" I was born a long time before the universal queen became the law and order of the universe.
My birth was at the height of the age of war and chaos, when galaxies were being wiped out due to the primordial god's fighting.
I was a young prince and my people worshipped the three sisters of fate. The ' Norns ' with all our heart, trusting that the sisters would keep our people safe from extermination and misery.
We were naive … " The turtle said as the temperature in the room felt like it had dropped by a degree or two.
Max had not expected the old turtle to be old enough to be from the ancient era of chaos, he was practically the same age as Drax but without hibernating for the thousands of years in between.
" I was on a dungeon run in an alternate dimension when my home planet was wiped out, I returned to nothing but a million pieces of my once home planet floating in the cosmos as space debris.
Except the four comrades who were on the dungeon run with me, there were no survivors left of my home planet and I became the prince of nowhere overnight ".
The turtle said, his expression not displaying any pain or any suffering as he said this, only a serene calm that showed that he had made his peace with this event a long time ago.
" The cause of my planet's destruction was a funny one and it took me two full years to learn about it.
It was because of a certain kid who was a fugitive at the time entering our planet illegally that a god destroyed our whole planet hoping that the kid would die with it.
Unfortunately the kid had a spacial treasure on him and the bastard survived even though billions of my people died". The turtle said his voice inflected in pitch when he called the fugitive a ' Bastard '.
It was the first time the turtle had shown emotion and even though nothing much had been said about the guy yet, Max and Rhea understood that the turtle hated him with all his heart.
" You guys may know the bastard as Odin, the ' all father ' , the founder of Asgard and the protector of a hundred galaxies.
But I know him before his fame and glory, before his bloody tempest of conquering planets started.
Infact know him so well that I doubt even his wife knows her more than I do". The turtle revealed the bastard's name and Max sucked in a breath of cold air.
Odin was one of the strongest god's ever, he was rumoured to be at the peak of tier 8 and a menace to anyone challenging his authority across the universe.
" I was tier 4 at the time when we first met whereas Odin was only tier 3, it was a fight that I should have won with my eyes closed, but I did not. I failed, and fell to his illusion magic in what was the first of our many encounters.
At the time I did not realise Odin was a ' Chosen ' of the Norns, that his fate was such that he was not going to be trampled by anyone else ever no matter the odds.
So I kept training hard, using the humiliation of my defeat as fuel, so that in our next encounter I could beat him " The turtle said as Max could not help but sympathise with his words, this sounded like a villain origin story to him.
" Even Though I trained like a madman, on our next encounter my advantage against him had diminished considerably as while I was halfway into tier 5, he was also a newly ascended tier 5 warrior.
It seemed impossible to me at the time as to how one could level up so fast? As his speed broke all realms of logic and common sense but the guy was truly a walking mine of treasures and opportunities as wherever he went there would be some once in a lifetime opportunity waiting on him that would help improve his strength.
It was like he already knew exactly when and where the opportunity would appear and would always be there to seize it.
At the time it all seemed like a big joke to me, I thought the bastard had a 99 luck stat or something, but no…. He was just a damn reincarnator ". The turtle said as Max felt a shiver run down his spine, the turtle's story had taken a dangerous turn.
" I hate to interrupt you old turtle, but if reincarnation was true the dragon clan would know about it.
It's a myth, a soul's karmic value can't be washed off even with divine power. The laws of the universe will not allow reincarnation to be possible ". The dragon monarch spoke with confidence as Max felt his shiver turn into a full blown tremble, it seemed like reincarnation was a secret even amongst big secrets and here he was a walking talking proof that it was real.
*********
( Meanwhile Nancy )
Nancy's egg finally showed a struggle to break through, the egg was stirring violently for a few hours and small cracks had begun to form.
It was only a matter of time before her baby would successfully hatch through and it was only for these few hours that it was the most vulnerable to outside attacks and death.
The universal queen would only recognise it's existence once it was fully born and not before, which meant that should it die before hatching completely, it would not return back to life.
It was due to this fact that Nancy was hyperactive during these hours as she knew that the smell of blood and amniotic fluid that her baby's egg was emniating was sure to attract some big trouble.
Her instincts were indeed correct as soon a pair of jealous white dragon's showed up near her cave as Nancy had to fly out to put them in their place, leaving the baby unprotected.
Unfortunately for the fake dragon queen, her attention was fully occupied by the intense battle against the two tier 6 dragons on her doorstep that she missed a few ants trying to slip into her cave.
The ants being Asmodeus and company.
