City of Sin

Book 7, 166

Please Be Patient

Under the gaze of the Five-Coloured Dragon, Bahamut immediately grew flustered, “Forgive me, Goddess. I believe the appearance of the Celestial Sage and Sharon necessitated the interruption. Sharon has already defeated me... she is a very dangerous opponent. When she returns, she will have had the time to research the laws of her plane, and no one will be able to stop her outside of you. Ruben is not known for his power, but he has enjoyed a great reputation for centuries; this is his second time here, and we have completely lost track of his whereabouts. The potential damage he can cause is just as great.”

“Sharon... Is that the child they call the Dragon Slaver?”

“Yes.”

“I have only heard of her recently. Can you not even defeat a young girl?”

Bahamut lowered his head, “I had Kralkalor’s assistance at the battle near the portal to Faelor, but even so I could not stop her escape. She still captured five of our kin and killed seven others.”

The Five-Coloured Dragon yawned, “A few captures is no need to interrupt my... Wait, how many did you say?”

“Five captured and seven killed in battle. We lost a total of twelve in a few minutes.”

The Five-Coloured Dragon’s eyes widened, rainbow fog shooting out from between her teeth as she snorted in fury. The entire secret space shook, causing the lazing animals to flee in all directions.

“What are the other brats doing? Do they only know how to feast and wait for death?!”

“Tiamat has gone missing for some time now, while the Ice Dragon is in gestation. The other two are hibernating.”

“Where is Tiamat?” the dragon goddess snorted.

“Rumour has it that she went to Norland, falling into Sharon’s hands.”

“Are you certain?”

“No, Goddess. It is hearsay.”

“Then go find out! A child that hasn’t yet lived a thousand years dares to enslave one of my legendary dragons? She will pay the price for her arrogance.” Seeing Bahamut nod, her voice softened, “Is there anything else that requires my attention.”

“Only trivial matters. Three of my dragons are missing today, and only one can be linked to the Celestial Sage. The other two were far apart, they could just be harmed in petty fights.”

“If it’s trivial, don’t bother me with it! More than ten planes and hundreds of thousands of dragons, are you going to inform me of every little skirmish?”

The flame dragon immediately went mute. Just as he was about to leave, however, a strange creature no bigger than a human palm flew into the space. It looked like a dragon shrunk countless times over, but it had transparent wings similar to a dragonfly instead. It flew at speeds comparable to Bahamut itself, letting out a series of sharp cries.

This was a dragon spirit, a type of creature that acted as a messenger for the Five-Coloured Dragon. Although it was tiny, it shared the power of the Goddess herself and could control her laws to an extent. Even legendary beings would pay the price for underestimate it.

As the creature conveyed its message in its own language, the Five-Coloured Dragon blinked and raised her head, “Five more disappearances? Is this including Bahamut’s territory?”

“No, my Goddess.”

The Five-Coloured Dragon’s eyes narrowed and raised its hill-like head, looking at the flame dragon who was cowering like a little pup, “Eight missing in a single day, this is strange regardless of distance. Go, find out if there are more. I need to know immediately!”

With the Dragon Goddess’s building rage, the entire secret realm dimmed. A wave of power buried Bahamut, leaving him unable to even raise his head. Struggling to his feet, he rapidly shrunk down to his absolute limit of ten metres before opening a portal and running away.

The Five-Coloured Dragon did not return to her sleep, instead waiting for the results of the search. Spirits from the forest dispersed in all directions, and less than an hour later Bahamut emerged from a cloud of fire once more.

“Mighty Goddess, a total of nineteen people have gone missing in the past three days; we can only confirm the one that was due to Ruben. The range is vast, and there seems to be no connection between any of them.”

The Five-Coloured Dragon stared at him and asked calmly, “What do you think?”

His voice trembled, “So many dragons vanishing cannot be a coincidence, and we cannot attribute it all to infighting. There aren’t any large-scaled civil wars right now that would cause this, and even so there should have been corpses left behind... We are being hunted.”

“That is to say...”

At this point, Bahamut put aside his fear and went straight to the point, “Even the Celestial Sage couldn’t cause more than a third of this damage. At least ten legendary hunters have infiltrated this plane, and I cannot understand their route of entry. I cannot deal with them alone; we need your assistance.”

The Five-Coloured Dragon nodded, her enormous head that was more than a kilometre long whipping up a powerful gust as it moved. Her large body seemed to meld into the surrounding mountains, making it difficult to tell which was which, “I was interrupted before even a decade, Bahamut. You have disappointed me greatly.”

Her voice was calm, but the flame dragon’s body shuddered.

......

Back on Faelor’s side, Richard had set up heavy defences around the portal. One of his sky saint followers was nearby at all times, leading fifty rune knights with dragonblood spears prepared. Even if Kralkalor himself emerged from the portal, he would be grievously wounded at minimum.

This watertight defence was a stark contrast from the other side, where there still wasn’t any organisation at all. However, this was also a general difference between Norland and the Dragon Plane. Norlanders excelled in strategy and tactics, but the dragons were so powerful they wouldn’t concern themselves with such things.

At this moment, Dragon Valley was Richard’s biggest priority, with a large number of rune knights converging on the location. Knowing that legendary beings were coming to Faelor soon, the broodmother had also returned to the Land of Turmoil and focused all her energy on reinforcing the defences of the larval forest. At this point, she even controlled the laws in the location to some extent, greatly hurting the combat ability of any legend that wandered in.

The most deadly trap of all was the belts of timeforce. The larval forest could now push them into specific locations at seemingly irregular intervals, ensuring that even Richard couldn’t fly around as he wished. The rifts constantly disappeared and reappeared, so only someone on Sharon’s level could go through the place without a significant risk to their life.

Even if someone managed to break through the larval forest, the broodmother still had another ace up her sleeve as well. The legion of artificial demigods were extremely powerful even if short-lived, capable of making anyone suffer.

Remaining in the Dragon Valley, Richard spent most of the next few days on Midren. However, he was also using his breaks to examine the possibility of building a base on the other end of the portal. He came up with over a hundred ideas in only two days, but most were infeasible or too slow. They would also lock up a good section of his army in Faelor. The best plan actually had an 80% chance of success, but he vaguely felt a sense of unease in his heart as though he had overlooked an important factor. Eventually, he decided to put the plan off for the future until the situation was clearer.

Although Dragon Valley was important, there were other matters he couldn’t delay too much as well. Estimating the time it would take, he eventually flew straight east.

......

At the border of the Iron Triangle Empire, a large army was marching in formation through muddy roads. Right in the middle of the troops was Gangdor, yawning from exhaustion due to the journey. He suddenly slapped the top of his bald head, causing a slight squelch as a mosquito the size of a finger was smashed into a mangled mess.

“THIS GODFORSAKEN PLACE!” he cursed, cleaning his head for what felt like the billionth time. He suddenly looked up into the sky, “OI! CAN’T YOU MAKE SOMETHING TO WIPE THESE MOSQUITOES OUT?”

A cold voice responded from up above, “Your request has been submitted. Please remain patient, it shall be dealt with quickly.”

“Fuck your quickly! I’ll be sucked dry before you do it!” he bellowed, waving his fist in anger.

“Please remain patient,” the cloned brain transmitted again.

Gangdor almost jumped off his horse in rage, but he just shook his head and sighed helplessly. No matter how much he protested, the cloned brain only answered with the same sentence each time. It was impossible to know whether the broodmother actually received the message.

The northern wastes of the Iron Triangle Empire were vast yet sparsely populated, the conditions to harsh for living. Even the summers could freeze over and it rained whenever it wasn’t snowing; the place was just one huge swamp. There were no special species of magical beasts here, but all sorts of strange insects were present in large numbers. Sometimes, a swarm of poisonous mosquitoes would cluster so densely that it looked like black fog spanning an entire kilometre.

The Crimson Army had a number of mages that could wipe out the swarms with fire magic, but nothing could be done about those mosquitoes that came individually. Moving along the road, even Gangdor’s bald head was peppered with a few swells everyday.

The ordinary soldiers fared much worse. Even with the excessive supplies of the Dukedom, many warriors had fallen out of the march due to illness. Several hundred had collapsed from disease in the past half month, having to be sent to the rear for medical attention. The army was only saved by a special dispatchment of two wasps and a dozen chrysalides to help them along.