As we entered the Phantom Dragon's Abandoned Castle, we slowly walked through the long corridor greeting us. This castle was several hundreds of times larger than normal human castles. Perhaps being so big so any dragon could get inside. Well, not any. I still had to reduce my size to around forty meters to get inside comfortable with everyone else. Naturally, someone like my grandmother wouldn't be able to enter either, she was simply massive.
Or so I thought…
POOF!
However, stopping us from advancing, an explosion of shadows surged right in front of my face. It quickly expanded everywhere, taking the form of a phantasmal shadow serpent, which then grew wings and legs, and opened six sharp, crimson eyes. It was roughly my current size, if not slightly smaller by a meter or two.
"Hello~ Grandma is here!"
"Huh?!"
We were all naturally shocked when the strange monster, which we thought was some sort of Shadow Soul Beast, resulted to speak with a voice perhaps too familiar for us now. It was my grandmother, Svartalf… somehow?!
"Your grandmother?" Benladann asked.
"Grandma?!" I asked.
"It's the old hag?" Miranda wondered.
"D-Don't call me old hag!" Svartalf felt slightly shocked. "Compared to my sisters, I possess a much youthful heart! And yes, it is me. Did you all thought I couldn't change form or shapes? I am the Primordial Dragon Mother of Dark Dragons, so naturally, the power of darkness flows through me the most. I can become Darkness itself, divide into many shadowy forms, and more. My soul is very big though, so its hard to get inside places… This is why I've devised this Divine Spell; I call it Shadow Dragon Spirit Avatar. It creates an Avatar for me to control."
"I-Interesting, I guess?" Miranda said.
"Are you here to help us?" I asked her.
"Yes! I've come here to become your guide, because my son is very busy with my sister, probably making a new sibling for Drake." Giggled grandmother. "Therefore, I decided to take the reins this time and do something else than just sleep… I am very exhausted of resting, to be honest."
"I never thought someone could get tired of resting." Benladann laughed. "Well, you're welcome aboard, grandmother-in-law!"
"Well, you could also call me sister, Benladann. Now that you're also a Primordial Dragon Mother of Chaos Dragons, we are technically sisters!" Svartalf said. "And by all that is sacred, I never thought I would ever have a younger sister! We were all born at the same time you see, so we were always the same age. Having Benladann and Miranda around, which both seem to share the same crown and throne, is a very new experience. I am sure my sisters might react similarly."
"E-Eh? I am technically your sister, I suppose…" Benladann said. "I just never thought about it, well, even if I did, I wouldn't have said anything because it might have offended such ancient beings as you all."
"Don't worry about formalities. Not many dragons like them anyways." Svartalf said. "Mortals often think of us dragons as old, wise, grumpy beings that speak with very strange and old dialects, but we usually speak very similarly to anybody else. After all, we've lived alongside mortals for eons, we learn from them more than they imagine. And grandma Svartalf knows all what's hip and cool with the kids nowadays~!" She winked at Benladra, Kate, and Drakda.
"Is this great grandma?" Asked Benladra. "You got all weird… Like a big shadow snake thing."
"Maybe become a little fairy instead." Kate suggested.
"RAAR!" Drakda started biting grandmother's tail.
"Hahaha! Children these days, so full of energy. It is so nice to see three young dragons nowadays. It is very rare to see newborns such as you." She smiled, caressing their heads with her long shadow-made tail. "Anyways, shall I become your guide?"
"Sure, if you insist." I nodded. "Thank you for coming along, grandma. It is nice to spend some time to connect with the family and get along better. I often times think I spent too much time without visiting the Draconic Records."
"Ah, you're such a considerate child, Drake." She smiled. "You don't really need to worry about such things. For us, a couple of years it nothing too long, we won't get sad if you don't come to visit. Now, let's go! This is a big area, something I designed trying to imitate the dungeons that mortals visit all the time! There are roughly fifty rooms here, all of them full of Soul Beasts of all kinds! And the Boss is in the last floor."
As we walked through the corridor with my grandmother's banter making the atmosphere livelier, we quickly stepped into a large hall. The hall was empty and there were no soul beasts, but there were three large doors. All three of them led to different paths.
"This is where things get fun! There are three doors here, each one leads you to a different series of rooms with different soul beasts inside." She explained. "The one in the front has Phantom-type Soul Beasts, the one at the left has Shadow-type, and the one at the right has Skeleton-type. Chose whichever fits your fighting style or- Huh?!"
"How about we just go through all of them?" I asked, as our family quickly separated into three groups. I went alone while Miranda went with Drakda and Kate, and Benladann with Benladra.
"Wait a second, wouldn't it be too dangerous?!" She gasped.
"Don't worry, I got that covered with protection spells and these guys." I revealed out of my shadows a hundred Divine Dragon Slimes I had produced beforehand, distributing fifty for each. "It'll be easy, if anything bad happens, they'll call me, and I'll get there in a flash. This way we can efficiently clean the place out of soul beasts. Let's met at the end of the floor then, everyone!"
"We'll be on our way then." Benladann smiled. "You better hurry if you don't want me to get there first!"
"Alright papa!" Benladra got pumped up.
