Children of the Dragon (2)
Explosions painted the sky.
Shells of resentment and stone spears were launched endlessly into the heavens, colliding with the colorful flock of creatures, bursting one after another.
Boom! Crash!
The air heated up, and the magical winds distorted.
Beyond the scattered clouds, even time seemed to bend, the sun’s shape warped into a crushed sphere.
“Why do you attack us, O dragon of the blue scales?”
“It’s the Blue Scaled One! The child of the Blue Scaled One!”
“Do you not realize you’re tearing out your own mother’s heart… Aaargh!”
A blue dragon, as large as a city, dove into the chaos, tearing into the hearts and throats of other dragons without hesitation.
Its icy breath froze the sky, and the slowed dragons were pierced by the holy sword’s white flame—a seamless coordination between the Blue Scaled Dragon and the paladin.
Edgar, receiving healing from Parun in the middle of the plaza, watched the scene in a daze before turning to Daelon.
Daelon turned to meet Edgar’s gaze. As the knight captain opened his mouth, Edgar followed suit.
“Why…”
“You want to know why I returned.”
“Exactly.”
A low chuckle. Edgar nodded, a half-resigned smile on his lips.
“What I saw in my foresight was my death. A blessing from the gods to these distant eyes, a vision that had never been wrong for nearly two centuries.”
The captain’s arm trembled. Parun, startled, poured healing prayers over him.
“It’s fine. Keep wrapping it.”
”…Yes.”
The former mercenary-turned-paladin was adept at bandaging with one hand.
Not long ago, he had been a young mercenary boy, but in a few years, he had grown into a young man.
Edgar continued, looking at Parun.
“Even without foresight, strategically speaking, in a grand game where the fate of the continent is at stake, even a transcendent of the sixth rank or a great demon is just a pawn.”
The bandaging finished. Edgar rotated his shoulder and stood up.
“That’s why I could accept becoming a stepping stone for a greater victory. Compared to the countless lives on this continent you will protect, my life is a small sacrifice.”
The knight captain’s cloudy eyes looked at Daelon. It wasn’t an accusatory or questioning look, just pure curiosity.
To be so selfless about one’s own life—was it faith or madness?
Among the transcendent beings with a few screws loose, he was relatively sane.
Daelon chuckled and shook his head.
“Nonsense.”
”…”
“A man who couldn’t save even one person, talking about saving the continent—isn’t that absurd?”
There was a time when I tried to protect everything alone.
To be precise, it was a time when I tried to see the end of the game by myself.
It wasn’t unusual. The NPCs in this game were unpredictably erratic, as much a hindrance as they were a help.
Empathizing with NPCs was something I did only a few times. By the time I reached double-digit playthroughs, they naturally appeared as mere data and polygons.
‘So I became more and more engrossed in solo play.’
Even with the same weapon, my character, who had played through multiple lives, handled it better than an NPC living just one.
Strategic decisions were overwhelmingly in my favor, watching from beyond the monitor.
Through dozens, hundreds of playthroughs, cooperation with NPCs faded. Instead, I sought to see the end of every possibility.
As a warrior. As an archer. As a sorcerer. As a dark mage.
Even after exploring every possibility, I hit a wall. Finally, I poured all that experience into one character.
‘The last playthrough was the pinnacle of a jack-of-all-trades.’
A warrior who could crush hills with bare hands, with every step causing lava to overflow.
A sorcerer who could summon hundreds of lightning bolts with a gesture and manipulate the gates of hell at will.
To gain such power, in the last playthrough, I disregarded everything.
I killed the knight king of the Three Kingdoms and stole the sacred sword. I invaded the guild alliance, taking the merchant guild leader hostage to plunder gold.
Whether through trade or plunder, I pursued the fastest path. Under meticulous planning, I didn’t hesitate to perform human sacrifices or consume demon hearts.
Having played a dark mage character just a few playthroughs ago, committing countless massacres, such actions didn’t stir even a hair of my conscience.
The only thing that mattered was the power to face the evil gods.
And before the alliance of the five evil gods, I hit the wall once more.
“To destroy the evil gods and their infernal realm, the Stone of Wishes at the labyrinth’s end is essential.”
“I know. That’s why I was puzzled. You went back after opening the path to the rift.”
“Do you know the legend surrounding the Stone of Wishes?”
A legend? Edgar was puzzled.
Daelon looked up at the sky where their companions fought and continued.
“Starting from the first floor, through the Scorching Desert, the Bottomless Swamp, and the Silent Moon Spirit, you reach the fifth floor of the labyrinth. At its end is a gate.”
A gate impossible to open by force.
Without the key, no method could get you through.
The key the gate demanded was people. Four of them.
“A human, a witch, a priest, and a mage. Why would such a gate exist just two floors away from the Stone of Wishes?”
”…”
“It means not to think of passing through alone. A person who steps over the corpses of comrades won’t be accepted by the Stone of Wishes as its master…”
Boom!
A massive explosion interrupted his words. A blinding white flash.
All three heads turned simultaneously. The sound came from two places.
The farther one was beyond the city’s walls, in the direction of the gateway fortress of the Barrier Mountains.
And the closer one was right above…
“Cough!”
“Lord Bjorn!”
The dwarf collapsed, coughing up dark blood. As Parun rushed to support him, debris began to rain down from above.
Thud! Thunk!
Broken cannons, giant gears, and various mechanical parts. They faded away shortly after hitting the ground.
Daelon looked up. The massive weapon that had been launching shells of resentment was slowly tilting, a gaping hole in its chest.
“Daelon! Daelon!”
Around that time, Lucia descended from the sky. Covered in dragon’s blood, she spoke between breaths.
“We did it! The dragon legion is retreating!”
”…No.”
“Should we pursue and inflict more damage? Or… what?”
“They’re not retreating.”
Daelon’s eyes glowed with ashen magic.
A map of the entire basin within the Barrier Mountains unfolded in his mind in a distant monochrome.
As Lucia said, the dragon legion was retreating in a line. Following their path led to the gateway fortress of the Barrier Mountains.
The source of the recent explosion, the completely destroyed gateway fortress and valley.
The widest entrance to the basin surrounded by the Barrier Mountains, the valley guarded by the knight’s gateway fortress, had collapsed entirely.
”…”
Daelon sensed the presence within the valley.
That presence was also watching him.
Despite the distance of tens of kilometers, they perceived each other as if they were face to face.
Daelon extinguished the magical glow in his eyes and spoke.
“They’re not retreating. They’re making space to meet their god.”
“Their god…”
“The Dragon God has arrived.”
A breath that rose uncomfortably.
A sensation like every hair on his body was standing on end.
Since inhabiting this body, Daelon had rarely encountered a presence that made him tense just by existing.
It was the same when he was merely a mercenary, but after breaking through the wall of transcendence, he could count such encounters on one hand.
But because such occurrences were rare, he remembered each one vividly.
‘When I met the evil god.’
The first time was when he faced Suum in the north.
The next was when a blood spirit donned human flesh and offered itself as a sacrifice for necromancy.
And the third was now, under the blood-red sky, as a being led over a thousand dragons.
The number of lesser dragons alone was in the four digits. The number of true dragons, each a transcendent being, exceeded a hundred.
Edgar and Daelon’s group, using surprise, advantage, and battlefield superiority, had barely managed to bring down just over thirty true dragons.
Yet, several times that number of dragons were approaching, crossing the main fortress walls.
Boom! Crash!
Not a speck of blue remained in the sky.
Crimson clouds flowed like lava from a volcano, obscuring the sun, and red lightning flashed, painting the ground in blood.
‘The Great Dragon War.’
A scene witnessed through the eyes of the blacksmith Daelukahim, even if only from beyond the monitor.
A land under the wings of dragons for millennia. A world ruled by the thirteen great dragons and their master, the Dragon God.
If it felt as though that infernal abyss had completely consumed reality, was it just an illusion? Dalen shook his head.
Despite having the opportunity to swiftly annihilate the Holy Knights, the dragon legion had inexplicably prolonged their assault for months. It was no coincidence.
The main order’s sacred barrier was indeed a formidable one, but it was strange to think it alone could fend off all the dragon legion’s attacks.
A more plausible explanation was that they intended to use the entire land as an altar and sacrifice, to manifest the true form of the Dragon God.
And the result of that intention was now soaring before his eyes.
[―――.]
[――. ―――.]
A dragon with pale, ashen scales descended slowly to the ground, worshipped in an incomprehensible draconic tongue.
Seven dragons, each with a uniquely distinct appearance even among true dragons, surrounded it. Among them, the ashen dragon appeared conspicuously small.
Its body barely stretched over ten meters from head to tail, with unremarkable membranous wings and teeth.
Yet, the black flames flickering between its jaws were more menacing than any breath Dalen had ever witnessed.
Instinctively, his hand moved to his waist, and the dragon, now grounded, transformed into the shape of a boy.
[…Dragon God.]
A voice, boiling with rage, echoed from beyond his consciousness. Though it shouldn’t have been audible, the boy reacted.
[So the blood of the Red Spear lives on. It was true, then.]
A grin stretched wide across his face.
Glistening, sharp teeth.
The boy with the ashen hair extended his palm toward Dalen, his forked tongue flickering as he spoke.
[I shall grant you mercy. I will kill you without pain, if you return the blood of that fierce woman to its master…]
Swoosh―!
And then, an axe flew through the air.