Chapter 1032: Chapter 1031: Battle of Rupture
Duke Balogar stood at the edge of the terrace, where the mountain peaks of the northern ranges soared into the clouds, shrouded by mist and swirling snow, combining to form a painting in which all boundaries seemed blurred. Within such an expansive view, even the stone-built terrace appeared to merge subtly with the sky, as if with just one step forward, he could blend into this endless and spacious panorama.
A steady and powerful voice came from behind the terrace: "Grand Duke, the handover from the Dragon Blood Council has been completed."
Balogar, the ruler of the Sacred Dragon Kingdom, withdrew his gaze from the distance and turned to nod slightly at Sir Golosh Hickel, who had just stepped onto the terrace: "Hmm, thank you for your hard work."
"Has the final moment arrived?" Sir Golosh Hickel, whose beard was thick and whose stature was tall, looked at the Dragonblood Grand Duke with a complex and indescribable expression, "Are you about to depart?"
"The final moment is approaching, I must reach the battlefield before then," Duke Balogar’s voice was as deep as the mountains, "I’ve always heard two voices echoing in my mind simultaneously, and one of those voices has begun to weaken... It’s time to leave; I’ve missed this coming-of-age ceremony for too long."
Sir Golosh Hickel was silent for two seconds, bowing his head: "...This is your mission."
Duke Balogar nodded, and for a moment said nothing more; only the howling cold wind blew across the summit, carrying snowflakes from afar. No one knew how long had passed before the Dragonblood Grand Duke suddenly broke the silence: "More and more young Dragonborn have left the mountains to seek adventures in the southern human kingdoms..."
"The allure of the new world is immense, and besides... the instinct to fly is deeply engraved into the soul of every Dragonborn; it’s not something that can be changed through genetic rewriting," said Sir Golosh, "The human world has just concluded a war, and the situation across the continent is about to change, creating more opportunities, a broader world... I suppose more young Dragonborn will leave the mountains."
Balogar glanced at the court official who had followed him for years, and a hint of a smile appeared on his face: "You are different from me; you too were born and raised among the mountains of the Sacred Dragon Kingdom, and I remember when you were young, you also performed the feat of jumping off Dragon Leap Cliff... I can hardly believe so many years have passed."
"Indeed, many years," Sir Golosh’s always stern face softened somewhat, perhaps recalling the days of his youth, or thinking of his daughter happily living in the human world, "You remain so strong and full of vitality, while I can hardly glide anymore... But that’s alright; I’ve been luckier than my forebears, having seen the change in this world within my lifetime."
Another mountain wind blew from afar, and Duke Balogar cast a glance towards the distant north, where through the misty clouds, he could seemingly see the majestic and grand Eternal Storm rotating over the vast sea, its colossal wall of clouds acting as an impregnable barrier between the Loren Continent and Talronde. He took a deep breath of the cold air, as if speaking to himself: "The time has come."
"I wish you a safe journey," Sir Golosh bowed his head, speaking in the most solemn tone of his life, "From now on, Dragonborn may call themselves dragons."
A sudden gale swept across the stone-built terrace, carrying the presence of the dragon. It rose with the wind, surging the currents of Magic Power into the sky, and Sir Golosh kept his bowed stance in the wind, until he heard a deep and dignified voice from the distant sky: "Raise your head; you are dragons themselves!"
A massive white dragon silhouette shot from the highest point of Dragonwatch Keep towards the clouds, witnessed by hundreds of thousands of Dragonborn living around the keep—an unprecedented scene. They saw the dragon’s wings whip up fierce winds, sweeping the snow from the high mountains around him, altering the direction of Magic Power in the high altitudes, and even outlining a pale silver trajectory pointing to the distant north in the clouds.
Countless gazes from the mountains and valleys of the Sacred Dragon Kingdom looked to the sky, where Dragonborn stared in astonishment, and even some in fear, at the dragon circling in the clouds—that was a true dragon, nearly a hundred meters in size, with strong limbs and complete wings, unlike the flawed and weak Dragonborn born with deformities. In the long history of the Sacred Dragon Kingdom, never had any Dragonborn witnessed a true dragon appear above their heads.
Is this good news? Is this a bad omen? Is this a signal from the Homeland of the Dragons? Or is it merely a passerby?
No one recognized it as the Dragonblood Grand Duke who had ruled this land for countless years—in the panicked and bewildered gazes of the Dragonborn, that silver-white dragon circled the highest peaks of the Sacred Dragon Kingdom several times before raising its head and heading towards the northern horizon.
...
The Dragon of Chaos covered the sky, with swirling clouds, mutated flesh, crystalline bone spurs, and bloodstained blades forming its terrifying body measured in kilometers. It defied mortal comprehension, and the frightening presence could not be explained by natural phenomena. It rampaged across the skies over the vast Talronde Continent, spreading beams of destruction and sulfurous flames to the ground in a posture at once irrational, a pure harbinger of anger and destruction.
The sky during the polar day had been obscured by billowing smoke, and the giant sun, which would not set for months, was also veiled by the "night sky" created by the Dragon of Chaos. Under the dim sky, scorching black clouds hung low to the sea surface, while one powerful bolt of lightning after another crashed upon every mountain and plain of the continent.
At the edge of Talronde, chaotic gravity had torn apart more than half of the coastline, and the land curled upwards into the sky, forming fragmented giant islands that floated high above in violation of natural laws. In the heart of the continent, uncontrolled divine power created horrifying rifts leading to the elemental world, as the material world and elemental world mutually permeated, with living flames and surging ice ceaselessly reshaping everything on the ground. In the sky, a portal to the shadow realm was forcibly torn open, accompanied by every roar of the Dragon of Chaos; abyssal black lightning poured out from that portal, tearing apart the once-glorious cities and sprawling factories, and temples.
All accumulated over the past 1.87 million years on this continent dissipated like dust. That brilliant yet musty dragon civilization was being torn to pieces by its former protector—towering buildings, the pipeline networks connecting the cities, factories that once sustained the Dragonkin’s vast population... all shattered in uncontrollable gravitational storms, elemental erosion, and spatial rifts.
And amidst this apocalyptic scene, numerous dragons surged towards the sky like tides, rending the Dragon of Chaos’s body as if cold and unfeeling, bloodless and tearless machines. Missiles fired from deep underground and nearshore regions exploded into fiery seas upon it again and again, and every moment, clouds of "sand" showered from Talronde’s sky—those "sands" were the ashes of dragon remains, Omega’s manufactured steel weapons, and the continually weakened body fragments of the Dragon of Chaos.
This was an apocalyptic blood war, but how long had this blood war already raged on?
Deep beneath Talronde, a silver-white train thundered rapidly through protected tunnels, bearing mechanical weapons and ammunition supplies ready for the next battle; ancient computational centers buzzed, relentlessly calculating the firepower allocation for the next second and the remaining number of Dragonkin combatants; underground furnaces and apocalyptic factories operated day and night, converting steel billets into new weapons, or repairing the salvaged but still "repairable" dragons to reenter the fray.
And in the deepest depths of this subterranean steel kingdom, the Omega Core operated ceaselessly, coolly and efficiently—neither reverent towards the gods nor compassionate towards any flesh and blood individual.
As a machine, the core directive left by its creators deep within it has surpassed everything, driving it to carry out its final task, commanding those dragon legions, and the ever-present ancient turrets, just as it has commanded countless machines in Talronde for over a million years.
Both the number of legions and turrets are constantly reducing, yet in Omega’s precise calculations, victory will ultimately belong to it.
The "Dragon of Chaos," akin to a natural disaster, has weakened, and more importantly, it has severed the Chains of Faith with mortals, shedding its divine power. The deity is still more powerful than any creature in this world, but weaker than any phase in its own history. And those Dragonkin who were once "believers"... every attack on the Dragon of Chaos is genuinely destroying the power the latter uses to sustain itself.
On the west side of Talronde, deep underground in a mine, an attack from the gods just pierced the last layer of steel plating in the defenses.
A silver-white metallic giant egg has been destroyed, but for Omega... it merely lost an insignificant node, of which there are thousands distributed across Talronde and even in the nearby seafloor.
Inside the underground base, a heatwave surges, flames spreading through all channels and conduits, the distant sea gate has opened, the sound of seawater flooding into the mine roars like thunder.
The freshly destroyed silver-white egg-shaped device silently lies at the center of the base soon to be submerged by the sea, its shell has cracked, a multitude of sparks jump between its body and the nearby walls, near a column closest to it, some severely chaotic characters leap, showing a brief thought Omega processed before this node was destroyed:
"The meaning of life... is to perpetuate oneself...
"Creators... choose to destroy themselves...
"Contradictions... errors... lack of logic...
"Error, error, error..."
The jumping red characters appear particularly glaring in the gradually darkened depths of the base, the weak alarm sound vanishing amidst the roar of seawater and explosions from various facilities, accompanied by a thunderous noise, the last isolation door was blown open by the surging seawater, immeasurable icy seawater floods the depths of the mine, swallowing this Omega node along with its remaining fragments of thought.
Throughout Talronde, among those thousands of silver-white giant egg devices, Omega’s thinking still persists, and the blood war... continues unabated.
...
The former site of the Dragon Blood Council Headquarters, the high mountain city of Agondale has been completely destroyed, the powerful gravity storm shattered the once towering high mountain, taking everything on the mountain and the cities at its foot.
A massive structure tumbles in the out-of-control gravity environment, it boasts a magnificent transparent shell, the whole appearing both like a nest and an egg-shaped ellipsoid, on the building’s edge, a large neon fixture still contains a fragment of energy, flickering intermittently to piece together incomplete words: XX Arena.
A gigantic black limb suddenly descends from the clouds, slicing the arena building in half like a scythe, amidst successive explosions, a golden figure bursts out from the cover of the structure’s remnants, spewing scorching flames and powerful lightning across the surface of the gigantic limb, and then thrillingly dodging to the side.
This is a golden dragon, stronger and larger than most Dragonkin, its hundred-meter-long body surface is covered with the ancient glow of magic symbols, various characteristics on its body indicate this golden dragon held an extraordinary status in dragon society—but at this moment, like all other Dragonkin on the battlefield, its massive eyes had already lost their original emotions, leaving only a cold mechanical gaze.
The battle is in full swing, but suddenly, the golden dragon’s movements halt.
Its eyes seem to regain a trace of emotion, and driven by this hint of feeling, it raises its head, seeing the Dragon of Chaos in high altitudes emitting maddened chaotic roars, pale purple lightning surging among the deep dim clouds, the Dragon of Chaos’s body covered in cracks, glowing emanating from the fissures—this seemed akin to a certain critical point, heralding the battle’s final stage.
A powerful aura swiftly approached from another direction, a massive body almost comparable to the golden dragon crashed through the smoke, this is an extremely aged dragon—it might have been a Black Dragon, yet the long years and deep modifications have rendered almost all its scales grayish-white, numerous visible implants and structural modifications cover its entire body, making it look less like a dragon made of flesh and more like a flying mass of steel.
"Heragor!" The aged dragon spoke, its deep voice akin to thunder, "Quick! We won’t stay conscious much longer!"
Upon hearing his friend’s call, the golden dragon Heragor couldn’t help but look toward the "head" position of the Dragon of Chaos, seemingly trying to find a familiar gaze within that cluster of mad chaos, but found nothing.
The old dragon’s urging voice came from beside again: "Hurry! Balogar is almost here!"
Heragor retracted his gaze from the high altitude, driven by the newly rebuilt self-awareness, he resisted the uncontrollable feeling deep within his soul akin to tearing, then uncompromisingly, turned alongside the aged gray-white dragon, charging toward the distant sea.
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