Sacrifice and Battle

The coalition army's bombardment continued relentlessly. Artillery shells crashed around the altar one after another, erupting in tremendous blasts whose brilliant bursts of flame engulfed countless members of the Cult of the Dragon. "Gregory!" Accompanied by a furious shout, Kargath's figure blurred into an afterimage, lunging at the old man with speed far beyond human limits, supercharged by dragon bloodline energy. In Gregory's murky eyes, the faint glimmer of confusion was thoroughly swallowed by boundless terror the instant Felipe pounced. He seemed to want to scream, to draw back, to pull a weapon and fight back—but it was all too late. The scorpion-stinger needle at the butt of Felipe's Calamity Scepter pierced straight through the old man's chest with pinpoint accuracy and cold-blooded cruelty, whistling through the torn air! "Urgh—!" A strangled, broken cry of agony squeezed from the old man's throat. His body convulsed violently. Immediately after, a terrifying scene unfolded. The red scale mail on his body seemed to come alive in an instant, like countless famished, tiny worms madly burrowing backward into his flesh and greedily sucking! His skin turned gray and withered at a pace visible to the naked eye, as if instantly dehydrated. Gregory's eyes widened into perfect circles. The final reflection in his pupils was Felipe's inhuman eyes beneath the shadows, gleaming with mad crimson light. Then came light! A blinding, pure red radiance! It did not shine from without; rather, it erupted from within the old man's rapidly withering body! Gregory's flesh, bones, and even the final lingering echoes of his soul were utterly dissolved and consumed by the crimson glow! In the blink of an eye, nothing remained on the ground save for an empty suit of red scale mail, which collapsed in a clatter. And that hyper-condensed pillar of crimson light, thick with destruction and tyranny, shot upward from the altar's summit like a colossal pillar propping up the heavens, thrusting straight into the heart of the five-headed dragon shadow in the sky! "Praise Tiamat! Let the calamity descend!" Felipe spread his arms wide and raised the Calamity Scepter high. Pillars of light surged from the altar once more. The white pillar rose with soul-freezing frost; the black pillar billowed with acid capable of corroding all things; the green pillar roiled with deadly poisonous miasma; the blue pillar crackled with violent electrical arcs that tore through the air! Five pillars—signifying victims completely stripped and converted into pure, foul, evil energy—converged before Tiamat's five-headed phantom! "ROAR—!" The five-headed dragon silhouette in the sky let out an earth-shaking roar! All of Anvil City felt as though struck by a colossal hammer, the ground violently shaking! In response to the draconic phantom's roar, the five beams representing distinct destructive powers bent downward sharply and intertwined! They did not strike the city. Instead, high above it and before the watchful eyes of the coalition army, they frantically wove and fused together! White frost, black acid, green poison, blue lightning, red flame—five fundamentally disparate and mutually repellent forces of destruction, forced together under Tiamat's will, formed an immense, inverted bowl-shaped barrier! Extending downward from the chromatic dragon apparition in the sky, this colossal barrier encompassed the entire city. This was the "Five-Color Calamity Barrier"! "Damn evil deity!" "Concentrate fire!" "If they want to fight to the bitter end, blast this city to rubble! Level it to the ground—at all costs!" From the coalition lines came an even denser screeching of split air. Tens of thousands of artillery shells vaulted into the sky like a howling gale of forged steel, screaming through the heavens as they slammed into the newly formed barrier from all directions. The instant the shells struck the barrier, they froze solid into ice, dissolved under caustic acid and poisonous mist, were shattered into a storm of iron filings by violent lightning, and were finally vaporized entirely in raging flames, disappearing without a trace. The torrential impacts merged into an ear-grating hiss—the mournful wail of the Material Plane's mundane steel annihilating in vain before divine might. Not a single shell could produce even the faintest ripple upon the barrier flowing with chromatic dragon breath. "Praise the great Mother of All Dragons! The Chromatic Dragon Queen!" "A miracle!" Looking up at the sky shrouded in five-colored brilliance, the Dragon Cultists wore expressions of ecstatic piety, raising excited cheers, shouts, and battle cries. "How is this possible?" Even the coalition commanders stood dumbfounded, crying out in disbelief. All of the coalition's onslaught was swallowed by the Five-Color Calamity Barrier, unable to stir even the slightest disturbance. "Damn evil deity!" "Don't stop, keep bombarding! I refuse to believe their god can protect them forever!" Yet within the barrier, the scene was just as horrifying. The scarlet skylight was filtered through the warped barrier, bathing the entire city in a sinister, shifting aura. Across the plaza, the surviving populace felt strange pangs of stinging and itching across their skin, as though countless tiny scales were sprouting beneath their flesh. The air hung thick with an inescapable draconic musk, every breath feeling like swallowing scalding grit. Even more frightening were the countless low, venomous, greedy draconic whispers that slithered directly into everyone's minds like millions of serpents, gnawing at their sanity! The weak-willed lost focus in their eyes, their fingers neurotically clawing at their skin. A ghostly gleam flickered in their gaze as incoherent mutterings spilled from their lips. Madness spread through the crowd like a plague. "This is... Her Majesty the Dragon Queen's blessing!" "Hahaha! I'm a dragon scion too! I've grown scales! I'm going to become a noble dragon!" "Wonderful! At last, I can finally cast aside this frail human husk! Praise Her Majesty Tiamat!" "Long live the Chromatic Dragon Queen!" "Look... look quickly! Look at my arm—what a magnificent, noble form!" A Dragon Cultist stumbled through the street, laughing wildly as he showed off his scale-covered arm, his face flush with manic excitement. Throughout the years of Cult of the Dragon rule, most of these zealots had developed the zeal of converts, harboring a yearning and obsession for dragons and dragon scions beyond ordinary comprehension. And now, their wish was fulfilled in a twisted manner. Even those who had previously harbored quiet resistance toward Tiamat were infected by this will, turning into incorrigible Cult of the Dragon devotees. The barrier itself was an extension of Tiamat's divine power—a sugar-coated poison, a slowly corrupting curse. Felipe stood at the center of the altar, beneath the convergence of the five-colored pillars of light. He panted heavily, every exhalation expelling pale mist tinged with the faint stench of sulfur. He slowly raised his head, looking past the barrier at the coalition forces fruitlessly attacking outside, then glancing over the citizens struggling in agony within. Beneath the shadow of his five-headed crown, his lips curved into an indescribable smirk. "Survive, you ants," Felipe said, his voice grating and devoid of warmth, carrying only the indifference of one gazing down upon dust. "Enjoy this lingering respite granted by the Dragon Mother..." He paused intentionally. Something writhed along his neck. Before everyone's eyes, a hideous red dragon head tore through his skin and burst onto his shoulder, bathed in spurting blood—an utterly grotesque sight. "And then... become kindling for the Dragon Queen!" Felipe flung his arms wide, once again raising the scepter that symbolized supreme divine authority, and cried aloud. With his cry, the five-headed dragon in the sky roared and swayed its heads, sweeping five-colored divine light across the earth. The ground abruptly split open into countless deep chasms. The worshippers once buried beneath magma seemed to awaken. Innumerable remains writhed and coalesced beneath the surface, forming lava-clad monstrosities: ferocious half-dragons, hill-sized dragonbeasts, and thick, sinuous serpents. They crawled slowly out of the chasms as if returning from purgatory. "ROAR—!" Hoarse roars echoed across the wasteland. Tens of thousands of monsters clawed their way out of the depths, bellowing as they surged toward the coalition lines like a raging tide. "Hold them back!" "Open fire!" Duoluo barked a cold order: "Pitiable wretches! Send them back to hell!" At his command, an unimaginable roar of gunfire and artillery erupted from the coalition positions. Boom! Countless rounds poured forth into a terrifying steel storm. Shells rained from above, blasting through the monstrous swarms. Far in the distance, airborne dreadnoughts fired destructive beams of light that scoured the ground bare, annihilating everything in their wake. High above, wyverns spread their wings, diving with piercing shrieks to drop carpets of bombs like torrential rain, while machine guns mounted beneath their wings spewed torrential floods of bullets. In just a few minutes, thousands of lava monsters fell before the overwhelming firepower of the coalition—or more accurately, the Imperial Legions. Felipe raised his scepter high, pointed toward the coalition positions, and roared, "Children of Tiamat—heed your calling! Destroy these disgraceful blasphemers!" Before his words faded, his voice was drowned out by fanatic howling. Tens of thousands more monsters crawled from the depths, forming a torrential flood that concentrated its fury, braving the storm of bullets and shells to slam into the center of the coalition lines. Under the barrage, monsters fell in droves, yet they showed no fear, trampling the corpses of their kin as they surged forward, on the verge of breaching the coalition's defensive line. Just then, the distant resonance of a horn carried across the field, followed by measured, earth-shaking footfalls. A host of paladins clad in crimson heavy armor marched into view like a moving wall, steadily advancing toward the front. The battle standards of the Dragon Oath Paladins fluttered in the wind. These Dragon Oath Paladins radiated blazing auras that intertwined and overlapped, forming a towering bulwark of energy before the ranks. The foremost dragonblood monsters burst into flames the instant they made contact with this energy wall, reduced to cinders amidst agonizing shrieks. At the same time, the Dragon Oath Paladins leveled their lances and thrust forward repeatedly, perforating scores of dragonblood beasts with their sharp, tempered spears. The grotesque corpses of the beasts piled up before the Dragon Oath Paladins, foul blood pooling into what almost formed a new rampart. "ROAR—!" Just then, a thunderous roar boomed from afar as an adult red dragon soared into the air from Sunset City, swooping toward the Dragon Oath Paladins. Scorching dragonfire spewed from its gullet, and an immense dragon fear swept across the earth. "It's Lord Atticus!" "That's a renowned, mighty red dragon! Those Imperials are finished!" The Dragon Cultists were ecstatic, pointing at the crimson silhouette in the sky and screaming in triumph. Amidst their cheers, several young dragons followed behind the red dragon, baring their fangs and claws as they bellowed and dove toward the coalition positions. Yet faced with mighty dragons that would cause ordinary mortals to flee in panic, the Dragon Oath Paladins stood as firm as monoliths, their faces impassive as they looked to the sky. Anthony raised his head with absolute composure, watching the incoming red dragon. A cold sneer curled his lips. "What foolish beasts..." He did not deign to call it a "red dragon." In the tenets of the Dragon Oath Sanctuary, only Cassius, the "Great Red Dragon," was worthy of the title. All other so-called "red dragons" were mere pseudodragons spawned by Tiamat, unworthy of being mentioned in the same breath as the Emperor. Anthony swung his lance, its battle standard fluttering, and commanded in a resounding voice, "Aim at that damned beast! Prepare to volley—" The foremost rank of Dragon Oath Paladins held their heavy shields and thrust their lances, maintaining the frontline defense. The three ranks behind them unslung man-portable rocket launchers from their backs, hoisting them onto their shoulders and aiming skyward—the leadership of the Dragon Oath Sanctuary had long since recognized the paladins' lack of ranged capabilities. To remedy that shortcoming, virtually every one of these heavy-armored tin cans now carried a rocket launcher. "Fire!" At Anthony's roar, countless rockets surged toward the sky trailing thick smoke, streaking toward the dragons. The red dragon flapped its wings in momentary surprise, yet it could not block the relentless barrage of rockets. Boom! Boom! Boom! The flames and smoke from the explosions nearly blotted out the sky. Two young red dragons, torn and battered by the blasts, plummeted from the sky with agonizing shrieks. The remaining dragons were scorched all over, struggling to hold their altitude with noticeably sluggish movements. Yet the Dragon Oath Paladins' assault was far from over. "Rule with an Iron Fist!" "The Dragon Lord Above All!" Chanting their solemn, majestic oath in unison, Anthony raised his lance high, his molten-gold eyes blazing with brilliant light. The wills of over a thousand Dragon Oath Paladins rose together, condensing in midair into a colossal red dragon phantom that eclipsed the sky, accompanied by overwhelming dragon fear that swept across the land. Through the concentrated efforts of several thousand resolute, unyielding Dragon Oath Paladins, this phantom possessed one percent of the Emperor's power. One percent might have sounded small, but it was the power of the Cinder Emperor! To these Dragon Cultists, dragonblood beasts—and even the dragons themselves—the apparition was an invincible force! "ROAR—!" The gargantuan phantom of the red dragon beat its wings and opened its maw, sweeping a searing-white beam of light across the sky. In an instant, three dragons plummeted trailing black smoke, and one was even sliced clean in two by the fiery beam, dying a horrific death.