"Your Highness Cassius, please let us accompany you!"
"That old silver dragon is treacherous, hypocritical, and cunning. He's very likely to bring all his disciples and descendants to swarm you!"
The blue dragon clung relentlessly to Cassius's foreclaw, pleading desperately.
As she spoke, Christina did not forget to turn her head and cast a provocative glance at the white dragon trotting dutifully behind Cassius.
"Rraagh!"
"You vile bitch, are you trying to provoke me? Who do you think you are to touch Master?"
Tinia arched her back like an enraged cat, spreading her wings and snarling furiously at the blue dragon.
Yet this played right into the blue dragon's provocation.
Christina sneered, delivering her rebuke mercilessly. "Look at that. What you need are reliable allies like us, not some foolish beast of a white dragon that cannot even control her most basic emotions."
"Grrr..."
A low rumble vibrated deep within the white dragon's throat, her expression growing increasingly ferocious.
She wished nothing more than to lunge forward and tear that foul-mouthed blue dragon to shreds, yet she could find no words to counter her.
If she really pounced—
Wouldn't that simply prove the blue dragon right?
If she ended up despised, disliked by her master, or even fell out of favor later on, it wouldn't be worth it at all.
*One day, I'm going to rip that mouth to pieces.*
With that thought, Tinia swallowed hard, silently nursing the grudge.
Cassius shook his claws impatiently, tossing the annoying blue dragon aside onto the ground without mercy.
"Enough. I agree. You may come along as well, for Her Majesty the Dragon Queen's sake."
"However, without my orders, you are strictly forbidden from acting on your own."
"Yes, Your Highness Cassius!"
"It is our honor to serve you!"
Christina scrambled up from the ground at once, ecstatic.
Over the past few days, she had exhausted every trick and cast aside all the dignity of a blue dragon to find a way through, and at last, she had gotten this aloof red dragon to relent slightly.
Now that a door had opened...
Could she push her luck a little further?
At the thought, Christina's imagination ran wild, her eyes gleaming with allure.
She purred in a seductive voice, "Since you have agreed to this, then as for Her Majesty the Dragon Queen's decree..."
"Get lost."
Only Cassius's icy voice rang in her ears.
He beat his wings and took off without looking back, leaving the blue dragon disheveled in the wind.
"What a dense brute."
"Still... I seem to catch the scent of rain, smelling somewhat like the stench of those silver dragons."
"How strange. Is it just my imagination?"
Christina looked up at the fiery red silhouette blazing through the sky at tremendous speed like a falling star. Gritting her teeth for a moment, she flapped her wings and followed at a distance.
Twelve blue dragons emerged one after another, trailing close behind Christina to form an imposing draconic vanguard.
***
The cold wind howled as snowflakes drifted down.
The Inaki River and the Auril River continued their silent flow, the snowflakes dissolving into their frigid currents.
The north wind once again blanketed the Okagral Plain in white, while the soldiers on the riverbanks remained hard at work, digging trenches and constructing bunkers in tense preparation for the impending battle.
The players, however, hardly cared. Some even hummed cheerful tunes, as if this war deciding the fate of the Northlands had nothing to do with them.
Many players could not resist looking up to admire the snowy spectacle.
"Such a gorgeous snow scene..."
"Getting to see sights like this makes a slow start completely worth it."
"Yeah."
"Huh? That's weird. Why do I hear music?"
"And why does it sound so familiar? Is that... 'Empire of Angels'?"
"Does this game have that kind of BGM too?"
"Wait, do you feel that? The ground seems to be shaking."
"An earthquake?"
"No, look over there—"
Amid the exclamations of players and soldiers, a massive army emerged in the distance.
Both sky and earth were claimed by the forces of Cinders. A mottled torrent surged across the once-pristine snow plain.
Flocks of wyverns advanced like dense storm clouds, flying toward them in a dark, suffocating mass whose wings blotted out half the sky.
On the ground, armored land drakes as enormous as hillocks marched slowly forward. Every step they took shook the earth, making it seem as if undulating miniature mountain ranges were traversing the plain.
Hobgoblins and tieflings marched in locked step, holding brand-new rifles, while behind them, ogres hauled heavy cannons, breathing heavily, their eyes blazing with excitement.
Dragon-blessed paladins bearing greatshields stood assembled together, halos of crimson aura shimmering around them until the surrounding air seemed on the verge of igniting.
Rhythmic drumbeats sounded without cease as a satyr military band played sweeping, majestic music. The melodies of destiny echoed across the vast plain, heightening the tension of the impending war.
Separated by the two great rivers, the soldiers and Northland nobles gazed at the terrifying army in the distance, struck with utter shock. Some even fainted on the spot from sheer terror.
"Ye gods..."
"How could such an army exist?"
"Th-this isn't what the reports said at all."
"How are we supposed to defeat something like that?"
Nevertheless, the army gathered on the Okagral Plain was the absolute elite drawn from the collective might of the entire Northlands. Under such crushing pressure, they still maintained their basic will to fight, and no mass rout occurred.
Of the fifty thousand soldiers standing here, seventy to eighty percent were private retainers raised by various Northland nobles, along with squires and knights who had fought for their noble lords for generations, sharing honor and disgrace alike. Their interests were deeply intertwined with those of the Northland aristocracy.
Even if they surrendered, their fate would hardly be any better.
As a result, the soldiers here possessed surprisingly steadfast resolve.
Even after several rounds of bombardment and baptism by "Cassius's speeches," the deserters and defectors numbered only a little over a hundred. This was already a remarkable feat—after all, the army led by Loren had seen fully two-thirds of its ranks rout.
Grand Duke Leo gazed toward the distant enemy army and raised his two-handed greatsword high, bellowing in a voice like a lion's roar:
"They are nothing more than a horde of savage, vulgar monsters!"
"Soldiers, remember this! We Scanians are invincible!"
"What is more, we have even mightier allies—enough to shatter them to pieces!"
At his words, the divine aasimar from Mount Celestia brandished radiant silver swords.
Cloud giants, pegasi, couatls, celestial giant eagles, avorals, and justice archons soared into the air, occupying the sky over the river's southern bank to confront the dense swarms of wyverns and chimeras on the opposite shore.
Meanwhile, shield archons, armored wardens, foo lions, and elven druids took their places across the ground fortifications, bestowing an aura of solemn majesty upon the southern positions.
These were the reinforcements from Mount Celestia and the Druid Groves. Though they numbered only a few hundred, every one of them was a mysterious and powerful entity whose individual prowess surpassed even that of the dragonblood nobles of the Kingdom of Cinders.
The presence of these extraordinary reinforcements bolstered the human coalition soldiers immensely, elevating morale across the ranks.
Shouts of "For the Principality of Bosque!" echoed across the southern bank.
Chapter 314