Mordred waited patiently for twilight to give way to deep night, a salvaging darkness for his designs. The last rays of Provençal sun faded behind the arid hills, tinting the sky blood red that seemed to foreshadow the events to come. The Provençal countryside, once so peaceful with its lavender fields and sleeping villages, seemed to hold its breath as he approached Marseille. The night air still carried the scents of the Mediterranean, mingled with the acrid odors of smoke and destruction that escaped from the conquered city.

Each step brought him inexorably closer to the occupied city, each controlled breath was a promise of absolute discretion. He advanced like an avenging specter, a barely perceptible shadow gliding between the centuries-old olive trees and the ruins of the last human resistance, bewitched by a single obsessive idea: capturing that precious magical signature that radiated like a luminous beacon in the darkness of his tormented mind. This so particular energy, so pure and concentrated, called to him like the sirens' song called sailors to their doom.

As he crossed the outer limits of the city, passing abandoned guard posts and gutted barricades, Mordred deployed with meticulous care a thin layer of mana around himself. This invisible but formidably effective envelope was enough to completely conceal his own draconic energy, creating around his person a perfect magical void, as if he no longer existed in this reality. Every movement was calculated with surgical precision, every gesture perfectly mastered in its execution. The dragons, though numerous in the streets they paced with casual arrogance, did not notice his ghostly presence.

Their smugness, their unshakeable feeling of racial superiority, their blind confidence in their total domination made them blind to the very idea that a more formidable predator than themselves could move silently among them, like a lone wolf in the midst of a flock of sleeping sheep. This irony did not fail to bring a sardonic smile to Mordred's lips, who savored in advance the brutal awakening that awaited them.

Mordred glided silently between buildings of strange and brutally functional architecture, obviously designed by the dragons themselves according to their particular aesthetic tastes. These massive constructions, with aggressively geometric angles and ostentatious decorations, violently contrasted with traditional Mediterranean harmony. No vestige of human architecture remained in these streets once vibrant with life and commerce. The cafés, shops, small shaded squares where children's laughter once echoed had been razed or transformed into military barracks.

The few signs of human life were reduced to muffled and distant presences, grouped in makeshift camps that he clearly perceived thanks to his heightened senses. These broken souls, these terrified survivors, were penned like cattle in inhuman conditions. But that night, Mordred had to force himself to turn his attention away from these prisoners, despite the cold rage that rose in him at this vision of humiliation. He was not there for them, not yet. His mission was much more important, more strategic. His target represented the key to everything.

The powerful magical signature he tracked with almost sickly avidity drew him like an irresistible magnet toward the nerve center of the conquered city. As he approached his destination, his breathing became deeper and more controlled, his heart beat faster under the effect of contained but burning excitement. The anticipation of the coming battle sent intoxicating adrenaline coursing through his veins. He crossed a large avenue lined with charred palm trees, skillfully avoiding a patrol of dragons half-asleep at their post, their vigilance reduced to nothing by excessive confidence in their supposed invincibility.

Mordred suppressed a mocking smile as he observed these negligent sentinels. This species, which claimed to be the apex of evolution, the superior race destined to dominate all others, displayed an almost comical vulnerability in its naivety. They had forgotten the first rule of war: never underestimate your enemy. This lesson, they would learn through pain.

Finally, after navigating through the transformed urban maze, Mordred reached the building that seemed to throne majestically at the very center of Marseille, dominating with its imposing mass all other edifices. A strange and disturbing construction, totally foreign to human architectural conventions, massive and intimidating in its colossal proportions. Its angles sharpened like blades and its dark decorations carved in black stone clearly recalled draconic supremacy and their taste for military ostentation.

Banners in scarlet and golden colors floated limply in the night breeze, bearing the complex coats of arms of different draconic noble houses. Mordred approached this fortress with infinite caution, each of his senses sharpened to the maximum of his capabilities. He could sense the magical flows that coursed through the structure, the protection enchantments woven into the walls, the subtle traps hidden in the very foundations.

He slowly circled the imposing building, meticulously studying every detail of its construction, every potential weakness in its design. His piercing eyes scrutinized the cyclopean walls until he finally found a discreet opening in the structure, probably a service exit forgotten by the draconic architects. He infiltrated it without making the slightest noise, his body flowing with supernatural fluidity into the narrow passage.

The interior was plunged in cathedral silence, bathed in a reassuring darkness for a predator of his caliber. The endless corridors stretched before him like the arteries of a sleeping organism. The dragons inside all seemed deeply asleep, confident in the inviolability of their sanctuary. Mordred progressed slowly but surely, his bare feet producing no echo on the cold marble floor, his orange eyes glowing slightly in the gloom like those of a nocturnal predator.

He could almost hear their heavy and regular breathing, perfectly synchronized in a hypnotic rhythm of absolute security. Some even snored, lost in dreams of conquest and glory. This carefreeness was pathetic. A feeling of premature triumph made his heart vibrate with wicked joy.

- "They sleep like carefree children," he thought with amused irony that twisted his lips into a carnivorous rictus. "And this is the species that dares to believe itself superior to humanity? This race of pretentious beings that wallows in its smugness?"

His reflection was imbued with almost jubilant contempt. He was eager to remind them that pride always precedes the fall, and that the fall would be all the more painful for being unexpected.

Finally, after traversing with hunter's patience several richly decorated corridors and sumptuous rooms furnished with ostentatious luxury, he finally found the room where his coveted target rested. Mordred immediately froze on the threshold, holding his breath, his eyes widened by uncontrollable excitement that made his hands tremble.

The dragon was there, stretched on a bed of exotic furs, imposing and majestic even in his deepest sleep. His partial draconic form revealed impressive musculature, scales of emerald green marbled with silver that glimmered faintly in the gloom. A powerful and dense aura surrounded his massive body, vibrating softly in the ambient air, almost palpable so concentrated and refined it was. This so particular energy, so pure and developed, was exactly what he had been seeking for so long.

A shiver of anticipatory excitement slowly ran up his spine, and unable to help himself, Mordred slowly passed his tongue over his lips in anticipation of the intense pleasure and intoxicating power that the absorption of this extraordinary vital energy would soon provide him. He could almost taste this draconic essence on his tongue, feel how it would strengthen his own capabilities.

But at that precise moment, in that instant of pure greed, his excitement slightly escaped him. Without wanting to, carried away by the anticipation of the feast to come, he let filter an infinitesimal fraction of his own magical signature, a slight energetic tremor barely perceptible, like a drop of ink in a glass of clear water.

But it was enough to awaken the sharp senses of a noble dragon.

The dragon's eyelids opened brutally, instantly revealing two piercing eyes of keen intelligence, of a burning golden color like molten gold, which immediately met Mordred's orange and brilliant gaze. The air seemed to charge with static electricity, like before a storm.

Time seemed to stop for an interminable fraction of a second, an instant suspended between two realities where everything could still tip. Predator and prey sized each other up, evaluating their respective chances in this unexpected face-off.

An embarrassed but in no way intimidated smile slowly appeared on Mordred's face, who, caught off guard but keeping all his legendary composure, could not help but let slip in an amused and almost ironic voice:

- "Oops."

- "Who dares disturb Peter of the noble house Olisker?! Who has the unheard-of audacity to violate the sanctuary of a noble dragon?!" roared the dragon, leaping to his feet with surprising agility for his corpulence, his massive and elongated body rising in a single fluid movement, his muscles rolling under his scales like steel serpents.

-------------------------------

Hi everyone,

Just to let you know that we're entering the final arc of this novel, what an adventure it's been for a first novel that I consider halfway successful... Far from what I can really do, I think.

Bye Bye.