Chapter 1145: The Thirtieth Generation

Baloguer stood solemnly atop the dais in the Dragonblood Hall, his gaze fixed on the twenty-two dragon heads arrayed along the hall’s sides. These heads, almost entirely mechanical in structure, seemed still caught in the midst of their previous process of contemplation. They hung low and silent, faint flickering lights tracing the depths of their conduits. The occasional hiss of circulating pumps and gas pipes was one of the few sounds breaking the hall’s heavy stillness.

At last, the lights behind one dragon head brightened. The head slowly lifted, turning toward Baloguer under the guidance of its mechanical arm. A dispassionate synthetic voice came through the speaker: “Baloguer, Administrator of the Refuge, welcome to the Dragonblood Council.”

One by one, the dragon heads stirred from their reverie. Accompanied by a series of light signals and mechanical whirs, they turned toward Baloguer and nodded in acknowledgment.

“Good day, Councilors,” Baloguer broke the silence, his expression grave. “Regarding the scenario you were asked to simulate last time—have you reached any conclusions?”

“Regrettably, that thought process was terminated prematurely by the Dragonblood Council,” one dragon head responded. “The trajectory of civilization in this era has completely exceeded the reference scope of our historical data. The unpredictable variables have surpassed the threshold. We believe that even if the simulation were forced to continue, it would be impossible to accurately forecast the future of the ‘Alliance’ or the dragonkind.”

“Moreover,” another ‘councilor’ added, “we believe it is no longer necessary to use the Dragonblood Council to simulate such matters. The Age of Myth has ended, Administrator. Our existing simulation modules are no longer suited to the new circumstances.”

“…Understood. I will consider your advice carefully,” Baloguer nodded after a brief pause. “Now, on another matter… concerning our gods. It has been confirmed that after the Dragon God’s fall, the remaining human essence has self-reorganized and regenerated, currently lingering within the human realm of Cecil.”

“We are aware of this and completed our assessment twelve hours ago,” the dragon head closest to Baloguer replied. “This situation exceeds all our contingency plans, but from the results, it poses no threat. The only potential variable is that humans will gain access to extensive knowledge about the gods and the magical tides… which is likely to have a positive influence. Shall we continue the simulation on this matter?”

“Yes, continue,” Baloguer said immediately. “We need to evaluate the possibility of establishing further communication with other nations, especially Cecil… Almost all variables in this era seem to originate from that land.”

“Understood. The process has been added to the task schedule.”

The Dragonblood Hall fell silent once more. Baloguer stood on the dais, seemingly lost in thought, while the ‘councilors’ patiently awaited the next command from the Administrator. After half a minute, Baloguer suddenly broke the quiet: “I have no further questions—open the passage to the Nameless Dragon Tomb.”

“Understood. Passage opened. The council will enter work mode in ten seconds. We look forward to your next visit, Administrator.”

The monotone mechanical voice echoed through the hall. A faint vibration rose from beneath the platform. One by one, the lights above the twenty-two dragon heads extinguished. These ancient, fully mechanized thinkers bowed their heads again. Darkness reclaimed the hall, save for a cold beam of light from a strip along the dome’s central axis, illuminating a slanting staircase before the dais. The stairs stretched downward, their depths glowing faintly with a yellowish light, disappearing into the unknown.

Baloguer descended the dais. Knights Eugene and Gorosh immediately flanked him. The three exchanged solemn glances but spoke no words, then proceeded toward the staircase, heading deep underground.

There was no elevator to the Nameless Dragon Tomb—only this long staircase, seemingly endless, like Baloguer’s distant memories, or a mortal’s arduous climb from earth to stars. The walls shifted from polymer to metal, then to enchanted stone. Ancient, solemn reliefs appeared along the stairwell, gradually covering the ceiling ahead.

Finally, Baloguer stopped before a massive door standing solemnly in a vast chamber carved deep underground. Its bare surface bore no decorative patterns, but the crystal light on the floor before it illuminated a line of letters, as if clawed into the stone: “To the Dead, and to Those Who Go to Die.”

The heavy stone door slowly opened under the power of magical mechanisms. A vast underground space, large enough to astonish any human, revealed itself before Eugene and Gorosh. They followed Baloguer inside, entering the most solemn and sacred place in the Holy Dragon Principality—known only to the Dragonblood Duke himself and a select few dragonkin: the Nameless Dragon Tomb.

Massive pillars supported this space, large enough to contain an entire castle. The stone floor stretched far into the distance, worn by countless ages. High above, the dome’s original rock formations were pierced by many rune-engraved metal columns. Soft electric sparks and glowing mists silently drifted between these columns, maintaining the cave’s environment and, through elemental blessings, protecting everything here from the ravages of time—even shielding the entire mountain from geological upheaval.

Between these colossal pillars stood one “tombstone” after another, modeled on the size of great dragons. They leaned embedded in massive stone bases. Behind each base was a dragon sculpture carved from stone—but compared to real dragons, these stone dragons appeared unusually thin, frail, and often visibly incomplete, as if deliberately designed to distinguish them from true dragons. Their forms resembled some kind of… subspecies.

Gorosh’s gaze swept over the nearest tombstone. Its slanted stone surface bore no epitaph, not even a name—only a few cold letters and numbers deeply etched: “First Generation, 120,000–180,000 years.”

On the adjacent tombstone, another line of cold letters and numbers reflected in Gorosh’s eyes: “Second Generation, 182,000–246,000 years.”

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but Baloguer had already stepped forward. Gorosh swallowed his words and followed the Dragonblood Duke deeper into the hall. In silence, they passed the early generations, as if crossing through ancient history long vanished from memory. The years crystallized beneath their feet into hard, rough stone, each millennium receding behind their steps.

At the 1,820th millennium, Baloguer finally stopped. He looked up. The last unfinished tombstone came into view, deeply inscribed with letters: “Thirtieth Generation, 1,820,000 years—”

Behind this tombstone, a half-completed giant dragon sculpture lay bathed in the dim light filtering through the dome’s crystals. It rested on the earth, head raised, gazing at the sealed dome. Along its jagged spine were a pair of malformed, atrophied wings.

Baloguer stood before this nameless tomb, staring at the unfinished stone and the incomplete dragon sculpture. From behind came Gorosh’s voice: “The last time I was here… it feels like ages ago.”

“We shouldn’t disturb the peace of these tombs lightly… even if there’s nothing left behind them,” Baloguer whispered. “But at last, some good news has come. It’s time to bring that here.”

“I still remember the first time you brought me here,” the white-haired Sir Eugene Natosh sighed softly. “The real history… back then, I truly felt the real history was no better than a dream from which one cannot awaken.”

Duke Baloguer said nothing, standing silently before the tombstone of the thirtieth generation. Beside him, Gorosh looked at the blank space on the stone and suddenly said in a low voice, “The Great Shield of Talrond has been extinguished, and the gene bank used to restart the Holy Dragon Principality was destroyed in the fires of war. No matter what path this world takes from now on, the thirtieth generation will likely be the last of the ‘dragonkin’… Do you think one day someone will carve the final number on this tombstone?”

“Every number here was carved by my own hand. If the day of ending truly comes, and our efforts end in failure, I will carve the last mark here before bidding farewell to this world… But more than that hopeless ending, I hope the tombstone of the thirtieth generation remains forever blank.” Baloguer slowly shook his head, then turned to look back the way they had come. He saw those vast, silent tombs stretching into the distance—twenty-nine generations of dragonkin long vanished from the real universe, turned to lifeless stone sculptures, quietly watching him in the darkness.

They were the “descendants” he had carefully nurtured and tended.

“I often feel burdened with guilt, especially when I look at these nameless stones,” the Dragonblood Duke said softly. “I abandoned them twenty-nine times… When the magical tides came, I let them fade away in the apocalypse, while I fled like a coward. And yet, after each restart, I still took my place at the top, ruling as a sovereign. Isn’t that ironic?”

“…As a member of the thirtieth generation, I’m afraid I can’t answer your question,” Sir Gorosh said after a brief hesitation, looking at the ancient dragon beside him. “But I do know this—nothing in this world comes without a price.

“In the Age of Myth, the Dragon Gods and Talrond strove together to maintain a fragile balance. The existence of the Holy Dragon Principality was a long-standing, open secret never acknowledged. I believe the gods knew of the dragonkin from the start, even the mission of the Omega System. Yet for 1.87 million years, all this was carefully hidden on one side of the balance, never crossing the line.

“In that context, letting the ‘dragonkin’ come into Talrond’s sight, even accepting the gods’ protection, was not salvation—it was a complete burial, a burial for all our kin.

“I have no right to judge your or Talrond’s choices on behalf of the previous twenty-nine generations, nor to forgive or condemn anything for them. But I must challenge your self-judgment—the true coward is not the one who fled, but the one who lacks the courage to return here after restarting the Holy Dragon Principality twenty-nine times.

“Watching them perish takes more courage than leading them to Talrond for protection, Your Majesty.”

“Someone once said the same to me,” Duke Baloguer suddenly smiled, “right here in this place.”

“Is that so? A pity I never met them,” Gorosh shook his head.

Grant Duke Baroguer remained silent, lost in thought for a moment before murmuring to himself, “You’re all right… I shouldn’t cling to this, especially after all these long years. Perhaps every generation can choose between hatred and forgiveness, and every individual can decide whether to forgive or to rage—but before the overwhelming forces of nature, all of that ultimately yields to a single question… how to ensure the survival of civilization.”

At last, he withdrew his gaze from the tombs and swept his eyes across the vast underground hall. Between the dim, ancient walls and pillars lay not just dozens of nameless dragon graves.

“One million eight hundred seventy thousand years… Our records of the magical tides and the countless failed attempts to protect the mind during those tides are buried deep within the lower archives. Nearly all of this data was gathered outside the environment of Talrond. Though it’s a record of failure, it remains an invaluable reference,” the Dragonblood Duke said gravely. “The crucial question now is whether our new allies—the mortal nations of the Alliance—are prepared to face this… ‘gift.’”

“The Dragonblood Council can no longer assess the newborn ‘Alliance,’ nor can it predict what changes the actions of High Lord Gawain Cecil will bring to this world. Perhaps in this era, it’s time for us to make some decisions ourselves,” Sir Eugene Natosh said slowly. “In my view, since we’ve chosen to join this ‘Alliance,’ we ought to act in a manner befitting our status as members.”

…

Across the boundless ocean, a massive fleet cut through the waves, sailing into uncharted waters where no human had ever ventured before.

Onboard the steadfast Winter’s Resolve, the naval commander Byron, cloaked against the cold, stepped onto the deck. Squinting against the biting wind, he scanned the horizon. At the bow, the sea’s surface rippled and shimmered as if alive, water rising into a striking, moving column. Atop it sat the sea witch Cassandra, steady as ever, commanding the surrounding waters while turning to wave toward the flagship.

Byron returned her wave, then glanced upward. Against the vast blue sky, several enormous figures beat their mighty wings, flying in formation alongside the fleet, matching its speed and direction. Two dragonrider scout ships circled these colossal creatures, their wing-like propulsion panels raised high, reflecting the bright sunlight.

Those were the dragons serving as the aerial escort, accompanied by the two reconnaissance dragonriders aboard the Winter’s Resolve.

“Talrond…” Byron murmured with a smile, his voice barely above a whisper.

(The End of This Chapter)