CHAPTER 303: EX 303. THREE CORE PHYSIQUE

The Dragon Lord materialized within the depths of his palace, the air shuddering with the echo of his arrival. The dungeon was silent, eerily so. Rows of empty cells lined the stone hall, cold and lifeless, save for one at the far end. From that single cell came the faint rattle of chains.

Eragon’s boots echoed softly as he walked, each step stirring dust that had settled for years. When he reached the occupied cell, he stopped.

The figure within was a woman or what remained of one. Her silver hair hung in tangled strands, dull from neglect. Her skin was pale, bruised in places, and her frame spoke of hunger and time. Yet beneath the frailty, there was something else, something that pulled at the primal senses of the Dragon Lord.

Eragon narrowed his eyes, his golden pupils igniting faintly as he peered closer. Then he saw it.

Three distinct glows pulsed faintly beneath her skin, one in the abdomen, one in the chest, and one at the base of the skull. Each core radiated a different energy signature, all connected by faint, flickering threads of mana.

For a moment, he simply stared. Then, his composure broke.

"It can’t be..." His voice was low, disbelieving. "The Three Core Physique?"

His hand twitched slightly at his side as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Dragon lore spoke of such a thing only in myths, ancient tales told around the sacred flame, dismissed even by the elders as mere legend. No being, not even a pureblood dragon, had ever possessed more than one core.

Yet here she was.

And she was a Draconian.

Eragon’s jaw tightened. His eyes drifted over the flickering cores again, lingering on the one at her abdomen, it was trembling, on the verge of awakening.

"What in the hell is happening to the world?" he muttered, the words slipping out before he could stop them.

The Dragon Lord, who had once watched empires rise and burn without so much as a blink, now found himself rattled twice in mere days. First, by the return of the Draconians, the so-called stain on dragonkind, a race bred from impurity and branded for extinction and now by this.

A Draconian with a Three Core Physique.

His gaze darkened as fragments of prophecy resurfaced in his mind:

"One born between human blood and dragon heart shall bring ruin to the scales of eternity."

He had believed those words once. Lived by them. Executed by them.

Yet what stood before him twisted that prophecy into something he could no longer read.

"How can ruin wear the mark of divinity?" he whispered to himself.

For the first time in centuries, Dragon Lord Eragon felt something that even his ancient blood had forgotten, uncertainty.

****

Elizabeth felt the presence long before it reached her cell. The air shifted faintly, an old, familiar pressure that made the faint glow of her cores flicker inside her body. She didn’t move neither did she breathe louder than necessary. Speaking wouldn’t help her here. She’d tried that before, the day she was thrown into this dungeon and branded an abomination.

She had begged for understanding, for a chance to explain that she hadn’t chosen what she was. But her words had only earned her chains.

Her mind drifted back to the moment it all began.

The instant she entered pandora, she realized something was wrong, Leon and the others were gone. She’d been split from the group. Still, she didn’t panic. She’d survived worse trials alone. So, she wandered, searching for any sign of civilization.

The landscape she found herself in was a nightmare of fire and stone, mountains breathing smoke, rivers of magma flowing like veins of molten glass. And yet, amid the chaos, there was life. She saw cities carved into obsidian cliffs, towers rising from the molten glow, and people, no, beings, moving as though the inferno meant nothing to them.

When she looked closer, she understood why.

They were dragons in human form.

That realization had made her hesitate at the city’s gate. Her blood resonated faintly with theirs, but it wasn’t the same. She was something different. Something impure.

If she’d known what that difference meant, she would have turned back. But she didn’t. And that decision had led her here, chained in a dark cell, labeled as the stain of dragonkind.

Now, in the cold silence of the dungeon, she felt the drain of the sealing runes weaken her body, but not completely. Her three cores sustained her, faintly glowing beneath her skin. One in her abdomen pulsed more strongly, it was the one she’d been trying to awaken, little by little, without attracting attention.

But clearly, someone had noticed.

’Has he noticed something?’ she thought, lowering her gaze.

She’d felt the disturbance ripple through the dungeon the moment her core flared. She had hoped it would go unnoticed, but now the Dragon Lord himself stood outside her cell. His aura was unmistakable, heavy, ancient, and filled with a power that bent the air itself.

She didn’t raise her head, though her heart pounded. She felt his gaze pierce through the iron bars, studying her in silence. For a moment, she thought he might speak. But then... something changed.

The pressure around her shifted. His aura faltered.

He seemed to hear something, something she couldn’t. His eyes flashed once, sharp with realization, before he shook his head slightly. And then, just like that, he vanished, leaving only the echo of his presence behind.

Elizabeth stayed still for a long moment, her breathing quiet and careful. When she was certain he was gone, she slowly lifted her head. The dungeon was silent again.

Her body trembled as she sat up straight, her fingers brushing the cold chains. Her eyes softened, and she pressed a hand to her abdomen, feeling the faint, comforting pulse of the core within.

’My love...’ she thought, voice trembling inside her mind. ’I’ll use the gift you left me wisely.’

Her vision blurred. Tears welled up, sliding down her dirt-streaked cheeks. For all her strength, all her pride, she was still human enough to cry.

And so, in that lonely cell beneath the dragon’s palace, Elizabeth wept quietly, each tear falling with the weight of memory, of love, and of the power that slept within her.