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”Are you mocking a Primordial?” the Azure Dragonkin practically roared as he stood up. Scarlett tried to stop him as she realized, but she was too slow. The Dragonkin went not for Jake but for the poor waiter as he grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the ground.

”A mere servant using the name of the Malefic One in vain to mock him and his Chosen in the very same breath,” he seethed, tightening his grip. ”Fucking heretic. I should kill you on the spot.”

The jovial smile of the Viper slowly faded as he looked at the dragonkin. He did not speak as his illusion slowly dissolved, revealing the humanoid form of the Malfic Viper. At the same time, Jake felt a wave of energy pass through him, and on the floor below, he saw those eating suddenly freeze halfway through their actions; time itself stopped.

Then came the presence.

The arm of the Azure Dragonkin began turning to dust as he tried to scream, but he couldn’t get any words out as he was slammed into the ground. Blood poured out of his eyes, mouth, and nose, and his face warped from an expression of overconfidence to pure terror.

”You just had to go and ruin a good time,” Villy stared down at the shaking dragonkin. Jake, for his part, released his own presence to try and protect the others at the table as he saw everyone else besides himself freeze up.

”The Venerated Azure Dragon, huh. You are blessed by a mere whelp of the true Azure Dragon Patriarch, and believe yourself above everyone else,” Villy shook his head before looking up and addressing everyone else in the room. ”It was a fun prank, right?”

Everyone nodded, not a single person daring to disagree. Even Jake nodded, not because he felt compelled like the others, but because he genuinely agreed.

”See, you just have no sense of humor,” the Viper said. ”Now, if that isn’t blasphemy, I don’t know what is.”

”F… forgive…” the Azure Dragonkin tried to stammer out as Villy just sighed.

”Forgiveness? Alright, off you go. I am already done with you,” the Viper shrugged, waving his hand as the Azure Dragonkin disappeared from the room. Jake considered if Villy had killed him, but he didn’t feel like he had.

”A mere mortal whelpling isn’t worth killing; better for him to learn a lesson,” Villy said, clarifying he wasn’t dead as he went over and took a seat at the other end of the table opposite Jake.

”What did you do to him?” Jake asked curiously, wondering what the Viper meant when he said he had taught him a lesson. He didn’t believe for a single second removing an arm and giving the guy a fright was enough for the Viper.

”You saw what I did; I destroyed his arm,” the snake god said with a grin. ”Oh, but not the usual kind of destruction. Let’s just say he will have to enjoy the rest of his journey through C-grade jerking himself off with his other hand.”

Permanent injury? Jake questioned himself but didn’t ask further. He was curious why Villy hadn’t just killed the Azure Dragonkin outright, but he could always ask about that later. For now, he wanted to fix the atmosphere in the room. Food orders had not even been placed yet, and things were already quite awkward with the Viper around.

Seeing the brief pause in conversion, Scarlett managed to collect herself as she stood up and bowed deeply. ”I greet the Malefic One, Forefather of snakes,” she said in an extremely nervous tone.

Everyone else followed suit, bowing deeply or kneeling in front of the Viper, with Jake being the only one not doing anything besides focusing on keeping his mouth shut and not trying to convince them that it wasn’t necessary. He knew that was a losing battle, and ultimately, what did it have to do with him how they chose to treat his godly friend?

The last to grovel to the Viper was the most nervous person in the room: the Thundervenom Adder. She barely managed to stammer something out, her gaze filled with fear. It did make sense; she was the only one not a friend or at least acquaintance of Jake left in the room, with the one who had brought her – someone Jake assumed to be her superior – having just insulted a Primordial minutes earlier.

Luckily for her, Villy seemed to not really give a shit about her, or really any of them as individuals. Jake wondered why the Viper had even come, and a thought quickly appeared… but he still asked.

”To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, I wonder?” Jake asked Villy after he was done getting venerated by the others.

”I wanted to come and hand you something personally for your upcoming journey to Nevermore and noticed someone mocking my Chosen, and thus me, so I felt compelled to teach him the errors of his ways,” Villy said. ”This is what I came to bring you.”

He took out a crystalline object and handed it to Jake. Jake accepted and put it in his inventory without even checking what it was as he sent a telepathic message to the Viper.

”Bullshit excuse; you just wanted to pull off that tropey as fuck prank before I went public as your Chosen, at which point it would be too late,” Jake saw through the ancient snake god. ”You saw your chance, and you jumped straight at it.”

”Guilty as charged, but don’t act like we aren’t equally to blame, so just play along and enjoy the damn item,”the Viper answered, making Jake suppress a grin as he instead simply nodded.

”Thank you, I am sure it will prove useful,” he spoke, trying to at least sound a bit respectful.

The Viper also nodded as he regarded the others in the room. ”Carry on with your matters. Oh yeah, and keep your mouths shut about Jake here until after the announcement.”

With those words, the Viper teleported away as time resumed to normal in the area.

No one spoke for several seconds as Jake broke the tension with a joke. ”Relax, the big bad snake is gone now.”

His words surprisingly seemed to work as Irin breathed out in relief. Only now did he see she had been clenching her fists so hard her nails had dug into her hands, making blood spill on her dress. The others were also far from unaffected, with the worst off still the Adder.

Jake saw her look at Scarlett, probably asking something telepathically, as she stared at Jake with wide eyes the next moment.

Oh yeah, she is the only one left who didn’t know I was the Chosen, Jake reminded himself. That was probably another reason why Villy had so casually intruded: they all knew who he was already. Proof of how shit Jake actually was at hiding his identity.

”That was… something,” Irin spoke, her breathing still labored. ”I still find it difficult to comprehend how you can be so casual around the Malefic One.”

”We’re friends. Hard to be friends if you are all serious and tense all the time,” Jake just answered, getting another amazed stare from the Adder.

”As I said, it’s all very much… something,” Irin repeated.

Silence once more fell over the room as Jake considered if he had to be the one to break it. Luckily, at that moment, a waiter – a real one this time around – entered, also holding a tray of drinks. He was a scalekin and stopped when he saw they already had glasses.

”Ah, I apologize. Did another attendant already take your orders?” the man asked, confused.

Jake looked at the glasses left by Villy before shaking his head. ”No, we would like to order now.”

”Certainly,” the waiter did not question anything as he proceeded to note down what they wanted. The waiter coming now turned out to be damn great timing as it brought a sense of normalcy back to the room, and after he left, the tension was mostly gone and allowed them to have some proper chats.

The Thundervenom Adder still looked out of place and even offered to leave, but Scarlett wanted her to stay, and Jake didn’t care, so she remained even if she didn’t really speak at all unless asked something. Once the food came, she also really dove into her meal to avoid any conversations.

Even then, it turned out to be a pleasant evening, and Jake ended up eating several kinds of food he quite frankly had no idea what truly was, but it was still damn tasty. After his visit, he could definitely understand why restaurants were so popular if they all had food like this.

Jake got the opportunity to catch up with old friends while eating, learning what everyone had been up to. Reika had unsurprisingly just been doing lessons and steadily progressing, having even upgraded her token to a gold token, giving her a private residence she had brought Bastilla to. Her alchemy had clearly progressed, and Jake got the feeling he had fallen behind her when it came to conventional crafting methods by quite a margin.

Scarlett didn’t have as much time in the Order and had mainly just cultivated her venoms while trying to make new friends. She had met the Thundervenom Adder during one of her lessons, and seeing as they were both snakes, they had connected, and the Thundervenom had later introduced Scarlett to the Azure Dragonkin. This was also when Jake learned that the Adder was effectively working for the Azureflight, one of the Dragonflight like the Emberflight, and naturally, the one the Azure Dragonkin belonged to. That entire relationship was now heavily jeopardized, making Jake feel bad about putting her in an awkward position.

The Thundervenom Adder staying with Jake and Scarlett could easily be viewed as a betrayal by the Azure Dragonkin, who probably wasn’t happy with losing an arm. The Dragonflight definitely wasn’t happy and would maybe even punish her and place the blame on her, even if it was bullshit. So, he decided that if he was going to come out as the Chosen, he might as well make use of it.

”Considering you are a friend of Scarlett, you are also invited along with her to the ceremony next month, and I hope you can attend,” Jake said with a smile as he threw Irin a look before going back to the Adder. ”In fact, I would question if you didn’t show up.”

”I would gladly make sure the Azureflight is questioned if you are absent, considering you are an associate of Lord Thayne,” Irin followed along.

He visibly saw some of the tension leave the snake as she nodded and smiled with gratitude. Scarlett also looked relieved and happy. Speaking of Scarlett, Jake did learn more than he had bargained for after Irin spilled the beans with a teasing grin. Scarlett had – along with her venom cultivation classes - also attended ones about how to act with more tact and whatnot. One of them was about how to make those of the opposite sex like you more, which had resulted in her learning a few tactics Irin failed to hold herself back from pointing out.

Such as intentional mirroring. Jake faintly had an idea what that was, and it was pretty much about acting like the person you were talking to, with the hope of appealing to them and appearing more relatable. Scarlett had tried this quite a few times that day, with Irin specifically pointing out her inconsistent speech patterns and attempts to talk more like Jake by mixing in curse words and whatnot. Something Jake could honestly admit he hadn’t even noticed.

This resulted in Scarlett firing back that Irin was also purposefully acting differently around Jake to appeal to him more, but that failed spectacularly as Irin just agreed that she naturally was. Her straightforwardness left the snake girl lost for words for a few moments, but she soon tried to go on the offensive again.

Jake did all he could to not get involved, though he did have to admit their bickering had thoroughly fixed the mood of their dinner party and made it no longer about Villy and his prank. Jake just spent the last parts of the dinner silently talking to Reika about all that had happened on Earth, but soon enough, it was time to head off.

Irin turned to Jake as they were about to leave and asked: ”Do you want to continue our shopping trip now?”

He didn’t even need to think about it. ”No thanks. Not today, at least. Maybe tomorrow? I want some time to myself to recharge and stuff.”

Jake could do social, but he could only do so much socializing before it was time to be antisocial for a bit. Irin seemed to understand as she didn’t press. ”Just call me whenever you wanna continue. In the meantime, what items are you looking for? I can get some proper research done in the meantime if I know what I am looking for.”

”Hm, I mainly need items or individuals capable of upgrading existing equipment now. That, or at least a crafter capable of using existing items in recrafting. I guess I could also go for a new cloak, but I honestly feel like every cloak I have ever had was only useful for a brief period before just becoming obsolete,” Jake shrugged.

”Can you send me a list of thems you may want to upgrade and some basic info on them? With that, I can do a proper search to try and find crafters,” she asked.

”Sure,” Jake agreed and didn’t wait as he sent over what he could. Information about his broken bow and wanting it recrafted, about wanting to upgrade his necklace, his boots, and the Altmar Signet, though he considered if maybe asking Izil about that would be easier, as he knew she was part of the Empire.

With everything sent to Irin, Jake headed home to the mansion for some alone time.

Oh, and to check out what the hell Villy had given him.

In a swamp within a massive dark cavern millions of kilometers away from the restaurant, a figure appeared in mid-air as he fell straight down into the dirty water. He had barely registered what had happened before he felt the water begin to erode his scales. Fighting through the paralysis and his own innate fear, he managed to drag himself out of the water and onto a root from a giant tree growing out of the swamp.

Eranostromoz breathed heavily as he stared at the stump where his right arm had been. He tried to control his vital energy, but… nothing. Still feeling like he was in some kind of illusion, he took out a token and infused energy into it. Space cracked before his eyes, and less than a minute later a a large dragonkin walked out.

”Uncle…” Eranostromoz said, staring helplessly at his arm. He hoped the A-grade in front of him could help, but…

The other dragonkin looked at where his arm should be for several seconds. ”Desolation…Eranos, what have you done?”

He gritted his teeth and shivered as he remembered the eyes of a being he knew he could never compare to. ”I… I fucked up… I fucked up bad…”