Evolving by devouring from a young dragon

What happens when the totem fire goes out?

he does not know.

The Emberfang Orcs have relied on Emberfire for survival for generations. What would happen if they lost Emberfire?

What will happen to the eggs that they have guarded in the embers for generations?

Yes, where is that egg...?

The great shaman looked towards the crater, only to find that the golden flames beneath the lava had long since died out, and the blood-red giant egg had vanished without a trace; nothing remained.

The high shaman looked surprised.

His hands gripped the bone staff tightly, trying to sense something, but there was nothing.

"Impossible..." He shook his head, his voice very soft, so soft it was as if he were talking to himself.

"He has always been there... He has always been there..."

His voice trailed off, as if he didn't know how to stand. His body began to tremble, and he was about to fall, but he supported himself with his bone cane.

Auduin frowned as he watched the Great Shaman's reaction, and also looked into the depths of the crater.

In his sonic perception, there was nothing there, just like always.

He had already thoroughly explored the area when the Great Shaman and the Salamander King were at war. Inside, apart from a few intricate lava rivers and burning embers, there was nothing else.

Judging from the Great Shaman's reaction, there was clearly something there, but it has now disappeared.

Alduin recalled the Salamander King's desperate attempt to enter the volcano. At the time, he thought it was just to absorb the embers from the lava, but now it seemed that it was not that simple.

Auduin's vertical pupils opened fully as he flew into the air and looked toward the crater.

With his wings spread, the dark golden wing membranes caught the heat waves, and his body hovered above the crater. His sonic perception spread out to the fullest extent, covering the entire crater.

There was still nothing there, but his instincts told him that something was wrong.

His scales were tingling slightly, not from fear, but from... excitement, anticipation?

It's like something has hatched from its shell.

His tail swayed gently behind him, his vertical pupils fixed on the empty lava deep within the crater.

There was no golden totem fire, no dark red light, nothing at all. But his scales were tingling, spreading from the tip of his tail all the way to the top of his head, each scale telling him, "He's here."

His gaze suddenly shifted to the corpse of the Salamander King.

The forty-meter-long body lay sprawled on the ground, its limbs outstretched, the dark red on its scales completely gone.

It was dead, utterly dead. Alduin pressed down on its back with his own hands. Its pupils were dilated, its heartbeat stopped, and its body temperature cooled.

But its thoracic cavity, that chest covered in scales, was glowing.

It was very dark and faint, like a piece of charcoal that was about to go out.

But it was shining.

A dark red light seeped out from the gaps in the scales, bit by bit, as if something was breathing inside.

The Salamander King's chest bulged slightly, very gently, almost imperceptibly.

But Auduin saw it; the scales there rose slightly and then slowly fell back down.

And then it happened again.

One, one, one...

The pace is getting faster and faster, and stronger!

The light grew brighter and brighter, changing from dark red to golden red, from golden red to gold, and from gold to a fiery, dazzling, sun-like white-gold.

Light shone through the gaps in the salamander king's scales, illuminating its corpse like the light of a bright lamp.

The high shaman saw it too. He knelt on the ground, his bone staff slipping from his hand, his cloudy eyes wide open, his mouth agape, "By the Mother of Embers..."

His voice trembled, "He didn't leave... He didn't leave..."

Iron Bone stood behind him, gripping the stone axe, motionless.

The soldiers behind him gaped, some knelt down, some hugged the children beside them, and some covered their mouths.

The young archer plopped down on the ground, his eyes wide open.

The Salamander King's chest cavity split open.

It doesn't explode or burst open; it splits open slowly from the center outwards like flower petals.

The scales unfolded to the sides, the muscles separated to the sides, and the ribs spread out to the sides, like a pair of folded wings that finally unfolded at this moment.

Golden light surged from the crack, dazzling, intense, and carrying a pressure that made everyone instinctively take a step back.

The beam of light pierced through the crater's smoke and dust, through the night sky, through the clouds above the ash-covered hills, and shot straight towards the heavens.

The entire Ash Highlands trembled; the earth trembled, the sky trembled, and the air trembled.

Within a radius of a hundred miles, all living beings sensed it; it was the awakening of the ancients, the return of the slumbering.

Alduin narrowed his eyes, staring intently at the light.

This excitement and anticipation, stemming from the dragon's instincts, puzzled him somewhat, so he didn't act rashly and just watched.

Then He came out.

He emerged from the Salamander King's chest cavity, from his shattered heart, from the last embers.

A ball of light.

The color of this light was as if the sun had been shattered, mixed into magma, then covered with a layer of moonlight, and finally sprinkled with stardust.

Brilliant yet mysterious, sacred yet solemn.

The light rose slowly above the corpse of the Salamander King, like a newly born sun, illuminating the entire crater as bright as day.

Alduin hovered in the air, his vertical pupils fixed on the ball of light. He carefully searched his mind for the memories of the dragon's heritage and finally found the answer.

"spirit……"

He muttered to himself.

This is a special being born from the elements, older than dragons and more ancient than this continent.

The ball of light was shrinking, condensing, and slowly taking shape from a chaotic mass of light.

The wings were small and tender, with wet, golden-red downy feathers that clung to the thin, bony body.

But the down dries the moment it touches the air, and golden-red feathers grow at a visible speed, spreading from the tips of the wings all the way to the tail.

Every feather is burning... or more accurately, the feathers themselves are flames.

His body was expanding, growing from the size of one fist to the size of two fists, and then to the size of three fists.

Its bones were cracking, its muscles were being reshaped, its neck was elongating, its wings were spreading, and its tail was forked.

It shapes flesh and blood with every breath and grows rapidly in the flames.

His eyes opened.

Golden, pure, fiery, like fragments of the sun.

Those eyes had no pupils, only two burning flames, but they were seeing.

It is watching this world, watching this world that it has been asleep for who knows how long.

The high shaman, tears streaming down his face, murmured to himself, "The embers are not extinguished, but rather, reborn."