Let's start over, Your Majesty.

Chapter 138 Dragon's Pact

The basement of the Frederick Prince's residence.

"Master, the purification pool is ready."

Delina leaned down and spoke to Ita, who was sitting on the sofa.

"Ah."

Ita snapped out of her reverie and nodded slightly to Delina.

She was only wearing a bathrobe, and her long, black hair was loose, which made her look even more charming.

A maid came up with a glass of ice-blue liquid.

Ita took it and looked at the reflection of his furrowed brows on the surface of the liquid.

She drank the liquid in one gulp, and soon she began to feel her blood boiling.

She got up and went to the door of the purification room.

Inside, there was only a large bathtub, but the main door was a heavy iron door that made people extremely uneasy. Dozens of sealing spells were set up inside, making it seem as if some kind of terrifying monster was being imprisoned.

But it was Ita who went inside.

She untied her bathrobe, revealing her petite body; her fair skin flushed slightly with the heat of her blood.

“We’ll wait outside,” said Dalina, clutching her bathrobe.

Ita took a deep breath and stepped through the door. Soon, the door closed slowly behind her with a dull thud.

Inside the purification room, the bathtub, which was at least ten meters wide, was filled with an icy blue liquid.

Barefoot, Ita stepped onto the smooth stone bricks, which seemed to have existed for countless years, and arrived at the edge of the bath. Her tender little feet slowly entered the bath.

She walked step by step toward the center of the bath, her body gradually submerged in the water. When she reached the center, her entire body was completely submerged in the icy blue liquid, even her floating hair sank to the bottom, and the bath returned to calm.

But soon, the bathtub began to stir. The water surface seemed to boil, bubbling and steaming. Soon, the entire room was filled with pale blue steam, and the surface of the bathtub almost boiled like hot water.

At this moment, the bluish-green water vapor began to turn a blood red.

The crimson color quickly spread, not only staining the mist but also the blue pool water. The entire room was filled with blood mist, looking eerie and sinister.

Delina stood outside the door, head bowed, silently praying—something she always did whenever she stood there.

Two hours later, the closed iron gate clicked open.

A thick, blood-red mist immediately surged out from within, and Delina, disregarding everything else, rushed in.

At this moment, the room was filled with blood mist, and the temperature was extremely high, to the point that an ordinary person would be burned by the mist if they entered.

But the mist couldn't burn Delina's skin. She quickly approached and saw Ita, who was lying on the edge of the bathtub, panting heavily.

Delina supported her and lifted her out of the pool.

At this moment, Ita had lost consciousness. Her lips were slightly open, her limbs were limp, and her brows were relaxed in an unconscious state.

Her long, jet-black hair had now turned silver-white. The crimson hue on her skin when she first came in had faded, and she had returned to a fair complexion. However, scattered patches of silver-white dragon scales had grown on the surface of her delicate skin, covering her entire body.

After picking up Ita, Delina didn't linger; she immediately turned and rushed out of the bathroom.
"Quickly! Prepare the healing room!"

She shouted.

Rushing through the corridor into the healing room at the end, she saw two maids pouring ice into a bathtub filled with a pale blue liquid. The ice splashed into the water, and Delina quickly placed Ita inside. *Sizzle—*

Like a piece of iron being quenched, the moment Ita fell into the bathtub, white steam rose and swirled around the ceiling.
Delina supported Ita's body, helping her lean against the bathtub, before taking a few steps back.

Gradually, the dragon scales on Ita's body began to fade, and his silvery-white hair slowly turned black again.

About half an hour later, Ita moved her body slightly, her eyelids twitched, and she slowly opened her eyes.

"Master of the family," Delina called out as she stepped forward.

Ita raised his head.

She breathed weakly as she slowly raised her arm from the bathtub, gazing at her almost transparent skin.

"Delina, I feel like the frequency of my blood burning has increased recently."

The golden vertical pupil trembled slightly, and the sound it emitted was almost inaudible:
"Is it me... who can't take it anymore?"

“No, Master,” Delina knelt down beside her and took her hand.

"You are the most outstanding successor in four hundred years; the Dragon King's power will only submit to you."

“No, Lina, you don’t need to say that. I know my own body best,” Ita said softly.

"I can sense that the effects of the dragonfish blood are getting weaker with each use, and one day it will lose its effectiveness; it's only a matter of time."

"If, before that, no alternative purification method can be found, I..."

She didn't continue speaking, her eyes filled with extremely complex emotions.

Delina didn't say a word, she just held her hand tightly.

“Don’t worry about me, Delina. I knew this day would come from the moment I accepted this power,” Ita said slowly, closing her eyes.

It was already discovered by Ita's grandfather, Anrimar, that the power of the dragons was weakening after the Great Destruction. Like the natural divine right of the elves, the power of the ancient, doomed dragons of the dragon royal family was gradually disappearing from their bloodline.

If this is the case for royalty, then it goes without saying that for other dragons, the number of dragons has decreased by nearly four-fifths in just a few years.

Anrimar knew that if things continued this way, the dragon race would one day be completely wiped out. So he lifted the taboos of his race, agreed to the hybrid breeding program, and allowed more dragons to learn to transform and integrate into human society.

To ensure the continuation of the Dragon King lineage, he collected the tokens of past Dragon Kings and painstakingly crafted the sacred artifact: "The Dragon's Pact".

This sacred artifact combines the power of successive dragon kings, bestowing upon each successor unparalleled strength and ensuring the continuation of the Dragon King's power.
However, this sacred artifact has a fatal flaw: it combines the power of past kings, and also embodies their negative abilities such as violence, rage, destruction, and cruelty.

Ultimately, these negative abilities came together to form an ominous curse.

A dragon king who possesses the Dragon Pact will not only become manic and restless, but will also experience intermittent episodes of "Blood Burning." In this state, the magic power within his body continuously boils and burns until death.

The only solution is to soak the body in an alchemical solution made from dragonfish blood to purify and dilute the curse, but this can only provide temporary relief.

However, each dilution process was extremely painful. When Ita first entered the blood of the dragonfish, she fainted from the pain for three days and three nights. The feeling was no less than having her skin torn apart and her wounds burned with sulfuric acid. At first, each purification almost broke her down, turning it into an unbearable ordeal.

What devastated her even more was that the intervals between her blood-burning attacks were getting shorter and shorter. At first, it happened once every three months, but now it happens irregularly twice a month.

Even though she has gotten used to the purification process, the extreme pain she experiences every time she soaks in it still makes her feel desperate.

Her grandfather, Anrimar, possessed enough power to resist this force, and her parents shared the negative effects of the curse. But in her generation, the power of the dragon race was gone, and no one could share the burden with her.

She could only bear this pain, a pain stemming from her bloodline and family, called a sense of responsibility, all by herself.

(End of this chapter)