Free Web NovelThe ancient tombs on the outskirts of the Imperial Capital exploded in an instant.
Sarcophagi, stone pillars, and thick layers of soil were directly blown away by a force from within, as a pillar of dark gold light pierced through the ground and into the clouds.
The air within a ten-mile radius was forcibly sucked dry.
At first, there was a silence so eerie it felt surreal. Then, the air, compressed to its limit, snapped back violently. The sound of explosions rippled along the ground, jarring eardrums and turning minds blank.
August stepped out from the pillar of light.
Dull gold dragon scales covered his entire body, possessing a cold, hard texture under the light.
Between the scales, blood-red battle qi flowed slowly like molten lava that had yet to cool, forcibly restrained within his physical shell.
Behind him, five thousand Dragonman Imperial Guard appeared, stepping through the light.
Their steps were orderly, with no wasted motion as they landed, as if they were long accustomed to walking under such heavy pressure.
Among them were five who had once stood at the pinnacle of the old era as Peak Knights.
Their figures were taller than the other dragonmen, and even while standing still, they carried an undeniable sense of oppression.
August's gaze swept across the battlefield.
The broken city walls of the Imperial Capital, the advancing formations of the Federation army, and the giant pseudo-dragon entrenched on the plains further away—all were rapidly identified within his perception.
Then he spoke: "To think they've been pushed all the way to the Imperial Capital... what a bunch of unfilial descendants."
As his voice fell, he exerted a slight force with his legs.
His wings unfurled, the air was forcibly torn open, and in the next instant, August had vanished from his spot, soaring toward the Federation's ranks and Mammon.
“Roar——!”
An invisible wave covered the entire battlefield, acting directly upon the depths of their bloodlines.
Within the Federation legions, the mounts were the first to lose their reactions; the horses' legs went weak simultaneously, and they knelt heavily to the ground.
Next, the knights' hands holding their weapons began to tremble, and their knees buckled uncontrollably. They tried to grit their teeth and stand firm, only to find their bodies completely unresponsive, forced to kneel into the mud.
They looked up.
In the sky, a true dragon in every sense of the word blocked out the light.
It was not an alchemical construct, nor some monster stitched together, but a legendary prototype.
Light and shadow slid across its scales, yet failed to grant it any warmth.
General Batur, the Federation's front-line commander-in-chief, froze in place. The cigar in his mouth had long since fallen, yet no one noticed.
As the Federation's calmest tactician and most skilled risk calculator, his mind went momentarily blank.
He instinctively wanted to issue an order, and his lips moved, but he didn't know what to say.
Because at this moment, any command had lost its meaning.
Beside him, Remont had already fallen to his knees.
His action was almost instinctive. When his knees hit the ground, he didn't even realize what he was doing; he only felt a pressure originating from the depths of his soul crushing all his pride.
This was the disparity in bloodlines. Remont's pupils contracted violently.
Impossible... absolutely impossible... His brain worked frantically, trying to deny everything before his eyes.
This was a true dragon.
The dragon corpses he had spent his life researching and the dragon blood warriors he had refined were not even worth a ten-millionth of such an existence; they were merely failed products that had borrowed some residue.
Not long ago, he had thought that siding with the Federation meant standing at the highest point of the world.
Now he realized he was nothing more than a clown at the feet of a giant beast, deluding himself with a false sense of security.
On the other side, Mammon let out a response.
The pseudo-dragon, fed by four hundred years of the Federation's magic stones, did not back down.
Dense patterns of light lit up on its crystal surface, and a piercing grinding sound echoed from within its structure, as if an entire ore vein was being forcibly squeezed.
A super-strong magnetic field was fully deployed to resist the suppression coming from the bloodline.
Its size was far greater than August's, more than three times larger.
In terms of pure mass, it still resembled a moving mountain range.
Following that, Mammon unleashed a low-pitched Gravity Roar.
Space vibrated in its wake.
A corner of August's released Domain was forcibly shattered, and a brief moment of disorder and tearing appeared in the air.
It was a head-on confrontation that refused to yield.
Even though its status was suppressed, Mammon still displayed a terrifying mass capable of clashing with a true dragon.
Two completely different existences faced off for the first time under the sky of the Imperial Capital.
The ruler of the old era versus the deformed creation of the new century.
August dove down.
Dark gold claws tore through the air, landing heavily on Mammon's diamond shell.
The crystal surface was forcibly scraped open, and blinding sparks sprayed out in sheets at the moment of impact.
“Roar——!” Mammon let out a low, deep drone.
It wasn't an angry roar, but more like the resonant sound emitted by an ore vein buried deep underground when subjected to heavy pressure.
The hundreds-of-meters-long dragon tail swept out. This strike carried no technique, only pure mass and speed.
The air was compressed and distorted in the tail's wake before exploding with a piercing boom.
August's judgment was a moment too slow.
Large sections of dark gold dragon scales shattered under the direct impact, fragments flying like rain.
His massive dragon body was swatted away, crashing into the ground like an out-of-control meteor.
The earth collapsed.
Rock layers burst outward from the point of impact, and a bottomless rift formed instantly. The earth's veins let out an overwhelmed roar as dust was hurled high into the air.
Before August could fully rise, Mammon was already upon him, its mouth snapping open to bite down hard on his side wing.
The crystal structures locked together layer by layer, producing a tooth-grinding screech.
A terrifying magnetic field fully unfurled inside the giant maw, like countless invisible hooks reaching directly into August's body to forcibly strip away his dragon blood.
Dark gold blood was dragged toward the wound, and the previously stable luster beneath his scales began to fluctuate.
"Presumptuous." August's roar exploded across the battlefield, carrying undisguised fury.
The sound wave itself formed an impact, causing the surrounding, yet-to-stabilize space to vibrate once more.
"A mere forgery dares to desecrate a true dragon?"
However, the only response he received was Mammon's even heavier drone. The crystal surfaces flashed frantically as the magnetic field's intensity was pushed even higher.
August did not try to break free again; instead, he voluntarily let down his defenses.
The dark gold dragon blood spilled on the ground ignited at the same time.
The blood flames did not spread outward but instead rapidly condensed, turning into dark gold chains.
The chains flowed upstream along the path of Mammon's magnetic force, invading its internal structure through the point where it bit him.
"If the Emperor does not permit it..." August spoke as if reading a judgment, "your very existence is naught." ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
The chains suddenly tightened.
Mammon let out an even deeper hiss, its crystal structure making sharp cracking sounds as the magnetic field briefly fluctuated.
But it still did not let go. Its giant mouth remained clamped shut, attempting to complete the stripping of blood before the chains fully formed.
Dark gold blood flames and cold crystals eroded and tore at each other at point-blank range.
The two gargantuan beings were deadlocked upon the torn earth, the true dragon's roar and the pseudo-dragon's drone intertwining, making the entire battlefield tremble... On the other side of the battlefield, the Dragonman Imperial Guard stepped forward.
Their appearance came with almost no warning.
Their scale-covered bodies appeared exceptionally cold and hard amidst the dust, and every step they took seemed to be the result of repeated calculation.
The Federation's ranks tried to adjust their formation, and poison gas was rapidly released.
The gray-green mist spread along the ground, flowing with the wind into the path of the Dragonman Legion.
The alchemical reaction rapidly took shape in the air, intended to take lives within seconds.
But the moment the mist touched the dragonmen, it changed.
A faint dark-red glow lit up on the surface of their scales, and the poison gas evaporated instantly under the high temperature, making a fine, piercing sound like water droplets hitting a red-hot iron plate.
The Dragonman Legion did not stop. They bypassed the toxic mist at high speed, and the moment they made contact with the Federation's front line, the array was torn open.
A Federation Heavy Knight didn't even have time to fully deploy his shield before his chest was pierced through by claws.
The alchemical steel plates buckled and shattered under the impact. The internal reinforced structure provided no cushioning; bones snapped, and the body was thrown back, knocking down the comrades behind him.
The dragonmen's movements were brief and direct.
But every strike was accompanied by a body losing its ability to act.
Soon, the Federation's knight formation could no longer hold and began to retreat in a rout.
Some turned and ran, only to be tripped by the crowded ranks behind them. Others tried to ignite explosives, but had their wrists crushed the moment they raised their hands.
A dragonman grabbed a knight's head and closed his fingers; the helmet shattered along with the skull.
The corpse was tossed aside, no longer whole when it hit the ground.
The ranks continued to advance.
The dragonmen maintained a fixed distance from one another, requiring no communication.
Each individual was like an activated command.
The center of the Federation's army began to collapse.
The counterattacks that could still barely be maintained were rapidly severed.
Heavy lances were snapped, alchemical shields inlaid with magic stones shattered under direct impact, and devices that had yet to complete their charging were stepped on and crushed, the expensive magic stones losing their luster in the mud.
But none of these things could stop the advance.
In a short advance, a single dragonman successively defeated over a dozen Federation knights.
Those knights clearly possessed the battle qi strength of high-level Elite Knights and were well-equipped, yet they still could not change the outcome.
The claws were stained with blood, but not a single scratch was left on the scales.
When the square formation passed through the Federation's ranks, only a cleared patch of empty ground remained behind them.
Those still alive were not enough to form a complete unit.
It was a massacre with no suspense.
The Federation ranks standing at the very front had been completely wiped out.
The area the dragonman square had passed through was left with nothing but crushed equipment, severed limbs, and heat that had yet to dissipate.
The moment the front row disappeared, the rear completely collapsed.
The Federation knights who had yet to engage saw the entire process. They knew very well that those who had fallen were not weak, but were at the same level as themselves, or even stronger.
But they saw an entire unit turned into a void within dozens of breaths; they saw officers who were once seen as the core of the defense line crushed before they could even issue a command.
At this moment, panic was like an ignited fuse, spreading rapidly through the crowd.
Some threw down their weapons and turned to flee; some were squeezed to the ground and trampled by the fleeing soldiers before they could get up; some even froze in place, their lips trembling, having lost even the courage to run.
The formation no longer existed.
On the high platform in the distance, Remont stared blankly at this scene.
This was an army he had never even imagined in his dreams—so powerful, so perfect.
The strength of knights, sophisticated equipment, and expensive alchemical technology all seemed like a mantis trying to stop a carriage before such existences.
He had thought the Federation possessed a more efficient form of violence, but now he understood it was nothing more than child's play.
A chill surged up his spine.
Remont didn't look a second time. He turned abruptly and almost stumbled as he left the high platform.
Leave this place.
This thought roared repeatedly in his mind, drowning out all dignity.
He was an Extraordinary Knight; escaping shouldn't be a problem. Battle qi exploded within his body, and ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) with a thrust of his legs, his figure shot off the edge of the high platform like an arrow, racing toward the rear along the broken passage.
But he had only run less than a hundred paces when the wails and screams approached from behind once more.
Remont's heart sank abruptly.
The moment he looked back, he saw only a single Dragonman Knight.
The scale color was dark, the lines cold and hard, no longer resembling any Imperial knight in his memory. That face had been reshaped by dragonization, showing no human likeness at all.
But logic told Remont that he was absolutely no match for this individual.
In that instant, the Dragonman Knight moved.
Space was forcibly compressed into a single line, lighting up with a brief and dangerous glow.
When the first sword light flashed past, Remont couldn't even see the movement.
To his side, a Federation Extraordinary Knight was directly sliced open.
Armor, battle qi, and flesh were severed along the same trajectory. Before the body could even fall, a second light had already passed through.
Another knight tried to deploy a battle qi defense and failed... the blade did not pause.
One, then another... in just a few breaths, several Extraordinary Knights fell in succession.
Those people, regardless of strength or equipment, were far superior to the Imperial Extraordinary Knights, yet they didn't even have the qualification to make the opponent stop.
Remont did not stop running; on the contrary, he fled toward the edge of the battlefield at full speed, burning his battle qi and life force.
But the Dragonman Knight swept past him, the resulting airflow brushing against Remont's cheek before he could even raise his sword again.
In the next moment, the opponent was already standing in front of him.
The distance was so close that Remont finally saw those eyes, which carried a sense of familiarity that made his spine turn cold.
It was a gaze he had only ever seen on one person.
Remont opened his mouth, wanting to say that name.
The sword light fell first.
Two strikes.
The first strike broke his defense.
The second strike ended his life.
The Extraordinary Knight's body pitched forward, crashing heavily onto the ground.
In the final moment before his consciousness faded, Remont finally remembered the title that had been erased by the era—the Blade of the Empire.
But all of this no longer had anything to do with him. The Dragonman Knight sheathed his sword and continued forward.
Soon, not a single Emerald Federation knight could be found standing on the battlefield.
The remaining resistance was completely extinguished. Whether they were Extraordinary or elites, no matter how expensive the alchemical armor they wore, they had all fallen on the battlefield.
Corpses and equipment were mixed together, trampled into the mud, with almost no value left for recovery.
The Dragonman Imperial Guard did not linger. They immediately changed direction, their formation naturally spreading out as they advanced toward the terrifying scene at the center of the battlefield.
The horizon ahead was collapsing, as two forces too massive to comprehend clashed head-on in the central area.
Dark gold dragon blood flames and cold crystal light patterns intertwined and rolled. Every impact made the earth's veins let out an overwhelmed drone.
That was not a level of combat they belonged to.
Yet these Dragonman Knights did not stop, instead closing in rapidly and directly toward the two giant beasts that were tearing the world apart.
