Year 289 of the New Calendar, the Lord of Molten Iron officially began his slumber.
The fates of the Convergence Lands, the Permafrost Tundra, the Ser Wilderness, the southern nations, and even distant human empires did not pause because a young great dragon fell into temporary sleep. Under the invisible hand of ti, events continued to unfold along their predetermined course, sotis slowly, sotis swiftly.
Year 292, at the Lothrian royal court, Iron Dragon Gordon, after a long period of accumulation, also entered his slumber.
Year 293, Iron Dragon Sorog, who commanded the tribes from the northwest of the wilderness, followed suit and fell into sleep.
Year 295, the hot-tempered red dragon Samantha, responsible for alchemical industry and equipnt developnt, was likewise driven by amassed power into a crucial growth slumber.
With that, the core mbers of the Ignas Dragon Cluster entered their dormant phase.
The Molten Iron Tribe’s rule and consolidation in the Ser Wilderness were mainly maintained by the battle-seasoned young Blue Dragon Zoraya, together with three exceptionally capable enfeoffed lords.
Ti flowed on, arriving at Year 300 of the New Calendar.
In the southern Permafrost Tundra, the territory centered on Dragonfang Fortress had begun to take shape.
The Blue Dragon Heriam, who once bore great responsibility and journeyed north from the Ser Wilderness, had now shed his immaturity and entered his youth phase.
On the vast, harsh frozen ground, he had successfully carved out new territory for the Molten Iron Tribe.
Dragonfang Fortress was not a traditional stone-and-brick stronghold. It was sculpted from a massive glacier, hollowed and shaped into a rough, precipitous form that jutted out like a beast’s fang breaking the ice — hence the na.
Around the fortress spread breeding grounds kept warm by geothermal wells, smoke-choked workshops, and settlents for followers. The overall style was rugged and utilitarian, all run with orderly discipline under the firm managent of Blue Dragon Heriam.
The garrison’s standing military force was composed mainly of thick-skinned, cold-hardy ogre warriors.
In addition, there were many kobolds, gnolls, and lizardfolk responsible for construction, maintenance, tending the cold-resistant livestock of the north, and cultivating berry crops that could survive the freeze.
Those weaker followers had suffered losses on first arriving at the tundra because of the brutal climate.
But these races’ ability to spread across many worlds endowed them with extraordinary environntal adaptability. After a harsh natural selection, the survivors gradually acclimated to this frigid land.
Another indispensable force ca from the alchemical golems of the Black Iron Plains’ great workshop in the Convergence Lands.
These steel constructs withstood extre cold much better than flesh-and-blood bodies. Although they occasionally suffered malfunctions from internal freezing, with ticulous maintenance by the accompanying alchemists, they remained the expeditionary corps’ most reliable backbone.
It was in this year that Dragonfang Fortress faced its first sizable battle on the tundra.
A troll clan called Frostclaw, driven by extre hunger, cast greedy eyes on the fortress’s well-kept pastures.
They gathered their warriors and launched a raid on a blizzard-wrapped day.
They had severely underestimated their foe and their intelligence was shockingly poor.
From the start, the attack was destined to be a one-sided crushing.
“For the glory of the Molten Iron Tribe!”
Amid the swirling snow, a hulking ogre warrior bellowed with an earsplitting roar.
His heavy greataxe cut through the wind and slamd into a troll’s shoulder-neck junction. The axe blade sank deep into flesh and bone with a gut-chilling dull thud.
The troll scread in pain, but its ferocity did not diminish.
Trolls may be sowhat inferior to ogres in raw brute strength, but they possessed infuriatingly powerful regeneration. In one-on-one fights at equal rank, the outco between troll and ogre was often unpredictable, tightly contested.
Seeing the wound was not fatal, the troll roared.
One hand clamped onto the axe haft lodged in its flesh, while the other gripped a crude spear and lunged fiercely toward the ogre’s heart!
But the ogre’s face showed no panic — only a feral grin.
“Die, scum!”
His finger slamd down on a hidden chanism in the haft.
Buzz!
Runes etched across the greataxe flared a crimson light as if molten lava flowed along the blade.
Then, boom!
A violent explosion rocked the air, spraying fla, tearing flesh, and splintering bone fragnts everywhere.
The troll’s head and nearly half its upper torso were blasted to pieces by the sudden blast!
Acid arrow!
Not far off, a troll sorcerer waved a crude bone staff, condensing high-concentration corrosive acid into arrow shapes that hissed through the air toward the ogre who had just executed the explosive strike.
Normally, with an ogre’s comparatively slow reactions, dodging would be unlikely.
But as the acid arrow neared, the heavy steel-plated armor covering the ogre’s chest emitted the whir of gears and the hiss of steam.
The ogre, who should have been clumsy, moved with the lithe grace of a leopard.
He executed a blazing quick sidestep and narrowly avoided the lethal acid!
The explosive greataxe and the powered heavy armor were products of the Spinebreaker Hills’ alchemical workshops, designed by the red dragon Samantha as standardized gear tailored for ogre followers.
Scenes like this repeated across the battlefield.
Ogre warriors equipped with alchemical gear displayed destructive power and mobility far beyond the norm.
anwhile, on the battlefield’s flank, the alchemical golem legion dispatched from Dragonfang Fortress arrived.
They were no longer the early models like Flesh Ripper or Steel Ripper.
The Cragbreaker series — heavy siege-breaker golems — were like moving miniature fortresses.
They stood roughly five ters tall, forged from dull black iron with sharp, powerful lines.
Their arms were not hands but massive battering hamrs that moved in relentless reciprocal strikes, the hamr faces etched with complex vibration runes.
Against the trolls’ attempt to hold dense formations, the Cragbreakers strode forward like earth-shaking plows and charged.
Their twin hamrs smashed the frozen ground alternately.
Crack! Smash! Shatter!
Each blow caused violent localized tremors and visible concentric shockwaves. Trolls within range were knocked off balance, unable to stand, their insides churning as if organs would rupture and bones might splinter.
Their proud regenerative resilience was rendered far less effective against this internal shock-based destruction.
The Cragbreakers plowed through the troll ranks like rciless iron plows, carving bloody, mangled death paths.
The Pale Dragon Fury series, remote-support golems, resembled autonomous mobile steel gun platforms.
Slimr than the Cragbreakers, they carried complex, large-caliber heavy ballistae on their backs. They fired not ordinary bolts but alchemically treated explosive quarrels.
A single red eye in each golem’s head flickered as it perford ballistic calculations and target locks.
Whizz—boom!
Explosive bolts trailed crimson tails like teors skittering across hundreds of ters, striking precisely into clusters of troll sorcerers and detonating violently. The blasts caused mass casualties, while splattering black oil mixed with magical fla to create sheets of inferno that ford impassable walls of fire.
From the outset, the battle’s outco was sealed.
Different-function alchemical golems working in tight coordination with heavily ard ogre warriors ford a lethal, efficient killing system. The Frostclaw trolls crashed headlong and were routed.
Their capable leader was subdued quickly when Blue Dragon Heriam personally intervened, coordinating with elite golems to encircle and capture him.
In the end, the Frostclaw clan was utterly defeated.
The young blue dragon assessed the situation and led his followers in pursuit, capturing all remaining combat-capable trolls and incorporating them into Dragonfang Fortress.
After this battle, Heriam never forgot the paramount mission handed down by his clan’s leaders.
He insisted on steady developnt and consolidating his foundations.
Unless absolutely necessary, he would not lightly open new fronts.
Year after year, the Molten Iron Tribe’s foothold on this patch of the Permafrost Tundra gradually stabilized, like deep roots sinking into frozen soil.
Banners bearing the Molten Iron Tribe’s insignia flew proudly in the cold wind, snapping with a crisp sound.
Year 305 of the New Calendar.
In the Convergence Lands, the Abyssal Rift erupted in a magical tide of unprecedented scale and intensity.
Centaur Elvy and the serpent woman Sword Saint Narys, who held the garrison there, fought valiantly but were overwheld.
Nasha, the gold dragon observing tribal movents in the Ser Wilderness, received the distress call and imdiately returned to defend, quelling this magical tide.
However, after this incident, demonic disturbances originating from the Abyss beca more frequent.
The Molten Iron Tribe had to devote more forces to guard the Abyssal Rift.
Moreover, rifts began to appear in various places across the world, of differing sizes.
Most rifts were promptly sealed by local powers before causing greater devastation, but a few expanded successfully and brought heavy disasters.
Even in the Ser Wilderness’s northeast, an Abyssal Rift opened.
That rift was forcibly suppressed and sealed by peaks shaped by the Mountain King.
Many sentient beings and organizations privately suspected that this global Abyssal change was related to the Halden human empire’s increasingly aggressive Abyssal Developnt Plan in recent years.
Out of fear of the empire’s power, no organization or nation publicly confronted or blad them.
Even the elven empire Nausil, usually confrontational toward Halden, inexplicably remained unusually silent.
Year 309, on the Thalassian Continent, the orc empire Kantum completed continental unification.
The fervent orcs were not satisfied.
Singing conquest songs handed down from antiquity, they began massive quarrying and logging to build a vast fleet capable of crossing oceans — their intent obvious.
However, although Kantum was fad for martial prowess, its alchemical and industrial levels lagged. In the short term, they could not pose a substantial threat to other continents.
Year 313, after decades of southern warfare, matters reached a decisive stage.
After the Battle of Belton, the Kingdom of Lothrian continued to resist but gradually found itself unable to endure.
The royalist faction suffered setback after setback, while the anti-royalist coalition led by the Kingdom of Rybos surged forward, seizing more than half of Lothrian’s territory.
Inside the kingdom, nobles and ministers implored King O'Brien to accept reality and negotiate, even if it ant ceding lands and paying reparations, to preserve a remnant of the realm’s vitality.
Rybos also sent envoys bearing a ceasefire agreent.
In theory, at this stage of war, if Lothrian conceded, the long tornt could end.
But all calls for negotiation were resolutely rejected by King O'Brien. Rybos’s envoy returned empty-handed.
This iron-blooded king seed resolved to share his fate with the kingdom and swore never to sign any humiliating accord.
That sa year, the Lord of Molten Iron’s kin — Gordon, Sorog, Samantha, and the earlier-sleeping Alberto — awoke one by one from two decades of slumber.
Their powers had made significant progress.
Year 315.
The anti-royalist coalition’s armies, like a converging steel flood, finally stood at the gates of Valdo — the last core city of the Kingdom of Lothrian, a royal seat standing for a thousand years.
Dark clouds hung over the capital, heavy as if they had condensed the kingdom’s despair.
“Elina, co with ! We’ll flee to the Ser Wilderness, to Garoth’s lands!”
Deep within the royal palace, in a courtyard that still held so semblance of order,
Iron Dragon Gordon, tower-like in stature, bowed his head and stared at the human woman before him, his voice low and urgent.
The woman before him was the Crystal Princess.
She retained a slender figure and graceful bearing, but the marks of ti had inevitably climbed her face, making her appear like a noblewoman in her forties whose charm still lingered. Even with the royal family’s imnse resources and her being a mage of considerable rank, human lifespan was finite unless one reached the legendary Domain — she might live at most two hundred years. She had already passed half her lifespan, and the pace of aging would only accelerate.
The lines on the princess’s face did not change Gordon’s pure, stubborn possessiveness and desire to protect.
His thinking was unchanged.
As he spoke, Gordon unfurled his massive iron-gray wings.
The amplification runes etched across the wing mbranes flared faintly, and his entire body radiated a mighty, powerful aura — dragon might spreading tangibly through the air.
Late youth phase, level seventeen.
Not legendary, but by no ans weak.
Almost as Gordon’s dragon might expanded, three figures silently appeared in the courtyard’s shadows:
Blind young Astor, fierce Theron, and nimble Aisha — the three children from years past had grown into true Divine Dragon Monks.
Their qi was thick and tenacious, their average level shockingly reaching eighteen.
This even surpassed Iron Dragon Gordon himself.
“The allied forces’ blockade of the capital is not impenetrable. There are exploitable weak points I am aware of,” the blind Astor said softly, his perception keener than sighted n.
“Your Highness, Gordon, if you decide to leave, you must act now.”
Three level-eighteen Divine Dragon Monks plus one level-seventeen iron dragon — if they kept a low profile and avoided attracting attention from enemy legendaries, they had a solid chance of escorting the princess out of the dood city.
But Elina only gave Gordon a calm, slightly sorrowful smile and shook her head gently.
“If I wanted to abandon the land that raised and the people who trust , I would not still be here.”
Her voice was gentle but infused with unshakable resolve. “As I have told you many tis, Gordon.”
“The people of Valdo will not see their princess flee at the last mont.”
“I love this land beneath my feet. Whatever the outco, I will share its fate... live or die with it.”
Iron Dragon Gordon fell silent.
His enormous dragon pupils fixed on the princess’s resolute face. After a few seconds, he took a deep breath, as if making a decision, and spoke in an unusually solemn tone: “Gorina, I must be honest with you.”
“I, Gordon Ignas, will not throw away my life for the survival of a human kingdom.”
“If you have resolved to go with your holand to the end... then we part ways here.”
With that, he looked at the Crystal Princess one last ti, suddenly beat his great wings, and with a roaring wind surged skyward.
The three Divine Dragon Monks in the courtyard watched the princess’s lone, steadfast figure and could only let out a silent sigh, their own forms dissolving as they lted back into the shadows.
At the sa ti, atop Valdo’s towering walls,
King O'Brien, cloaked in his war mantle, bore a face carved by exhaustion and grim determination.
He stood on the battlents, gazing at the allied encampnts spreading like a boundless tide beyond the walls. There was no fear, no retreat — only a roaring fla in his eyes.
Soon, the horns of war tore the sky once more.
The anti-royalist coalition assembled its final assault force, prepared to surge forward and utterly crush Lothrian’s last resistance.
In the sky, figures radiating legendary pressure hovered coldly, looking down.
On the ground lay endless ranks of soldiers, alchemical golems glittering with magical sheen, and rows of monstrous siege engines... a flood of destruction was poised to break.
The great battle was about to begin.
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