City of Sin

Book 7, 136

Legendary Theatre(2)

Thousands of draconians were running around in the withered forest, building a huge magic array. Every warehouse nearby was already packed to the brim with materials, and even so large heaps could be seen all over. Dragons were regularly flying in to offload more resources, just the fact that they were willing to do this personally showing just how valuable the materials were.

Kralkalor was circling up above in the sky, roaring in anger ever so often. Every roar caused the draconians down below to shudder in fear; he had been violent and temperamental in recent days, killing his subordinates regularly. Every glance at the mountains of materials reminded him of the huge debt that he had just incurred from Bahamut; he would lose his beloved mate if he could not repay in time.

Mesmerwing wasn’t only a beauty in the draconic world, but also held a powerful bloodline. Her descendants were destined to be powerhouses, and in only a year she would go into heat— something that only happened once in three decades. Kralkalor only had one thing in mind; he had to kill all of the humans in Faelor and hope they had enough resources to pay off Bahamut. Reneging was not an option; Bahamut was a powerful existence on par with Tiamat that he was far from being able to contend with.

Kralkalor had always been quick-tempered, unwilling to wait even a second. He had been glancing at the portal ever since it could first fit him through, only refraining from rushing through because he was likely to be wounded in the process. It would also alert the gods on the other end, and he didn’t want the gods of Faelor interfering before he could find the wretched human that killed his son.

During one such glance towards the portal, he suddenly saw it flash as a lone silhouette walked through. He started diving down, but as he saw who it was he flapped his wings hard to stop himself.

This was Nolan! The Dragon Slayer was here!

Nolan had once left many dragons trembling at his feet. Kralkalor himself had a close brush with death at the human legend’s hands in his youth, and as the Dragon Slayer’s aura started to flare traumatic memories bubbled up to mind. The dragon roared in fear and rage, launching a breath attack before the guards could even do anything.

The so-called Dragon Slayer disappeared into a wisp of smoke, many draconians accompanying him in death. Two modules of the teleportation gate were also destroyed in the process.

Kralkalor froze in confusion; the nightmare of all dragonkind had disappeared just like that?

Before he could even recover, another familiar figure walked through the gate. This one was no less familiar than Nolan; the Celestial Sage Ruben, surrounded by his signature rain of starlight. Kralkalor spewed another breath attack instinctively, and this figure disappeared as well. Another of the portal modules was damaged in the process.

The portal went quiet for a few minutes before a third person appeared. This time, it was Richard. Kralkalor had learnt his lesson and didn’t act at first, instead having the draconians get into formation; he found the human familiar, but could not recall the name.

Just like Nolan and Ruben, Richard’s aura flared up to the level of sainthood, and he started going through the motions of spellcasting. However, this time there was no illusion; a dozen fireballs were sprayed out of Richard’s hands, and a storm of blue flames instantly swallowed the draconians nearby. It was only when he turned around and returned through the gate that Kralkalor realised this was a real opponent.

......

That first attack by Richard was only the start of the torment. Over the next few days, Kralkalor saw a number of legendary beings from the Blood Sovereign Orden to the Elemental Lord Tumon, High Scholar Soremburg, and even the recent Dragon Slaver Sharon.

The dragon felt like his heart had grown much stronger in a matter of days, more so than his past eight centuries of experience. No matter who came out from the gate, he would no longer attack at full strength; if that happened again, he would be out of materials to rebuild the spell formation. Already having used up the entirety of what he had borrowed, a single spatial stone more was beyond him. Still, it took all of his patience to calm his pounding heart whenever he saw a recognisable figure.

At this point, he even felt like being a dragon wasn’t a good thing. His kind had long lives and too much knowledge; if he didn’t recognise all of the frightening figures coming through the portal, he would not be as vexed as he was.

All sorts of powerhouses came through the portal. Orden appeared six times, and Nolan a total of nine. Richard showed himself eight times, while Zangru, Phaser, Waterflower, and Tiramisu each did five or six. Most were fakes, but every real one caused massive casualties around the portal even if they didn’t harm the portal itself. While draconians were basically livestock, even Kralkalor felt uncomfortable losing as many as he was.

Unable to endure the losses, the dragon eventually withdrew the guards a safe distance away from the portal to allow any entrants to come in closer. This worked against the first few fakes, but then Richard changed his strategy. He only took one step out of the portal before turning to an incomplete magic array, hurling a fireball towards it.

The moment he saw those blue flames, the dragon felt like someone had clawed into his heart. He howled in despair and charged over, planning to block the next attack with his own body, but Richard just stepped back through.

The dragon knew that Richard’s strange blue flames were exceptionally powerful, but even so the damage to the spell formation almost caused him to faint. Nearly a cubic metre of the sturdy base had been melted away; how was this the power of a mere fireball? Even an adult red’s breath wasn’t this strong!

It took some time for Kralkalor to calm down. Taking a good look at the damage, he sighed with relief that the spatial stones had suffered minimal damage. While the other resources were still expensive, he could get more. The grade 9 barrier around the module had been of some use, but that had already evaporated.

Gritting his teeth, the dragon decided he couldn’t suffer these losses and sent his subordinates to guard the gates once more. A staggering number of them died each day, depleting another of his limited resources. He eventually lost all of his, having to borrow from other dragons to maintain the cost. With his credit lowering by the day, he could only agree to increasingly stringent conditions.

At some point, the gold dragon had become the laughing stock of the Dragon Plane. However, there was no going back at this point and nothing to fall back on; he could only hope to conquer Faelor and pay off all of his debts. Kralkalor had once dispatched a group of draconians through the portal to harass the human in a similar manner, but when none of them returned he realised the stupidity of the idea. He had to protect the spell formations around the portal, but Richard did not. Even now, he was relying on the humans being overconfident enough to let him finish the portal without just closing the other end. At the same time, he had lost most of his saints and grand warlocks, while those that remained couldn’t compare to the human’s followers.

Outside of Richard, Tiramisu, Phaser, Waterflower, and Zangru all had the ability to kill dragons. Mountainsea had gone through the portal once as well. While her energy levels weren’t worth mentioning, her body was frighteningly powerful. She had found one of Kralkalor’s subordinate dragons the moment she stepped through, rushing over and smashing down with Eleventon. The dragon completely ignored the toothpick-like rod as it tried to smack the offender away with a paw, but a crisp shatter rang out as its claws were smashed to pieces.

Thankfully, that dragon had been quick-witted enough to take off immediately, flying away before she could give chase. For her part, Mountainsea saw that she couldn’t get to the dragon immediately and followed Richard’s instructions to return.

Days passed, and the dragons guarding the portal saw an increasing number of legendary beings that were famous in the myriad planes. Richard had first only sent models of Norlanders, but he had eventually contacted Thor at the Mage Association to get all non-secret information on any others. In a single day the astral chrysalis then shipped over a few hundred legends of various types, even including Maranos the Brain-Eater whom Philip had killed during his attack on the Fort of Dawn. This was a miniature version, only ten metres long from head to tail, but with Richard having seen the corpse himself, the broodmother hadn’t missed a single detail.

Over the next few days, almost every famous plane-farer in this section of the void showed themselves in the Dragon Plane. Many bored dragons came after receiving the news, wanting to look at the display while they mocked Kralkalor for his failures.