Chapter 640: Omens of Catastrophe, Ancient Primordial Wastes, The Battle for the Seas 7
In the depths of space, the light of the white dwarf star quietly rotated.
After Lionel’s words fell, the red iron dragon’s expression gradually hardened.
He shifted his gaze away from the lunar dragon, turning toward the direction where Bernardo lay.
At such a vast distance, it was nothing more than an inconspicuous speck among countless points of light.
In fact, because it was so tiny, it couldn’t even be considered a speck; the naked eye couldn’t distinguish it from the deep background. But even so, its weight in Garoth’s heart still overshadowed all the stars.
“A warning from the stars...”
The red iron dragon withdrew his gaze, looking back at the lunar dragon.
“I have never heard the whispers of the stars, nor have I ever received any omens from the celestial bodies. But I have long since detected, through various signs, that Bernardo will face a threat from the cosmos.”
“Your warning only confirms the judgment I had already made.”
Lionel paused slightly.
He had seen many lives react to the news of an approaching cataclysm.
Some fell into hysterical fear, frantically hoarding resources and building defenses. Others simply denied everything, burying their heads in the sand, pretending nothing was happening. Still others completely collapsed, abandoning all action in despair.
He had seen these reactions too many times, so much so that he had grown accustomed to them.
But the red iron dragon’s reaction did not fall into any of these categories.
He simply stood quietly amid the cosmos, his wings slightly folded, like a reef that had weathered countless storms, unmoved no matter how ferocious the waves.
“In that case, you should be preparing to escape even more.”
The lunar dragon looked at him seriously, leaning his dragon head forward slightly, and said:
“The stars do not lie.”
“Throughout the long ages, the warnings they have conveyed to me have never been wrong; every single one has come true.”
“The disaster is imminent.”
“And with your power, you can absolutely leave Bernardo before the calamity truly descends, to seek out another safe, habitable world.”
Migrate. Evacuate.
Abandon one’s homeland to find a new place to live.
This was the most rational and instinctive choice for all intelligent life when faced with a destructive threat.
However, the red iron dragon gently shook his head.
“What is imminent on a cosmic scale is still enough time for me to accomplish many things from my perspective.”
“Besides...”
He looked at the lunar dragon’s faceplate and corrected him: “In my dictionary, there is no such word as ‘escape.’ At most, there is a strategic retreat, a temporary withdrawal to avoid the enemy’s advantage.”
The lunar dragon tilted his head, a puzzled expression on his face.
His inherited memories contained much knowledge about war and survival, but most of it came from an observer’s records, or from scenes he had seen on the moon while gazing down at the Lesser Land through the starlight.
The lunar dragon had never truly participated in many conflicts.
His understanding of words forged in blood and fire was not very deep.
“What’s the difference, then?”
He asked his confusion honestly.
“Whether it’s escape, retreat, or a temporary withdrawal, isn’t the end result the same? Leaving a dangerous place to save your own life.”
In his view, no matter what words were used to embellish it, the essence of leaving a dangerous place was the same.
Leaving was leaving. Withdrawing was withdrawing. Escaping was escaping.
He didn’t understand why there needed to be a distinction between these words.
The corner of the red iron dragon’s mouth curled up slightly, revealing a sharp line of fangs.
“The difference is like heaven and earth.”
He said: “Escape means abandoning everything, fleeing in panic, and leaving your fate entirely to luck. A strategic retreat, a temporary withdrawal to avoid the enemy’s advantage, is an active choice made after soberly weighing the balance of power between oneself and the enemy.”
His voice paused, and his dragon claws tightened slightly.
The red iron dragon said in a deep voice: “In short, escape is the way of a coward. A temporary withdrawal to avoid the enemy’s advantage is the choice of a wise man.”
“And I... have never run from anything.”
Lionel fell silent.
After a long moment, he spoke again.
“I still don’t really understand your thinking.”
He admitted, his tone devoid of any argument. “In my understanding, when faced with a danger one cannot fight, avoiding it is simply avoiding it. There’s no need for so many distinctions.”
“But I won’t ask any more questions.”
The lunar dragon gently swished his tail. “This is probably the way of thinking for dragons born on a planet.”
Garoth didn’t continue to explain either.
Because of their different ways of thinking, some things simply couldn’t be conveyed through words alone.
“Do you know the source of this calamity?”
Garoth shifted the topic slightly, bringing the conversation back to a practical issue.
The lunar dragon’s expression immediately turned grave.
His body tensed slightly, and he raised one dragon claw, pointing in a certain direction in the starry sky.
Garoth followed his gaze.
To the naked eye, that direction looked no different from anywhere else. Countless stars were scattered across the pitch-black firmament, and the same deep, boundless darkness stretched between them.
“It is one of the Primordial Wastes.”
The lunar dragon’s voice was serious. “The Egg of Catastrophe, the Omens of Myriad Disasters.”
“It roams the cosmos of various material worlds, feeding on chaos and catastrophe. Wherever it passes, life-bearing planets become dead lands. The stars have shown me its remnants—one world after another, completely devoured, utterly devoid of life.”
The scales between the red iron dragon’s brows wrinkled slightly, forming majestic lines.
He had long had suspicions and inferences about the source of the Cataclysm Storm, but he had never been able to confirm them completely.
And now, the lunar dragon’s words corroborated his guesses.
The answer pointed directly to a Primordial Wastes.
But the name the lunar dragon mentioned... he had never heard of it.
“The Egg of Catastrophe...”
Garoth searched carefully through his inherited memories, sifting through the knowledge and experiences left by generations of dragons before him.
Finally, he said thoughtfully: “My inheritance contains no records of this Primordial Wastes.”
This was not surprising.
The inheritances of different dragons varied. The knowledge each dragon inherited was closely related to its race’s living environment and experiences.
The Primordial Wastes recorded in Garoth’s inheritance might not even be known to Lionel.
Lionel picked up the thread: “My inheritance contains a vast amount of knowledge about the deep cosmos, including detailed records of this Omen of Disasters.”
“Perhaps it’s because we Lunar Dragons are the most likely type of dragon to encounter it in the starry sky.”
Garoth’s eyes showed a hint of contemplation.
He integrated this information in his mind, then asked the critical question: “What level is this Primordial Wastes?”
Hearing this, the lunar dragon took a deep breath.
Although there was no air in space for him to breathe, his chest still performed this motion.
“An Ancient One.”
He said simply and directly.
An Ancient One.
The Immortal level above the Glorious One.
To reach this level, one’s own history would be as ancient as the multiverse itself. Their time of existence would be measured in billions of years, and their history would be the history of the multiverse.
It corresponded to a god of intermediate divine power.
The starry sky was vast, the worlds were infinite, and among the countless lives that could not be numbered even by hundreds of billions, the number of Ancient Ones was always a scant handful, no more than two digits.
They stood above countless lives, a tiny few at the very peak of the pyramid.
The red iron dragon was silent.
Then, his body trembled slightly.
It was an extremely subtle tremor, almost unnoticeable without careful observation. Beneath his dragon scales, muscles involuntarily tightened.
Lionel noticed this detail.
His gaze lingered on Garoth, and a complex emotion welled up in his heart.
The lunar dragon could understand this trembling.
Fear, wariness, vigilance... these were the most normal reactions when facing an existence that far surpassed one’s own level.
Even the Red Emperor, this red iron dragon who rampaged across Bernardo and was known as the Scarlet Emperor Cangxing, felt an instinctive fear when facing an existence like an Ancient One.
The lunar dragon was about to say something.
He wanted to soothe the red iron dragon’s emotions, or perhaps offer some more practical advice.
But just then.
His gaze happened to meet Garoth’s eyes.
And then, Lionel froze.
He did indeed see fear.
Deep, profound fear, along with dread and unease.
These emotions existed in the red iron dragon’s pupils, like a layer of frost frozen on the surface of his irises, clearly visible.
But beneath the frost, there was something else entirely.
Scorching. Fierce. Sharp.
The red iron dragon’s pupils contracted into narrow slits. What burned within them was not the retreat brought on by fear.
It was more like... the moment before a star about to explode was compressed to its limit, about to unleash a burst of destructive light in the next second.
Suppressed. Dangerous. Containing immeasurable energy.
Instinctively, the lunar dragon recoiled in terror.
He even forgot he was in a vacuum, simply pulling back a distance as a conditioned reflex. His scales stood on end, black frost whirled wildly around him, and he assumed a defensive posture as if facing a great enemy.
All of this was triggered by a single glance.
But in the next instant, all those emotions were withdrawn.
The red iron dragon’s gaze returned to calm, unruffled.
However, in his Rift Form, his eyes were naturally narrow. Even in his most peaceful state, his gaze remained as sharp as a blade, making it impossible for anyone to look him directly in the eye.
“Primordial Wastes.”
The red iron dragon spoke slowly. “Their war against the gods has long since failed.”
“They were killed, driven away, sealed away. The remnants can only scrounge for survival in the cracks between realms, like a pack of stray dogs with their spines broken.”
“They might have been glorious once, but that is all in the past.”
He raised his head, baring his fangs. “Bernardo is not a place that you failures can invade at will.”
In all the worlds of the main material plane, both gods and Immortals are subject to tremendous rule suppression.
This is an ironclad law etched into the very foundation of the entire Material Plane.
Even high-ranking gods find it difficult to defy.
No matter how powerful one originally is, upon descending to a material plane, one can at most exert the power of a demigod.
Ancient Ones are, of course, no exception.
They cannot display their true strength in the material plane.
In the distant, chaotic primordial era, it was said there were no such restrictions.
As for the origin of this iron law—where it came from, and who set it...
Garoth’s inheritance did not record this.
He only knew that when he was in a state of ascending to godhood, he was infinitely close to the limit of the material plane. Although ascending to godhood carried enormous risks and hidden dangers, it undoubtedly gave him tremendous confidence.
The lunar dragon silently watched him.
For some reason he couldn’t fully explain, he felt an inexplicable closeness to the red iron dragon before him.
So much so that he had set aside his usual reclusive nature and spoken to this red iron dragon about things he would never say to any living being.
But the lunar dragon was also acutely aware of another point.
He might never truly understand this red iron dragon’s thoughts. They lived in completely different worlds, shaped by entirely different values.
“I don’t wish to be drawn into such a conflict.”
Lionel looked at the red iron dragon and said, “I am merely a spectator.”
“For many years, I have always been just a spectator. Wars, disasters, cataclysms—these are all plots on a stage, not something a spectator should be involved in.”
He stepped back again, his figure beginning to blur, the edges of his form shrouded by a thin mist.
“Garoth, you stepped out of the stage and came before me.”
“This surprised me, and it also delighted me.”
“If you wish to learn about the knowledge of the starry sky, and if I am still around, you can come to me. I will tell you what I know, and relay to you the scenes the stars have shown me. But aside from that, I can offer nothing else.”
Garoth nodded.
Even though the Dragon Succubus trait was indeed effective on the lunar dragon, he had no intention of trying to convince Lionel to join his camp.
“That is more than enough.”
The red iron dragon said, “The claws and fangs to tear apart enemies belong to me. I live in iron and blood, and I have long been accustomed to it.”
With that, he spread his wings. With a gentle flap, a rift was torn in the space before him.
The red iron dragon leaped into it, without looking back.
The lunar dragon, Lionel, hovered in place for a moment.
His figure also began to phase, gradually blurring until it completely merged into the darkness and disappeared.
The cosmos was vast. Everything returned to silence.
Among the stars, the white dwarf continued its silent rotation, maintaining its eternal, unchanging rhythm.
On its flat, dense surface, traces left by the red iron dragon’s training still remained. But aside from that, everything else was as if nothing had happened.
...
Western Atlan.
In the shallow waters, waves rolled and surged, spraying foam into the air.
The Blue Dragon Heloise spread her wings, her scales shimmering with layers of light in the afternoon sun. Lightning-like patterns traced along the edges of her wing membranes, and her body glided smoothly on the air currents.
Behind her followed four Aolan dragons.
One of them was a male blue dragon, slightly smaller than her, with a darker blue hue, like the surface of the sea before a storm.
That was Ryerton Helmod.
A descendant of the Lord of Thunder, a legendary great dragon.
The dragons cruised along the shallow sea zone, with scattered islands and coral reefs below. On several newly opened shipping routes, the occasional sail of a merchant ship could be seen, white canvas billowing in the sea breeze like moving clouds.
In shallow waters like this, the Raging Tides Dragon Domain once reigned supreme.
But now, it had been taken over by Aola.
“Heloise.”
The Blue Dragon Ryerton suddenly spoke, his voice somewhat muffled in the sea breeze. “I’d like to ask a question.”
“Speak.”
Heloise turned her head, looking at this blue dragon.
“You are a direct descendant of the Aola Emperor.”
Ryerton flapped his wings, moving closer, and asked: “With your status, why are you willing to obey Alvia’s orders?”
In Sacred Aola, the Emperor’s sons held a distinguished position.
Besides their bloodline, they themselves could often reach the legendary level in their prime, their growth rate far surpassing that of other dragons.
Take Heloise, for example.
She was a descendant of the Red Emperor and the Blue Dragon Lord Zoraya. Her talent among the Emperor’s sons was not outstanding, not in the top tier. But even so, normal dragons could only look up to her, utterly unable to match her growth rate.
In Aola, the Emperor’s sons were synonymous with power and glory.
Because they had the chance to earn the Emperor’s recognition, every young dragon was proud to become one of the Emperor’s sons.
But a dragon like this, upon receiving orders, showed no sign of resistance.
Heloise gently shook her head.
“You have the premise wrong, Ryerton.”
Her voice was calm and unhurried. “I am not obeying Alvia’s orders. Although Alvia is a crown-level, she has no authority to command me.”
The blue dragon lifted her head slightly.
“I am obeying my father’s orders.”
Heloise continued, “It is the Master of Aola who has entrusted Alvia with the authority to manage the western and shallow sea regions. Here, every instruction she gives is an execution of my father’s will.”
“Submitting to her command is submitting to my father.”
She paused, her gaze falling on Ryerton’s eyes.
“Asking this question shows you are still thinking in Helmod’s way. But remember, Sacred Aola is not something Helmod can be compared to.”
Ryerton looked thoughtful.
He did not reject Sacred Aola.
This dragon kingdom had reached heights that the Helmod dragons could never have dreamed of before. And the Red Emperor was truly radiant, making the dragons instinctively want to follow beneath his wings.
Heloise withdrew her gaze, looking back at the vast sea before her.
“Before Aola was established, my mother came from another dragon group and did not bear the name of Ignas. But now, she is already a member of Aola. No dragon questions her loyalty or status.”
As she spoke, Heloise shot a glance at the blue dragon.
“You Helmod dragons, since you have already come to Aola, you need to adapt to the way of thinking of the Aolan dragons.”
“Offer your loyalty to the Emperor, use your time to grow stronger, and dedicate your power to where the Empire needs it. Don’t dwell on meaningless matters.”
Ryerton was silent for a moment, then said in a low voice, “I understand.”
The conversation came to a temporary halt.
Heloise made a slight adjustment with her wings, using the air current to lift herself a few meters higher, returning to her cruising altitude.
The dragons continued their advance westward along the newly opened route.
Before long, they arrived at a stretch of water.
Scattered here were a few barren islands, overgrown with bushes twisted by the sea wind. Several flocks of seabirds circled and foraged among the reefs, letting out sharp, short calls.
The sea surface shimmered, showing no sign of anything unusual.
It looked very calm.
But Heloise suddenly stopped.
Her wing membranes snapped open, and her entire body froze in midair.
The other dragons reacted with lightning speed. In almost the same instant, they scattered, forming a diamond-shaped formation. Their gazes swept rapidly across the surrounding sea and sky, but they found nothing unusual.
“On guard.”
Heloise said.
Her eyes glowed with a starlight-like radiance, as if the stars in the night sky had been crushed and scattered into her pupils.
True Eye.
It could see through illusions, disguises, traps... this pair of eyes, inherited from the Emperor, was what set Heloise apart the most from the other Emperor’s sons.
She lowered her gaze toward the calm water surface, seeing clearly what lay beneath.
“Stop hiding. Come out.”
“Under the radiance of Sacred Aola, you have long since been exposed.”
The water surface was still for a moment.
A school of barracuda swimming among the rocks began to swell.
Their scales twisted, their bodies expanded in the blink of an eye, their fins elongated into wing membranes, and their heads transformed into dragon heads...
A huge splash erupted on the sea surface, waves crashing outward.
Several figures burst forth from the water, droplets rolling off their scales.
Without exception, they were all Metal Dragons.
The dragon at the lead was a gleaming gold, with a robust, well-proportioned build. He was a Gold Dragon. The several dragons behind him were slightly smaller but no less imposing, their silver scales and bronze bodies standing out starkly between the sea and sky.
They flew to an altitude equal to the Aolan dragons, hovering in midair.
The two sides faced off. The wind stirred by the dragons’ wings was fierce, whipping up white foam on the sea surface.
“This area belongs to the Raging Tides Dragon Domain.”
The Gold Dragon stared at the opposing dragons, saying in a deep voice, “You filthy evil dragons of the Aola Empire have no right to lay a claw on these waters. Leave immediately, or face the consequences!”
The Metal Dragons behind him let out low growls, their eyes burning as they stared at the Aolan dragons.
Heloise did not respond immediately.
Her gaze swept across the Metal Dragons, then passed over them, scanning the surrounding sky and sea.
After confirming there were no other hidden Metal Dragons, she looked back at the Gold Dragon.
“The ocean is a land without a master.”
She said forcefully. “Places like this should be occupied by the strong. And we, Sacred Aola, are the strong.”
On the opposite side, flames of rage flickered in the eyes of the Metal Dragons.
Ever since the Raging Tides Dragon Domain was established, whether shallow or deep, the Boiling Sea had been deeply bound to the Raging Tides Dragon Domain.
Now, the Aola Empire was gradually encroaching on their territory, and had already occupied the shallow seas.
Was their next step to occupy the entire Raging Tides Dragon Domain?
The Raging Tides dragons could not accept this.
“Damned evil dragons! You are not worthy of calling yourselves Sacred Aola! Your empire is built on lies and violence!”
“Get out of the Boiling Sea!”
Heloise’s expression did not change. She sneered, “A bunch of self-righteous fools. It seems you still don’t realize whose era this is.”
Words were useless.
The Metal Dragons beat their wings and charged at the Aolan dragons first.
Far from being angered, Heloise was delighted.
She raised her head and let out a long, resonant dragon roar: “Dragons of Aola! Follow me! Fight for your Emperor! Fight for your Empire!”
The battle erupted in an instant.
Claws and fangs clashed, scales scraped against scales... This stretch of sea was instantly swept up by the aftermath of the dragon battle. Waves surged, and wind and clouds churned.