Reincarnated As A Dragon With A Godly Inheritance-Chapter 69: Refreshed

The shadows came again. And again. And again.

Pain blurred into pain.

Reality blurred into nightmare.

They lost all sense of time. Their voices failed. They could only whimper.

Dark liquid leaked from every hole in their bodies.

☆

When the shadows came next, they brought no weapons.

They carried long black needles.

These pierced deeper—into bone.

They didn’t bring pain, but they caused it—restructuring bone and stirring every injured muscle awake. It was agony... but they were used to it now. They barely made a sound.

☆

The final time the shadows came, even those watching from the mirror were surprised.

Kaedros sat up—covered in filth—leaning against the bed, eyes closed.

But he was upright.

And he wasn’t the only one.

Taria tapped her fingers against the floor.

Rauk’s mouth was stretched into something like a smile.

Their own way of saying, We’re still here. We won’t give up.

The shadows, unmoved, performed their last task.

The daggers stabbed again.

The pain returned.

Their bodies didn’t scream this time.

They simply blacked out.

☆☆▪︎▪︎☆☆

"Well?" Chef asked, covering her mouth to block the overwhelming stench rising from the candidates on the ground.

Thalso grunted as he stared down at the three bodies lying motionless on the floor. They were barely recognizable, covered in filth and impurities, their skin buried beneath layers of grime so dark it looked like oil. "They were... stronger than I thought."

He didn’t like admitting that his judgment had been wrong, but he couldn’t deny what he saw. He’d need to ask what had driven them to endure. Assuming they could even speak.

"They lasted longer than I imagined possible," Chef said, her voice muffled behind her hand. "This training... I’m just glad I never had to go through anything like this during my own time."

"I didn’t either," Thalso admitted. He had suffered in his youth, but as he looked at the three crumpled forms before him, he wondered if his own masters had been too soft.

Nyra, who had remained silent the whole time, finally spoke. "It’s an ancient method. Let’s hope it doesn’t break them before it shapes them."

"We’ll know soon enough," Thalso replied. He turned away from the door, the chains around his arms tightening with his movement. "Well, Nyra?"

Nyra purred, a soft hum laced with arcane energy. Her eyes flared with glowing light, and the three unconscious candidates lifted slowly from the ground and floated through the door.

"To the lake," she whispered.

---

Later at Chef’s Garden

Kaedros sat on a tree stump, watching the garden with eyes sharper than they had ever been. His blue eyes had deepened, darker now, more intense and something in his expression had shifted. It made his presence unsettling in a way Taria couldn’t quite define.

But Kaedros wasn’t the only one who had changed.

Rauk, seated beside him, looked different too. His blue eyes were lighter, almost translucent, like glass and though his posture was relaxed, his expression had hardened. He looked like the prince he was born to be, but more dangerous.

Taria looked at her own hands, uncertain.

Had she changed too?

They were sitting in Chef’s garden, the place where they’d awoken, cleaned and redressed after what felt like eternal suffering. Their robes were new, light, crimson training garments that clung just enough for movement, the fabric soft and breathable. A loose-fitting jacket and wide pants made for combat.

Taria shivered. She didn’t want to think about who had washed her. Or who had dressed her.

She tried to push the thought away.

"Is anything... different about me?" she asked suddenly, breaking the silence. "My face? My eyes?"

Rauk glanced at her lazily. "Your eyes are still grey, but now there are flecks of yellow in them. And your face... hmm. Not much. Just more... mature, maybe."

Yellow?

That caught her off guard. Both of her parents had grey eyes.

Then she remembered.

Her father’s eyes had flashed yellow the night he disappeared.

The thought sank in slowly, deep and strange.

Silence returned, heavy but not uncomfortable.

"The eyes aren’t the only change," Rauk said after a while, his voice low but clear.

Taria let out a slow breath. "So I’m not imagining it?"

"You’d have to be blind not to feel it," Kaedros said. He raised both hands, the one still bound by a single training cuff, and the other bare. "Don’t you feel lighter? Like you dropped a weight you didn’t even know you were carrying?"

It was true.

Kaedros had felt it the moment he regained awareness. His body felt powerful but not in an overwhelming way. It felt right. Balanced. And with every breath, mana flowed into him as if the air itself was thick with it.

It was like feeding off monsters just by existing.

"I feel the same," Rauk said. "I can’t see the mana but I feel it. It’s like static dancing across my skin."

Kaedros smiled his first real smile since arriving in the castle. "It’s rich mana, too. We’re absorbing it just by being here."

Taria closed her eyes and breathed deeply, searching the air. When she felt it, truly felt it, she smiled too.

"Hard to believe we were dying a few hours ago," she whispered.

Kaedros’s smile faded slightly. He remembered it well. How all he had cared about was food before the shadows came. Then... agony.

He didn’t regret the result.

But the method?

It was brutal and it would only get worse.

He shivered at the thought but then smirked.

"If that kind of pain can lead to this... maybe I don’t mind seeing what else this place has to offer."

Rauk rubbed his neck. "Don’t remind me. Even out here in the sunlight, I still flinch at every shadow. Those things... they’re fast. Too fast. And that dagger..." He stopped, eyes haunted. "It felt like death."

Taria stared at her hand.

She had handled the first waves of shadows well. But that third one, the solid one, it had been different. It had overpowered them like they were nothing.

She clenched her fist.

If Thalso promised training, and if it would make her strong, stronger than that shadow, then she would take whatever was coming.

"Do you think this is going to happen every night?" she asked quietly.

Rauk went silent. He hadn’t thought of that. If that was only the first night...

What else was waiting?

Kaedros let out a short, sharp laugh.

They both turned to him in surprise.

"Well," he said, voice dry, "we did say we were going on a raid to train. Isn’t this training?"

It wasn’t funny.

But they laughed anyway.

Because sometimes, that was all you could do to keep from breaking.