalled a line about the lungs of a dragon acting as 'spiritual worlds' so that they could generate mana by breathing, and realized that Sothis was doing something more with her power.
My improved brain power was telling me that she was clearing up any impurities from the 'death dragon' and was combining the properties of the dragon parts (included blood) for maximum gain.
Wow, so she too, can be a power-gamer when the opportunity presents itself!
"Alright, now all we have to do is get in one of these… soak in it until I say we're done and then we drink as much of the blood as possible."
"... So we're going to drink the dragon's blood?"
"What's with that reaction? It's like you didn't agree to killing and harvesting a local dragon for power!"
"It's not that. I just don't like the idea of you drinking some random ass black dragon's blood before my own! We had plans for that, remember?"
"Is that… jealousy I sense?"
"Of course it is! If we're going to do this then we shouldn't put this off anymore."
Her teasing face subsequently turned into surprise as I blatantly admitted it was true.
"W-what?! I, well, it's a bit sudden but if you're sure…"
She swiped her hand and made a cut on my arm.
"AAAAAH!"
"Ah! Why are you screaming?! It's just a tiny cut. You've had your neck bitten off, your body crushed and your head rammed into mountains by that dead thing…!"
"Oh, I wasn't prepared. You know, it's like accidentally stubbing your toe…"
Sothis sighed and facepalmed, "You are so… baffling."
Speaking of baffling, my thoughts have been more or less unified together by now as my identity as 'Nikaias' settled, though I do still hear them when circumstances or issues I had yet to form my opinion of would arise. Once I contemplated and firmly decided on where I stand however, the voices of who I was before would no longer ring in my head for those particular matters.
Sothis came up to me, gently took hold of my arm and began to drink from it.
It was… pretty mundane, it didn't hurt all that much but it wasn't super pleasurable for me either… note to self, get a vampire waifu in the future, just for the more sensual experience.
"H-hey, I'm pretty sure that counts for the first daily dose already."
"S-shut up! I haven't eaten anything for such a long time and your blood is quite delicious."
I smelled something odd in the air and quickly realized that it was more than just a nice tasting drink. I withdrew my arm and implored on Sothis to just heal it up already, which she did after pouting slightly.
"I was wondering what we forgot to do… I forgot to cook you a meal! We'll need to make a kitchen so that I can put that perk to work."
"Marvelous. We shall do that by the end of the week. Now, well, I suppose we will have to take off our clothes."
Speaking of clothes, thank goodness that my clothes came along for the transformation spamming ride… oh, a bit of it needs some repair work, guess those high-speed evasive maneuvers took a toll on them huh…
It took me no time at all to take off my clothes while Sothis was carefully laying different bits of her clothes on the ground, starting from the decorations, then… hey, is that…?
"What now?"
She was just about to take off the oddly complicated rope bondage top piece when I interrupted her with my question.
"Could you turn around so I can get a good look at you please?"
Sothis took a second to consider before agreeing without showing any shame. My loli dragon goddess has different morals, as expected.
"Yes, I suppose you may."
She grumbled when I had her adjust her position so that I could take a good look at her lovely pubic tattoo. The evidence that she was truly and fully mine was doing things to my dick…
"Are you going to stop ogling me already?"
"In a bit, besides, you're taking a good look at me as well."
I noted the wetness between her legs and was rather pleased by it. If we didn't have any more important things to do then I would have just given into my 'instincts' and fucked her right there.
"You are a perverted, lustful little dragon."
She didn't sound very displeased despite the face she was making.
We took a long dive into the dragon blood spa after I finished inspecting her.
Sothis's improvements were pretty lacking since she was already powerful, though she did gain larger improvements in interacting with the supernatural phenomenon of this world, it's magic, the spiritrons that made up the things of the world and felt that she could recover her power much more quickly.
On my end, Sothis threw one of the dragon's scales at me 'lightly' and it bounced off my human skin harmlessly. I also felt as if I was now capable of using this world's magic if I had a method of doing so, as I could now feel the ambient mana and manipulate it around me.
She later stored up the rest of the dragon parts in a 'gap-in-time' (gotta love pocket dimension inventories) so that we could use them later. After Sothis cleared up the area of any harmful energies, we returned to the tribe's settlement, soaked up their praise and prepared to party.
I was planning to just cook for them and let them enjoy themselves but Sothis insisted that we stay with them through the whole thing.
"You don't always have to be so serious. Why not "let loose," as humans say, and try to enjoy the occasion. And also, you forgot that they are celebrating us, it would be rude for us not to be there."
I acquiesced to her logic while also thinking that it would be a really good PR move.
After catching a lot of meat (it was easy to snatch up animals in dragon form), forging a pot out of one of the dragon scales with Sothis's power I finally managed to use my Faerie Feast perk for its intended purpose. Sothis got the first serving of food and loved it, as expected. The hunter-gatherer society was already singing praises of me for blessing them with 'god-cooked' food, which may as well have been such since it was unrealistically delicious to them.
Thankfully it didn't override any of their normal, heartfelt praises of our show of power and their increased safety as a result of our presence. We began to party all night long! I managed to put my dancing classes to good use and partnered with Sothis for a few rounds, though we had split up in order to show the humans how it was done, to which they felt was a great honor.
Sothis had sung and danced until she fell upon the ground laughing with joy. The people took it as a sign that they needed to dance harder and proceeded to join Sothis on the ground afterwards.
We retired into another part of the forest for the night.
"That was tiring. Fun, but exhausting." I say to Sothis as she laid on my back, looking up at the night sky. I was comfortable with sleeping in either form, though I will go with whatever Sothis decides on for the night.
"Indeed. I felt as if my heart would burst from joy! It was exhilarating, being there in the midst of everyone, spending my time there like a worldly being. It's been so long since I engaged in even the simplest of life's joys."
Hearing how happy she was made me feel really warm, ah… it's only been a few days and I'm already in love with this woman.
"I understand that this may sound selfish but… I'm glad that I was brought here."
"... Not at all. I think I get what you mean, when we're together or when we helped those humans… all that we've done together has felt more fulfilling than what I've done throughout my past lives."
"You make it sound like you've lived a boring life. Try being stuck in a dream all alone for what seems like forever."
Sothis hadn't seemed bitter about it and sounded pretty chirpy on the topic. Guess she was in a good mood.
"Heh. No thanks."
"I thought not. Anyways… I also wanted to say that I was glad that you were brought here too."
"Even though you are bound to me as you are, Sothis?"
"Hmph. Of course!"
Her statement startled me as I was expecting a bit of resentment.
"Huh?"
"Is it truly a shock that I enjoy your company? One might say my connection to you gave me new life by bringing me here. For that I feel indebted to you. That's why, as thanks, I will gladly grant you any wish I can."
"Sothis, will you marry me one day?"
"I would have thought that was to be expected! Oh, fine! That doesn't count as a wish, try asking for something bigger."
I opened up my mouth to speak the words right out of my heart, only to hold my tongue, deciding that this should be enough for the night. I didn't want her to reciprocate directly, not yet, I wanted to get to know her and watch her until I could honestly say that I truly loved all of her.
I can't help myself from hoping that she would respond in an equal or even greater manner when that day comes.
We were gathering up as many of the hunter-gatherer societies spread out across Eastern Europe as we made our way towards the center of the continent.
We had first arrived in what looked like modern day Ukraine, far up north and east of where Ancient Greece would be after the Atlanteans (the flying colony managed by Olympians) reached there, an eastward migration that would happen as a result of Sefar attacking and destroying Atlantis with most of them dying in the process.
The strongest pantheon of gods in the west Atlantic Ocean and the Mesopotamian gods far South in the middle-east, Europe was somewhat deprived of gods at this time, although there were a lot of animal composite Spirits and plenty of Nature Spirits as well. There were quite a bit of magical beasts, monsters of all sorts… which we dealt with quite decisively.
Aside from protecting our growing people we also spent a handful of hours each day split between the two of us educating them about various crafts, practical sciences, clean living methods and more. Science Talent helps me pick up the lesson plan from Sothis, whose countries had gone up to near Cold War levels of technology (without the weapons) while the Agarthians were making ICBM's, making her the much more knowledgeable individual between the two of us.
I had a leg up in explaining things about computing and other 21st century advancements, but that wouldn't come into play until much later. Most of my uplifting strategies would only apply to ASOIAF or other worlds in the middle-ages anyways, not this Upper Paleolithic age that would only enter the bronze age in another thousand plus years or so.
Sothis had a plan on how we were to dodge the Quantum Time-Locks and ultimately make our timeline sustainable, though she needed to confirm a few things by taking a few more peeks across the timelines.
According to her, while she could perceive things up to 500 years into the future, she couldn't be everywhere and was rather limited in what she could find. Even so, it was more than enough to determine which timelines would most likely be culled, though we didn't have to focus on that yet since humanity hasn't gotten strong enough to be picky in their methods for continuous survival, hence the World's frequency in Quantum Time-Locks is much larger than the regular 100 years it was in canon.
The first stage of our plan would be enacted in 215+ or so years as that would be when Sothis hits the Tier 9 mark with daily blood dosages. Though with how close we were becoming, I'd say that it'll be another type of fluid she's taking in…
Anyways, with the safety net of her increased power, we should be able to safely engage with at least one of the Olympians. We currently had our sights on either Demeter or Artemis given that we didn't have Mind Defence yet. Until we captured one of them we wouldn't be able to meet Aphrodite without risking our minds getting scrambled.
We had also begun giving out 'blessings' in the form of our blood to the people. In order to make sure they didn't take their blessings for granted we made sure to establish proper procedures in requesting for a blessing or if we came to them (the exceptional ones) with the offer of a blessing.
In order to get our blessings they would need to finish a challenging uplifting, construction or production task that we have set for them. If their talents lay in battle then we would send them on a hunt against a magical beast, if they were good at diplomacy we would get them to speak with the nature spirits and get something out of them.
Upon success, I would have them drink my blood over the course of 5 days (based on some tests and assumptions, most of the humans here can be counted as Tier 2) in order to boost their aptitudes. They also got some minor buffs here and there which I'm attributing to the upgrades I got from eating a local dragon. When that period is over Sothis would then give them some of her blood so that they would get a random Crest, which is when the real power spike starts and they become capable of using some magic when Sothis teaches it to them.
Speaking of Crests, Sothis managed to give me a copy of her Major Crests of Flames, so I was learning magic under her as well. I made a couple of new utility spells which she greatly appreciated since she could now clean her hair easily.
Yes, I got magic, and I used it to solve the problems of not having a proper bathroom.
Truly I am the greatest dragon.
I jest. There were a lot of things I wasn't great at.
The biggest one was actually using my concept of 'Absolutes' in battle.
And if I don't start getting good at that then the Nasuverse Conceptual Bullshit is going to fuck me in the ass!
"And what are you trying to do now?"
"I'm trying to apply my concept to that of [Power] itself so that my breath attack can blast through everything but it's not working."
"That's because you can't imagine any form of [Absolute Power] that can obliterate everything. Now, tell me Nikaias, what do you mean by everything?"
"Uh… a blast that would obliterate anything in its path, including existence, theory, reason, imagination, hope, despair, etc."
"You are a fool! You don't even grasp the concept of any of those things, much less power, so how can you even hope to start with that?! It's like one of your video games, you can't learn to apply your concept to an 'end-game' application before mastering all the 'early-game' ones first."
Sothis-sensei began to tutor me in the easiest concepts she could think of, namely that of [Time].