Necromancer Of The Black Bible (18)

“I never called you.”

At the female’s words, the male Sand Dragon’s gaze narrowed.

With his vertically slit golden eyes, he scanned the cavern’s ceiling.

His glimmering golden gaze inspected every corner before turning back to the female.

“Then who called me?”

Silence descended.

The female Sand Dragon couldn’t answer for a while.

She had no memory of summoning him—so who had?

After staring at the male’s face for some time, the female chuckled.

“Who cares who called you? You’re here, and we’re together.”

“But what about our offspring?”

The male bared his sharp fangs and continued.

“We missed the ovulation cycle. There’ll be no young this time.”

“Does that matter?”

The female sprawled onto her back, exposing her belly, where twelve plump teats protruded.

She gazed across the languid lava river and said:

“So what if we don’t have young this time? Haven’t we produced them faithfully every heat? The last clutch already opened their eyes.”

After fertilization, female Sand Dragons lay eggs in lava. The heat incubates them.

Incubation lasts about fifty years.

The hatchlings feed on their mother’s milk, then on subterranean beasts, earth, and magma.

After about a hundred years, they reach adulthood.

Adult females seek their own resting places, while males roam for ovulating mates.

Males learn a critical truth: meeting a non-ovulating female often means death.

Females are larger, stronger, hungrier—so males under three hundred years old are usually eaten if they meet them.

Even if mating succeeds, offending a female often ends in disaster: she may devour the male or feed him to her brood.

Female cannibalism.

The primary reason Sand Dragon numbers remain low.

It’s why their lairs are littered with male bones.

The male here, Amur, knew this well.

Understandable, as he was nearly a thousand years old.

His mate, Magra, was over five thousand—but they had maintained harmony.

They had successfully mated seven times, each time with Magra encouraging Amur.

Even now, Magra’s sultry gaze asked what the problem was.

She coiled her long tongue around his neck in caress.

“Calm yourself, Amur. Nothing will happen today.”

Yet Amur could not relax—not with the small eyes watching from across the lava river.

They were Magra’s offspring.

Spawned between him and Magra.

They resembled their parents, with golden eyes—but obeyed only instinct and their mother’s commands.

Hundreds had matured and left, but dozens of milk-drinkers and near-adults remained.

If they attacked, Magra need not intervene—he’d be torn apart.

Amur never forgot his first time here.

Back then, Magra’s hunger was fiercer—she summoned males merely to eat them.

Amur and another male stood before her; she fancied Amur and bit off the other’s head.

Recalling being dragged and forced into mating after her feast, Amur shuddered.

Then he looked to the ceiling and spoke.

“Are you sure you don’t care who called me instead of you?”

“Why would I?”

Magra bit back her words, but Amur understood.

‘She fears nothing—so why would she care?’

But Amur did.

Such luck would not repeat forever.

If mistaken again as her summon, her annoyance might mean his death.

Amur gazed toward the strange aura and said:

“I think I’ll head out. Aren’t you hungry?”

Magra smiled faintly and replied.

“Now that you say so, I am peckish. Will you fetch something?”

She cast a glimmering glance at her brood, then back at Amur.

“Our darlings are hungry too. Bring plenty of prey. And you know what I like.”

Magra jerked her snout toward a cavern corner. Amur followed her gaze.

A heap of bones.

A pile too vast to measure.

They rarely hunted aboveground, but when they did, they devoured hundreds.

The remains piled here over time became this vast heap.

Magra had a peculiar hobby: making art from these remains.

To the left of the heap was a palace she crafted with care.

A bone palace, pieced from countless creatures’ skeletons. Within sat a throne, also of bone, occupied by an armored skeleton clutching a sword.

It was the human who resisted them to the end, a thousand years ago.

Magra collected his bones for the piece but lacked one leg bone—much to her irritation.

So she slaughtered humans indiscriminately, choosing a similar-sized bone to patch it.

And she said:

“I should make him a friend beside him. Next time, I’ll strip the bones more carefully.”

As Amur recalled that day, Magra’s voice returned.

“You don’t mean to say you forgot what I want, do you?”

“Of course I remember.”

Amur smirked and added:

“I’ll bring plenty of the humans you like—big, fresh ones. Strip the bones carefully this time, don’t crush them all.”

“You remembered? As expected of you.”

Magra winked slyly, and Amur nodded, burrowing into the rock wall.

His vast body slid into the tunnel he carved.

The rock wasn’t hard, yet unease grew. The closer he neared the surface, the stronger the ominous aura below felt.

And upon reaching the surface, Amur faced a human.

A man in a brown robe, holding a wooden sword with a red gem.

It was Damian.

The Sand Dragon appeared suddenly.

As I conversed with William’s spirit, tremors grew until the beast burst through a cavern wall.

Rumbleee—

With the collapse of stone, its revealed bulk was far greater than expected.

The wall it tore through was gone entirely.

Had the ceiling not been high, its emergence would have brought it all down.

‘It’s enormous.’

Its visible bulk alone was massive, yet much of it still lay embedded in rock.

And its head, looming over me, was among the most hideous I’d ever seen.

A black horn at its snout, golden split-pupil eyes glimmering.

Jaws strong enough to chew orichalcum, with jagged fangs jutting outward.

It drooled as it glared down at me.

Behind me, William’s voice rang.

[That’s it. That’s the one.]

William’s spirit flushed red again, consumed by rage.

I stepped back and tightened my grip on Nocturne.

The wooden-sword form shifted back into its staff form, channeling mana.

My Mana Rings whirled furiously, viscous mana pooling at my fingertips.

‘First, I’ll raise as many as I can.’

Casting Undead Rising, nearby bone piles rose.

Among them was Raiernov.

His bones, imbued with mana, glowed faint blue.

I raised twenty skeletons and commanded:

[Kill it.]

The skeletons swarmed the dragon.

They slashed with bony claws but couldn’t pierce its thick scales.

And then.

Whoosh—

The Sand Dragon fully emerged, rose on two legs, and swept its black-scaled tail—obliterating the skeleton formation.

Some shattered, others flung away.

I barely dodged, but the situation was grim.

‘Skeletons are useless.’

Even Lyanov was shattered, his remains scattered.

Then Nocturne’s voice came.

Master, necromancy cannot harm it. A Sand Dragon’s scales are harder than other dragons’.

Damn it.

I don’t need telling—I saw it myself.

Sensing my frustration, Equinox spoke.

[Calm yourself. Against such foes, you must strike more directly. Like this.]

Equinox summoned mana in my right hand, channeling it into a bone at my feet.

The bone slowly floated up.

[Watch closely. The trick is simple: infuse a bone with mana and hurl it. Like this.]

The bone shot forward like lightning.

It pierced the air and struck the dragon’s chest.

Thoom—

A dull reverberation shook the cavern.

The scales held, and the bone shattered to dust—but the impact was real.

The dragon clutched its chest and groaned.

Krruuuuuuhhh—

Yellow, lava-mixed saliva dribbled from its maw, turning into black stone with a hissing sound where it fell.

‘It works.’

Not fatal, but effective.

That’s usable.

I withdrew, channeling mana into Nocturne, infusing nearby bones.

Five bones floated.

I gauged where to hurl them and asked Equinox:

[What’s this technique called? Bone Arrows?]

[No. Far beyond arrows.]

Equinox pinpointed where to aim the five bones, then said:

[This is called Bone Spear.]