The Bookkeeper

She was gone. Her luggage was gone. Aeris was gone.

Leo was confused about her decision, and kept asking what would prompt Aeris to leave. Raiden, however, remained untouched by her betrayal, but one question lingered in his mind—why now?

Leo and Levi dropped Speed's chained body into one of the rooms downstairs. No lanterns, no furniture—just pitch-black emptiness. The room felt designed for torture alone. They stood watching him writhe and scream in agony as the devil milk continued its transformation from within.

"Ash's chains can bind him for quite a while," Leo said, turning toward Raiden on his right. "You must hurry with the contract."

He turned toward Speed with a confused expression. "How, though?"

Raiden gave him a puzzled look, trying to figure out why Leo was speaking of a contract, but it only left him more bewildered. "What do you mean by a contract?"

Levi turned to Raiden, his expression showing even more confusion than Raiden's. "How can you forget? You're supposed to get more contracts to build your mana reserve."

"Is that necessary?"

Leo gave him a firm nod. "You need contracts at the 8th realm to increase your mana pool. Refine them by using them effectively, and you'll be able to advance to the 7th realm."

"The exact amount varies by person, but I'd say two should do it."

Raiden smirked and placed Ash on his shoulder before kneeling beside Speed. Contracting Speed wouldn't be a bad idea—with Aeris already showing signs of betrayal, he needed more allies alongside Leo and Levi. He pulled down Speed's turtleneck and examined his crest. It was still white with a seven, but the crest was starting to fade.

"You need to contract him before he goes completely corrupt. It might take a while, though." Raiden rose to his feet. "Once you're done with him, you can rest and make a contract with me next."

Raiden turned to him with both confusion and admiration. He hadn't expected such a bold recommendation from Leo, even with his devotion as his apprentice.

"You know that will make you my slave, right?"

"Yes, but you need to climb the ranks and protect the book." Leo said it without a hint of regret.

Raiden smirked as Levi excused himself and left the room. However, the moment he was gone, Raiden's expression darkened. 

He turned to the shadowy chains binding Speed, his desire to understand how Ash had produced them still burning.

"Tell me about Ash. What do you know?" His voice was calm yet commanding.

"I wasn't sure about her, but ever since I saw her increase in size during our first encounter with Mack…" Leo took a few steps closer to Raiden.

"I became interested in how a white dragon could do such a thing."

Raiden glanced at Ash, still sleeping, as he listened to Leo speak, his mind hungry for more. Something worth hearing.

"I started reading random books, but since they all had the same covers and titles, it was difficult." He smirked. 

"During the times you were unconscious and I couldn't ask questions, I bothered Aeris instead. That's when she told me something that gave me a clue."

He gestured to Raiden. "Come, let me show you something." Raiden turned to him and, without a word, followed Leo's lead as they headed to the training room.

"Aeris said Ash's flames were extremely hot—at one point they even turned into dark flames."

Raiden's expression darkened. "Did you tell anything to Aeris?"

Leo turned back to him and opened the door to the training room. Once inside, he flipped a switch to transform the bookshelves on the wall into weaponry shelves.

"No, I thought you didn't want anyone knowing, so I told no one."

Raiden said nothing and simply entered the room, standing at the center while Leo reached for a book on a shelf.

"Do you remember the Sombra?"

Raiden's nod was purely sarcastic.

"Their leader was one of the few people in recorded history to get the number 2—and he had a dragon like Ash." Leo walked toward Raiden, whose expression clearly demanded more.

"And aside from him, there are two other records of dragons with similar summoning abilities to Ash's who could also shapeshift—but theirs were black dragons."

Raiden grinned. There being so few meant they were either important or powerful. "Are they powerful?"

Leo opened the book and showed him a portrait of seven distinctive giant dragons. One black dragon had a single horn, three black dragons had two horns each, and three red dragons had three horns each.

"These are the primordial dragons, and two of these dragons have already been summoned in the past. The leader of the Sombra was the one who summoned one of the reds, the dragon of violence."

Raiden's expression darkened as he studied the portraits thoroughly. The black dragon with a single horn was labeled the dragon of flames, while the others were Ice, Lightning, and Lava. 

The red dragons were Violence, Decay, and Poison, each with distinctive features corresponding to their names. However, there was no white dragon. No Ash.

"Where's Ash?"

Leo closed the book and returned it to the shelves. "That's when things get complicated…" Raiden stared at him, mouth slightly parted in disappointment.

"There's no Ash." He paused for a moment to let his words settle in. "That's what made me believe she is somehow connected to one of the primordial dragons—perhaps their child or an entirely different species yet to be discovered."

Leo paused for a moment. "The book says that when a dragon fully trusts their summoner, they can transfer their will and essence by biting the summoner's hand."

Raiden's expression darkened as he stared at Leo, piecing together why Ash might have bitten him. But something didn't add up—she'd bitten him twice, not once.

"Once she bites you, you might get to know what she truly is."

"Once or twice?"

"The book says once… have you already been bitten?"

"…"

Raiden didn't know what to think at that point. It would have been perfect if Ash was actually a primordial dragon—in that case, all he had to do was make sure she got stronger and send him back to his world. But now he was only disappointed. Still, he couldn't shake off the feeling that there might be more. 

After all, he now shared the same soul with Ash, not something he believed any ordinary dragon could do. 

And again, Ash's constant requests for him to get stronger meant there was more than met the eye about her. He was disappointed, but not completely dissatisfied with Ash.

"In that case, what do you think Ash could do?"

Leo shrugged. "The leader of Sombra killed his dragon, and used it to create the first and most prestigious devil milk ever made—even to this day. After that, he summoned it as a shadow."

Leo glanced at Ash. "And though most of our histories have been erased and I don't know much about the other kingdoms, he was one of the few people who actually got to number 2."

Raiden's eyes narrowed as he watched Leo walk toward the entrance to flip the switch. "How did you know she could produce shadowy chains, though?"

Leo wore an awkward smile and began scratching the back of his head. "I didn't know…" He relied on his smile to carry the moment.

"When we went after Mack, he activated his Domain of Silence, and we couldn't get near him." He began to brush his white hair back. "That's when I asked Ash if she could do something about Speed, and she nodded."

He shrugged. "So I simply asked what seemed most logical at that moment."

Raiden slapped his forehead in disbelief. He'd actually been hoping for something—something worth knowing.

Suddenly, a hollow and blunt scream echoed through the building. They both spun toward the sound in panic.

"Speed?!"