In despair

Thick white mist permeated the air.

The towering conifers, deeply rooted here, blocked most of the sunlight.

In the dim haze, only a few scattered beams of faint light managed to reach the damp ground.

“Tap, tap, tap…”

Li Yin was forced to slow her pace as she made her way across the puddle-covered ground, occasionally having to climb over fallen trees covered in thick moss.

“This swamp is really huge…” she muttered, flicking away a beetle that had landed on her skirt, though she had no idea when it got there.

If the entire area outside hadn’t been a vast swamp stretching as far as the eye could see, she would never have entered.

In here, everything was wet and sticky, making her feel heavier and restricting her movements.

“Ow!”

Li Ya, nestled against her chest, suddenly cried out, its gaze fixed on the fat worm that had been flicked away.

“No, no.”

“That’s dirty.”

“You can’t eat it.”

Li Yin rubbed Li Ya’s head, immediately cutting off the little one’s hopes, with the exact attitude of a mother afraid her child might eat something bad.

In fact, since entering this swamp, she had uttered this very phrase no less than ten times.

As a newborn dragon, Li Ya was curious about everything and wanted to take a bite of anything it saw.

Since it was a dragon cub, one certainly couldn’t educate it with the mindset of raising a human child.

But still, she truly couldn’t bear to let her own child eat such things.

To this day, Li Yin vividly recalled a survival video she had watched in her original world, where a beetle larva burst with a pop.

The moment it was bitten, a long string of entrails dripping with orange-yellow liquid shot out from its mouth.

Ugh—

She instinctively covered her mouth, nearly throwing up.

Once the mind processed and enhanced the imagined image, it became even more impactful than the real thing.

No, no, she couldn’t think about that anymore.

She had to focus on making her way.

Shaking her head to banish the images from her mind, Li Yin continued deeper into the swamp.

Walking along a muddy path that rose half a meter above the swamp, made of wet soil and piled stones, Lian gently held up a thumb-sized emerald gem hanging from his chest.

His eyes held both affection and helplessness, like a wave that surged forward only to retreat.

“You will protect me, right…?”

He slowly lowered his hand holding the gem.

To Lian, this gem held a place in his heart equal to that of his sick child lying in bed.

The reason was simple: the vast natural energy contained within the gem explained everything.

It was the last vestige of power left by a forest dragon named Meisha, who was also Lian’s wife.

It was absurd to think that a dragon, at the pinnacle of power, would fall in love with an unknown lizardman and even bear him a child.

Now, the dragon bloodline within the child had begun to stir.

If the frail body could not withstand the power of the bloodline, the only outcome waiting in the end was death.

Dragon Blood Disease was a sickness unique to dragons.

Indeed, this disease originally belonged solely to dragons—it was the price they paid for their immense power.

The reason every dragon possessed power that made other races tremble was precisely because weak dragons had their fate decided from birth.

Their bodies could not withstand such power and could never see the dawn…

To be born was to die.

Even the ancient dragons, who dwelled on Dragon Island and far surpassed the continent’s dragon species, could not defy this truth.

The world was always one of survival of the fittest, where the strong preyed on the weak.

But Lian’s child was different.

Because of the mixed blood, the dragon lineage was impure, causing that power to slumber in the body.

Now, the symptoms of the disease were only one-thousandth of normal Dragon Blood Disease.

At this point, all that was needed was the blood of another dragon to suppress the weak dragon bloodline from outside, calming it until the body grew strong enough to withstand that power—then it could be resolved.

But speaking was easy.

In reality, as a lizardman of a lowly race, how could he obtain even a single drop of dragon blood?

So from the very beginning, the chance of success was extremely low.

Moreover, dragons were few in number and scattered across the continent, making them hard to find.

Most of the time, one couldn’t even catch a glimpse of them.

His child was now under the care of a shaman, with only a few days left at most.

Lian had little time left.

Burning with anxiety, he clenched his fists and began to run.

Behind his weary figure, a trail of footprints was left.

In the silent swamp, a solo performance belonging only to one person faded into the distance…

After a long, long time…

Until the last ounce of strength left his legs.

Finally, Lian fell heavily to the ground, taking a mouthful of mud and sand, but the gem on his chest was well protected.

“I’m sorry, Mei’er… I’m really… so useless…”

The final line of defense in his heart was finally crushed by everything he had endured.

“I can’t be a good husband, nor a good father…”

Tears gushed out like a broken dam.

Lian lay on the ground, sobbing, only able to utter muffled whimpers.

“Eh?”

“There’s actually a road here?”

Suddenly, a voice came from not far away.

A silver-haired girl in a black dress, carrying a basket on her back, lightly jumped from the wet ground of the swamp onto the path.
“Eh?”

She noticed Lian lying on the ground.

“Sir, are you all right?”

Without any fear of Lian’s non-human appearance, the silver-haired girl walked over.

Lian, lying on the ground, hadn’t expected a human here.

But now he was indifferent to everything; just moments ago, his heart had sunk into a deep abyss.

“…”

Seeing that he didn’t respond, the girl didn’t know what to do.

But she happened to need a guide to help her leave this place; a guide falling from the sky couldn’t be let go just like that.

Seeing that he seemed to be injured, the girl waved her small hand and cast a healing spell.

To be honest, for low- and mid-level spells like this, it didn’t really matter whether the girl chanted or not.

Only high-level and above spells required her to construct and chant.

After all, she was no ordinary person.

Well, she wasn’t just any ordinary person.

As specks of green light flickered like fireflies and drifted toward Lian, finally merging into his body.

“What is this…”

Sensing the change in his body, Lian was dumbfounded.

After a long moment, he climbed to his feet, a glimmer of light returning to his eyes.

Not only his injuries, but also his fatigue had vanished.

“Thank you!”

With his body restored to its original state, hope was rekindled.

Lian gave a quick thanks and hurriedly prepared to continue on his way.

Even though treating his benefactor so perfunctorily wasn’t his style, he had no choice.

“Ow~”

Just as Lian was quickly passing by the girl, an infantile cry suddenly came from within the clothing on her chest.

“Buzz, buzz, buzz…”

The emerald gem on Lian’s body suddenly became agitated.