Birthing Legends: My Womb Creates SSS Monsters-Chapter 125: From 1,000 Children to 142 Remaining.
The chaos of the palace had been extinguished more thoroughly than any bucket of water could manage.
The white-haired adolescents were gone. No more teenagers leapt from the rooftops; no windows shattered under the shockwaves of practice duels. Even the grass, once trampled flat by thousands of restless feet, now grew tall and undisturbed.
Of the original thousand, only 142 remained. They were the last of King Drakovitch’s first "Seed and Harvest"—the youngest, the final "ripening" fruit of a dying season.
The Grand Hall was empty, save for this final batch. They huddled in the shadows like ghosts. Some shook, some wept, and some simply clung to one another in a silence so heavy it felt like lead. They were waiting for the night to fall.
The Grand Hero’s Statue stood in absolute peace, and that peace was the most terrifying thing about it. No water buckets slammed into its pedestal. No steam hissed from its head. There was no one left to play.
Percival, the old Dragonguard, sat on a nearby bench. For the first time, his greaves were buckled properly. He wasn’t running. He wasn’t shouting. He simply stared at the statue with hollow, sunken eyes, his hands resting heavily on his knees like stones.
A faint scraping sound broke the silence.
A fourteen-year-old boy shuffled toward the statue. His white hair was short and spiked sharply at the back. He was the same boy who, just six days ago, had breathed fire at the hero’s stone face and laughed at the kingdom’s history.
Back then, he had been a child of eight—a loud, royal brat. But the King’s accelerated blood had dragged him through puberty in a week, stretching his bones and hardening his features into those of a young man. That jagged spike of hair at the back—the one his older brother, Knots, used to pull whenever he was too loud—was the only thing that remained of the child he used to be.
His nickname was Spike, and tonight, he was part of the Seventh Batch facing the Dragonrite.
Spike stopped before the stone feet of the hero. He didn’t have a torch. He didn’t have a wooden sword. He looked up at the blind marble eyes of the statue, and for the first time, his shoulders slumped.
"Hey... you. I... I called you a ’freaking stone’ a hundred times. Remember? I said you were boring because you didn’t burn."
He reached out a trembling hand, resting his palm against the cold marble. A sob broke from his throat, jagged and raw.
"I was wrong... I wish you would burn. I wish you’d catch fire just once, so I could know that burning wasn’t a failure... that it was just the price of becoming you."
He collapsed to his knees, his forehead thumping against the pedestal.
"Brother Knots... he told me to show you respect. He said you were the ’source of our godhood.’ I just laughed at him. I told him he was a nerd for reading those dusty books."
Spike’s hands clenched into fists, his nails digging into the dirt until the earth was trapped under his cuticles.
"But he’s not coming back, is he? It’s been six days since he climbed the summit. He—he failed. But why? Why him? He was the perfect child! He knew every history, every secret about you. He carried himself like those nobles who look at us like we’re corrupted!"
His eyes overflowed, the tears hot against his skin.
"Brother Knots was the only one who could show them we have the right to be born... that we carry the King’s blood as purely as any prince."
The tears ran freely now, carving tracks through the dust on his face.
"He died... he burned... and I didn’t even get to say goodbye. I wish he’d pulled my hair just one more time. Just once, so I’d know he was still there. Brother Knots..."
Spike looked up at the statue, his white eyes shimmering with a desperate, childlike terror that no amount of accelerated growth could hide.
"Tiamat... it took Big Arms, too. She was supposed to give me a ’nice hug’ once I grew up. But she’s gone. All I have left of her is a pile of ash in the wind. I wish... I wish their ashes had fallen here. I wish I could have embraced the dust, just so I wouldn’t have to be... alone."
Percieval watched the boy’s trembling form for a long time before he finally stood. For the first time in decades, the Dragonguard’s armor felt too heavy for his soul.
He walked toward the statue, his shadow stretching out to cover Spike’s shaking shoulders. He didn’t stand tall and imposing. He sat down right there on the dirt beside the boy, ignoring the cold of the stone.
"You’re not the only one who misses his hair pulling, la d.Knots... he was the only one who ever stopped to ask me if my feet were sore from all that running. Smart as a whip, that one. Too smart, maybe."
Spike didn’t look up. He just gripped the hem of Percieval’s cloak, his knuckles white.
"Lord Percieval... please. Tell the King. Tell the Priests I’m not ready. I—I don’t want to go tonight. I don’t want to be ’ripe’! I’m only fourteen! No, I’m only eight! My heart... it still feels eight!"
He looked up at the old man, his eyes wide and frantic.
"I want to live! I don’t want to be a Dragonborn anymore! I want to experience my life, Percieval! I want to see what it’s like to grow old like you! I want to see my hair turn gray naturally, not because of being a white blooded! I want to descend this mountain and run... just run until my legs give out!"
Percieval’s heart twisted. He reached out his hand and rested it on Spike’s spiked hair. He felt the heat of the boy’s blood—that unnatural, accelerated pulse that was already pushing him toward the grave.
"Lad.. Everyone says the old Dragonguard has seen it all. They say I’ve watched a thousand ’Harvests’ and that I should be used to the smell of ash by now. But they’re wrong. Every time a batch climbs that mountain, a piece of this kingdom’s soul burns with them. And every time... it hurts like the first."
"Then save me!"
