Spring had returned to the earth. Situated at the southernmost edge of the continent, Port Vias even felt a little like high summer.
Emerald-green farmlands and flower-laden trees of every color blanketed the entire Vias Plain. The devastation Lin Qi had wrought here with a single blaze years ago had long since vanished. Bees and butterflies danced through the fragrant air, freely chasing that hint of sweetness within the flowers.
Along the several main roads leading to Port Vias, lavishly decorated noble carriages passed by from time to time, each surely surrounded by great clusters of brightly armored knights. The haughty knights held aloft banners of every hue, flaunting both their masters' splendor and their own beneath the brilliant sunlight.
Wherever these nobles passed, the farmers laboring in the fields and on the gentle hillsides all bowed deeply in salute, not daring to raise their heads again until a long while later.
Suddenly, waves of war drums rolled in. Deep, heavy footsteps shook the earth, and a majestic host slowly advanced from the due north. At least twenty thousand drake knights marched toward Port Vias in perfectly ordered ranks, their steps falling in unison.
Several dozen wyvern knights rode crimson two-legged wyverns and swept over the army's head on a wild gale, drawing wave after wave of mountain-shaking, sea-roaring cries from the drake knights below: "Dragon Mountain! Dragon Mountain! Dragon Mountain!"
A savage, ferocious dragon stood atop a golden mountain peak. One such banner after another danced in the fierce wind, sweeping past the farmers like banks of clouds. Some of the more timid farmers even fell to their knees, not daring to lift their heads.
This was the Longshan Family's army! A terrifying army composed entirely of drake knights!
What an overwhelmingly powerful army this was! At the Black