Chapter 615: Garoth, When Will You Become Mandate?
Red Emperor Capital.
The red iron dragon’s figure appeared above the capital city.
With his dragon wings half-spread, casting a slow-moving shadow under the moonlight, he circled once, sweeping his gaze across the entire city. Then, folding his wings, he landed on the dragon court platform.
The white dragon followed closely behind.
Her body was a size smaller than Garoth’s. Her landing posture was casual; the moment her claws touched the ground, she began tidying the rune patterns on her wing membranes.
Reinhardt descended from the other side.
He silently stood at the edge of the high platform, keeping an appropriate distance from the two dragons.
By this time, the night had already passed its deepest hour.
The eastern horizon began to show the faintest grayish-white, the darkness thinning.
Garoth lifted his chin and looked toward the western sky. He saw that the lightning had grown sparse, the clouds no longer churning, though thick, dark clouds still blanketed the sky, sealing it tightly shut.
The white dragon finished tidying her wings. She lifted her head and swept a glance over the layout of the capital city.
“Your territory is as orderly as ever.”
She said, her tone carrying neither praise nor mockery, then added, “Tsk, having the bloodline of an evil dragon and still managing to run your territory like this is truly rare.”
“If it were any other of your kind, this place would have been burned to ashes long ago.”
Garoth didn’t respond.
He turned his head back, looked at the white dragon, and said, “Lady Hitherfell.”
“When you appeared over Brakton, Lamorein didn’t seem to know.”
Garoth himself hadn’t expected this Wanfa Dragon to show up.
If he had known in advance, he wouldn’t have drawn close; he would have only watched from afar.
That way, he might have had a chance to witness the three Mandate great dragons in chaos, and maybe even fish in troubled waters, taking the opportunity to eliminate his greatest threat.
Unfortunately, things hadn’t developed ideally.
“Of course, he didn’t know.”
The white dragon flicked her tail, speaking lazily. “I just noticed they were fighting.”
“The dragon might aura of Mandate great dragons can be sensed from half a continent away, especially that guy Sheffield. He didn’t hide it at all; his aura shone like a lighthouse. It was impossible for me not to notice.”
“Since I had nothing better to do, I went over to join the fun.”
“After I got close, I saw how determined Sheffield was, so I decided on the spot to give him a headache. Heh, I needed to make him understand that there are evil dragons in this world he can’t kill.”
As she spoke, the white dragon’s mouth curled slightly, revealing a pleased smile.
“The main thing is, I didn’t want Sheffield to get what he wanted. Whatever he wants, I make sure he can’t have it. When I see him unhappy, I’m happy.”
Garoth tilted his head and looked at her, asking, “You and the Bronze Dragon King have a grudge?”
Fanya turned around, walking with an unhurried yet quick pace to the edge of the high platform, looking down at the capital city below.
“It goes way back.”
“When I first advanced to legendary, I was overflowing with confidence.”
Hitherfell murmured softly. “Back then, I thought I had mastered powerful magic, unrivaled, that no better white dragon existed. I thought there was nothing in the world to fear.”
“You know how it is, white dragons have never been well-regarded among the five-colored dragons—low intelligence, barbaric and crude. Few ever excel. Many dragons contemptuously call us ‘White Scales.’ I changed their minds.”
“So I ran wild for a while.”
“Wherever I passed, everything froze, everything submitted. I was... lawless.”
When she reached this point, she let out a soft snort.
“Then Sheffield came for me.”
“At that time, he wasn’t a Dragon King yet. We were on the same level; his life level wasn’t higher than mine.”
“But he was already far stronger than me.”
The white dragon’s tone was flat as she recounted, “I lasted less than half an hour under his assault. Half my scales shattered, my left wing was nearly torn off. I only escaped by using a treasured space scroll.”
“He didn’t stop there. He chased me for three whole months.”
“From the ocean to the mainland, from the clouds to the deep sea...”
She turned back, looking at Garoth with a grin, “It was precisely this damned fleeing experience that made me abandon my arrogance, rein in my claws and fangs once more, and focus on mastering magic.”
“Going by that logic,”
The red iron dragon said seriously, “It seems you should thank him.”
“Thank?”
The white dragon let out a short laugh.
“Right, you’re right. I do want to thank him.”
“And an evil dragon’s way of thanking him is to stab him in the back at his proudest moment, or splash ice water on his face when he thinks victory is certain.”
“I’ll keep giving him this kind of thanks until he learns what true pain is.”
In short, she was determined to disgust the Bronze Dragon King in every possible way.
It didn’t matter if she couldn’t beat him; making him suffer was enough. Even if it just made him frown or sigh an extra time, that was a victory for the white dragon, enough to keep her spirits up for a while.
The white dragon turned back, looking westward.
“But there’s something I don’t understand.”
She said, “Ever since Sheffield became the Dragon King, he took a sacred oath, guarding the abyssal rift deep in the Raging Tides Dragon Domain without ever leaving. That was his duty, his shackle. He never left the Raging Tides Sea.”
“Many intelligent beings know this.”
“Yet now, he’s appeared on the Atlantis Continent in person.”
Garoth’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He had been thinking about this too.
“Maybe he grew tired, weary, and set down the heavy burden.”
“Besides, sacred oaths are ultimately matters of the heart. There are many ways to circumvent them. As long as he himself believes the oath is fulfilled or conditions change, he can break free.”
In this regard, Garoth had practical experience.
Take Alberto the Gold Dragon, for example.
In the early years, because of Garoth’s blow, he had made an extremely harsh sacred oath, making his life miserable and worse than death.
Later, under Garoth’s guidance, he exploited the loophole in the oath, changed his thinking, and made it controllable.
In the end, what made a Saint-Dragon keep an oath was never the oath itself, but their own heart.
The white dragon shook her head.
“You’re right. Sacred oaths are matters of the heart; of course, there are ways to evade them—vague wording, switching concepts, transferring the oath target... I’d believe that for other metal dragons.”
“But Sheffield is different.”
Hitherfell said seriously.
“I know Sheffield’s nature very well. That guy’s stubbornness disgusts me, but it’s also so pure that I have nothing to say.”
“The oaths he makes are never watered down, nor can he betray his own heart. Even if the whole world told him to give up, he would keep going.”
“If he swore to guard the abyssal rift, then he would guard it until it was no longer needed.”
Garoth didn’t argue.
What the white dragon said was true. The Bronze Dragon King’s stubbornness and purity were well-known.
Hatred, fear, reverence, respect...
The great dragons had varied attitudes toward him.
He looked thoughtful and said, “Then something we don’t know about must have happened, allowing him to fulfill his oath and gain freedom.”
The white dragon tilted her head slightly. “The most likely scenario is that abyssal rift healed itself.”
Garoth nodded. “That makes sense.”
How the rift disappeared didn’t matter. What mattered was that it explained the Bronze Dragon King’s appearance on Atlantis.
The white dragon snorted. “Then it gets even more interesting.”
“This world is already in a terrible state, and now we have an additional Bronze Dragon King chasing his own brand of justice, arrogantly hunting evil.”
“Bernardo is getting more and more chaotic by the day.”
Garoth didn’t comment.
The white dragon stared at him and suddenly said, “Garoth, you’ve been up to a lot lately. I heard that on Arotala, you even killed a deity.”
Garoth shook his head, saying frankly, “Just a divine incarnation, and that was by sheer luck.”
The white dragon chuckled. “I know those rumors are exaggerated, but the premise is that you’ve accomplished feats that leave people dumbfounded.”
“I suspect many have already forgotten that you’re still only crown-level.”
She paused briefly, then asked, “When will you become Mandate? For many ancient dragons, crown-level is the limit, but although you’re young, I believe Mandate is just the beginning for you.”
Garoth nodded and said, “It won’t be long now.”
With that, he pushed aside his tangled thoughts and turned to ask the question that truly concerned him, changing the subject: “If the Bronze Dragon King returns with full force, will you intervene again?”
“That depends on my mood when the time comes.”
The white dragon yawned, revealing a pale tongue. “If I’m in a good mood, I’ll give him a headache. If I’m not, I’ll let him do as he pleases.”
She finished the yawn and put on a slightly more serious expression.
“It’s fine to annoy Sheffield, but to go all-out against him? No. I still have my own things to do. I don’t have the energy to go all-in against a deranged metal dragon.”
Hearing this, the red iron dragon looked thoughtful.
He stared at the white dragon, silent for a few seconds, then suddenly asked, “Is it because living keeps alive the possibility of resurrecting your human partner?”
The white dragon’s expression didn’t change, but her tail stopped swaying, hanging motionless at her side.
“Not resurrection.”
She corrected, “It’s revenge. I want to take revenge on that human. Until I finish this, I won’t let myself die anywhere, including under the claws of a metal dragon.”
The night wind passed between the two dragons.
Garoth said with amusement, “I’m a little curious.”
“How did you and that human of yours meet, and how did you become partners? Is it really like in your stories?”
The white dragon snorted coldly.
If it had been any other dragon, she wouldn’t have bothered to respond.
But she had a good impression of Garoth.
Among evil dragons, Garoth was one of the rare ones with brains and vision. Their previous exchanges had been pleasant. Besides, she had been alone for too long and did have words to vent, needing an outlet.
So at that moment, she opened up.
“It was that human who pestered me shamelessly.”
“Courtship rituals, flattering praises, offered treasures... none were missing. He did everything he could and should have done, without a single mistake, flattering me to the utmost.”
“I accepted reluctantly only to get his magical inheritance.”
Garoth looked at her expression but said nothing.
As she spoke these words, her tone was forceful and her posture proud, but that didn’t change the many holes in her story.
Garoth didn’t press further.
But Hitherfell noticed his gaze.
Her expression immediately shifted subtly—first a frown, then her eyes turned cold, and finally, obvious irritation spread across her face.
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
“No, I believe you completely.”
Garoth said without changing his expression.
“Bull... lie!”
A muffled growl escaped the white dragon’s throat, cold and curt: “I’m leaving.”
Without waiting for Garoth’s reply, she directly spread her wings and took off.
The runes on her wing membranes blazed to life, light erupting in the night. When the light faded, the white dragon’s form had vanished.
Garoth stood in place, staring in the direction she had left.
The white dragon had left in a hurry.
As if she didn’t want to continue the conversation, or as if she had remembered something unpleasant, she had pulled a long face, too lazy to exchange even a polite word.
The red iron dragon gazed into the night sky, his thoughts churning.
This matter had come to a close for now, but it was clearly far from over.
The Bronze Dragon King... among the Five Dragon Kings, his power was second only to the Gold Dragon King.
A Dragon King no longer bound by oaths, and an extreme obsessive on the side of order, was a massive threat to all evil dragons.
Here, “evil dragon” didn’t just refer to behavior.
Anyone with the corresponding bloodline would be considered an evil dragon.
And he, the Red Calamity, the Scarlet Emperor Cangxing, the End of All Things, happened to be the most conspicuous of all—the evil dragon among evil dragons, topping the list. He was undoubtedly seen as a thorn in the Bronze Dragon King’s side.
Compared to him.
The Apostle of the Chromatic Queen and the Storm Dragon lurking in the west were far less dangerous.
“What a pain. Can’t I just train and grow in peace?”
Garoth felt agitated, as if the blood vessels in his brain were throbbing.
The irritation and unease were like countless ants crawling under his skin, making him restless.
He even felt the urge to return to the west, to unleash his dragon breath in wanton destruction, burning everything to ashes, no matter the consequences—just to reduce all this irritation to cinders.
Everything would be fine then.
Huff!
Garoth took a deep breath, suppressing the surging emotions, forcing himself to calm down.
“The ultimate solution to all problems is only one: to make myself stronger. Mandate. Once I become Mandate, many of my current troubles will be resolved effortlessly.”
The red iron dragon tore through space and headed to the small world.
No matter how complicated the situation, he set aside all distractions and threw himself wholeheartedly into training.
Meanwhile.
Over the ocean.
The procession of Raging Tides great dragons raced through the low clouds. The Bronze Dragon King flew at the front, the sacred oath’s radiance on his body now faded. The dragon group behind him remained silent, the only sounds being the rhythm of dragon wings, stirring up waves on the sea surface.
Suddenly, Sheffield stopped.
The dragon group behind also slowed uniformly.
Ahead, a human figure hovered above the sea surface.
A dark gray coat clung tightly to his body in the sea breeze, short hair combed neatly back, a face in his early forties revealing a smile.
The Bronze Dragon King swept his gaze over him.
“I’ve seen you before. Not long ago, you stood behind the Red Calamity.”
“Explain your camp and stance.”
He said, his tone cold and dangerous.
Marcus bowed slightly.
“Your Majesty the Dragon King, I am an executor of the Halden Empire. It is an honor to see with my own eyes the legendary Lord of the Raging Tides, the Bronze Dragon King.”
He straightened up and continued.
“The reason you saw me traveling with the Red Emperor is that I was sent by the Empire to the Aola Royal Court, attempting to entrust him with a mission to the Siphoning Roots, to assist the Empire in resisting the Abyss’s invasion.”
“But he refused.”
“I am not allied with evil, Your Majesty. I was simply searching for power that could contribute to the cause of justice.”
Marcus’s tone was sincere, his posture humble but not servile, and his explanation was thorough.
The Bronze Dragon King’s eyes narrowed.
Their overexploitation of the Abyss had caused the demon calamity, but that wasn’t intentional—more a disaster born of ignorance and negligence.
More importantly, they stood on the side of order.
At the very least, they hadn’t chosen to flee or surrender after the demon invasion; they had organized a resistance.
“Stopping me. What do you want?”
The Bronze Dragon King asked.
Marcus didn’t beat around the bush.
He knew that speaking directly was the most effective way to communicate with a dragon of this temperament.
“The Atlantis Continent remains calm because the Empire is holding back the demon legions on the Abyss front lines.”
“Now, the flames of war are growing fiercer.”
“The Empire’s legions fight day and night, yet still cannot achieve victory. We need more support.”
He gazed at the Bronze Dragon King, raising his voice, “Noble Bronze Dragon King, you care for the world, with justice in your heart.”
“I witnessed with my own eyes your majestic stance just now, standing against evil.”
“Therefore, on behalf of the Halden Empire, I formally invite Your Majesty to the Abyss to aid in battle. Not requiring your loyalty to the Empire, but only to jointly resist the Abyss’s invasion and fight for the survival of all life on the Atlantis Continent.”
The Bronze Dragon King fell into thought.
In his mind, evil also had its tiers.
For example, because he himself was a dragon, well aware of dragonkind’s power, he saw powerful evil dragons as thorns in his side, calamities that must be eliminated.
Those with the bloodline of evil dragons.
No matter what they did, possessing that bloodline was original sin. They would inevitably side with evil sooner or later—just a matter of time.
But compared to Abyss demons.
The matter of evil dragons could be postponed.
The former was a world-level evil threat. If left unchecked, the entire material world would be devoured by the Abyss, while evil dragons at most ravaged one region. Even if left alone, they wouldn’t destroy the world.
Moreover, those evil dragons seemed to have formed a temporary alliance because of this common danger.
They couldn’t be eliminated in a short time; he needed to find opportunities to pick them off one by one. But he couldn’t just focus on them while ignoring other, more important evils.
The Bronze Dragon King quickly weighed the pros and cons, then said:
“The Mandate of Halden... have your Empire send a formal envoy to the Raging Tides Dragon Domain. At that time, I will hear your request.”
Hearing this, Marcus felt a jolt of excitement.
As long as there was no outright refusal, the possibility for negotiation meant the deal was essentially done. The next steps were just about showing enough sincerity and meeting the Bronze Dragon King’s conditions to drag this powerful combatant to the Abyss front lines.
“The envoy will arrive in the shortest possible time.”
“For the sake of justice and order, and for Atlantis... if I could fight side by side with Your Majesty the Dragon King, it would be my genuine honor.”
The Mandate of Halden lowered his posture and said.
The Bronze Dragon King’s expression remained unchanged.
He had no interest in flattery. Those words were no different from the sound of wind to his ears.
Averting his gaze, he slapped his wings once, his dragon body skimming across the sea surface as he continued flying toward the Raging Tides Dragon Domain. The group of metal dragons followed close behind.