"Did you never think of asking the outside world for help? If Soul Eater is sealed now, why didn't you seal it or destroy it for good from the start?" Steve Rogers asked, puzzled.
Ying Nan looked at him and shook her head with a bitter smile. "We couldn't. More precisely, with our strength alone, we had no way to resist Soul Eater or fight back. At first, all we could do was watch it devour our people and our land, bit by bit."
"That desperate situation only changed when the Great Protector appeared."
"The Great Protector?" Steve Rogers knew about the winged, flying lizards that Westerners pictured as dragons, but he knew little about the dragons of Eastern legend.
"Yes." A distant look crossed Ying Nan's eyes. "The Great Protector was a divine being who came from beyond the heavens. Its arrival brought Ta Lo—and all of us—hope beyond words. It also gave us the power to fight back ourselves."
"Do you mean those weapons with the glowing red patterns?" Steve Rogers recalled the unusual weapons Uncle Guang and the others had carried earlier. Nearly everyone had one.
Their material visibly glowed even in daylight. It was clearly something special.
"That's right. Those are dragon-scale weapons, the power the Great Protector brought to Ta Lo."
As Ying Nan spoke, she led Leon and the others into a rustic timber workshop. Smiths stood before blazing furnaces, watching a scale-like metal substance heat until it glowed red.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Hammers struck the red-hot scales, ringing out against the metal.
One weapon after another was taking shape with dragon scales worked into it.
Many were the staffs, blades, and shields Uncle Guang and the others had wielded.
Curious, Pietro picked up a dragon-scale staff like Uncle Guang's. Dragon scales reinforced both