Chapter 1048: Twilight and the Cold Wind

Seeing Melita rushing so hurriedly, Calador instinctively called out from behind, “Your injuries—”

“I’m fine. After all, it’s just a short flight,” Melita said, flexing her wings as she glanced back at the red dragon trailing behind. “After removing those malfunctioning neural enhancers, I already feel much better. The healing spells helped too. I’ll leave this side to you all—I’m going to check on Noretta. By the way, which direction is she in exactly?”

Having known Melita for years, Calador understood her personality well. He knew there was no point in trying to stop her now. After confirming that her aura had indeed recovered significantly, he sighed with a hint of helplessness and said, “Take off from here, head due south, to Industrial Plateau 22. Most of that area has been leveled—only one tower remains standing. You should be able to find Noretta’s trail easily.”

Melita spread her massive wings as she listened, gathering invisible magic that slowly lifted her enormous body into the air. “Thanks. I’m setting off now—whether I find her or not, I’ll be back within three hours!”

With a sudden gust of wind, the blue dragon soared into the sky once more.

As she left the temporary refuge, Melita immediately felt weakness and discomfort spreading through her body, along with pain from several wounds that hadn’t fully healed. The pain was bearable, but the pervasive weakness was almost unbearable—like every muscle, bone, and organ was filled with lead. Every movement required far more effort than usual, and her reflexes were sluggish. After several minutes of this, Melita finally realized where the weakness was coming from.

It was her nervous system, long accustomed to implants and enhancers, and the muscle memory accumulated over thousands of years.

Some of her power muscles had been removed, the neural enhancers near her spine taken out, and more than half of her implants had shut down or partially shut down after the Omega system went offline. Only the basic implants that didn’t require network connection—those providing fundamental strength or health support—were still running. On top of that, she hadn’t taken any enhancers for a long time.

“I thought I was less dependent on these things…” Melita muttered bitterly, feeling the heaviness in her limbs. “After all, I’m still a dragon of Tal’Rond…”

She lifted her head and gazed into the dimming sky. The outline of Industrial Plateau 22 was clearly visible in the distance. She felt a strange unfamiliarity—a feeling that had been nagging at her since she woke up. Now she finally understood why: in her vision, there was no indication of the current time, no directional markers or coordinates, no wind data, no fluctuating magic curves, no pop-up ads or communication windows at the edges… nothing. Not even a basic filter. All she saw was the raw, natural sky and earth.

She couldn’t remember how long it had been since she’d seen such a clean, clear world… or maybe she never had, not since birth.

If she felt so out of place, how long would it take for those deeply modified kin to adjust to this “empty” vision?

Melita’s heart stirred with emotion. Almost at the same moment, a flicker of white caught her peripheral vision—a flash so quick she nearly missed it. Her visual assist plugins could no longer lock onto active or interesting targets, but as the figure was about to slip past the edge of her sight, she finally noticed.

She also understood why Noretta hadn’t spotted her when flying overhead earlier—without implants, searching with the naked eye was so easy to get wrong.

Melita quickly dropped altitude and dove toward the white shape. When she confirmed it was still moving on the ground, she let out a relieved breath—Noretta was alive, crouched amid a pile of rubble, head down, busily digging at something.

“Noretta!” Melita called out, hovering just a few hundred meters above the ground. “What are you doing here? Why haven’t you reported back to camp? What are you digging for?”

“Melita?” The white dragon looked up, surprised to see her friend hovering in the sky. “What are you doing here? Are you okay now?”

“I removed some damaged parts and treated my wounds with healing magic. I’m fine now,” Melita replied cautiously, lowering her altitude carefully—her nervous system and muscles were still far from their former strength. “What are you doing? You’ve missed the reporting time by a long shot. The camp’s worried about you.”

“What? I missed the time?” Noretta looked shocked, as if only now realizing how much time had passed. She glanced at the sun near the horizon, astonished. “So fast… Sorry, my clock was off, and my visual assist was down. I had no idea…”

“Yeah, I’m having similar problems…” Melita shook her head and muttered self-deprecatingly, “Without the Omega system, even keeping track of time is a challenge… We really were spoiled by those automatic systems.”

As she spoke, she noticed the large pit Noretta had dug—and several others nearby. It was clear the white dragon had been digging here for quite some time. “Did you find anything? And why are you digging with your claws? What about your magic?”

“I’m worried the magic might collapse the structure underneath… But anyway, come help me. It’s right below here—I’m sure I got the spot right this time,” Noretta said, suddenly remembering what she was doing. Without further explanation, she pulled Melita to help.

Melita, confused but willing, joined in moving broken metal plates and heavy stones out of the pit. Before long, Noretta shouted, “Got it!”

“What is it…” Melita asked, watching as Noretta leaned deep into the newly uncovered hole and carefully pulled something out. Seeing it, Melita’s expression shifted slightly.

It was an oval container, scarred and battered but still intact and sturdy. Inside, something lay quietly.

A dragon egg—but shattered, its contents oozing out and congealing like flesh on the container’s inner walls.

Clearly, the intact outer shell hadn’t withstood the shockwave.

“…It’s broken,” Melita said softly, her claws gripping the ground so tightly that the steel beneath her feet groaned and cracked. “Noretta, this one’s broken.”

Noretta stared blankly at the container she’d dug up. After a few minutes of stunned silence, she suddenly threw it aside and dashed toward the pit she’d just excavated. “There must be some unbroken ones! There are countless dragon eggs down here. There have to be some intact!”

Down here?

Only then did Melita realize where they were. She looked up and saw a massive, spiral-shaped facility standing silently in the glow of the setting sun. The pale golden light slanted across its melted and resolidified shell. From the mangled main structure, she could still make out the old landing platforms and conveyor pipes.

She recognized it at last—this was the hatchery, the largest breeding facility near Argondor.

“Melita! What are you standing there for?” Noretta’s voice came from the pit, urging her on. “Help me open the gate below—I hurt my claws and can’t move something this big… Why are these gates so sturdy?”

“We won’t get far digging alone,” Noretta said, glancing at the hatchery’s vast scale. She called out from the pit’s mouth, “The storage area beneath the hatchery is huge. We could dig all day and still not find the next isolation chamber. We should go back and bring more dragons to help!”

The digging sounds finally stopped deep inside the pit. After a few seconds, Noretta slowly emerged, hesitation in her voice. “You’re right, but… the camp’s short on people. Calador probably can’t spare many…”

“We’ll bring this back,” Melita said, carefully cradling the dragon egg container—even though the egg inside was broken, she handled it gently. “Calador will understand. He’s a red dragon, and an old one at that… He knows better than anyone what dragon eggs mean.”

…

Back at the temporary refuge, the dragons gathered once more. After distributing the supplies on hand, they had to discuss how to survive in this wasteland. Calador stood among his kin, listening to everyone’s thoughts, but he couldn’t help but sigh.

Things were heading in a bad direction. He had expected it but felt powerless.

More and more dragons were showing symptoms of enhancer backlash; others suffered various physical problems from implant failures. Almost all faced a huge “psychological void” after losing the Omega network. Physical weakness, pain, and mental turmoil were steadily eroding their will. Gathered here, they had become true refugees.

But… they were dragons.

Powerful dragons who once ruled the skies and the earth.

Calador knew that even without implants and enhancers, without Omega and the automated factories, these weakened dragons were still dragons—still among the strongest beings in the world. In fact, losing the implants and enhancers meant they were closer to their original form, returning to the “natural state” of their species’ evolutionary path. But… none of that mattered now.

Survival was the pressing issue.

As he sighed, his thoughts turned to Melita and Noretta, who had been gone from camp for a long time. How were they doing?

Just then, a rush of wind howled from above. Calador instinctively looked up and saw two figures—a blue and a white dragon—approaching the camp.

Melita and Noretta landed in the center of the camp. The others instinctively turned their gaze toward them. Noticing the strange atmosphere, Melita quickly shifted back into her humanoid form and strode toward Calador.

“Calador, what’s going on here?” Melita asked, unable to hold back. “Is there another problem with work or supplies?”

“We’re discussing expanding the camp and salvaging supplies from the collapsed rift zone,” a black dragon approached from the side. “But we lack the proper tools and manpower—there’s molten, solidified alloy and polymer crusts all over the ground. We can’t just dig out a new camp with our claws…”

Melita listened, but her gaze drifted across the camp, taking in the weary faces and battered bodies around her. Then, her eyes settled on the white dragon Noretta, still standing in her full dragon form in the clearing, carefully cradling a container with her forepaws.

“Why can’t you use your claws?” Melita suddenly raised her voice. She stared at the black dragon who had spoken, then at Karador and the other dragons nearby. “Use your claws, your teeth, your breath, your magic—aren’t those powerful enough? Humans on the continent of Loren manage to do all sorts of things. What can’t we dragons do here—just because the environment’s harsher?”

A nearby dragon opened his mouth, as if to reply, but Melita cut him off without giving him a chance. She strode over to Noretta and pointed loudly at the container she was holding. “This is what we dug out with our claws just now!”

“That’s…” Karador finally noticed what Noretta was holding. His eyes widened instinctively. “That’s from the hatchery…”

“It’s a dragon egg,” Melita said quickly. “It was already cracked when we dug it out—but there are thousands more eggs in the hatchery, and many storage vaults we haven’t reached yet. There have to be eggs we can still save.” She looked around urgently. “That’s what I’m saying—we need help. No matter how many come, even if it’s just one, to help us dig out those eggs buried in the ruins. Who’s willing to go?”

A hush fell over the camp. Then low murmurs and restless whispers began to stir. One by one, eyes fixed on the scarred, dust-covered container, on the shattered egg inside.

Melita met those gazes, and in them, she finally saw a flicker of hope and warmth. She lifted her head, about to say more, when suddenly, a bright streak cut across the distant sky.

A blazing meteor flared against the dusk, falling toward the northwest of Agondor.

(End of chapter)