Villain Awakening: Rising to the Strongest Dragon God-Chapter 49: Ashen Madness

Dusk bled into night by the time they reached Ashen Grove.

The trees didn’t just die here, they twisted. Branches bent at angles that defied wind or logic. Reaching down like they were trying to claw their way back into the earth.

The soil wasn’t gray anymore. It was ash. Pure ash. Deep enough that horses’ hooves sank with each step, leaving prints that filled in too quickly, like the ground itself wanted to forget they’d been there.

Auryn dismounted and the silence pressed against his ears. It was definitely not peaceful, but hungry and ready to devour whoever trespassed.

"Set up torches," he ordered.

"We dig tonight."

All the miners exchanged glances. One of them with scarred hands spoke up.

"My lord, it’s nearly dark. Can’t we wait until—"

"Tonight." Auryn’s tone left no room for debate. "While momentum holds. It’s better to get what we want and leave"

When Auryn was barking orders, Lyra slid off her horse and walked to his side. Her voice was low enough only he heard.

"This feels wrong."

"Cursed places always do," he replied dismissively.

"No." She looked around, amber eyes tracking shadows that shouldn’t move in still air.

"This is different. Like something’s watching."

Auryn felt it too but the novel never mentioned real danger. Just dragon bones with anti-magic properties and superstition keeping people away.

"It’s fear," he reassured her. "Nothing more."

He wasn’t sure if he was convincing her or himself. But his eyes were set on his goal and nothing was stopping his stampede.

As the couple discussed. The miners quickly got to work, hoping to leave as quickly as possible.

Torches were planted in a circle, flames guttering despite no wind.

Pickaxes struck ash-soil and the sound felt muffled, like the earth was swallowing it up. Desperately trying to retain the silence.

They went from one metre down to two. Then the miner at the center stopped and frowned.

"My lord, we’re three meters deep but it looks like we’ve barely started," he complained.

Auryn moved closer and peered into the excavation. The miner was right. The hole should look deeper but it didn’t.

"Keep digging," he instructed. He was quite relentless right now. Hoping to ride the high of gaining extra-ordinary healing.

Time stretched with discontempt as minutes felt like hours. Shadows moved independently from the torchlight, sliding across the ground in directions that made no sense.

Suddenly a golden shimmer appeared across Auryn’s vision.

[ANOMALY DETECTED]

[SPATIAL DISTORTION PRESENT]

[RECOMMEND: IMMEDIATE RETREAT]

Auryn’s eyebrow raise but he dismissed it. The Cinderfang Ruins had spatial warps too but didn’t stop him then.

The System was cautious but he was not. If he was too careful, he might never get what he wanted.

After all the system couldn’t analyze everything. This was probably just residual dragon magic warping perception again.

It all made sense in his head then the wind blew in the wrong direction. Going against the natural flow. Cold enough to see breath despite being surrounded by torches.

One miner suddenly stopped digging. His head tilted as if listening to something.

"Do you hear that?" he whispered.

The miner beside him stopped. "Hear what?"

"My brother. He’s calling me."

"Your brother’s been dead ten years, Morris."

Morris’s face went slack. "He says... he says there’s bugs."

"They are bugs under my skin. I can feel them moving," he cried out.

Without warning, his hands went to his face. Sharp fingers digging. Not scratching, actually digging.

"Morris, stop—" his partner said in horror.

Morris bled out with nails tearing skin and he didn’t seem to notice.

He just kept clawing away. Eyes unfocused and erratic while he kept muttering about bugs that weren’t there.

He collapsed after a few seconds as his body began convulsing. In three seconds then he went still.

The other miners froze. Lost in the shock as terror built up. One of them dropped his pickaxe and it clattered against stone that shouldn’t be there.

"What—what just—"

Another miner moved. His footsteps were calm but his eyes harboured madness.

He picked up his pickaxe. Turned it around so the sharp end faced his own throat.

"No!!!!" Someone lunged in.

SPLURT

Blood trailed down as the body collapsed and silence swallowed everything leaving only madness behind.

CRACK

The world suddenly woke up again as if reality remembered to allow sound now.

What followed were wild screams. Chaos erupted. Miners running, some dropping tools, some just standing there locked in place by terror they couldn’t name.

Auryn’s heart hammered. This wasn’t superstition. This was real. The land was indeed cursed.

"Borin!" His voice cut through the panic.

"Get Lyra out. Now."

The dwarf was already moving toward her. Even as Lyra’s eyes went wide.

"What? No—" she exclaimed.

"You’re leaving." Auryn didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. If he saw her face he might waver. He moved towards the miners.

"Borin, drag her if you have to," his voice was absolute.

"I’m NOT leaving you here!" Lyra tried to step toward him but Borin was faster. He grabbed her around the waist in one go, lifted her on his shoulder and moved.

She fought and kicked, screaming his name.

"Auryn! Don’t—you can’t—AURYN!"

Borin carried her into the darkness beyond the torchlight. Her voice echoed long after they disappeared.

Auryn stood alone with the dead, the dying, and whatever madness lived in this ground.

Most of the miners were gone now. Fled or killed by their own hands. All that was left was him, excavation tools and whispers that weren’t wind.

Rage. Rage consumed me. Become like me. Become...

Auryn tried his best to ignore the voice in his head and grabbed a pickaxe from the ground. He swung.

BOOM

The Ash shattered as he swung again and again and again. Hands blistering and healing. Desperation and raw strength replaced technique.

After a minute, the earth finally gave in. First a crack and then something hollow whistled out.

Auryn knew there was something there. The novel information about the bones wasn’t just a trap after all.

Auryn dropped to his knees and clawed away dirt with transformed claws until bones appeared.

There were massive. White as snow like it wasn’t just underneath Ash. Ribs tall as the twisted trees around them.

A skull half-buried, eye sockets wide enough that would fit a horse. This was a dragon skeleton but something about it felt angry and hungry.

His hands found the femur. It was still intact. Marrow visible through cracks in the bone.

While he looked for more. The system screen invaded his vision.

[ANCIENT DRAGON REMAINS DETECTED]

[WARNING: CONSUMING/ ABSORPTION IS DETRIMENTAL. PROCEED WITH CAUTION]

[ REWARD: UNKNOWN]

Auryn swiped the screen to the left and pulled his dagger. He struck the bone and the blade shattered like glass.

"Of course," he muttered self-depreciatingly.

Instantly he reached into the void and drew Cinderfang. A weapon that could cut dragon bone.

He sliced through the femur’s weakest point and marrow oozed out. It was violet-red, glowing faintly, thick as syrup.

It smelled like iron, ash and something that made his stomach turn. Nausea that reached deep into his soul.

He looked at it for a moment and he did the unfathomable.

Auryn pressed his mouth down to the opening and drank. He drank hungrily, going against every instinct that said no..

His throat burned like liquid fire was being forced down. It tasted like blood and death and yet he kept drinking.

Power was pretty and he didn’t mind wallowing in the dirt to get it.

His body screamed for him to stop but he forced more down, more, until heat flooded his veins and something that wasn’t his own rage and surged through his chest.

He felt power flooding into his body. But also

Fury.... An unrealistic amount of rage.

It definitely wasn’t his but it tried stretching his sanity like a rubber band.

"You consumed me. Now we speak."

The voice echoes in his head as Auryn felt his vision tunneling. The world tilting sideways and in all directions at once.

He collapsed beside the skeleton, Cinderfang still in his hand, marrow on his lips.

The last thing he heard was a voice. Deep, mournful and familiar in a way that made no sense.

"Brother," it said.