"Ow—!"
Tinia slowly clambered up from the ground. The face bearing a fresh claw mark still beamed with excitement, and drool leaked from the corner of her mouth as if she were still savoring the slap she had just received.
The white dragon lowered her head and murmured softly, "Master, please forgive me. I misunderstood..."
It seemed curing this white dragon's congenital mental affliction would be a long, arduous road.
Cassius sighed. He looked away from her and extended a dragon claw, conjuring a crystal-clear magical projection.
Within the projection lay a vast lake of shimmering azure ripples, cupped by ring upon ring of mountains. Over a hundred chromatic dragons of various hues circled above it, gathering around its shores as their piercing roars echoed across the waters.
This was Lake Tewar, situated along the southeastern border of the Cinder Empire—the "dueling arena" Cassius had chosen for the assembled dragons.
"So many dragons..."
Tinia stared blankly at the magical illusion. In all her life, she had never seen so many true dragons gathered in one place.
"Why are they congregating there? Could there be some priceless treasure buried beneath that lake?" The white dragon tilted her head, a reflexive glint of greed flashing in her eyes.
It was Tinia's natural draconic instinct. Even an oracle issued by Tiamat might not muster over a hundred true dragons; surely, only an extraordinarily valuable treasure could lure so many chromatic dragons together.
"What do you think?" Cassius asked in a flat tone.
Tinia scratched her head. Then, realizing something was horribly amiss, her expression twisted into a ferocious snarl. "The oracle! It's the Dragon Queen's oracle! Those chromatic dragons are all female!"
She glared at the dragons in the projection, ferocity blazing in her eyes. Her scales bristled and her spine arched like a beast confronting a mortal enemy.
Tinia looked frantically toward Cassius, gnashing her teeth. "Master, those wretched harlots dare covet your bloodline—I'll tear them to shreds! I'll make them regret ever being born into this world!"
Cassius cast her a sidelong glance. "Do you plan to fight a hundred on your own? Or do you wish to invite the Dragon Queen's divine retribution and become a traitor to all chromatic dragonkind?"
Tinia hesitated, stammering, "Th-then what should we do? Are we just going to watch helplessly as you..."
Cassius said, "I will host a traditional dragon duel at Lake Tewar. Only the victor will earn the right to stand before me. I want you to enter the contest and send every last one of those females sent by the Dragon Queen packing in defeat."
"I see!" Tinia nodded thoughtfully, resolve solidifying in her gaze. "Rest assured, Master! I will definitely achieve victory! I won't let you lose face!"
Cassius nodded slightly. He then produced an archaically styled warhammer that radiated a persistent white mist.
It was a manifested fragment of the "Father of Frost," Matalok.
As a true artifact, Matalok could split into weapons that held a portion of the original's power, and the hammer in Cassius's claw was one such offshoot.
With Cassius's authorization, this warhammer could channel seventy to eighty percent of the primary weapon's frost divine power.
"Master, this is..."
Tinia's eyes went wide. She subconsciously licked her lips, deeply comforted by the bone-chilling aura. She could feel an immense divine presence—the unmistakable essence of frost divine power, an irresistible lure to an ice-aligned dragon like her.
This was an artifact!
Tinia gasped at the realization. Was Cassius going to lend her an artifact?
Cassius added, "Among the chromatic dragons answering the divine oracle, quite a few are formidable powerhouses favored by the Dragon Queen. Even you might not be able to overcome them on your own.
"This offshoot of Matalok happens to match your elemental affinity perfectly. I bestow it upon you."
*What? Bestow?*
In an instant, Tinia's modest mental faculties were overwhelmed by profound shock and ecstatic delirium.
This was an artifact!
Even as a mere fragment, it was indisputably of minor artifact rank—an invaluable treasure that could easily be exchanged for mountains of gold.
Even a dragon deity like Tiamat would prize it as a rare treasure.
In the eyes of chromatic dragons, a relic of this caliber ought to be buried in the deepest recess of one's lair or swallowed into one's belly, never to be discovered by anyone. If discovered, whoever laid eyes on it had to be silenced immediately.
Yet her master casually waved his claw and gifted it away! This was utterly contrary to draconic nature!
*No, wait... could this be Master's test? Is he checking whether I harbor greed toward his hoard?*
*That ogre Trump told me about this... He said it was called... a 'probing test'?*
At this thought, although Tinia's eyes gleamed with lust, she forcibly restrained her primal impulses and stood frozen in place, trembling.
Seeing the white dragon shuddering like a statue, Cassius could hardly contain his amusement. "What, you don't want it? In that case, I'll just take it back—"
"M-Master, wait!"
Tinia could no longer suppress the burning itch in her chest. She lunged forward, swept the warhammer radiating frost divine power into her embrace, and began licking it incessantly.
Overflowing with glee, she rolled around on the ground like a pet dog presented with a brand-new chew toy, having thoroughly abandoned Trump's earnest warnings.
Only after a long while did Tinia come back to her senses. Beaming with sheer delight, she prostrated herself before Cassius, bowing frantically while her tail wagged without pause. "Thank you for your grace, Master! Thank you for your grace!"
*Yep. At heart, a white dragon really is just a husky.*
Cassius shook his head helplessly and said, "I bestowed this warhammer upon you so you could fight with it, not bury it in your cave... Go test its might."
Tinia nodded like a pecking chick. She grasped the warhammer firmly in her claws. Instantly, the runes carved across its surface flared with an icy-blue brilliance, releasing a piercing chill.
*Boom—!*
In the distance, icy gales howled as the earth rumbled and shook. A massive iceberg slowly thrust upward from beneath the soil, refusing to melt even amidst the stifling heat surrounding Dragonblood Mountain.
"Roar!"
The white dragon opened her jaws and pumped her throat, expelling the magical, sub-zero fluid from her breath sac as she normally would.
Except this time, augmented by Matalok, a colossal pillar of icy-blue radiance erupted from her gullet. Far away, the rocks struck by the beam froze solid in an instant, coated in a thick shell of white frost.
The rime expanded rapidly over a hundred meters outward, encasing everything in its path. Even the ambient moisture in the air condensed into chunks of pure white and pale blue ice crystals.
A freezing gale swept across the terrain, accompanied by a biting chill that washed over the landscape, blurring the sky into a hazy white veil swirling with countless snowflakes and ice crystals.
"Master, I'm... I've become so powerful!" Tinia exulted.
*The Father of Frost's compatibility with white dragons is remarkably high. Thrym likely incorporated plenty of materials from ancient white dragons when forging this warhammer.*
*With this minor artifact in hand, Tinia's strength should comfortably surpass that of a white great wyrm. Smashing those females will be child's play.*
Cassius nodded in satisfaction. With a swipe of his claw, he tore open a spatial portal leading to the south. "Go, Tinia. Do not disappoint me."
"Yes, Master! I will freeze those wretched wenches into solid ice!"
The white dragon let out an exultant howl. Swallowing the warhammer whole into her belly, she beat her wings and plunged headfirst through the portal.
Watching the magical projection floating in midair, Cassius chuckled softly. "Now... the show truly begins."
***
The Cinder Empire, Thrace region, Lake Tewar.
Ringed by mountain ranges and devoid of roads, the region teemed with ferocious beasts and monstrous predators, making it a place rarely trodden by mortal foot.
Today, however, the area was livelier than it had ever been. Dozens of imperial helicopters hovered near the perimeter, while tens of thousands of elite imperial troops stood by in full battle readiness.
Yet the most striking spectacle was the dragons.
Some circled through the sky, others rested along the lakeside in anticipation, and a few had already tangled together in violent brawls, their chaotic draconic roars overlapping in a deafening din.
In just half a day, the gathering of dragons around Lake Tewar had dwindled to roughly seventy or eighty.
The lawful-leaning breeds, such as the green and blue dragons, had banded together into small cliques to hold their ground against the stronger contenders and secure their chance to stay.
The red dragons, formidable and fiercely solitary, kept to themselves, glaring with undisguised contempt and hostility at every other dragon present.
In their eyes, every single female on the field was a potential rival who might steal the opportunity to mate with the "Dragon Prince" and secure divine favor.
Yet every red dragon was brimful of absolute confidence, taking it for granted that Lord Cassius would only ever fancy a female as robust, agile, and mighty as herself.
As for white dragons?
Branded the shame of dragonkind—mere "white beasts"—scarcely any white dragon had managed to reach Lake Tewar at all.
Even if a white dragon blessed with exceptional intellect had traveled thousands of li to arrive here, she would have been casually driven off by the red dragons, forced to flee whimpering with a hide full of wounds.
"Christina, you actually have the nerve to show your face here? Do you truly believe Lord Cassius would ever look twice at a fool like you?"
The green dragon Vesuvilla sneered, rolling her eyes toward the blue dragon and heaping scorn upon her without restraint.
Behind her, several other green dragons chimed in with insidious, raspy chuckles.
During the recent conflict, the Christina clan had suffered severe losses; vast swathes of their territory had been seized by the metallic dragons, and their hoards plundered clean. The other chromatic dragons took undisguised schadenfreude in their misfortune.
"That was only because the reinforcements promised by Her Radiance the Dragon Queen never arrived..."
Christina glared at the green dragon, grinding her teeth as arcs of lightning crackled across her scales. "You would do better to mask the rancid stench on your own hide, you overgrown green lizard.
"Our Faria clan was the first to receive the divine oracle! Years ago, I personally had an audience with Lord Cassius, and he treated me as an honored guest!"
Behind her, several blue dragons beat their wings, their bodies wrapped in snapping discharges of electricity as they voiced low, warning growls at the greens.
The green dragon pressed on with her mockery: "It was precisely because your clan was so spineless and incompetent that you couldn't even finish the task, prompting Her Radiance to issue the oracle in the first place!"
The blue dragon unleashed a furious roar charged with static: "Then let's wait and see! You green wretches can only wag your tongues; you won't even get to lay eyes on His Highness!"
"Heh heh..."
Amidst this tense standoff, the nearby Volcanis scoffed derisively. She was an adult red dragon, twenty meters long from snout to tail, feared by regional bards under the title of the "Tyrant of Flowing Magma."
Perched atop an outcropping of rock, Volcanis looked down upon the green and blue dragons, making no effort to conceal the scorn in her gaze.
"How pathetic. Look at your scrawny, meager frames. You're fit only to huddle together for warmth like a pack of wretched humans.
"How could the mighty, magnificent Lord Cassius ever take an interest in weaklings like you?"
With that, Volcanis rose to her feet and puffed out her chest, showing off the robust musculature unique to red dragons, her tone brimming with arrogance.
"Only a red dragon such as myself is worthy of fulfilling the divine oracle and bearing the strongest offspring for the 'Dragon Prince.'
"We are the darlings of Her Radiance Tiamat, the natural rulers among chromatic dragons, destined to lead all true dragons in reclaiming our dominion over the land—"
"Roar—!"
Right in the middle of the red dragon's impassioned speech, an awe-inspiring roar thundered from the distance, accompanied by the howling shriek of freezing gales.
"Who is it? Who dares disturb the great Volcanis?!"
Volcanis turned her head in fury, twin plumes of flame erupting from her golden eyes. Far off against the horizon, a white silhouette had come into view.
"A white dragon?"
The red dragon bared her teeth in a feral, enraged grin. "A laughable white beast? Who gave it permission to appear here?
"And who gave it the audacity to interrupt me while I was speaking?!"
Witnessing the scene, the other chromatic dragons raised their heads toward the sky, bursting into a cacophony of murmurs.
"Another white dragon?"
"Another one dared to come? How absurd..."
"Wait, haven't you noticed? There's something off about that white dragon's appearance."
"Am I seeing things?"
*A normal white dragon would never arrive with such fanfare...* Vesuvilla mused suspiciously.
She studied the approaching figure intently, her eyes darting. *All of us crossed into this territory from the south, yet she's arriving from the north—from deep within the Cinder Empire's heartland.*
*And that white dragon's form is completely wrong. Could it be... she was sent by His Highness?*
Realizing this, Vesuvilla whispered instructions to the green dragons behind her, "Do not act rashly. Wait and see."
"That damned white dragon... isn't her name Tinia? What a troublesome pest. Last time, she interfered at every turn and ruined my plans!"
Christina recognized the white dragon's identity, grinding her teeth in resentment.
As the white dragon drew nearer to Lake Tewar, the gathered dragons finally saw her clearly, and gasps of shock rippled through the crowd.
The white dragon beat a massive pair of wings, her physique agile and muscular. Her ivory scales were coated in a layer of crystalline frost like a suit of armor, radiating a thick, sub-zero mist.
Even more shocking to the assembly was her size.
This white dragon's build was noticeably larger than even the adult red dragon Volcanis—her body length easily exceeded twenty-five meters!
"What a colossal white dragon!"
"Could... could that be a white wyrm?"
"Why would she come here? By rights, a white dragon at that age should have lost her reproductive viability long ago!"
At the sight, even the adult red dragon froze for a brief second.
Yet Volcanis quickly recovered. Striding forward to block the white dragon's path, she barked in a furious rage, "Old hag, I stand here representing the will of the Dragon Queen, tasked with bearing offspring for Lord Cassius!
"Who gave an old white dragon with one foot in the grave permission to barge in here? An inferior breed like you will never be anything more than a wretched beast!"
The disparity in power between red and white dragons was immense.
One stood as the mightiest among chromatic dragons; the other was reviled as the shame of dragonkind, a mindless white beast. The gap in raw combat power was like an unbridgeable chasm—even a white wyrm was by no means guaranteed to defeat a prime, vigorous adult red dragon.
To Volcanis's mind, putting this white dragon—who was at least of ancient dragon age—in her place was a heaven-sent opportunity to establish her dominance and teach these presumptuous lesser dragons their place.
More importantly, she could use the fight to showcase her formidable strength and superior bloodline, perhaps catching the eye of the Dragon Prince, winning his favor, and ultimately seizing Tiamat's divine blessing!
It sounded flawless.
Yet, this proud, conceited female red dragon had never, from the very beginning, considered a single possibility:
She might lose.
Chapter 744