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Saving Azeroth (By Stealing the Black Dragon Princess) - 2
🕑 Added 2025-10-12 09:03:52 +0000 UTCChapter 2: The Desperate Transmigrator
Onyxia's dragon claw tightened around Deren's throat, her vertical pupils narrowing to blade-thin slits in the moonlight.
Deren suddenly laughed, blood seeping from his cracked lips. "You know what? You have two choices right now."
His voice emerged hoarse yet clear, like a dull blade scraping bone:
"Choice one: Do as I say."
"If you regret it later, you can always turn back and reward me with dragon fire. At worst, your father drags you home for a scolding, and you continue being his tool. Life goes on. You can pretend tonight was just some rat disturbing your dreams."
Onyxia's talons pierced half an inch into his skin. Blood flowed down Deren's neck, soaking into his tattered collar.
"Choice two," Deren twitched in pain but still smiled, "burn me to death right now."
"Then someday in the future, when an adventurer's sword pierces your heart—"
He suddenly jabbed his blood-stained finger against Onyxia's collarbone, where her most vulnerable scale lay hidden beneath human flesh. "You will remember this insect's joke."
The night wind died.
"You think—" Deren suddenly coughed, blood spattering across the black dragon's scales, "a commoner like me..."
He tore open his shirt, exposing ribs that pressed against his skin like prison bars. "Would gamble my last half loaf of bread just to harm you?"
Onyxia's grip loosened slightly, though her talons remained at his throat.
He was gambling.
And she was gambling too.
Deren could feel her hesitation. The Black Dragon Princess's vertical pupils trembled as fury warred with reason. He needed to press the advantage.
"You hesitated." Deren grinned, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. "Which means deep down, you know—I might be telling the truth."
Onyxia's scales rippled beneath her skin, her voice low and dangerous. "You think mad ravings can shake me?"
Deren gestured weakly for her to release him. "Let me down. I have a witness."
Curiosity flickered across Onyxia's face. She released her grip, watching to see what trick he would attempt.
He slowly bent down and picked up a withered branch from the ground. Then—
He carved the first mark in the dust.
N'Zoth
Onyxia's pupils constricted violently.
Deren did not stop. The branch continued etching into dry soil, letters crooked but unmistakable—
Yogg-Saron
C'Thun
Y'Shaarj
"Stop!" Onyxia roared, her draconic aura exploding outward. The surrounding air seemed to freeze solid.
But Deren's fingers kept moving, the branch tip already pressed against mud, preparing to write something more—
Crack!
A bronze flash erupted. The branch turned to powder in Deren's hand.
"Enough! You mad fool!"
A petite figure materialized from thin air. A gnome girl with brown pigtails bristling with fury—the bronze dragon Chromie—stomped hard on all the Old God names, grinding them into muddy chaos. Her hourglass-shaped staff pointed at Deren's nose.
"Just writing these names causes temporal ripples! Are you trying to attract even more attention from the Old Gods?"
Deren laughed, coughing up bloody foam. "Finally willing to show yourself, Lady Chromie?"
Chromie stamped her foot in frustration. "I did not want to deal with this mess! But you actually—"
She suddenly realized something and whipped her head toward Onyxia.
The Black Dragon Princess's eyes had fully manifested their draconic nature, scales covering half her face. Her gaze swept between Deren and Chromie before settling on those trampled Old God names.
This human truly knew something.
And the bronze dragon had stopped him.
So what about those mad claims earlier?
Onyxia grabbed the gnome girl's pigtail viciously. "Bronze dragon whelp, you heard everything just now. Tell me—is this commoner right or wrong?"
Chromie struggled futilely, tears nearly spilling. She regretted interfering. But she could not bring herself to lie, so she simply shouted, "Let go! Let go!" refusing to answer.
Watching the bronze dragon who dared not answer her question, Onyxia's expression darkened. The atmosphere grew oppressive. She grabbed Chromie's collar and snarled, "So everything this commoner said is true?"
Chromie turned her head away, unable to meet her gaze.
The two dragons faced each other in suffocating silence. After a long moment, Onyxia casually tossed a healing spell at Deren. The wound on his throat slowly closed. She narrowed her dragon eyes, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper:
"Last question—why me?"
Chromie also leaned in, her bronze eyes flickering with curiosity, the hourglass on her staff tilting slightly as if awaiting the answer.
Deren touched his healed skin and gave a bitter laugh:
"Because you are the only one!"
He spread his hands, self-mockery dripping from his tone:
"What other dragon would look twice at a starving mortal like me? The Red Dragon Queen is lofty and unreachable, bronze dragons appear and vanish like ghosts—"
Chromie coughed awkwardly, pretending to study her hourglass.
"Blue dragons are mad, green dragons are asleep, bronze dragons..." Deren glanced at Chromie, "...when they are not spectating, they speak in riddles."
"As for black dragons?" He grinned. "Your father is already insane, your brother is obsessed with creating monsters. The rest are either lunatics or minions—if I approached them, I would probably become experimental material on the spot."
The corner of Onyxia's mouth twitched almost imperceptibly.
"And the King? Ministers? Knight lords?" Deren shook his head. "Even if they believed me, when the sky collapses in the future, they will barely be able to save themselves."
He looked up, staring directly into Onyxia's eyes:
"But you are different—if you cannot win, you can spread your wings and flee."
"A dragon who has lived thousands of years understands risk assessment better than short-lived humans."
Onyxia froze for a moment, then actually laughed—a sound carrying the characteristic sharpness of dragonkind, yet also containing genuine amusement.
"Interesting," she said softly.
Deren seized the opportunity, dropping to one knee—though his posture wavered from weakness—and extended his hand:
"The wager is simple—you protect me and keep me alive."
"And I will find a way to help you deal with your father."
Chromie suddenly scoffed, her hourglass slamming into the ground:
"Hey! Are you two acting like I do not exist? You, a tiny mortal, going to deal with Deathwing?"
Onyxia also regarded the human youth with skeptical eyes.
Deren laughed until tears came. "You both know I received a vision, that my mind holds knowledge of what is to come. How will we know it will not work unless we try? Besides, at worst I fail, and Deathwing incinerates me with one breath of fire. And you, Princess, would merely receive a scolding. It cannot be worse than having your head hung on the city gates in the future, right?"
Chromie interjected, "What about the timeline?"
Onyxia glared at her viciously. Deren argued, "The Princess's impact on the future is quite limited anyway. She is barely connected to other major events. Such a small change will not significantly affect the timeline. Just provide some cover and smooth it over."
Chromie bit her lip, pondering. "Fine. I should not have come here in the first place or gotten involved with this black dragon. Whatever—she is just a minor character anyway. Her impact on the future is negligible." She raised her staff, and the surroundings silently shifted as temporal magic washed over them.
Onyxia reluctantly nodded. Hearing herself called a minor character stung, but Deren frantically signaled her with his eyes, so she suppressed her temper.
After Chromie finished casting, she waved dismissively, preparing to leave. "Alright, my business here is done. I am leaving to write my report."
"Wait!" Deren stopped her. "We are partners now. I will need you on call in the future."
"Conceal spacetime anomalies for you? And be at your beck and call?" She sneered. "Who do you think you are? A Timekeeper?"
Deren did not back down, staring into her eyes:
"I received a vision and saw the future—this itself represents the will of Azeroth."
"Otherwise, why me? Why now?"
Chromie's expression faltered slightly. Bronze dragons possessed an almost obsessive sensitivity to fate and inevitability. She stared at Deren for several seconds, then suddenly reached into her hourglass, pinched out a grain of temporal sand, and flicked it into his forehead.
"Just once," she said coldly. "You only get one chance to summon me."
Her figure began to blur. Before disappearing completely, she cast one last glance at Onyxia:
"Do not die, Black Dragon Princess... Your ending in the timeline is truly boring."
The bronze dragon vanished. The night remained deep. Onyxia's eyes flickered in the firelight as she looked at Deren. "What is your plan?"
Deren spoke carefully. "I will wait here for you. Go back and pack plenty of gold—there will be many expenses ahead. But do not empty everything and arouse suspicion. Also, get me some clothes. And create a sick decoy of yourself to fool the city's nobles. Do not let anything slip that would alert your father. Then return here."
The Black Dragon Princess nodded silently, then disappeared into the night.
Deren picked up the half-eaten black bread, placed it back over the fire to heat, and continued eating bit by bit. In the dancing firelight, his face flickered between light and shadow, like the altered future whose destination remained unknown.
Onyxia stood before the manor's vault, fingertips lightly tracing the cold metal lock. Her thoughts remained fixed on that scrawny youth's gaze in the Valley of Heroes—that near-maniacal certainty she could not completely dismiss.
I must be mad... she thought, her dragon eyes glimmering faintly in the darkness.
Ignoring the vault's mechanisms, she simply appeared inside using spatial magic. Heaps of gold coins glinted coldly in the night. This wealth had been accumulated over years of infiltrating Stormwind—bribing nobles, planting informants, consolidating power. And now she was about to use this fortune for a commoner of unknown origin?
Her fingertips hovered in midair, hesitating. But Deren's voice echoed in her mind:
"You have long suspected this is all a dead end."
Onyxia's pupils constricted. She waved her hand sharply. Gold coins flowed like water into a prepared spatial bag until the vault was nearly empty. She roughly estimated over two thousand gold—more than most nobles possessed.
If he dares deceive me... Her scales rippled beneath her skin, a low draconic rumble churning in her throat.
Returning to her bedroom, Onyxia gazed at the illusion of "Katrana" she had created on the bed. She sighed softly, gathering magic at her fingertips. The illusion's lips took on a sickly pallor, eyes glazed—the perfect picture of serious illness. She then instructed her steward that she required seclusion to recover and would receive no visitors.
Onyxia smiled with satisfaction. This simple trick could not fool true powerhouses, but it was more than adequate for pleasure-obsessed nobles. She turned to dig through the depths of her wardrobe for several sets of men's formal wear—prepared for her usual disguised reconnaissance, now to be worn by that beggar called Deren.
"How absurd," she snorted coldly, yet still stuffed the clothes into her spatial bag.
The night had deepened when she returned to the bonfire. Deren still sat in the same spot, clutching half a piece of charred black bread, yet his eyes shone frighteningly bright.
"You came back," he grinned, as if he had already anticipated her choice.
Onyxia dangled the spatial bag before him. The crisp sound of colliding coins rang out.
"Two thousand three hundred gold," she said coldly. "If you dare waste a single one..."
Deren ignored her threat, eagerly opening the bag and grabbing a handful of gold to examine closely in the moonlight. His fingers trembled slightly—not from fear, but from near-fanatical excitement.
"Enough..." he murmured, "enough for us to get started."
Onyxia frowned. "What exactly do you need this money for?"
