Evil Dragon Knights

"Boom—!" Accompanied by an explosive sonic crack, raging flames blazed, coalescing high above into a clawing, snarling red dragon that dove straight toward Felipe. Felipe merely sneered and spread his arms once more. Countless rays of pitch-black divine radiance poured from the Calamity Scepter, congealing midair into a twisted, five-headed silhouette. The two diametrically opposed powers collided in the sky, generating terrifying shockwaves that forged a blazing fireball hundreds of meters across, its depths swirling with brilliant tangles of divine light. "Filthy mongrels who stole the Mother Goddess's bloodline, today is the day you die—!" Sneering, Felipe swept down the Calamity Scepter. The giant wyvern beneath him immediately flared with glowing eyes and gave a magnificent roar, violently beating wings with a span of nearly a hundred meters. It whipped up a frenzied tempest, bursting through the light and smoke to lunge toward Misha. At the same time, over a dozen adult and young red dragons, accompanied by thousands of fanatical Dragon Cultists, swarmed around the giant wyvern like a churning storm cloud, descending upon the coalition lines. "For Tiamat!" "Praise the great Mother of Evil Dragons!" "The old era will fall, and the age of dragons ruling the earth is at hand!" Tiamat's divine radiance remained draped over them, driving them to ever greater fanaticism, piety, and madness. They threw themselves into violent assaults heedless of their lives, desperate to win the Chromatic Dragon Queen's favor. Facing this ferocious horde of evil dragons, Misha merely scoffed. "Seeking death..." Her gaze turned sharp as brilliant light flared within her golden, slitted pupils. Her slender hand twitched gently in the air as if plucking invisible, silken threads. Behind her, over a hundred Dragon-Pact Sorcerers hovered aloft, chanting Draconic incantations in unison. Their voices were low, rhythmic, and resonant, laden with immense power that commanded all creation and altered nature itself. The next moment, howling gales whipped the heavens and earth into a frenzy. Amid violent roaring winds, over a dozen fire tornadoes manifested out of thin air like colossal crimson pillars bridging sky and ground, barring the way before the evil dragon horde to form a magnificent wall of wind. In an instant, hundreds of vanguard Dragon Cultists were caught off guard and swallowed by the violent vortexes. Ripped apart without mercy, they dissolved into airborne spray of mangled flesh, bone, and scales, reduced to detritus scattered on the gale. Like massive meat grinders charged with cataclysmic power, the fiery tornados shredded every Dragon Cultist who drew near. Behind that wall of wind hovered the imperial fleet. Even if a cultist miraculously slipped through the barrier, concentrated fire from imperial laser cannons and rapid-fire guns would riddle them into sieves, leaving no hope of survival. Yet Felipe's expression only turned colder. He tapped the Calamity Scepter against the head of the giant wyvern beneath him. "Time to do your part, child of the Mother Goddess..." The colossal beast opened its gaping maw once more, a thunderous roar rumbling from deep within its chest. Then, from the depths of its gullet, it spewed a dense plume of pitch-black smoke. Trapped within the darkness were countless writhing silhouettes, shrieking in wretched, sorrowful torment. Every chromatic dragonbeast was forged from mountains of mortal lives. Naturally, they drew upon those mortals' rancor and reshaped it into a power meant to destroy all things. "Boom—!" Surging forward amid agonizing wails, the black smoke dissolved and corroded the magical wind wall like concentrated acid, gouging out a hole nearly a hundred meters wide. At the sight, Felipe raised the Calamity Scepter high and waved it through the air. "Go! Children of the Chromatic Dragon Queen, tear those arrogant imperials to pieces! Let blood teach them the might of dragons!" "Roar!" Before his words faded, countless Dragon Cultists and dragonblood monsters surged into the breach in relentless waves, forming a colossal, mottled vortex across the sky. Misha extended her hand toward the swarming cultists and commanded coldly, "Sweep them aside! The great Cinder Emperor watches over you! Victory belongs to the Empire!" "Boom!" Deafening explosions and roaring gunfire intertwined high in the air as the imperial fleet unleashed its full firepower. On the ground, artillery batteries elevated their barrels in unison, pouring down an unrelenting storm of bullets, shells, and rockets onto the advancing Dragon Cultists. Hundreds of beams crisscrossed, sweeping across the sky time and again. Each sweep sent hundreds of cultists plummeting from above like wheat harvested by a scythe. The battle in the sky grew ever more fierce. The corpses of cultists and dragonblood monsters rained down, trailing black smoke as they piled onto the earth to form miniature hills. Across the vast ground battlefield, conditions were equally grim. Millions of coalition troops clashed with dozens of chromatic dragonbeasts. With every passing second, allied soldiers were trampled, engulfed by breath weapons, or shattered by deafening roars. Yet the dragonbeasts were also riddled with wounds, howling in agony. More than a dozen collapsed under the onslaught, kicking up towering clouds of dust and sending dull thuds through the earth. Meanwhile, elite forces of the Cult of the Dragon joined the fray. Clad in dark, heavy dragonscale armor, the Serpent Guard Legion poured from Sunset City. Bearing poisoned sabers in tight formations, they flowed across the ground like a river of steel, crashing toward the weakest points of the coalition's defensive line. "For the Mother of All Scales..." The Serpent Guards hissed like vipers, exuding a sinister, venomous malice that sent chills down one's spine. They moved with astonishing speed, slithering like serpents through the gaps of the battlefield. In the blink of an eye, they closed the distance. Within minutes, hundreds of Seleucian infantrymen were hacked down by their blades. Blood sprayed skyward as severed heads flew, manic light gleaming from the vertical pupils behind the Serpent Guards' visors. Then came the tearing shriek of cleaved air overhead. Men looked up to see an echelon of armored evil dragon knights astride dragonblood monsters appearing in midair. Shrieking in frenzied excitement, they launched a mass charge, skimming across the earth at blinding speed. Drawing longswords carved with hideous dragon heads from their waists, they slit the throats of coalition soldiers in passing. Dozens more heads flew into the air amid sprays of blood. Under the coordinated assault of the Serpent Guards and the evil dragon knights, a gaping breach was soon torn into the coalition's defensive line. The evil dragon knights swept back into the air, looking down upon the allied soldiers from on high. The evil dragon knight commander raised his longsword and declared in a frigid voice, "Rebels, only one end awaits you: death!" "Evil Dragon Knights—charge!" His longsword slashed the air, and the knights dove down once more, launching a tempestuous charge against the coalition positions. This time, however, an awe-inspiring dragon roar resonated from the coalition lines, pouring forth with overwhelming pressure. Instantly, the evil dragon knights froze in midair. The dragonblood beasts beneath them twisted in agony, some even fainting on the spot. Immediately afterward, legions of Redscale Conquerors clad in scarlet armor and mounted atop wyverns swept over the heads of the coalition troops. Lowering their glistening lances, they plunged toward the evil dragon knights at breakneck speed. "For the Emperor!" "For the Cinder Empire!" Rousing battle cries and clamorous draconic roars shook the heavens. The Redscale Conquerors collided with the evil dragon knights like two opposing rivers slamming together. The Conquerors swung longswords and thrust their lances. In a single clash, they pierced the chests of dozens of evil dragon knights and decapitated over a hundred dragonblood monsters. Mangled corpses tumbled from the sky amid a downpour of blood. "Imperial cavalry!" The evil dragon knight commander had already recovered from the stunned stupor. Enraged, he swung his dragon-headed blade with all his might toward a wyvern's neck, the edge slicing through the air with terrifying speed. At that exact moment, a piercing eagle cry rang out above his head. Sensing imminent danger, the commander snapped his head up—only to find a burning blade plunging toward him with searing heat, menacing and unstoppable. His heart pounded wildly, and he couldn't help muttering, "How can this be..." As an evil dragon knight commander, his senses far surpassed those of ordinary mortals. Yet against this Everburning Greatsword dropping from above, he had been caught entirely unawares. For he was facing the commander of the Redscale Conquerors, an imperial duke whose equestrian and aerial mastery had attained perfection—Alger. "Die!" With a sharp shout, the burning greatsword cleaved down from behind the knight commander's head, severing his neck with clean precision. The head parted instantly, and a fountain of blood erupted from the stump. Even in death, shock, despair, and disbelief were etched onto the commander's face. He never could have imagined that he, who believed himself a favored child of Tiamat, would be struck down in a single clash! The commander's headless corpse plummeted from the sky. Alger, soaring high atop his dragon-blooded giant eagle, kept his expression cold and aloof, not sparing a single backward glance. He merely tightened his grip on the burning sword, pointing its tip toward the surviving evil dragon knights, and commanded coldly, "For the Empire—annihilate these cultists!" At his order, the Redscale Conquerors moved in groups of two and three, hunting down the remnants of the evil dragon knights like a scarlet tempest, cutting them down and obliterating them completely. In mere minutes, the thousand-odd evil dragon knights shattered under the tempestuous waves of the Redscale Conquerors' charges, fleeing in droves toward Sunset City. Yet running was equivalent to offering their backs to the Redscale Conquerors, who would never let such an opportunity slip by. Cheering, the Conquerors charged like lions harrying a flock of sheep, effortlessly hunting down the evil dragon knights. Their sharp lances pierced clean through backs and erupted out of chests with lethal efficiency. One after another, evil dragon knights tumbled from the heights, spilling blood as if to paint the sky red. Meanwhile, half the Redscale Conquerors dove toward the ground. Coming and going like the wind, every charge cleaved the earth like a thousand blades, reaping thousands of lives in its wake. Faced with the Redscale Conquerors skimming above them, the Serpent Guards raged in helpless fury, blindly slashing their poisoned sabers toward the sky in hopes of grazing the wyverns' bellies. Yet the Redscale Conquerors had long mastered slaughtering foes on the ground. Mid-dive, their lances—nearly ten meters long—stabbed down from above, skewering the armored Serpent Guards like meat on a spit and leaving them not the slightest chance to resist. After several coordinated charges, the ground legions of the Cult of the Dragon were shattered. Stripped of their army's cover, the chromatic dragonbeast was exposed to the coalition's siege. "Roar—!" A furious bellow rang through the sky as the chromatic dragonbeast reared its three heads—red, green, and blue—spewing terrifying blasts of flame, poison, and lightning that swatted several Redscale Conquerors from the air. Alger circled above the chromatic dragonbeast, maneuvering nimbly to evade the sweeping torrent of flame. His brow furrowed as his keen gaze bore down upon the monster. "Its breath weapons pose too much of a threat... Its heads must be severed." With that thought, Alger raised his blazing sword and commanded, "Redscale Conquerors! Prepare for a Dragon Roar Charge! Our objective is to take every head from this monster!" "Second Squadron, your target is the green dragon head! Fourth Squadron, your target is the blue dragon head!" "Commander, what about the red dragon head...?" Alger tightened his grip on his greatsword and dove down on the dragon-blooded giant eagle, his voice surging with fierce fighting spirit: "That one is my prey!" Whoosh—! The dragon-blooded giant eagle streaked through the sky, becoming a crimson afterimage as it plunged toward the dragonbeast's most fearsome red dragon head, moving at blinding speed. The red head roared in fury, snapping open its maw to spit volley after volley of blazing fireballs from deep within its throat, hurtling straight toward Alger. Yet Alger maneuvered the eagle through roll after roll, sharp turns, and sudden dives, grazing past the fireballs time and again in near-flawless evasions. Enraged beyond measure, the chromatic dragonbeast reared the red head high, opening its jaws to an unnatural width. A surging inferno rose into the heavens, churning billowing smoke as if to incinerate everything in the sky. Faced with heatwaves capable of warping the very air, Alger remained composed. He patted the side of the giant eagle's neck and plunged into the thick smoke without hesitation. The next moment, amid a piercing shriek of wind, he shot through the smoke like a spear, hurtling straight toward the red dragon head. The red dragon head caught sight of the knight bursting through its breath weapon. Twisting its neck, it opened wide its maw and snapped wildly, intending to swallow him whole. Yet Alger dropped sharply, slipping beneath the sulfurous, tooth-lined jaws and closing in on its neck. "Die!" Alger bellowed, swinging his blade through the air. The strike cleanly parted the wind, shearing through hard scales and thick hide to slit the red dragon head's throat wide open. Spurt! Scalding blood jetted skyward like a geyser, erupting violently from the chromatic dragonbeast's colossal frame.