Deep within the Ser Wilderness, in the Sky Pit Territory.
Moonlight flowed silently, casting a silver sheen over the towering northern wall of the great pit.
An adult chro dragon was currently approaching like a cautious stalker, carefully retracting his razor-sharp talons and setting them down softly on the hard ground. His careful, tentative manner made him look like a young dragon trying to hunt for the first ti, afraid of spooking his prey.
He held a carefully prepared courtship gift in his mouth.
A whole iron-flower tree, perfectly preserved in a block of cold ice.
This was a magical plant extrely rare even in the wasteland.
It possessed an incredible ability to draw massive earth-elent energy from the depths and convert it into substance, growing branches as hard as steel. This trait made it one of the natural wonders most adored by the iron dragon kin, who had a native affinity and taste for tal.
“Leticia!”
The chro dragon placed the ice-sealed iron-flower tree solemnly at the entrance of the iron dragon’s cavern.
He raised his long neck and loudly proclaid the iron dragon’s na, voicing his admiration.
“Accept my burning devotion! If you are willing, I promise you I will make the entire Ser forest bloom with dazzling steel flowers for you.”
At that mont,
a lazy, massive shadow extended slowly from the cavern’s deep darkness, accompanied by the faint scrape of heavy scales against stone.
The iron dragon Leticia finally revealed herself.
Her scales were not purely black; they shimred with a cold, hard tallic luster, like countless sharpened blades welded together.
Her dragon-might aura was noticeably far stronger than that of the chro dragon before her, Erik.
Her vertical pupils surveyed him with a scrutinizing gaze, sizing up the chro dragon outside the cave — his posture, the sheen of his scales, even the attitude and sincerity he displayed now.
Chro dragons and iron dragons both belonged to the Iron Hybrid Dragons line and tended toward lawful evil in nature.
From snout to tail, a long dorsal fin slotted smoothly along his spine; he bore brilliant horns and broad, slick wings; his scales looked like liquid tal, reflecting the terrain around him. At a glance, he could be mistaken for a silver dragon, eting dragonkind’s standards for handso, flawless appearance.
In deanor, the chro dragon was equally impeccable.
Every ti he ca to visit, he prepared a different gift with painstaking attention.
Each offering was chosen only after careful observation and consideration, determined to be sothing Leticia would favor.
Unfortunately, Leticia’s deepest standards for a mate leaned toward dragons who surpassed her in power and life level — dragons she could truly look up to.
She felt little interest in suitors clearly younger and weaker than herself.
After only a few seconds of inspection,
she lashed her tail, swept up the precious ice-encased iron-flower tree, and flung it back without a trace of sentintality, where it landed neatly at the chro dragon’s feet.
“I’ve told you more than once.”
Her words were decisive, leaving no room for fantasy: “Don’t bother bringing these... low-value trinkets again. I have no interest in you. Leave my territory now.”
Her posture was cold and aloof, radiating an aura that pushed other dragons away.
Yet
the chro dragon was infatuated with Leticia’s dominant, cold, and decisive nature.
He lowered his head a little, his voice deliberately softened into humility and earnestness.
“I know you prefer dragons stronger than yourself.”
“But Leticia, please consider this: those evil dragons who tower over you in strength — are they truly trustworthy in their hearts?”
“They constantly think about how to dominate you, rule you, to fold your will entirely into theirs and turn you into their vassal.”
He lifted his head slightly and looked the iron dragon in the eye.
“If that’s the case, why not try a completely different kind of relationship?”
The chro dragon murmured softly: “I admit my weakness.”
“At least in strength, I cannot match you at present.”
“But doesn’t that also an I’d be more willing to yield to you, to accommodate your wishes, never opposing your desires?”
“I would even accept your humiliation, let you indulge in that sense of control that cos from being the stronger party.”
In temperant, the chro dragon shared so cunning traits with the sly green dragons — masters of disguise, excellent conversationalists, skilled deceivers.
They sotis mimic a full silver sheen on their scales and use an elegant silver-dragon guise to approach intelligent beings. When those targets let down their guard, mistaking them for noble silver dragons, they strike lethally without warning.
Now the chro dragon was clearly channeling that natural knack for persuasion and seduction toward courtship.
Leticia fell into a brief silence.
Though her massive form still maintained a rejecting posture, subtle motion at the tip of her tough tail — a slight sway, a softened arc — betrayed a clue to any keen observer: so point in the chro dragon’s speech had indeed pricked the deep-rooted corner of her desire for control, stirring a flicker of interest.
Sensing the opening, the chro dragon pushed his advantage.
“Leticia, can you feel it? The wasteland’s atmosphere is growing tenser by the day. The air is thick with a scent of sulfur, as if a conflagration is about to be ignited.”
“But danger often brings enormous opportunity. This turbulent swell is precisely the mont for us to rise and seize greater power!”
“I know your dream! I know you will not willingly miss such a once-in-a-lifeti chance! I also know that to realize your grand design, you cannot rely on being a lone dragon; you need reliable and powerful allies!”
Erik puffed out his chest, his tone full of sincerity and commitnt:
“I promise you, Leticia! If you accept , I will firmly stand behind you, devoting all my wisdom and strength to expand your magnificent domain and beco your most trustworthy aide!”
Leticia fell silent again.
This ti the pause lasted longer, as if she were weighing pros and cons, plotting every possible outco.
After a few seconds, she slowly shook her massive head.
“Every word you said just now was indeed the sweetest thing I could want to hear.”
Her inner light was sharp as a blade: “But precisely because of that, I can assert with perfect clarity — you’re using the chro dragon’s most practiced trick of flattery and guile!”
Leticia’s voice was ironclad.
“All airy sweet nothings and castles-in-the-sky promises only lead hopeful dragons into the chasm of disappointnt.
A dragon once vowed to restrain his chaotic nature for my sake; the result was the exact opposite.”
The chro dragon opened his mouth.
He wanted to say more, but the iron dragon had already taken a step forward, unfurled her wings, lifted her right claw slightly, eyes coldly fixed on him: “I don’t want to say this twice. Get out of my territory.”
Feeling the iron dragon’s overwhelming might,
the chro dragon wrestled inwardly, retreated a short distance, and then flapped his wings and flew upward, gradually leaving the Sky Pit Territory.
Leticia did not fold her wings until she confird the chro dragon had vanished from sight. She then turned back to her cavern and lay down at her steel throne, closing her eyes slightly.
The chro dragon had not been entirely wrong.
Her keen senses had already detected the tense atmosphere spreading across the wasteland, like sulfur embers about to flare.
She would not give up this chance that might alter destiny.
Thus, she needed ti and absolute calm to deliberate and carefully plan every crucial step toward the future.
Elsewhere,
the chro dragon beat his broad wings hard and flew alone across the vast, silent expanse.
Suddenly!
An overwhelmingly intense, almost suffocating sulfur stench, sharp and pungent like a volcanic core erupting, hit him without warning.
Erik’s scales bristled; a chilling sense of deadly danger washed over him.
He whipped his long neck around, eyes locking onto the direction of the sll.
What entered his vision was a red dragon so massive it stole his breath.
Its scales were a deep, coagulated-blood red, crisscrossed with scars that marked countless brutal battles — broken scales that had been shattered and healed again, leaving Battle-Hardened Patterns like dals.
This red dragon’s expression was savage and feral.
Even as a cold-type chro dragon, Erik felt suffocated by the pressure just from seeing him.
“Lowly reptile, run! Use every ounce of your strength to flee.”
The red dragon’s low, hoarse roar carried cruel mockery, thundering through the wind and rolling clouds like a death knell.
“For when you reach the mont I finally finish you, you will find that all the so-called ‘pains’ you once endured are as sweet as candied fruit!”
Erik felt icy dread; his scales stood on end.
He sensed imminent death, so he beat his wings and fled. But as peals of raucous laughter and roars echoed, the pungent sulfur sll closed in.
Not long after, in the depths of the Sky Pit Territory,
Leticia suddenly opened her eyes.
A very familiar — yet shocking — mingled scent of blood and sulfur fluttered into her cavern on the night breeze, making her scales tighten all over.
“Gorthax?!”
She whispered in a mix of alarm and disbelief, then whipped her wings and darted from the cavern.
Beneath the dense, ink-like night, two enormous dragons hovered above the Sky Pit Territory.
Just as Leticia burst out of the cavern, she witnessed a heart-stopping scene.
One of the dragons, the smaller one, was plumting from the high sky like a kite cut loose — or more accurately,
being flung like refuse by an irresistible force toward the hard ground.
A heavy, muffled crash exploded.
The chro dragon’s body struck the cold, hard earth like a shattered ragdoll, then — silence as cold as death.
Leticia’s sharp light pierced the dust and instantly fixed on that mangled carcass.
The huge wings had been brutally broken and twisted at cruel angles; the long neck was contorted into a grotesque helix; the body was covered in blackened, pungent scorch marks from flas — life utterly vanished.
Boom!
A terrifying, teoric sound accompanied the deep crimson red dragon as he landed beside the shattered chro corpse.
“Gorthax!”
Leticia’s roar cracked like thunder.
Facing Leticia’s fury — eyes almost spewing molten ire — the red dragon Gorthax split his maw into a tooth-filled grin and laughed: “My dear Leticia, my treasure, my priceless jewel.”
“Decades apart, and you remain as graceful and beautiful as ever.”
Leticia crouched low, tail like a steel whip coiling and twitching behind her, growling: “Get out! Gorthax! Leave my territory this instant!”
The red dragon paid no heed to the murderous tone; instead, he laughed in a low, delighted voice.
He extended huge claws streaked with chro-dragon blood and toyed with the twisted skull like a broken plaything.
“Your little plaything can’t even withstand a few of my casual swipes — pathetic and fragile, Little Let. Seems your taste has really gone downhill since before.”
He suddenly seed to find sothing amusing. With a flex of his thick tail he plucked up the chro dragon’s broken horn tip.
Then he crookedly perched that snapped horn like a crown atop his own massive, spike-ridden head.
“Hahaha!”
Gorthax’s roar of laughter shook the air. “Look! See how majestic I appear now — invincible, supre!? This is the regal bearing that matches you, Leticia!”
Leticia could no longer hold back.
Her claws shattered stone, wings beating up a gale, and her twenty-ter-long hardened form lunged at Gorthax.
At the instant the iron dragon charged, the mocking grin on the red dragon’s face vanished like a mask flipped off.
He swung his flaming crimson claw without rcy at the onrushing iron dragon,
and dragon-on-dragon combat erupted in an instant.
The powerful lieutenants in Leticia’s domain, roused by their mistress’s peril, roared and surged from their lairs to assist.
But Gorthax’s montum condensed into tangible force; the weaker were instantly forced to their knees, trembling, stripped of will to stand.
Only a few of the bravest and most fiercely loyal heads could barely withstand that soul-shuddering pressure and bellowed to join the pinnacle clash between titans.
Their fate was as a moth to fla.
Gorthax did not even glance at them. He lashed out savagely with claws and whipped his barbed tail.
Those charging champions, including Leticia’s painstakingly cultivated dragon vein vassals, were slaughtered in rciless fashion — limbs severed, blood spattering like rain across the earth.
This lopsided battle lasted barely ten minutes.
!
With an earth-shattering boom, Gorthax planted his heavily armored claw onto Leticia’s chest and crushed her into a fissured pit in the ground.
Towering above, the red dragon stared down at the iron dragon pinned beneath his foot.
“Listen, bitch!”
“You, Leticia, belong to , Gorthax, forever! You are my most precious treasure! My possession! I will not — absolutely will not — allow you any contact with other male dragons! Not even a single glance! Or —”
He pressed down harder with his claw; Leticia’s scales started fracturing, and the rock beneath her groaned and split under the strain.
“— that is your example!”
Gorthax’s gaze swept over the broken chro carcass beside them.
Leticia no longer wasted voice on vain roars; she whipped her tail and lashed at the red dragon’s head.
Gorthax snorted with impatience, used a claw to parry the tail, and with brutal force shoved the iron dragon, kicking her huge body into the air. She slamd heavily into the steep pit wall.
The ground trembled violently; countless rubble stones cascaded down.
Leticia’s body embedded deeply into the rock face, scales scraping stone with a tooth-grating screech!
Then,
while Leticia glared in raging pain and humiliation,
Gorthax’s horrific feral expression vanished without a trace, as if the brutal battle had never happened.
“Leticia.”
His voice softened strangely, even taking on a hint of remorseful charm.
“Do you see my temper? Really botherso, right? Maybe I went too far just now.”
He spread his huge claws in a helpless gesture: “I know you have many grievances with , and you must still be resentful about things from ten years ago.”
“But rest assured, my dear!”
Gorthax’s voice suddenly rose, full of wild ambition and confidence: “My return to the Ser Wilderness is no accident.”
“Fate has already decided — I, Gorthax, will rule this boundless land! Every living thing here, from lowly insects to proud dragons, will kneel under my enormous wings and submit to my supre authority!”
He straightened, opened his forelimbs as if embracing the wasteland’s future.
“I will build here an unprecedented, mighty realm that belongs to — an empire worthy of your status and ambition!”
“When that ti cos, my dear Leticia, I will open my arms to you again! Honor you with supre glory and authority! Give you the chance... to beco the only true queen of my empire!”
Then his expression turned snarling and cruel once more, his tone shifting abruptly.
“But until then, Leticia, you are my treasure and my possession. If you dare flee the wasteland or defy my will, I guarantee you will pay a horrendous price.”
Having proclaid his lofty aspirations and his claim over the iron dragon,
the red dragon burst into fla and rocketed into the sky, disappearing into the deep night.
“Gorthax... damn bastard.”
Leticia’s glare was ice-cold as she struggled up.
Since Gorthax followed his instinct and awakened his ancestral bloodline, his temperant had grown wilder and more savagely irrational, increasingly impossible to reason with.
But she had long anticipated this, and his capricious, chaotic temper did not throw her into panic; instead she cald herself and thought through how to respond.
“Gorthax’s nature dooms him to be opposed by every creature.”
“Even his fellow evil dragons will regard him as a source of danger. tal dragons need no prompting. As for the other dragons in the wasteland, I can try to form alliances with them to push back against Gorthax.”
Iron dragon Leticia thought quietly to herself
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