The weather at sea could change in an instant.
At some point, thick, lead-gray clouds had sunk low over the sea, seemingly close enough to touch, their weight making it hard to breathe.
The wind had died as well. The air stood still, heavy with the oppressive hush before a downpour and a faint, unsettling tremor.
Or perhaps this strange weather was not entirely natural.
Whenever that creature from another world stretched its body, inadvertently releasing a trace of the ancient aura of a higher order of being, the surrounding world seemed to respond with a silent resonance and... shudder.
Aegon withdrew his gaze from the sky, so dark it seemed about to drip ink, and turned around.
Behind him lay the clearing in the pirate camp, still reeking of blood after the brief battle.
The dozens of newly recruited pirate captives, along with the earlier batch of outlaws who had "submitted," all stood frozen in place.
Their usual ferocity and slyness had vanished, leaving only an almost petrified horror born of the instinct to survive.
Wide eyes, their pupils contracted to pinpoints, stared helplessly up in the same direction.
Reflected in those pupils was a tall figure in black armor, with silver hair and a red cloak stirring faintly in the nearly motionless sea breeze.
And, just behind that figure, the source... that seemed to make even the sky hang low.
A dragon.
A real, living dragon, not something that existed only in a bard's song or a drunkard's boasts-a dragon!
The creature stood there silently, pale golden scales still gleaming with a restrained, majestic coldness even in that dim light.
Atop long, powerful necks, three heads straight out of myth hung slightly lowered. Six slit pupils, seemingly cast from molten gold, calmly surveyed the humans below, as insignificant