"Stay back," Ning said as he moved ahead. The Dragon was approaching and everyone else got scared, so they backed away.
The silhouette only got bigger and bigger until it arrived right in front of them and a single flap of its wing sent the haze away.
The blue dragon with massive wings landed on the swamp, sending the swamp water splashing everywhere.
Bak quickly created a barrier to protect everyone from the poison water as well as the Dragon. Somehow, Ning was the only one that wasn't inside the barrier, but he still remained untainted by the water.
The dragon crouched down. The Dragon was massive, bigger than anything Ning had ever seen. It was even bigger than Derel or that one draconic beast he had summoned back in Nulwurn.
The dragon was a typical mana dragon with webbed wings and two pairs of limbs. Its face alone was as big as the bone spider that Kim had previously summoned.
The blue-scaled dragon stared at them with eyes that surprisingly showed emotion.
"Can you speak?" Ning asked the dragon after seeing it looking at him curiously. The dragon's curiosity only increased when he heard Ning speak in a language that only it knew.
"How do you know the dragon tongue, tiny human?" it asked.
"Oh, you can speak?" Ning said with a surprised expression. He had been fully expecting the beast to not be able to communicate. After all, the intelligence of a beast was usually dependent on the fact of whether or not it had a soul.
However, if a dungeon beast had a soul, then either the beasts were getting replaced every time they died, or someone was manipulating souls to keep something alive even after it died.
Ning did not believe someone capable of manipulating the soul could exist in this world, so he went with the other option.
However, that too didn't make sense as to who could possibly find the same type of monster to swap each time. Did they have a stock anywhere? Why were the monsters with clear intelligence not fighting back?
There were many questions, which had made the answer obvious previously. Just like in Genesis, the dungeon was created by someone and the same went for the monsters inside.
Every time something died, it would be replaced. However, beasts with intelligence couldn't be created, so the correct answer here was that Ning was missing some information to make sense of his current situation.
"Tell me, human. Who are you? Do you have any relation to a dragon?" the blue dragon asked.
"No, I don't," Ning said. The other 5 that were staying behind him were getting confused by the situation. Since they could not understand the language, they couldn't tell what they were talking about. Only that they were talking.
And that was even more confusing as no one had ever seen a dungeon beast that talked.
"I just know the dragon tongue," Ning said.
"Who taught it to you? I haven't heard of any dragon being close to the humans enough to teach them our tongue," the dragon said.
"Nobody," Ning said. "I learned it on my own. Tell me, how did you get here? Were you created here?"
"Hmph! You better show respect, tiny human. I can kill you at once if I feel like it," the dragon said. It then looked around the place. "I was not created. I do not know why I am here. I only remember waking from my slumber and finding myself in this place. I didn't know where I was and had this strange urge to kill anyone that came here. Do you have any information that can be helpful to me?"
"So, you did have a life before this?" Ning asked, ignoring the other questions for now.
The dragon got angry seeing Ning dodge the question. "No one dares disrespect a dragon," the Dragon said. "Answer me. Are you the one responsible for me being here"
"I am not," Ning said. "I am also not certain who is. Wait, I will see if I learn something."
Ning quickly asked the system, which quickly gave him an answer that surprised him.
"Well… in some ways, you can say that it just happened randomly. It is just natural that you are here," Ning said.
Ning had learned something that bothered him, which he wanted to learn more about, but as of now, he didn't have the time to think about it. At least not inside the dungeon.
"Clarify, tiny human," the dragon said.
"Stop calling me tiny human. My name is Ning, use it. Also tell me, what's your name?" Ning asked.
"Sorlusarian Nortos," the dragon said with a puffed-up chest. "The youngest dragon of the Nortos family."
The dragon's eyes grew vicious. "Now, answer me," it said.
"What can I expect in return for answering you?" Ning asked.
"You dare demand something from me?" the Dragon cried. "Don't tempt my anger, or I will kill you."
"Kill me?" Ning chuckled. "Kill me if you can."
The dragon growled and opened its mouth to breathe into Ning. However, what came out of its mouth was just a gust of air, along with some dragon spit that couldn't even land on Ning.
Ning's eyes went wide. "Oh, you held back?" he asked.
The dragon's eyes narrowed. "Why aren't you afraid of me?" it asked.
"I have no reason to," Ning said.
The dragon's eyes narrowed for a bit before looking at Ning. "Fine," it said. "I will tell you what I know, and you tell me what you know."
Ning was surprised that the mighty proud dragon managed to calm itself down enough to compromise. 'Did it realize I was strong?' he wondered.
"Deal," Ning said. "Tell me what you think you should be doing. What new knowledge did you wake up in this place with?"
The dragon thought for a bit.
"I am the protector of this confined space and I will have to defeat anyone that comes in here, even if it means my own death."
