Descendants of the Myth

Chapter 24 - A Serpent-Dragon's Reserve

Chapter 24 - A Serpent-Dragon's Reserve

Adrian found himself taking a few steps back in slight fear at what he was seeing.

Hundreds of snake heads began slithering up at the tallest tree in the reserve, at the same time intertwining with each other as they looked like they were weaving themselves to knit something huge. It just so happened, that that huge thing wasn't a piece of fabric.

But a piece of a huge dragon.

It was probably several feet taller than a building. It was huge and thick. Its head was snake-like, with a pair of sharp fangs on it. Its eyes were dark brown, with vertical slits on each eyeball that looked at them with hunger. Its scales were on a light brown shade, extending until its snake neck downwards. Adrian couldn't quite see the lower body of it, as fog covered it completely, but he knew it wasn't looking better than the snake head.

Around them, the nymphs began kneeling, chanting Greek prayers that Adrian knew he should be glad he didn't understood any of it. He and the others just watched, until a dark visible aura began surrounding the snake-dragon thing.

"That's Ladon," Devon informed all of them. The guy was beside him again, and Adrian made sure to be a few steps ahead in case the Oracle would try to pull off the move he did earlier.

Adrian wasn't a kid. He didn't need any protection.

"Ladon?" Finnian asked. He was beside Sef, who was on Adrian's other side. "It sounds familiar..."

"Anyone who's familiar with the Greek myths should," Devon informed them, "The Ladon is a serpent like dragon that guards the Garden of Hesperides, particularly, the Golden Apples that is housed in them."

"And the nymphs?" Cora asked. There was a certain tightness in her voice that made Adrian confused. Was it the apprehension of facing a dragon?

"They could be the Hesperides themselves, the Nymphs who Hera had tasked into tending the garden," Devon told all of them.

"Why are they here, then?" Sef asked.

"Something must've happened," Devon said, "And I have a bad feeling it has something to do with the apples."

"And you know all of this because..." Aldrin trailed off, glancing at Devon with amusement. He literally sounded like a book.

"Because Lady Nyx would tell me about Heracles's labor every night before as a bedtime story," Devon said, "And one of those labors, was when Heracles stole the Golden Apples."

Sef sighed. "I wouldn't even want to delve who Heracles is."

Adrian didn't comment on the telepath's information. He just let all of it sink into his head. He remained staring ahead, where the nymphs lay chanting on the ground as they seemed to help the dark aura around Ladon blacken even further.

"So, what do we do now?" he asked Finnian.

The older one just shrugged. "We let them make the first move. We need to find more information about Sir Galahad's whereabouts. They might know."

"I get the feeling we won't be getting answers in a diplomatic way," Aldrin commented.

"Then we do it our way," Finnian replied to him, his scythe materializing in his hand.

A loud hum broke all of them from their conversation. They looked up as the Ladon seemed to be doing it. The hymns of the nymphs stopped, before the dragon's low hum stopped and it released a loud roar that was nowhere a regular snake could do.