Little Pink Starfish

“Please… spare me…!”

Bylrom’s voice trembled uncontrollably. He still felt like he was dreaming—how could this be real? How?

Not long ago, Zischka had suddenly appeared. He had asked for the location of a secret place only Bylrom knew—the place where Bylrom was born.

His face was filled with fear. Recognizing the rare look of terror on one of his own kind, Bylrom had asked him why. But Zischka didn’t answer.

He only mumbled, like a man who had lost his mind: “No, no… he might find me… he’s already killed fifteen. Fifteen—my brothers.”

Once Bylrom gave him the location, Zischka had taken off without even a proper goodbye, like a man being hunted.

Those words had lingered in Bylrom’s mind, prompting him to search for the children he had birthed. And then—

He learned that of the sixteen offspring he had sired, fifteen were dead. The only survivor was Zischka.

Bylrom had no maternal instinct. He didn’t seek revenge. He simply grew curious—what kind of thing had killed his children?

And now, the being that had killed them was holding his heart in its hand.

Only now did anger and regret surge through him, late as a tide that could not be stopped.

Zischka, that cursed child. You fled alone, without a word?

At the very least, when you learned your siblings were dead, you should have relocated. But no—you assumed they had just died foolishly and carelessly. That was your mistake.

And now you’ve led this monster straight to me.

“You should answer my question first.”

The hand holding Bylrom’s heart clenched.

At that moment, the magic flowing through the veins connected to his heart twisted chaotically, causing the heart to swell.

That swelling turned entirely into pain. Bylrom gasped and writhed in agony. And instinctively, he understood—

This monster fully intended to kill him.

Why this form of death—why tear out the heart? Bylrom knew the answer all too well.

He had killed many half-dragons this same way.

Bound and conscious, their hearts had been ripped out and eaten as they watched.

And the man standing before him now—was originally a half-dragon who should’ve suffered that exact fate at Zischka’s hands.

“I… I only did what everyone else did…! Half-dragons… they shouldn’t have been born in the first place—they’re inferior! They should’ve been grateful to serve as gourmet food! Aaargh! What you’re doing now is—how dare—!”

“Same words again. Ah… though not exactly the same. This time, you die before Zischka.”

Before Bylrom could even process the words, he felt it.

“No… no… my magic—what is this?!”

His magic—his very power—was being drained.

The mana condensed within his heart was being pulled out, forcibly absorbed into the man’s hand. It was like a flood—impossible to resist.

“Ah… ahhh—!”

His breathing quickened, erratic and shallow. He tried to circulate his mana, to stop the loss, but nothing worked. His control was gone.

“Ahhh…”

“No… no…” Bylrom sobbed, repeating the same words, overcome by fear he had never experienced before.

The man’s eyes remained fixed, unblinking, as Bylrom’s heart shriveled like dried meat, blackened, and crumbled into powder finer than dust.

When the heart stopped, Bylrom’s beastkin form twisted and reverted to his original body in an instant.

CRASH! His massive dragon form crushed the surrounding trees. A boulder nearby, caught by a drooping wing, rolled down the slope with a thunderous rumble.

The chaos startled birds into screeching flight. Wild beasts and monsters scattered in all directions.

Bylrom’s true body was vast—so large it covered the entire mountaintop.

The man gazed down at the floating corpse, flicking blood from his fingers as he whispered in a voice tinged with boredom.

“Only ‘Mother’ remains now.”

It had been worth sparing Zischka for the moment and instead targeting the dragons close to him.

As he drained Bylrom’s mana, he had also rifled through his memories with magic—and found Zischka’s last destination.

The man sneered.

Why did this dragon make the same choice as before?

He had hoped for something different this time, given how the situation had changed. But now he was disappointed.

No… on second thought, there was no need to be disappointed. Zischka had walked right into a sealed space again—trapping himself like a fool. Easier than a hunt.

Once he caught Zischka, he could finally return—to him.

He knew what Ishar had done over the past three years. What he had brought from the abyss. How he had lived.

And that made him ache to see Ishar again.

What kind of face would he make when they met again? What would he say? Was he still remembering him through that necklace he gave him?

Just imagining it made his chest itch sweetly.

The man raised his left hand, gently brushing his ring finger. The ring’s enchantment had been broken the moment he threw himself into the abyss, but that didn’t change the fact that he had forged it with his own hands.

“My Ishar…”

Murmuring longingly, the man turned away from Bylrom’s corpse, heading toward his final hunt.

---

As soon as intelligence came in about a dragon corpse appearing at the peak of Mount Bateron, Ishar grabbed Kaiedel and Rekayan by the scruff and flew straight there.

“Urgh… The smell is even worse than I thought.”

Even Rekayan, whose stomach was second only to the Emperor’s in strength, muttered with disgust. Ishar remained silent.

From the ground, it was impossible to see the full scale of the dragon. So they hovered in the air to examine it.

“I’ll begin examining the area.”

“Good.”

The rare note of encouragement lit up Rekayan’s face, and he quickly disappeared.

“Ahahahah! Hahah! It’s huge! Really huge! It must’ve lived for ages! Ahahahah!”

“…”

Kaiedel, zipping around the corpse like a gnat, laughed with manic glee. His excitement made sense—this was the largest dragon corpse found yet—but his hysteria was concerning.

“Kaiedel.”

“Yes! Former Tower Lord!”

Whoosh! Kaiedel flew over and began rubbing his hands together like an insect.

He clearly remembered the last time his pitiful report was torn to shreds right in front of him.

“Use this spell formula.”

Ishar drew a magic array in the air with light. Kaiedel’s eyes followed it, lighting up as he grasped its structure after several seconds.

“Aaah, as expected of you, Former Tower Lord! How did you construct such a perfect formula?! With this, I can collect information without damaging any residual traces!”

“Let me warn you.”

Kaiedel swallowed hard at the calm, low voice.

“Don’t mess this up. You always make stupid mistakes when you get excited.”

“I know! But don’t worry! Who could possibly fumble in the presence of such a beautiful corpse?!”

Ishar didn’t reply—but Kaiedel took the silence as permission and immediately got to work.

While Kaiedel began his analysis, Ishar examined the only damaged part of the dragon’s body.

A hole large enough to fit an entire house had been bored into its massive chest. Seeing that, Ishar became certain of something he had only suspected before.

‘The heart wasn’t removed while in its dragon form. It was taken while it was in a transformed state.’

The other corpses Kaiedel had collected were all smaller than Krodone.

So Ishar had initially assumed the hearts were removed while in full dragon form. But seeing another corpse just before this one changed his mind.

‘Even with transformation magic, the internal durability should’ve been the same as the true body.’

He wanted to use advanced magic to inspect it more closely, but most of his mana had been drained during the trip here.

So he relied on his eyes, only using bits of magic whenever enough mana had recovered. Repeating this, he eventually made a discovery.

“…It wasn’t eaten.”

Through the gaping wound, he could see inside the body. The blood vessels once connected to the heart revealed the truth.

Cold sweat trickled down his back.

“This… was mana extraction.”