The Great Taliro Desert, western lair.
Beneath the ruins of an ancient city swallowed by sand dunes, the blue dragons of Clan Faria were in utter chaos, gripped by panic.
Several blue dragons riddled with bullet holes and scorch marks panted heavily as they retreated into the depths of the lair, shouting in panic, "Elder Gorazdla... she has fallen! She was slain by the Cinder Emperor!"
"Gorazdla is dead!"
"The allied forces have occupied the Taliro Desert! They destroyed the Blue Dragon Sect and are marching toward our lair!"
"The bluespawn have all been slaughtered, too!"
"Flee! The imperials are coming! The iron balls they shoot from those rods can pierce right through our scales! I saw with my own eyes a young blue dragon killed by a pack of frail humans who didn't possess an ounce of supernatural power!"
"By Tiamat, do those mad imperials intend to slaughter us all?"
The patriarch of Clan Faria, the ancient blue dragon Keldom, furrowed his brow. Stepping forward, he said in a deep voice, "How could Elder Gorazdla die so easily? She is a demigod-tier great wyrm. Unless a true god intervened, she wouldn't perish even if an apocalyptic cataclysm came to pass."
The blue dragon covered in bullet holes recalled the sight with sheer terror on his face, his voice trembling. "B-but... I saw it with my own eyes! The red dragon emperor blanketed thousands of meters in dragonfire, burning Elder Gorazdla to ash! Not even a corpse was left behind!"
"By Tiamat..."
Keldom's eyes flickered, and he could not help but murmur in dread, as if picturing that magnificent yet horrific scene before him.
Right then, Christina stepped forward. Drawing an emblem of the Cinder Empire from between her scales, she proclaimed loudly, "I told you long ago that Clan Faria should never have involved itself in this war! I already signed an agreement with the Cinder Empire. So long as we submit to them, not a single one of our kin will come to harm."
The heavily wounded blue dragon hesitated for a moment before saying timidly, "B-but... that's blatant treason."
"Fool!"
Christina's eyes widened, electric sparks bursting from her pupils as she snapped in fury, "Did the imperial bullets scramble your brain into mush? Clan Faria is teetering on the brink of annihilation, and you're still obsessing over so-called treason?!"
The blue dragon still hesitated. "But if Her Majesty Tiamat holds us accountable..."
Christina sneered. "Clan Faria served Her devotedly for over a thousand years, and aside from a few worthless words of praise, we haven't received a single gold coin! It's high time we faced reality and sought another master.
"Good thing I foresaw this turn of events. If we followed you fools and threw away our lives for the Cult of the Dragon, Clan Faria's fate wouldn't be any better than those mongrel dragon spawn!"
Another adult blue dragon who had returned from the battlefield questioned her doubtfully, "Can those imperials really guarantee our interests? What if this is a trap?"
Christina shook her head. "As of now, not a single chromatic dragon clan has submitted to the Empire. If Clan Faria is the first to bend the knee, we will serve as an exemplar. The treatment they give us will certainly not be poor.
"However, you do have a point. The imperials won't fully trust our clan in the short term, nor will they view us as one of their own. We need a token of allegiance."
Suddenly, a buzzing hum rose as a cluster of faint blue electric arcs surged into the depths of the cave. Beneath the shocked gazes of the assembled dragons, it coalesced into a familiar blue dragon form, exuding an aura of immense divine authority—Gorazdla herself.
At the final moment before her physical form was destroyed by Cassius, Gorazdla had separated her dragon soul from her body and fled. Her demigod-tier spirit allowed her to traverse the Material Plane at high speed in spiritual form, bypassing the prolonged period normally required for soul reconvergence.
Amidst crackling bursts of electricity, Gorazdla's soul shrieked with fury, "Cassius, that wretched traitor! I will make sure he dies a horrific death! Just one more step—just one more step and I would have killed him!"
A brilliant streak of lightning erupted from her form, shattering the rock wall and leaving scorched fissures in the stone. Even without a flesh-and-blood vessel, reduced solely to a soul, this great wyrm blue dragon still possessed power far beyond the reach of ordinary dragons.
After venting her rage, Gorazdla turned a cold, contemptuous gaze upon the ancient blue dragon, speaking in a commanding tone: "Keldom, I require a new body capable of containing my soul. It must be an adult dragon at the very least."
"B-but..."
Hearing this, Keldom showed a troubled expression. The other blue dragons in the lair retreated several paces, huddling into the shadowy corners of the cavern, terrified that the notorious elder would fix her gaze upon them.
Though blue dragons possessed the most organized societal hierarchy and adhered to order more than any other chromatic breed, they were still selfish, greedy evil chromatic dragons at heart. There was no concept of throwing away one's life for the clan without cause.
"There are no 'buts'! Without my presence, do you intend to let those greedy imperials wipe out your clan?" Though Gorazdla's current manifestation was rather small, she exuded a presence far greater than any dragon in the lair, forcing them to hold their breath in fearful silence.
Within Clan Faria, nearly every blue dragon feared this grand elder to the extreme; provoking her wrath could bring ruin upon them in an instant.
Yet behind Gorazdla, Christina narrowed her eyes slightly, the corners of her mouth curling into a faint smile. A strange glint flashed within her narrow, slit pupils.
Perhaps... she had found the perfect token of allegiance—and one with more than enough weight.
...
That afternoon, Gorazdla's dragon soul rested in the depths of the lair, drawing upon crystals rich in lightning elemental energy to restore her divine power. Restless crackles of electricity hummed all over her form.
Several adult blue dragons stood attendant around her, their nerves strung tight, moving with extreme caution for fear of angering the Thunder Tyrant who had just lost her physical body.
Gorazdla idly lifted her gaze, glancing at the ancient blue dragon nearby. "Keldom, before dawn tomorrow, I want a suitable body before me. Understood?"
"Yes, Grand Elder." Keldom bowed his head, maintaining his usual respectful and humble posture. Yet beneath that guise, his gaze had turned sharp, as though he had reached a momentous decision.
Gorazdla gave a slight nod, her expression dripping with hatred as if she were grinding her teeth to dust. "Once I regain my strength, I will tear that arrogant red dragon to—"
*Boom!*
First came a piercing whistle from the sky, followed by a deafening roar. The earth shook violently, and rubble rained continuously from the cavern ceiling. An incomparably terrifying pressure descended upon this land. Even space began to distort, creasing and warping like a crumpled ball of paper.
The blue dragons scrambled in sheer panic, noisy roars echoing throughout the lair.
"What is happening?!"
"Could it be the imperials? Have they come to attack our lair?!"
Even Gorazdla roared in startled fury, "Who is it? Who dares?! You useless wretches can't even guard a single lair!"
Keldom, however, remained quite calm. He spoke in a muffled rumble, "Clansmen, what must come will come. Above all else... Clan Faria's interests must take precedence."
"You dare—" Gorazdla seemed to realize what was happening. She snapped her head toward the ancient blue dragon, gnashing her teeth, her eyes wide with shock as if seeing him for the first time.
"L-look, everyone!"
Just then, one of the blue dragons cried out in trembling horror, looking up at the ceiling of the cavern. Hideous fissures had appeared across the stone, multiplying and spreading at terrifying speed, letting through piercing beams of light.
*Boom!*
With a thunderous crash, the stratum forming the lair's ceiling was violently torn open. Sunlight poured into the gloomy cavern, but a moment later, accompanied by a crushing aura, a colossal shadow fell over the opening once more.
"Th-that's..."
"By Tiamat! H-he has come in person!"
"Impossible! That size, that level of dragon fear—it's the Cinder Emperor!"
The blue dragons lifted their heads in trembling terror, shaking violently. Their eyes traced him from below: first the massive, razor-sharp talons, then forelimbs armored in crimson scales, followed by a mountain-like torso layered with iron-dense muscle, gleaming in the sunlight as if edged in gold.
An unfathomably immense red dragon hovered above them. His physique was towering and majestic, his wings blotting out the sky like a crimson canopy, exuding an aura at once majestic, brutal, and divine.
It was none other than the Cinder Emperor, Cassius—who had just defeated Gorazdla, withstood Tiamat's divine punishment, and wiped out the Blue Dragon Sect.
Beneath the convergence of countless fearful, panicked, and hostile gazes, Cassius slowly lowered his head. The corners of his mouth curled into a mocking smile, flames swirling within his pale-golden slit pupils.
"Gorazdla, we meet again. This time... I won't let you escape so easily."
"Cassius!"
"You colluded with traitors among my kin—shameless wretch!"
Gorazdla shrieked in shock and fury. Immediately, she dissolved her soul form into silvery-white lightning. Amidst crisscrossing bolts, the great wyrm blue dragon attempted to dart through the subterranean depths and meld into the lightning elements within the mineral veins, hoping to slip away from the red dragon emperor's pursuit.
Yet for this raid, Cassius had made thorough preparations, fully determined to seize this demigod-tier great wyrm once and for all.
"Gorazdla, it was your own kin who reached out to me. There is a saying that 'those who commit many injustices will bring about their own ruin.' Perhaps that doesn't quite apply to evil dragons like us, but it simply means you are too useless to command respect, incapable of even keeping your own clan in line.
"Tsk, to think that an exalted demigod would become Clan Faria's token of allegiance to me. How thoroughly ironic.
"Give up your futile struggle and surrender, you loyal hound of Tiamat!"
With a deep, resonant roar, the energy stored within the temporal imprints upon his body surged forth. A torrent of time cascaded from Cassius's throat, instantly enveloping the great wyrm blue dragon's soul.
It was the ninth-tier spell—
Temporal Stasis!
Had Gorazdla been at her peak, an ordinary ninth-tier spell would have struggled to affect her, easily torn apart and shattered by her destructive lightning.
Now, however, the great wyrm's physical form was reduced to ash, with reconvergence impossibly far off. Reduced to a battered, feeble soul and utterly depleted of divine power, she possessed exalted status in name only and had no way to withstand the brunt of this temporal force.
*Boom!*
A massive shockwave erupted. As if a stone had been tossed into water, ripple after ripple spread outward around the Temporal Stasis spell, washing over every blue dragon nearby.
In an instant, space solidified around Gorazdla. Everything—dust, minute particles, and the dragon soul itself—was frozen in the preceding second, congealing like a flawless block of solid amber.
"Grand Elder..."
"She... she was imprisoned just like that!"
Witnessing this, Keldom lowered his head, speaking in an exceedingly respectful tone, "We welcome Your Majesty Cassius's arrival. That you would grace the lair of Clan Faria with your presence... is truly our greatest honor."
Seeing this, the other blue dragons in the lair exchanged glances for a moment before also bowing their heads, chiming in unison, "We welcome Your Majesty Cassius's arrival."
Christina flapped her wings as she approached from not far away. Dropping to her forelimbs with her neck curved, she performed an elegant draconic salute before the red dragon emperor. "Your Majesty Cassius, the soul of a demigod—this is Clan Faria's token of allegiance. Does it meet with your satisfaction?"
To the young blue dragon's mind, Gorazdla's capture by the Cinder Empire following the destruction of her body was an inevitability—merely a matter of time.
Rather than seeking a new vessel for her, holding a resurrection ritual, and gambling on her regaining her former glory, it was far better to squeeze every last drop of value from this great wyrm, turning her into Clan Faria's token of allegiance to demonstrate their resolve and loyalty to the Empire.
Christina discreetly raised her head, gazing up at the red dragon emperor's massive, imposing frame as if on a pilgrimage, while carefully observing every shift in his expression.
Cassius parted his jaws slightly in a ferocious grin, bloodstained fangs bared with suffocating menace. "Good. I am very satisfied."
With a sweep of his talon, the solidified amber of time flew into the air and landed in his palm. Sealed within, Gorazdla's expression remained frozen in shock and terror, electric sparks flashing in her pupils, still radiating a demigod-tier presence.
Yet now, this mighty demigod rested in the palm of the red dragon emperor's claw, sending a chill down every onlooker's spine.
Having accomplished this, Cassius beat his wings and ascended into the sky. His deep, resonant voice echoed across the desert, stirring up gusts of sand. Unfurling his vast wings, he cast a gigantic shadow across the golden dunes. "All of you—welcome to the Cinder Empire!"
The blue dragons emerged from their lair, only to behold an endless, mottled tide stretching across the distant sands—the grand army of the Empire. Countless heavy artillery pieces, coated in black lacquer, were raised high. Their cavernous, pitch-black muzzles pointed directly at Clan Faria's lair, poised as though tens of thousands of cannons might roar in unison the very next second, blowing the place to rubble.
Seeing the red dragon emperor take flight and welcome the blue dragons into the fold, the commander of the Imperial Heavy Artillery Corps, Imperial Army Lieutenant General and dragon-blooded ogre Datou waved a hand in mild disappointment, grunting, "They surrendered! Stand down from bombardment prep!"
"Ah, what a pity. There goes our military merit."
"These blue dragons have no backbone at all!" The imperial artillerymen grumbled amongst themselves, their tone tinged with vexation at being denied a good fight.
Taking in the scene, the blue dragons still lingering near the lair were struck with terror. Keldom, Clan Faria's patriarch, felt his scalp tingle and his eyelids twitch frantically. He swallowed hard, feeling profoundly fortunate about the decision he had just made.
Had Clan Faria not surrendered, these imperials truly would have used them for target practice and blasted them into pulverized dust.
Chapter 824