"Boss, you finally came back. Inside, the dragon egg—"
Without Tonkotsu needing to say more, Logan already understood what was going on. After turning his head to let out a low growl at the semi-transparent Mother Chameleos, he quickly trotted into the nest.
After letting out a muffled roar with a hint of complaint, Aki simply lay down in front of the dragon egg. Her pair of azure eyes stared unblinkingly at the dragon egg, and a series of low hums sounded from her nostrils, as if she were cheering on the little life inside the egg.
Logan followed suit and lay down opposite Aki. At close range, he watched the dragon egg that shook once every few seconds and let out a low hum.
When he had first crossed over, he had also still been just an egg, but his body had already matured, and he had very easily pushed through the eggshell and hatched. Therefore, he was also not sure whether the dragon egg's current state was normal.
As for comparing it with a normal Fire Wyvern egg, that simply had no reference value at all. The hatchlings of ordinary Fire Wyverns did not have the same vigorous vitality as his hatchling, and the hardness of the dragon egg's shell was completely different as well.
Thus, for now Logan could only turn to the Mother Chameleos who had followed him in for help.
But when he met Mother Chameleos's clear yet vacant gaze, Logan understood that this fellow could not be counted on either.
"Gwa, gwa!!" (Such disrespectful eyes, gwa! My eggs are all free-range. How could I possibly know what it looks like when the hatchlings break out of their shells!!)
Although Logan had not said anything, Mother Chameleos still understood what he wanted to express at once and immediately croaked twice in exasperation.
But under Aki's death stare, she quickly shut her mouth again.
The inside of the nest once again returned to a state of silence.
As time went by, the temperature inside the nest began to rise slowly and steadily. The cats were still fine, but the Ancient Wyverians all began to retreat toward the outer part of the nest.
And the culprit behind all of this was not Logan or Aki, but rather the dragon egg whose shaking was becoming faster and faster and whose movements were growing greater and greater.
Logan watched as the patterns on the dragon egg began to light up with faint energy circuits. The top of the egg gradually turned red, as if it were being scorched by the intense heat inside.
Although his senses clearly told him that the life within the egg had already fully formed, at this moment the eggshell seemed like a cage, tightly locking that life inside. The increasingly rapid shaking made it feel as if the hatchling inside was anxiously trying to break free from its restraints.
"Roar!"
Aki let out an agitated roar. Upon hearing that sound, the egg's shaking grew even more intense. The entire top of the shell was like a piece of red-hot iron—clearly looking as if it might crack at any moment, yet stubbornly refusing to break. Logan could even faintly hear the hatchling's pained, childish cries from within the shell.
Logan's heart tightened. He looked toward Mother Chameleos, but before he could speak, Mother Chameleos was already walking over on her four short legs.
Aki instinctively tensed up, but with the growth she had achieved over the years, she now possessed intelligence not inferior to a human's. She forcibly suppressed her instincts with reason and allowed this "threat" to approach the dragon egg.
Mother Chameleos slightly opened her mouth and released a plume of orange-yellow mist.
The medicinal mist fell onto the egg and was vaporized by the shell's intense heat, producing a sizzling sound.
But such heat was still far too immature compared to Mother Chameleos. As the mist carried a trace of Her unique life energy, it successfully seeped into the shell. Very soon, through that faint connection, Mother Chameleos understood the current situation.
Her large eyes rolled upward in exasperation. Before Logan could even react, she suddenly stuck out her tongue and smacked the top of the egg with a crisp pa.
In the next second—amid the simultaneous enraged roars of Aki and Logan—she shot backward at high speed and loudly croaked, signaling them to look at their dragon egg.
And within the noise, several crisp cracking sounds rang out.
Logan finally snapped back to his senses, lowered his head, and saw that the top of the egg had successfully split open under Mother Chameleos's strike. The crack quickly widened, and with a very young, tender howl, a silver-white head—still covered with traces of egg fluid—pushed its way out of the shell.
The little one greedily breathed in the fresh air of the outside world, looking as if it had nearly suffocated. With its eyes still closed and its mouth—bearing two small sharp spines at the corners—wide open, it began howling loudly.
The little one's cry soothed the fury of Logan and his mate, and also halted the movements of the guard squad on the outer edge of the nest who had heard the commotion and were about to rush over.
Seeing Aki hastily lower her head to lick the egg fluid from their hatchling, Logan's open mouth slowly closed. He and the already-prepared Mother Chameleos stared wide-eyed at each other, and the atmosphere instantly became a little awkward.
With somewhat stiff movements, Logan folded his wings and looked away.
"Roar?" (What was going on just now?)
Very awkwardly changing the subject, he spoke, and Mother Chameleos could not be bothered to dwell on it. After all, before she had made a move, she had already prepared herself mentally, having judged how Logan and his mate would react, and that was why she had been able to pull back to such a distance at the very first moment.
"Gwa!" (Isn't it obvious, gwa? That little one almost suffocated, gwa! Not to criticize, gwa, but your little brat is far too greedy, gwa. Before it was even born, it had already drawn in so much energy. What it could not absorb itself was absorbed by the eggshell, and that not only made the inside of the shell become too hard because of some unknown energy, it also gave it a not-insignificant resistance to energy.)
"Gwa!" (In the end, that meant that relying on its strength alone, it was unable to break out from the inside, gwa.)
With Mother Chameleos's brief explanation, Logan understood. For a normal Elder Dragon, in general a clutch would not consist of only a single egg. Even though the gestation period usually lasted several years, the mother's energy would be absorbed together by multiple eggs, and once that was divided among them, things would naturally remain within normal bounds.
As for this little brat, not only was it an only child, it had also absorbed so much energy all by itself. Too much of a good thing was thus vividly reflected in its current state.
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