City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Loan

Feeling a sudden chill down his spine, Richard turned around to see two tracking arrows flying towards him. However, he just chuckled at the attempt; the arrowheads disintegrated before they were even close, the shafts losing momentum and falling to the ground. Looking at the chaotic army below, he threw a few fireballs into any regions where the soldiers were concentrated. Sometimes he waved his hand to form clouds of fire, using them to identify the more powerful draconians and bring them down. Although some of them were saints or grand mages, they were burnt down by his fireballs with ease.

Two dragons had died and one had fled. Their saints were found and killed, while Richard continued to launch a storm of fireballs down from above as though he had no limit to his mana. While the draconians weren’t afraid of death for their masters, they still had a survival instinct; a few minutes into the massacre, the survivors split up to escape.

Richard didn’t give chase, instead landing in front of Copperscale’s body and using the Judge to dig through the dragon’s skull. Groping around the brain matter for some time, he eventually managed to pull out a crystal that was flickering dull yellow. The crystal was abnormally large, much bigger than any others he had seen before.

However, this did not bring a smile to his face. The power of a dragon was normally linked to the size of its crystal, and Copperscale most certainly did not have the strength to match his. The only possibility was for the copper dragon to be an adolescent or young adult that had a lot of room to grow, and in dragon society that almost always came from powerful parents. The dragon’s family would not take this lying down, and he would have to face the vengeance of several legendary dragons.

At this thought, he shook his head and sighed. He had naturally come to this plane with a plan to take over its resources; a few legendary dragons were no big deal. They might be able to defeat him, but none could stop him from leaving without significant time put into setting a trap. He didn’t even have to fear them venting on those close to him; if they came into Faelor, the Judge would be so much more powerful and allow him to kill them as they came.

Still, he flew over to the other body and retrieved its crystal as well before flying back to the teleportation gate. There was no dearth of dragons proficient at portals, and the carnage he had caused here would invite retribution. Having used up a good chunk of his mana, he couldn’t afford to face a legend right away. He planned to stick to the idea of a surprise attack; unlike Zangru, the broodmother couldn’t resurrect him with full strength.

……

Not too long after Richard’s departure, the sky twisted and rippled as a dark gold dragon passed through. It was a massive 150 metres long from head to tail, with its black horn covered in a number of unknown runes. The dozens of irregularly spaced eyes on its head seethed with rage as it swooped down towards Copperscale’s body, the hole in the head causing it to pause.

With the crystal gone, there was no hope of resurrecting the copper dragon even if one could afford it. The gold dragon that looked rather like a chaos dragon howled in rage as it looked up, light shooting out from each of its eyes and weaving together to reveal the past. As it saw Richard heavily wound Copperscale with Moonlight, the dragon roared with such rage that everything for kilometres around trembled.

The battle was short; in under ten attacks, Richard had ended the copper dragon’s life. His two swords had cut through the metallic scales like they were mere wood, tearing apart the defences repeatedly.

However, the vision in the sky wasn’t clear nor coherent. There were several skips in the middle, and Richard’s body and face were blurred beyond recognition. The golden dragon could only vaguely tell that this was a human, but it couldn’t make out an identity.

“Human… A human that can use the power of laws… A human! A HUMAN!” the dragon roared with rage, front paws smashing down on the earth before it. All of the draconians within kilometres were launched into the sky before a strange suction force pulled them towards the dragon’s mouth.

Before they could even realise what was going on, the draconians were all caught up in a near-transparent breath attack that covered their bodies in ash green. Fabric and metal disintegrated instantly before flesh was torn from bone, leaving behind a number of fragile bones that were blasted across the sky.

However, the few dozen deaths wasn’t enough. The dragon roared in rage as it looked towards the teleportation gate and rushed towards it, but it hesitated a moment before charging in. It shouted towards the sky, “BAHAMUT! Do you hear me?! I want that passage strong enough for me to go through!”

A number of clouds in the sky suddenly caught fire, a cold and dignified voice ringing out, “You do not have enough resources, Kralkalor.”

“You do!” the golden dragon exclaimed.

“Loans from me come at a high price. Think over it, looking for Tiamat is a better option.”

“She has been missing for a long time, who knows when she’ll return? I can’t wait that long, help me!”

“Alright, I can lend you the resources you need. However, you will need to return twice the amount within a year.”

“Twice?! That’s daylight robbery!” Kralkalor shouted furiously, causing the earth to shake.

The voice in the sky remained calm, “You can choose to reject it, but you have no other source of spatial stones. As I said, you can wait for Tiamat.”

“Grr… Alright, I’ll borrow from you. However, I cannot fish the stones out from the spatial floods myself, how am I to repay you?”

“You can use other resources, but there will be a 30% markup on the equivalent value. If you cannot repay me at the end of the year, Mesmerwing will be mine.”

“She’s my mate!” Kralkalor roared.

“If you cannot pay your debts, you don’t have the right to a mate,” Bahamut said indifferently.

“Grr… ARGH!” The golden dragon suddenly tore into the earth again, “Copperscale was my most outstanding child, he must be avenged! Fine, I agree. Prepare the stones.”

“A wise choice,” Bahamut chuckled, the blazing clouds starting to disappear, “I hope you kill all of Faelor’s humans soon.”

Kralkalor didn’t respond, instead picking up the two corpses and flying into the distance. Dragons always flew freely, as though their wings slid through the sky, but today its wings seemed very heavy.

……

Back in Faelor, Richard gave the dragon crystals to his subordinates before returning to his lab to study the draconian eggs. They seemed different from what his books told him about natural-born draconians, but he had been interrupted by Zangru’s arrival before he could delve deeper.

He remained engrossed in his lab the entire day, carefully looking through all the information he had to determine what they were. It was only at dawn that he finally walked out, looking slightly worried.

“Good morning, Master?” Tiramisu nodded as he came out, “Did you find anything?”

The ogre had been assigned to both protect the lab and prevent people from disturbing him, possessing a natural advantage with the two minds. However, Richard didn’t answer immediately, instead looking at a number of eggs in front of the ogre himself. Only one of them was still intact, with the others being broken shells.

“You… ate them?”