Chapter 470: The Emotional Turmoil Of Aegon Veyr
(Planet Tithia, The Dragon’s Manor, Aegon Veyr’s POV)
Since the tender age of five, Aegon Veyr had always known how to act strong.
He had known how to puff his chest, tilt his chin up, walk like he owned the road beneath his feet, and speak like the world owed him breath.
That was what being a street orphan in the outer districts of Tithia had taught him.... That if you did not demand respect, you were invisible, and if you did not fight for your place, you had none.
But ever since the Dragon’s Mantle had been forced onto his shoulders, he’d started to feel something he had never once tasted before.
A gripping doubt, one that made him question whether the ideals that he believed to be the gospel growing up, still held true now that he was the Dragon?
For instead of the cold streets of Tithia, where he once slept on the regular, he was now surrounded by the ceremonial chamber of the central hall, a place too polished for someone like him, lined with glowing mana crystals and polished marble floors that shimmered with decorative enchantments.
He could hear chants echoing from outside... commoners that gathered outside his manor in the hundreds.
They were hailing his name, praising his wisdom, worshipping his existence as though he were a divine answer to a question no one had even asked him.
And it made him feel sick.
He didn’t deserve it. Not really. Not anymore.
Not after what Leo Skyshard had done to him.
Veyr’s fists clenched at his sides as the memory of his defeat clawed its way back.
That moment.
That humiliating, shattering moment.
A Transcendent, struck down by a Grandmaster.
An unparalleled prodigy, knocked to his knees by a man who showed him what real talent looked like.
And then, to be looked down at.
Not with pity.
But with belief.
As if Leo, the very same warrior who had defeated him, somehow still saw something important in him.
Something that made him willingly walk away from the title.
Something that made him say, ’You’re the better choice to become Dragon.’
As it was that precise gesture that broke Aegon.
Because until then, he had built his identity around strength. Around winning. Around being the one they could suppress but never deny.
And suddenly at that moment, he was made aware of an alternate truth.
A truth where he wasn’t the strongest. He wasn’t the only one with a divine bloodline, and he wasn’t the only one deemed special.
He was just... chosen.
And not by fate.
But by someone else’s choice.
So now, with the weight of that mantle clinging to his back like wet cloth, Aegon tried to change.
He tried to become more worthy of carrying the title of the Dragon.
As once he realized that he was simply chosen for the role and not born for it, he started to work towards justifying that the choice to make him Dragon was indeed the right one.
He tried to be more composed, more regal, more articulate in public.
He changed the way he sat, adjusted the tone of his voice, forced himself to nod politely to commoners who once spat at him angrily in the streets.
He spoke slower. Walked straighter.
Tried to imitate the Dragons of old whose statues now loomed behind him in every room he entered.
And still, somehow, he never felt like he belonged.
’What if I disappoint them all?’
The thought was constant now, gnawing at the corners of his mind.
And it was in that fragile state of pretense and pressure, that the man entered.
Valterri Valtanen.
The Shield of the Dragon.
His arrival was silent, his steps not drawing attention, yet somehow still carrying the gravity of a warrior who knew he was volunteering for death.
Veyr turned to face him just as the man stopped two feet away and dropped to a knee.
The gesture felt too formal.
Too heavy.
And it made Aegon’s throat turn dry.
"My Lord," Valterri said, his voice low, composed, and loyal in a way that made Aegon’s stomach twist. "I’m Valterri. Your Shield from this day onwards. May I die before I let any harm befall you."
He said it without blinking.
As if it were already decided.
Aegon stared at the man for a moment, unsure what to say.
Valterri was broad-shouldered, stone-faced, easily twice his age and built like the kind of man who didn’t need to make threats to win wars.
And yet, here he was... kneeling to him, as if he was the man’s divine salvation.
And it was moments like these that made Veyr want to rip the damn title off and scream that it belonged to someone else.
Because how could an orphan like him accept a proper knight-like warrior bowing before him?
But still, he swallowed the discomfort, pushed past it, and tried to speak as neutrally as possible.
"Your age?" he asked, trying to avoid the awkwardness of the moment by focusing on smaller details.
"Forty-two," Valterri replied, head still lowered.
"And your tier?"
"Transcendent."
That made Aegon pause.
He hadn’t expected that. He squinted slightly, noting the streaks of gray in Valterri’s beard, and the weathered look in his hair and eyes.
"You’re a Transcendent? Then why the gray in your beard and hair? Don’t people at our tier maintain our prime looks till we are at least 200 years old?"
There was no accusation in his tone—just genuine confusion.
And Valterri, to his credit, didn’t bristle or flinch at the question.
He simply tilted his chin down a fraction more.
"I dye it gray, my Lord," he said, voice even, calm. "It helps me resemble my father."
Aegon blinked.
He hadn’t expected that answer.
On one hand, he wanted to tell him to stop looking older than he was.
To not dull his personal image just to carry the burden of someone else’s memory.
But on the other hand... he understood.
And because he understood, he said nothing.
He just nodded once and let it go.