The strange city floated at a tilt in the Shadow Plane. It was roughly the size of an island, with tall, slender towers of gray stone rising from it. After hundreds of thousands of years, however, their magical glow had long since faded. They looked no different from ordinary stone buildings.
Green vines carpeted the city, their lush growth adding a splash of color to the Shadow Plane's dim world. A clear stream flowed over the edge and fell into the Void, only to loop around and return to the city, as though an invisible riverbed ran through the emptiness.
"Floating City!"
Jiang Hao recognized it the moment he saw it. This was the Floating City he had been looking for.
Then he turned his gaze to the enormous Dragon.
The Dragon belonged to no known species. Half of it resembled a Shadow Dragon native to the Shadow Plane, with hard Scales and flesh that shifted constantly between matter and shadow. Sharp, backward-curving bones jutted from it. The other half was exposed bone, with a crimson heart pounding inside its pale, hollow rib cage. Each beat made the dark red blood vessels beneath its bones swell.
A Modified Dragon!
The name sprang instinctively to Jiang Hao's mind.
During the Third Era, known as the Netheril era, Mages had piloted Floating Cities to conquer one Plane after another. Countless creatures at the top of their food chains had fallen into the Mages' hands and been transformed into war machines. Among them were Dragons, powerful beings famed across many planes.
Dragons transformed by the Mages were collectively known as Modified Dragons.
The vast Dragon felt the light spreading through the dim world and instinctively recoiled. It glanced toward the source with its huge, silver-white eyes, flicked its tail, beat its wings, and