The Gold Dragon's Ambition

"Gorazdla is dead! The Blue Dragon Sect has fallen! Gorazdla is dead, the Blue Dragon Sect has fallen!" "Praise the Cinder Emperor!" A fierce roar of cheers erupted from the allied lines, spreading like a raging tide across the vast battlefield. Humans, dragons, dragonborn, and evil dragon spawn alike turned their gazes to the sky, looking toward the magnificent red dragon looming above the yellow sands. Though grievously wounded, his bones and entrails exposed, he filled every eye with shock, terror, or awe. Beneath the red dragon drifted a vast storm of ash and scattered wreckage, among which a few charred, glistening navy scales could still be seen amidst the sand. In the eyes of the mortal throng, Gorazdla—the Thunder Tyrant who had once ruled the desert—had perished just like that. She had died beneath the red dragon emperor's terrifying breath, leaving behind not even an intact corpse. Even with the Dragon Queen herself intervening in person, she had failed to stop the emperor from slaying the great wyrm blue dragon. What terrifying might! Could this red dragon emperor truly be invincible? With Gorazdla's death, the cultists collapsed into panic. Even the fearless bluespawn scattered like frightened beasts, triggering a massive rout. "This is impossible!" "Lady Gorazdla cannot be dead! She is an immortal quasi-deity!" An evil dragon priest's face contorted in horrific denial. His scales flared and electric arcs crackled across his flesh as he frantically swung his dragon-headed scepter. Bolts of lightning burst from the staff, striking outward indiscriminately at any creature nearby—not even sparing his fellow Cult of the Dragon believers. The intense currents charred the blue-robed dragonborn to cinders. Before he could strike again, a blazing stream of golden-red flame descended from above, swallowing the priest whole and reducing him to ash. High above, Misha beat her dragon wings and hovered amidst the dark clouds, her cold voice echoing across the battlefield: "His Majesty Cassius commands: give these damned cultists and evil dragon spawn no quarter! Leave none alive!" "Kill—!" "Hunt them down! Destroy them! Let no cultist escape!" The imperial soldiers were swept into an utter frenzy. They pursued the remnants of the Cult of the Dragon with reckless abandon. Virtually every imperial soldier knew that such an opportunity to beat an enemy while they were down was fleeting; the slightest hesitation meant the military honors laid at their feet would be snatched away by someone else. The players were even wilder, some going so far as to launch themselves from human cannons to chase down the fleeing army. The moment Misha finished speaking, their quest logs had updated with a battlefield cleanup quest offering extraordinarily generous rewards. Shells rained down along the cult's retreat routes, blowing countless cultists and spawn sky-high. Bullets poured forth like a torrential gale, riddling the enemies' backs with holes. Many players bounded into the air, plunging heedlessly into the thickest clusters of the cult's forces, brandishing chainswords and power swords to reap them like ripe wheat. Meanwhile, the allied soldiers—especially the native Seleucians—fought with savage fury, shouting battle cries as they pressed an unrelenting pursuit. "For Seleucia!" Adrian roared, manifesting solar wings like an angel. He raised his greatsword, and a brilliant blade of light slashed down from above, bisecting several evil dragon spawn in a single stroke. "For... those who died." Liam stared grimly at the fleeing cult army, as though seeing the phantoms of his fallen comrades hovering over the field. Drawing several sharp cold-iron arrows from the quiver on his back, he drew, nocked, and aimed with consummate skill. The arrows shot forth like a sudden storm, punching clean through the chests of several cultists in an instant. Elsewhere, a soldier brandishing a saber threw himself desperately onto the back of a storm lizard, weeping and laughing at once: "The Blue Dragon Sect is finished! The Blue Dragon Sect has fallen!" The saber struck again and again against the creature's tough scales, showering sparks until the blade was notched. An enraged blast of lightning breath sent the soldier flying, smoke rolling from his scorched flesh. Yet even in his dying moments, a wild, joyful smile remained plastered across his face, free of all agony. Only a strained whisper escaped his throat: "Father... do you see this...? The Blue Dragon Sect... has fallen..." Across this vast battlefield, scenes like this played out countless times. The Seleucian soldiers had watched their homelands get reduced to rubble by evil dragons, their kin and friends dragged away by cultists, and everything they possessed vanish like smoke in the brutal war ignited by the Cult of the Dragon. Now, the hour of vengeance had arrived! The Seleucians wanted nothing more than to flay the cultists alive, rip out their bones, and tear their flesh to shreds. How could they let such a chance slip away? Before long, the retreating cult army was driven to the edge of the Locke Great Rift. Hundreds of thousands of cultists and evil dragon spawn packed against the precipice like a dammed flood; many lost their footing on loose stones and tumbled into the abyss to their deaths. "Out of my way, mongrels!" "Let me through! I am of noble dragonblood! My lineage is the purest!" The cult's troops scrambled frantically onto the bridges, desperate to cross the rift and shake off the allied pursuit. Yet matters did not unfold as they hoped. *Boom!* *Boom! Boom!* With earth-shattering detonations, imperial sappers lurking along the cliff walls triggered explosive charges one after another. The bridges bearing tens of thousands of cult soldiers crumbled into dust. Countless cultists and dragon spawn screamed as they plummeted into the depths, nearly filling the wide chasm below. In the sky above, the true dominion of dragons, the metallic dragons—golds, silvers, and brasses—held overwhelming supremacy. Roaring, they threw themselves upon the chromatic dragons, spewing forth breath weapons of fire and frost. Having witnessed Gorazdla's gruesome end, the chromatic dragons were terrified of the red dragon emperor. Beating their wings in disarray, they fled for their lives. "Flee!" "Damned gold-scaled reptiles, get out of the way!" "Filthy chromatic wyrms, spawn of Tiamat—don't think you can slip away so easily!" "You will pay for your atrocities!" Roars high and low, furious and panicked, clashed across the sky. The chromatic dragons were cunning and cruel; they would never throw their lives away in vain. Even the green and blue dragons most loyal to Tiamat knew full well that they were no match for that horrifying red dragon emperor, and so they fled in utter panic. Having fought to this point, they considered their obligations to the Dragon Queen fully fulfilled. Continuing would be sheer suicide, yielding nothing in return. "We've won..." Watching the scattered chromatic dragons flee, Dionysus, the ancient gold dragon, curled his lips into the proud smile of a victor. Yet when his gaze shifted, he caught sight of the scarred, devastated battlefield—and the red dragon emperor resting in the center of the ruins. Dionysus took in the charred earth and collapsed peaks, unable to restrain a sigh. "Truly unbelievable might. The mere aftermath of the clash between these two was enough to claim tens of thousands of innocent lives and plunge an entire nation into disaster." His eyes turned back to the grievously wounded red dragon emperor. The red dragon stood within a crater spanning over a kilometer, surrounded by ashes, flowing lava, and vitrified sand. His crimson scales were missing in great swathes, his broad wings hung in tatters, and a ghastly wound ran across his body, nearly splitting his chest open to expose bloody viscera and pale bone. He looked battered in the extreme. For an ordinary dragon, such a wound would have been fatal. Yet the red dragon emperor's flesh writhed, mending that horrific rend across his body at a pace visible to the naked eye as thick, scalding white steam vented from his form. And clutched within his massive claw, the severed horn gave off intense ripples of energy, releasing dazzling arcs of lightning as though housing the power to unravel worlds. At this sight, Dionysus's pupils contracted to needlepoints. A wary light entered his eyes, and his smile froze. "The Horn of Tiamat..." he murmured, countless thoughts surging uncontrollably through his mind. Even now, the red dragon emperor possessed world-shattering might. If he managed to master the divine power contained within the Horn of Tiamat, what terrifying heights would he reach? Dionysus could hardly fathom what sort of monstrosity would be born if Gorazdla's thunder combined with Cassius's flame. When that day came, if the Cinder Empire clashed with the metallic dragons, or if the red dragon emperor succumbed to the innate cruelty and tyranny of his kind to run rampant over the realm, could their power alone truly hope to stand against him? Staring at the wounded emperor, a dangerous and daring notion slowly surfaced in Dionysus's mind. What if... What if he seized this rare opportunity while the emperor was heavily injured to forcibly take the Horn of Tiamat and deliver it into Lord Bahamut's safekeeping? That would minimize the dragons' potential destruction of this world to the greatest extent. Was he acting out of selfish ambition? No, he had none. The ancient gold dragon only wished to better safeguard the realm and eradicate future peril. He knew this was an extraordinary gamble. A single misstep could leave him dead without a grave. Yet once the seed of such a thought took root, it was nearly impossible to pull out. Watching the distant red dragon, Dionysus felt his muscles coil tight and his heart pound wildly as rampant possibilities raced through his mind. Perhaps... it was time to make a sacrifice for Lord Bahamut and the order of this world. After lingering hesitation, Dionysus gritted his teeth, beat his wings to whip up a gale of yellow sand, and surged into the sky, flying toward the red dragon emperor. In the distance, the red dragon had wrapped his battered wings around himself, thick, pungent white smoke billowing from his body. One could only faintly discern that colossal silhouette rising and falling through the shroud with each heavy, raspy breath. For miles around, scalding winds pulsed in rhythm with his breathing, and even the subterranean magma surged and receded in time with him. *He is weak. So long as I don't slip up, I should be able to seize the horn,* Dionysus thought to himself. Even so, apprehension gnawed at his heart. In his millennia-long life, the ancient gold dragon had never faced a foe of such terrifying stature. Striving to calm his nerves, he prepared spell matrices such as Protection from Energy, Mass Hold Monster, and Maximized Haste. He even drew forth divine talismans and rings bestowed by Bahamut, ready to crush them at a moment's notice to teleport back into the divine realm. Gazing at the massive form cloaked in smoke and cloud, Dionysus took a deep breath. *Success or failure hangs on this single move. For... the peace of the Material Plane!* The next instant, the radiances of multiple spells and divine boons flared across his scales. The ancient gold dragon accelerated to lightning speed, turning into a shimmering golden afterimage before fading from sight, diving toward the red dragon emperor. He had only one objective: the divinity-infused Horn of Tiamat clutched in the red dragon's claw! Dionysus felt the world around him distort, everything seeming to slow to a crawl. Scalding air and a suffocating aura rushed at him, making his heart hammer wildly as the terrifying figure loomed ever larger and clearer. Tearing through the dense steam and smoke, the ancient gold dragon was barely a hundred meters from the wounded emperor. Despite the immense tension gripping him, a flicker of irrepressible excitement and anticipation flared in his chest. If he could bring Tiamat's divine remnant back to Mount Celestia, back into Bahamut's divine realm, he would become a celebrated hero of the entire realm—and indeed of all metallic dragonkind—his name immortalized in glory. Yet right at that moment, Dionysus froze. Within that world slowed to a crawl, the red dragon emperor raised his head at normal speed. Those molten-orb eyes shifted upward, locking their gaze directly onto Dionysus. *Bahamut above, what kind of gaze was that?!* Within those pale gold vertical pupils churning with fire lay undisguised contempt and indifference—as though gazing upon a buzzing fly. *How... is this possible...* A tremendous shock of pure terror crashed into Dionysus's mind, leaving the ancient gold dragon dizzy and in agony, as if struck by a massive warhammer. Under his petrified gaze, the red dragon emperor unhurriedly extended his massive claw and clenched it tight. *Crack—!* In the next instant, countless fractures spiderwebbed across Dionysus's vision, and the slow-motion world wrought by divine magic shattered in an instant. Immediately after, a boundless dragon fear descended like a mountain from above, savagely scouring Dionysus's soul. The crushing weight pressed upon the gold dragon's shoulders like an immense, unyielding peak, draining every ounce of his strength. He could not even lift his wings, plummeting helplessly toward the earth. *Boom!* Dust billowed into the air. The ancient gold dragon, emissary of Bahamut, lay pinned against the ground, unable to move a muscle—rendered as helpless as a lamb led to slaughter. Who could have imagined that a single glance from the red dragon emperor would reduce Dionysus to such a wretched state? With steady, measured strides, Cassius walked forward. Gazing down at the ancient gold dragon, he spoke in a frigid voice: "It seems... I require a reasonable explanation."