Dragon

At noon, Kallen City's streets and alleys were instead deathly silent. The merchants had all closed their shops early, while ordinary citizens locked their doors and windows and huddled in their homes, listening in terror to the occasional noises drifting from afar.

Bang— Sezier kicked open a tall, ornate courtyard gate and swept his hand. "Arrest him."

Dozens of city guards in iron armor filed in under his command. Before long, they dragged a drunken, broad-built man out from the inner courtyard. Two burly soldiers pinned his arms behind his back, one on each side, shoved him in front of Sezier, then kicked the back of his knees from behind, forcing him to kneel.

"Lord Staff Officer, you..." The man had not fully sobered up yet. He belched through bleary eyes. "What's all this about?"

Sezier grabbed the man's messy hair, which covered half his face, and yanked him close almost by the scalp, carefully studying his features.

"Hiss—ow, ow, ow!" the man cried out despite himself.

"It's him. Take him away," Sezier said coldly.

"Yes!" the soldiers answered in low voices. They immediately hauled the man up from the ground, clapped shackles on his wrists and ankles, then kicked and beat him into the prison cart waiting on the street.

Right after that, they hurried without pause toward their next target.

In the past two hours alone, scenes like this had already happened more than a dozen times—first, the thirty new-army soldiers Hectorv had arranged to stay behind were disarmed and secretly executed; immediately after, the Leyndell Knights who had remained in the city were arrested one after another.

More than half of these knights were retainers of the Ofnir Family, while the rest were personal guards who had followed Hectorv himself since the Second Liurnian War. They could be considered the core force he trusted most.

But perhaps Sezier's actions were simply too swift and decisive, or perhaps these lord knights' lifestyles had grown too lax, to the point that they had long since lost a warrior's instincts. In short, when the city guards broke into their homes, they encountered almost no real resistance. The only obstacle was that the soldiers were timid at first and did not dare rough these men up—but that problem was quickly resolved after Sezier directly beheaded one knight.

At twelve-thirty, the seventeen Leyndell Knights who had remained in the city were all escorted to the Central Citadel at the heart of the city, a fortress that combined military stronghold, administrative offices, and officials' residences. Sezier summoned every soldier in the citadel who did not belong to Hectorv's faction, then announced that these knights had colluded with certain rebellious soldiers in the city to leak military intelligence to the enemy, causing the governor, the internal affairs officer, and the expedition force to fall into an ambush. According to the dynasty's law, they were to be executed immediately.

Within five minutes of the order being issued, these knights, who had only just been dragged out of their nests of comfort and were still dazed, did not even have time to think about who had framed them before soldiers wielding great axes lopped off their heads.

Afterward, Sezier temporarily promoted a group of soldiers as lower-ranking officers, tasking them with leading men to maintain martial law throughout the city, strictly forbidding anyone from entering or leaving the gates to pass on information. At the same time, he secretly dispatched a squad of the most elite arbalists to climb the walls, just in case.

Clearly, both this staff officer, who held full authority over the city's military and political affairs, and this group of elite soldiers serving as the main force in this bloody upheaval were backup plans left behind by Clareville.

Over the course of an entire year, he had secretly used perfuming arts countless times, subtly eroding them until they became puppets who obeyed only him. In his plan for revenge, even if Hectorv seized a one-in-ten-thousand chance and escaped back to the foot of Kallen City, all that awaited him would be locked gates and a hail of crossbow bolts.

But at this very moment, to Clareville, who stood inside Sunset Pass, none of that mattered anymore.

He looked down by his feet. Hectorv's head had rolled onto the ground and was already covered in dust and blood. In those awe-inspiring eyes that always seemed ready to devour someone, all that remained was deep terror. Before sudden death, this eminent baron of noble birth no longer showed any trace of his former dignity or martial splendor—in this respect, compared to those he had once defeated, slaughtered, and despised, he seemed no different at all.

"Your great revenge is done. How does it feel?" Turak sheathed his blade and walked up with a smile. As he spoke, he casually kicked Hectorv's head with the toe of his boot into a nearby pile of corpses.

Clareville let out a deep breath, but gave no answer. Not the slightest hint of excitement could be seen in his eyes. As an onlooker, the only thing one could catch was a faint sense of release and sorrow.

After a long silence, he glanced at the Demi-humans and Misbegotten cleaning up the battlefield around them and said, "Kruger should be arriving soon, right?"

He knew that the Misbegotten priest who had plotted this affair with him was in worsening health by the day, so he did not suspect anything about the man's failure to come to the battlefield in person.

"Ah, that old fellow..." The one who answered was not Turak, but Soleto, who was walking over slowly with a squad of Misbegotten warriors. "Before we came, he specifically told us to invite you to the allied army camp once things here were cleaned up, so everyone could discuss the handover of all the supplies afterward."

"The allied army camp?" Clareville instinctively sensed something was wrong. "The details of the transaction were settled long ago. Even if there's something to add, what can't be said here?"

"Tch, listen to you," Turak said, spreading his hands innocently. "That's just what he told us. It's not like we'd lie to you, is it?"

"Look over there—" He pointed at the valley exit that had mostly collapsed from the explosion. "Go out that way, then another thirty miles north and you'll reach our camp. It's just a few steps. No need to be so fussy, right?"

Clareville subconsciously looked in the direction he was pointing. Behind him, Soleto chimed in from the side, "Exactly, exactly..."

Suddenly, a completely unheralded sense of alarm surged up in his heart. He whipped around, only to see Soleto yank a warhammer from behind his back and smash it toward his ribs with all his might. At the same instant, the Misbegotten warriors around them drew their blades and hacked at him!

A string of explosive metal clashes rang out. The enhancement from War Frenzy had not yet ended; in that hair's breadth of a moment, Clareville drew his sword and blocked Soleto's warhammer, then swept his blade backhanded and sent several Misbegotten warriors charging up front flying. But before he could counterattack further, a vicious, tricky streak of blade-light came slashing in from the side. Turak's Kaidan Longblade crashed against the longsword in his hand, jarring his palm slightly numb.

As they locked together, Soleto charged in bodily with his warhammer in hand. The force that erupted from his massive body in an instant sent Clareville flying, his back slamming hard into a nearby rock wall. Soleto seized the chance and leaped up, bringing the warhammer, as large as a human head, crashing down from midair. Clareville swung his sword horizontally to block, but was smashed down onto one knee at once. His longsword was pinned firmly in place, leaving him unable to move for the moment!

"Quick, I won't be able to hold him down much longer!" Soleto shouted, his face flushed red as they struggled against each other.

Just then, a black shadow swept rapidly past him, and an incomparably sharp blade stabbed fiercely toward Clareville's heart!

The noonday sunlight was gentle, yet Clareville, facing that long blade head-on, felt a cold that sank deep into his bones. A trace of helplessness flashed through his eyes. As death approached, he silently closed them.

Clang—

A metallic hum rang out, accompanied by a strange grinding sound. Turak's figure, blurred for a moment by his speed, suddenly stopped as if he had crashed into a wall of bronze and iron. A gray-haired, red-eyed youth appeared out of thin air in the open space between the three of them. He had merely stretched out one hand at random, yet easily gripped that unstoppable blade!

Fine gray-white scales grew from his palm. The Kaidan Longblade forged of cold iron was crushed by immense force into a twisted sheet of metal. Turak and Soleto opened their mouths to speak, but at the same time they felt a vast pressure descend with a boom, like a great hand clenching their hearts tight, forcing their bodies to tremble and crawl toward the ground as though obeying an animal instinct!

"You are..." Turak forced out the two words with difficulty. His taut neck barely supported his head as he twisted it around, and from the corner of his eye, he caught sight of two membranous wings filled with a savage, ancient aura suddenly spreading behind the youth. The youth grabbed Clareville by the shoulder, and the two of them shot up from the ground together amid a storm that erupted without warning!

Inside Sunset Pass, countless allied warriors had been immersed in a frenzy of killing and looting one second before. The next, when they saw that black shadow soar into the sky, they all fell into endless panic and bewilderment at once!

Amid the chaos, another terrifying figure that blotted out the sky came bearing down from the direction of the valley mouth.

In all the endless years The Lands Between had experienced and would face, there was one and only one kind of creature that possessed such majesty and grace, such ferocity and splendor at the same time—they had once been the beacons of civilization, and also the embodiment of power.

"Dragon—"

Amid that overwhelming fire of destruction, someone screamed wildly.