"Felle?"

"I heard Cerul mentioning something about meeting up with the usual group before he left." He turned a ghastly pale as the color faded from his face.

"Where did he say they were meeting?"

"I don't know. That d.a.m.n boy never told me anything. It was only after endless badgering that I managed to convince him to even let me know he was leaving." Unable to keep calm, the anxious Elder Felle already began to transform and flew out to scour the mountains.

"We all should help look. This could be serious." The Light Dragon King ultimately spoke up to command the rest. Everyone nodded and left one-by-one. No matter how large an area the Dragon Tribe territory spanned, with so many powerful elders flying over Cerul was found in next to no time. He did not travel too far in the first place. Aeos knew that meeting spots far away would have seemed suspicious as they invariably met within the tribe boundaries. One of the Dark Dragon elders roared to gather the attention of the others. Grasping the meaning, everyone flew over towards the elder. With his speed, Felle was the first to arrive on the scene.

"No! Cerul!" All the elders within earshot could hear his desperate cries. Cerul was lying peacefully on the ground, still and cold. None of the elders could sense his heartbeat or warm blood flowing. Shaking their heads, they knew nothing could be done. However, their hearts only grew colder after seeing the death of a young dragon. The Time Dragons betrayed everyone? In all of their millions of years alive, nothing even close to betrayal occurred in their tribe.

Elder Felle was in no state to be thinking of such things. His heart bled as he bitterly cried while hugging his son's head. This son of his never knew when to be serious and always joked around, but this was his only son. After millions of years of trying only just a century or so ago was his wife able to conceive a child. Following his moment of depression was only a fury and desire for vengeance that ran just as deep.

"I'll kill them; I'll kill them all. My son, my son... Cerul, how could this be?" Raving and mumbling to himself, Elder Felle could not control all the emotions running through his mind. Observing the situation, the Light Dragon King was still staring at Cerul with confusion. Something about this body did not sit right with him...

"Lumes, what is it?" Brevre asked noticing the dragon's hesitation.

"He seems to be dead. But... I don't know... Something merely seems off." Eyes clouded with confusion, Lumes continued to look closely. After a little while, however, his eyes lit up with comprehension.

"Suspended State! That time element spell! He is in a suspended state."

"Suspended State?" Elder Felle looked up from his son towards the Light Dragon.

"Yes! Cerul is not yet dead. He is extremely close to death, but someone saved him right before the end. Could it have been Aeos? But that doesn't make sense... Aeos was most likely the attacker, was he not?"

"Lumes, what are you saying?! My son, he is not dead?!" Felle immediately sprung up to his feet and grabbed onto the Light Dragon King while shaking him. This made Lumes p.r.i.c.k his brow in annoyance while looking highly disgruntled. Observing the change in expression, Felle promptly released him and slightly bowed.

"My King, are you saying Cerul can be saved?" After being showed the correct deference, Lumes nodded expressing his satisfaction.

"Exactly. Right now, Cerul is brus.h.i.+ng with death. Time has stopped for him, thus he is frozen in the moment right before he breathed his last breath. My son, Irumen, was also on his last breath when I discovered him. Fortunately, the Ancestor could still heal him with a powerful light element healing spell."

"The Ancestor! We must take Cerul to him right away!"

"Alright, I will bring him over. However, I cannot promise anything. The Ancestor is most definitely powerful, but he is not some miracle worker. Even now, Irumen has not awoken and completely recovered. Cerul may take even longer."

"It doesn't matter. As long as there is hope, it does not matter to me."

"Follow me, then. As for the rest of you, we will continue discussing this afterward. Cerul's situation is a bit more urgent. A life is a life after all and saving our tribesman's life is the most important." Lumes briefly issued his command to the rest of the waiting elders. Agreeing with the King's logic, all of them quickly scattered back to their mountains.

Elder Brevre rushed back to Snow Peak to see how Rosalie was faring. Freizon was already there watching over their grandchildren. The Light Dragon healer already came and left claiming that Greyson just overdrew his mana. Rosalie, however, remained an issue. Thankfully, the Light Dragon who came was able to heal the stab wound and completely restore the damage to the heart and other arteries. Physical injury was less of the problem. Instead, it was the fact that she would not wake up. Elder Brevre and Freizon both feared it was due to the shock of betrayal. In their mind, knowing someone for almost 18 years was barely anything; however, those 18 years were Rosalie's entire life thus far. n.o.body in the Dragon Tribe could help with this issue. Both elders looked towards their grandchildren with worry.

"What is with Grey, too? His hair color changed again..."

The original snow-white hair would turn to a platinum silver then to a duller chestnut brown color. Sometimes even the white scales would pop up all over his skin and other times they faded. His body would thin down to the lithe elf structure, bulk up towards more dragon-like features, or just a standard human structure. It was like his body could no longer make up its mind between the bloodlines.

"Whatever he did in his fight with Aeos has tipped the fragile balance with his elf, dragon, and human bloodline."

"We'll figure out what to do once he wakes up. It should take him another day or two to wake up. I think I might have an idea."