A roar tore through the sky, making the broken windows of ruined buildings tremble.
Above the draconic capital newly erected on the smoking ruins of Paris, dozens of winged silhouettes cut through the leaden clouds in a solemn procession that seemed to defy the laws of gravity. Draped in imperial red capes that undulated like liquid blood, girded with cuirasses of golden obsidian reflections that caught and reflected the dying light of the setting sun, the draconic nobles advanced in perfect synchronism. At their passage, the air itself shimmered, saturated with a mana so ancient and dense that it seemed to precede the birth of the stars, making every stone vibrate, every fragment of twisted metal that still littered the streets of the former City of Light.
Dimensional portals suddenly crackled in the darkened firmament, opening like gaping luminous wounds in the very fabric of the world. Space tore with the sound of reversed thunder, revealing stellar abysses dotted with violet lightning. Through these impossible breaches burst the draconic noble lineages from the four corners of the globe: from the depths of ancient forgotten volcanoes where magma had been boiling for millennia, from celestial abysses where gravity no longer held sway, from mountain peaks so isolated that no human map had ever recorded them. The most powerful families of the winged nobility finally converged toward what was once the beating heart of Europe, answering their sovereign’s call in a spectacle that would have terrified the greatest generals in History.
Their boots forged in draconic steel touched down in the main courtyard of the Command Palace, erected with surgical precision at the exact location of the former French Senate. The building itself was a marvel of impossible architecture: slender towers that seemed to defy the laws of engineering, flying buttresses carved from black metal that absorbed light, stained glass windows whose panes depicted the past conquests of the draconic empire.
Under the nobles’ heels resonated white marble veined with gold, still stained in places with brown spots that testified to the last battles the blood of human defenders who had dared to stand against the inevitable. The autumn wind carried the ashes of the old world, mingled with the intoxicating perfumes of the hanging gardens that the dragons had magically grown atop their new towers.
On a promontory carved from lunar crystal of absolute purity, shimmering with a royal aura that made the eyes of those most sensitive to mana squint, King Maelor awaited them. His silhouette stood out against the glowing sky like a statue of legend.
Motionless, arms crossed over his chest armored with obsidian scales engraved with runes of power, his incandescent golden eyes - like miniature suns - pierced the ranks with an intensity that made even the most seasoned tremble. Each beat of his dragon heart resonated in the air like a distant war drum. The shadow of power radiating from his mere presence was enough to silence the most animated conversations, to bow the proudest spines.
A step back, almost melted into the shadow of a black marble column, dressed in a sober draconic officer’s uniform with discrete but rank-revealing stripes, Elystria maintained marble silence. Her pale amber eyes did not blink as heads bowed one after another in a choreography of millennial submission.
The majestic wings folded in absolute respect, producing a rustling similar to that of a forest of black silk stirred by the breeze. One by one, the greatest lords of the draconic world - those whose names were whispered with fear in human legends, those who had razed entire civilizations with a breath came to bow before their emperor.
- "They are all here, she thought, her heart tight with an emotion she struggled to identify. All those capable of razing a nation with a breath. All those who could make humanity disappear from the surface of this planet before the sun sets."
A figure then advanced with heavy, measured steps, and instantly, as if pushed by an invisible force, all the nobles present stepped aside in his path, forming a respectful honor guard. Extraordinary jet armor, veined with glowing mana lines that pulsed like arteries in fusion, covered a massive and gnarled body where every muscle testified to decades of combat. Creeping flames glowed beneath the armor’s joints like a sleeping volcano, diffusing heat that made the air around him shimmer. His helmet, forged in the image of an ancestral dragon skull, let wisps of smoke escape through the chiseled nostrils.
Arriving a few meters from the king, the colossus knelt with surprising grace for his corpulence, his armor producing the sound of cooling forge. He lowered his head in a gesture of perfect allegiance, his inner flames dimming slightly in sign of respect.
- "Your Majesty," he articulated in a voice that evoked the rumbling of a brazier. "House Ignivara answers the throne’s call. Our forges are relit, our legions are ready, our war dragons sharpen their fangs. We await your orders with the impatience of iron calling for the hammer."
Maelor did not respond immediately, savoring this moment of absolute power. He studied Patriarch Varnor Ignivara at length, gauging the sincerity of his submission, probing the depths of his draconic soul for the slightest trace of rebellion or personal ambition.
Satisfied with his examination, he finally made his voice heard. Grave as thunder from the depths. Lightning-swift as the bolt that cleaves the night. Marked by the inflexible rigor of a sovereign forged in the ashes of a thousand wars and tempered in the blood of his enemies:
- "France is nothing more than a memory engraved in our annals of victory, Varnor. The dimensional barrier is now active throughout the territory, our mage-engineers have completed their work. The foundations of the central portal are stable as the rock of the original mountains, and our mana flows in the veins of this earth as our blood flows in our veins. But..."
He paused theatrically, letting his words resonate in the tense silence.
- "Two pillars still stand before our total domination of this pathetic world: China, with its millions of soldiers and its millennial martial techniques. And the United States, with their war technology and their derisory but cumbersome nuclear arsenal."
A heavy silence followed these words, weighted with unspoken threats and promises of destruction. In this silence, one could almost hear the nobles’ hearts beating, perceive the tension that electrified the air.
- "These nations possess the greatest military forces of this miserable planet," the king resumed, slowly pacing his promontory, each step resonating like a death knell. "The best S-rank hunters that this race of vermin has ever produced. Their defenses are organized, their populations indoctrinated, their leaders determined to resist to their last breath. If we want to definitively crush this arrogant humanity that still dares to raise its eyes toward us, it is precisely through these two bastions of their excessive pride that we must strike. Fast, hard, and without mercy."
He pointed to the horizon with a scale-gloved finger, and all gazes followed his gesture eastward, where the setting sun set the clouds ablaze with bloody reflections.
- "House Ignivara, your hour of glory has struck. You will be the sword that pierces the eastern wall, the hammer that breaks the Great Wall not of stone, but of flesh and steel. Your flames will reduce their cities to ashes, your claws will tear their banners, your roars will cover their cries of agony. You leave in exactly ten days, at the dawn of the tenth day. China must fall first, quickly and spectacularly, to serve as an example to other nations."
- "It shall be done according to your sacred will, Master of the Skies," Varnor replied without flinching, his voice vibrant with fierce determination. "Our flames will burn to the bones of their ancestors, and their lands will be nothing but a desert of smoking glass where only ravens will dare to perch."
But behind him, hidden in the shadow of gleaming cuirasses and black banners bearing the arms of the great houses, another gaze blazed with a different gleam. Darker. More personal. More dangerous.
Rejected like a mangy dog. Publicly humiliated before his peers. Demoted to the rank of simple scout, since his shameful return from mission - he who had commanded entire legions, he who had made kingdoms tremble. He was now nothing more than a name whispered in the contempt of barracks, an anecdote that young recruits told each other to mock fallen former heroes. His wounds were deep, and not only those that marked his scaly flesh. The scars of wounded pride festered in his heart like slow poison.
They whispered in the corridors that he had been beaten by a human. By his former slave, that vermiform creature he had once trained with his own hands. Snickers erupted at his passage, gazes turned away with embarrassment or contempt. He, Belgaroth the Conqueror, Belgaroth the Indomitable, reduced to the status of pathetic curiosity.
- "Isaac. No matter what name you bear now, little human vermin... he thought, his fists clenching until his claws scored the palms of his hands, making drops of black blood pearl on the marble floor. I will find you. I will hunt you to the ends of this world and others. And when my claws close around your throat, you will beg for a death that I will only grant after having savored every second of your agony."
His breath vibrated with contained rage, his scales trembled with anger that threatened to explode at any moment. Around him, some nobles sensitive to draconic emotions instinctively moved away, perceiving the threat that emanated from his person like a toxic aura.
He no longer listened to royal orders. Nor to the obsequious applause of courtiers. Nor to the grandiloquent oaths of generals. His consciousness was entirely focused on his thirst for vengeance, on this visceral need to find the one who had dared to humiliate him.
- "I will never again be anyone’s pawn on the chessboard, he swore to himself silently. I will become the storm that carries everything in its path. And woe to those who stand in my way."
And while the nobles fervently acclaimed the king’s implacable strategy, while the armies of wyverns with prismatic scales, griffons with steel talons, wyverns with membranous wings and authentic dragons aligned in perfect geometric formations, ready to set half the globe aflame with a coordinated breath...