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Chapter 15 – Part 1

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Translator: Artemis

Editor: Ryunakama

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「If all species of Dragonkin who live on earth traced their origins back, they would find a single dragon at their root.

This is the original dragon, the beginning dragon, known as the Founding Dragon.

This Founding Dragon has been in existence since this world was first created, during a time when the heavens, the earth, the seas, the sky, and time itself were all still fused as one; this is the beginning of the dragons. This is the root of all the Dragonkin. A single, pitiful, lonely dragon.

For a long, long time, the Founding Dragon had existed in a world that was too young to even be called a world, and lived his days in a hazy slumber from which he could see no end. But suddenly, one day, he noticed that there was something else amidst all the chaos around him. Something that was starting to be born.

They were spit out from the whirlpool of chaos, popping and disappearing, reforming and born again in bubbles: the god of humans, the god of beasts, the god of the forest, the god of night, the god of day, the god of spirits, the god of light, and the god of darkness. These are the oldest, the purest, and the greatest gods, and they are the First Gods.

When the Founding Dragon first took notice of something else besides himself existing in this world, he was so extremely surprised, he woke up from his sleep and continued to keep looking at these newborn gods.

These First Gods also noticed the Founding Dragon.

However, they who were born from the chaos, were different from the Founding Dragon, who had coexisted with the chaos since the beginning. So they did not know how they should initiate contact with the dragon, and the gods continued to look back at the dragon as he looked at them.

While the Founding Dragon continued to watch the gods, it wasn’t just them being born from the chaos. Many more things were further being born from the gods themselves, increasing in number one after another.

For example, the god of the spirits gave birth to the spirits of fire, water, earth, wind, time, sky, ice, thunder, light, and darkness, with the god as their king. He created a world for his spirits to live in.

Along with the rise of the gods’ numbers, some of the gods fought amongst each other, but this was still an era of peace where the gods did not yet fight to destroy each other.
Eventually, the gods themselves gave birth to even more new gods, and those gods created lifeforms that would serve as their own servants. Heaven, earth, seas, time and space, life and death and fate were all created, causing the chaos to begin to change shape, slowly calming down into a more orderly world.

In this way, the current world, the gods, and the Dragonkin living on this earth were all created. Ever since then, the heart of the Founding Dragon gradually began to show some changes.

As he continued to watch over the gods, who had many comrades and existences similar to themselves, he felt unending envy and isolation compared to them. He felt lonely.

Unlike the gods, the Founding Dragon was unable to give birth to any new dragons, and from the beginning of time, he would forever be the one and only eternal existence, the one who would continue to drift in the center of this world’s remaining chaos.

Why did he not have any brethren like they all did? Why is he the only one of his kind?

The Founding Dragon thought and thought, worried, and agonized over it, until one day, he found the answer.

If he couldn’t give birth to new dragons, then he would split himself into many small pieces, and change into multiple dragons.

And depending on how they mixed in with the chaos, each of the dragons would have their own soul and heart.

If he did that, then the Founding Dragon’s current heart may disappear, but in the end, the fatigue from his own loneliness, and the envy he felt toward the gods won out.

The Founding Dragon immediately shredded his wings apart, chopped his tail, broke his fangs, cut his neck, and gouged out his eyes, tearing himself apart into an uncountable number of tiny pieces.

The gods were greatly surprised by the Founding Dragon’s sudden actions, but since they had only ever watched each other from afar, they did not know his heart well enough, and had no idea what they could do for him.

They could only watch as the Founding Dragon kept ripping himself apart, until eventually he became unable to cut himself into any smaller pieces.

The Founding Dragon’s body had turned into countless tiny pieces of flesh, bone, and blood, which began to mix in with the surrounding chaos. And before the gods’ very eyes, just as the Founding Dragon had wished, those pieces became a countless number of small dragons, and the cries of newborn babies were released out into the world.

The colors of their scales, the numbers of wings, the length of their necks, and their sizes all varied. The sight of the countless dragons being born surprised the gods who had been watching, causing them to stop moving their arms in creation of the world. The land fell, the water in the seas overflowed, and the sky became a lid on the world, making this world into the shape that it is today.

The dragons born from the countless, tiny pieces of flesh and blood couldn’t even be compared to the Founding Dragon. They were much weaker existences than him, but even so, they were still just as strong as the second generation of gods born from the First Gods. These dragons were gods —- Celestial Dragons, or godly dragons — called Dragon Gods.

From the pieces of the Founding Dragon’s flesh, the fragments of his bones, his crumbled scales and his spilled blood, the Celestial Dragons and the Dragon Gods were born. But born from the largest parts of his body, were existences which surpassed even the First Gods in power: the Four Pillars of the Ancient Celestial Dragons, and the Three Pillars of the Ancient Dragon Gods.

From the tail came the Four-winged, One-headed, One-Tailed, No-eyed, Purple-scaled Ancient Dragon God, “the one who suppresses and destroys all,” Hyperion.

Born from his wings was the Twelve-winged, One-headed, Eight-Tailed, Green eyed and scaled Ancient Dragon God, “faster than everything,” Vritra.

From his eyeballs was born the Seven-winged, Six-headed, Ten-tailed, Black Eyed, Gray scaled Ancient Dragon God, “the one who oversees the horizon and the summits,” Jormungand.

From his fangs was born the Ten-winged, One-headed, Two-tailed, Gold eyed and Silver scaled Ancient Celestial Dragon, “the one who pierces all,” Alexander.

From his four limbs was born the Wingless, One-headed, One-tailed, Blue eyed and scaled Ancient Celestial Dragon, the “deathless” Leviathan.

From his head was born the Two-winged, One-headed, One-Tailed, Silver eyed and Black scaled Ancient Celestial Dragon, the “unrestrictable” Bahamut.

And lastly, born from the Founding Dragon’s own heart and soul, which still continued to pump blood despite having torn his body apart, was the dragon which reigns supreme above all the other dragons, the one who is the most powerful, and had inherited most of the Founding Dragon’s feelings.

This was the Six-winged, One-headed, One-tailed, Rainbow-Eyes, White Scaled, Ancient Celestial Dragon, “All becomes one,” ————」

In other words, this was the story of my past life; I summed it up with that whisper inside of my heart. I finished telling the story to the kids gathered on the bank of the river which flowed from the northeast to the southwest of the village.

Sometimes, I would gather the village kids here like this, and tell them stories about the ones known as the First Gods, the ones who were the highest ranking gods, or stories about the creation of the earth, the era when the gods had fought in a great war.

Although these stories were events that I had actually experienced firsthand and still had in my memories, if I said that, no one would believe me, so I would tell them beforehand that these are all stories that I just made up myself.

This was a rural village that lacked entertainment for children, so to the ears of the kids of this rustic village, my stories as I clumsily recalled my past life’s memories probably sounded like the tales of heroes spun alongside a minstrel’s harp.

At first, only children who were ten years old or younger would come to listen to my stories, but before I knew it, people older than me were coming to listen as well.

And today, I caught sight of some faces who were different from the usual crowd.

It was the Wood Elf girl who lived in Ente Forest, Fio, her friend and a fairy, Marl, and lastly the Black Rose Spirit, Diadora.

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