novelraw Chapter 451: Cold Teeth Presume About True Dragon Affairs, Red Wing Rips the Sky and Opens the Blizzard
Chapter 451: Cold Teeth Presume About True Dragon Affairs, Red Wing Rips the Sky and Opens the Blizzard
Permafrost Tundra, Aola Kingdom border stronghold.
Ancient White Dragon Beskarl sprawled on the temporary clearing, his dragon pupils flashing clear impatience and scrutiny as he glared down at the barbaric creature daring to stand before him without flinching.
He was far taller and more massive than the other ogres and trolls, skin a deep gray-brown, muscles so taut they threatened to burst the alchemical armor he wore, and frozen meat fragments still clung to the outward-curving fangs.
This was the ogre Gruff, the head of this stronghold.
Before the hulking, awe-inspiring legendary White Dragon, the ogre did not bow or kneel. Instead he straightened his thick torso and, with copper-bell eyes, boldly stared back at Beskarl.
That look treated the dragon like an unworldly country bumpkin, showing no reverence for a legendary life.
Gruff’s gaze irked Beskarl deeply.
But considering the possibility that these lowly crawlers might truly be backed by a powerful kin dragon, Beskarl suppressed his killing intent.
He needed information.
“You, the slightly stronger leader among these crawlers,”“You should know better than your kind the true situation of this land now.”
The White Dragon tilted his massive head forward, frost forming on Gruff’s armor from his exhaled cold.
“Now, tell me, how formidable is this ‘Red Iron Dragon Emperor’ you swear loyalty to, and the so-called ‘Aola Kingdom’ he established? What capital does he have that makes a mere ogre like you boast so brazenly and stand before me so fearless?”
Gruff did not answer.
He twisted his huge head and put on a stubborn, noncooperative look.
Then, under Beskarl’s stunned stare, Gruff’s throat bobbed and he spit a glob toward Beskarl’s glittering huge foreclaw.
The spit never touched dragon scales; it froze midair into a tiny ice bead and fell to the snow.
The White Dragon’s eyelid twitched. He raised his sharp claw, which trembled slightly, the tip gleaming with cold—almost instinctively prepared to crush this brazen ogre like an insect.
But when he saw Gruff’s eyes, devoid of fear and full of daring challenge, Beskarl forcibly restrained the impulse.
He slowly lowered the raised claw, planted it on the ground, and carved deep furrows in the frost.
“Don’t rush, don’t rush, be patient, hunting requires patience... don’t stoop to the level of this simple-minded crawler.”
BeskarI repeated to himself, a survival wisdom honed through long years of hiding.
A few seconds later, the great white dragon’s eyeballs turned shrewdly as he hit upon a plan.
“Stupid ogre, you dodge and refuse to discuss the deeds and might of your emperor in detail.”
“Is it because he’s actually too young, shallow-rooted, or hollow and weak—unworthy of mention? So you can only cover it with empty loyalty?”
He spoke with contempt and skepticism.
That struck a raw nerve in Gruff’s simple, loyal mind.
“Nonsense! What do you know! You know nothing about our great Emperor Ignas!”
Gruff’s temper flared.
He puffed out his thick chest and his voice boomed.
“After His Majesty ascended to the legendary realm, he used strength and wisdom to establish our kingdom in this wild land!”
“On the day of the nation-founding ceremony, what a scene! Envoys from many states came to congratulate! Envoys from major powers respectfully offered praise and precious gifts! Even the shining Metal Dragons flew in to witness and proclaim His Majesty’s coronation and renown!”
“The frost giant legends who used to strut across this icefield were killed on the spot merely by His Majesty glaring at them!”
“When the kingdom was newly founded, ten reckless Dragon-Worship Cult legends tried to cause trouble. And what happened? His Majesty faced ten at once and slaughtered them as easily as swatting goblins, one claw each!”
“Even the legendary priests favored by the deities, empowered by divine authority, who opposed His Majesty merely courted their own deaths.”
Listening to this escalating, seemingly drunken bard’s string of feats, Beskarl exhaled two visible streams of frosty breath, and the surrounding temperature plummeted.
“Do you think a legend is a goblin? Can it be killed by a glare, or fought ten at a time like chopping melons and cutting vegetables?”
The White Dragon’s voice abruptly rose, “Or do you think I just woke from the ice, my brain frozen, and would believe such crude lies that even a six-year-old wyrmling wouldn’t swallow?”
He felt his intelligence insulted.
Gruff, by contrast, widened his eyes and flared his thick lips, convinced the other was questioning something everyone knew.
“It’s true! Absolutely true!”
“I, Gruff, may not have seen it myself in the wilderness, but I heard Malit the goblin from the wild say it!”
“Malit told it himself! He never lies, he’s willing to bet ten casks of his treasured premium mead to guarantee it!”
The ogre’s rebuttal was fervent, spittle spraying.
“Goblin? Mead?”
BeskarI almost laughed in anger. “A goblin’s oath is worth ten times, no, a hundred times the goblin-brewed mead!”
Drawing in a deep breath, the White Dragon attempted to crush the nonsense with logic:
“By your account, your emperor has only just risen to the legendary rank, perhaps not even warm in the field of legend. How could he simultaneously confront and slay ten legends of equal rank? By what means could he kill a deity-favored legend?”
“Use that barren brain of yours to think this through! Is that possible?!”
BeskarI supposed that the so-called Aola Kingdom was merely a tribal spectacle created by a red iron dragon skilled at spinning tall tales to intimidate.
Maybe that red iron dragon had some ability to dominate locally.
But those ridiculously exaggerated stories were ninety-nine percent fabrications to consolidate rule and terrorize subjects.
“My brain works fine! Better than your frozen one!”
Gruff sneered rudely and even pointed to his own big head, “Just because you can’t do it, arrogant White Dragon, doesn’t mean our great Lord Ignas can’t! He can!”
The dragon was irritated by the ogre’s stubbornness.
A harsher cold emanated from his body; visible frost rapidly crawled up Gruff’s armor, skin, even eyelashes, making him look like a snowman.
Yet the ogre let out a loud sneeze and continued to stare with those big eyes, unbowed.
“All right, fine, even if he truly did kill those legends.”
Suppressing barely contained rage, Beskarl attacked the more absurd lies with a different line of argument.
“You said your emperor is a naturally evil red iron dragon who invited envoys and was witnessed by Metal Dragons at his founding ceremony?”
“Are you saying those states are blind? Or have they all degenerated and pledged themselves to the evil faction?”
“Those Metal Dragons who uphold justice and order, who see Five-colored Dragons as calamities—did they all collectively lose their minds and sing praise and bear witness for a red-iron evil dragon’s nation founding?”
He practically roared, butting heads with the thick-skulled crawler to puncture this obvious falsehood.
“So what?!”
Gruff spat again into the icy air.
“His Majesty is a mighty evil dragon, yes, but he’s also charismatic, like the sun—he can make Metal Dragons willingly follow, make envoys from other states bow and offer tribute! Ignas is that powerful!”
He spoke with the certainty of a self-evident axiom.
BeskarI snapped, “You can become a Heroic Spirit when you die? Ridiculous. Heroic Spirits are lives from the hero domain! Is your emperor a god? Or a lord of planes? That nonsense—you actually believe it?”
On the other side, Gruff couldn’t be bothered to explain further.
He sneered and said in a heavy voice, “Humph, His Majesty is the noble Red and Iron Dragon. His affairs aren’t something a lowly White Dragon like you can comprehend.”
BeskarI fell utterly silent.
His huge form trembled slightly from rage he could hardly suppress, his claws dug deep into the ice.
To be judged and dismissed as an inferior dragon by an ogre he regarded as mere livestock and food stores—this level of fury and humiliation was something Beskarl had not felt in centuries.
The last time he had been this angry was when a frost giant stole his hunt and mocked him as only fit to scavenge leftovers in the north.
This stubborn, stupid ogre had deeply provoked him.
BeskarI seriously considered turning him into an ice statue on the spot, freezing his expression forever to memorialize the cost of insulting an ancient, legendary dragon.
Yet deep in the core of the dragon’s anger, a sliver of unease quietly grew.
Gruff’s bluntness, his unfeigned certainty, was too unusual.
It didn’t feel like blind fanaticism from simple brainwashing; it read more like an instinctive conviction.
Could it be... that behind those absurd-sounding tales there was, after all, some exaggeration with a basis in truth?
Had such an incredible king truly arisen while Beskarl slumbered?
BeskarI’s mind, always sharp—otherwise he could never have grown and survived the perilous icefield and finally ascended to legend—felt a twinge of doubt.
But the pride of the ancient dragon and his newly earned confidence gradually overwhelmed that doubt.
“Even if... even if he truly had half, or even a third of the rumored strength and influence, so what?”
BeskarI thought, “I have endured the bitter cold of the extreme north, honed my claws for over eight hundred years!”
“Although I only just became a legend, my deep foundation is not comparable to those who rose quickly in comfortable regions! This is my home turf.”
“And once a fire-aligned Red Iron Dragon steps into this place, his power will be weakened!”
“Given the change in advantage from environment, the upper hand is mine!”
With that, Beskarl bared his coldly sharp teeth.
No longer dwelling on the ogre’s tall tales, he expanded his oppressive aura and scanned the surroundings.
“Listen, you barbarians blinded by lies,” he declared in a low voice that carried far in the biting wind, “today I spare your lives not out of mercy, but because I need you as messengers.”
He raised a foreclaw and pointed south.
“Go back and tell that emperor of yours who spins exaggerated stories to frighten his subordinates: the Permafrost Tundra honors the strong and tolerates no empty fame or lies.”
“I, Ancient Dragon Beskarl, Frostbane, have now returned as a legend!”
“Your emperor’s vain renown and fabricated exploits mean nothing before true power!”
“If he has sense and understands reverence, he should obediently cede rulership of the northern icefield; I may consider a truce where our waters do not mingle.”
“If he persists in delusion and tries to uphold his fragile throne with those laughable tales... then I will not hesitate to decorate my new realm with his bones!”
No sooner had the words left his maw than a primal warning sensation of danger slammed into Beskarl’s heart.
Almost without thinking, he lifted his head and stared into the sky as light pierced the howling curtain of wind and snow.
At first there was nothing but a gray-white canopy and swirling snowflakes.
Then, through the leaden sky, a small red dot grew clearer at astonishing speed.
It began as an insignificant pixel against the blizzard, but in each passing instant it expanded, tearing through the veil of snow as its outline quickly formed.
“Take that and tell it to our lord yourself!”
Gruff noticed the change on the horizon too. He was not afraid; his face flushed with excitement.
“Look! It’s His Majesty! The great Emperor Ignas, the burning red death star! He comes in person!”
All the stronghold’s followers erupted in excited cheers.
BeskarI’s expression turned grave and solemn.
He no longer had time for the noisy creatures; his dragon eyes locked onto the increasingly near, increasingly distinct crimson presence in the sky.
In just a few blinks, the red light had become a burning scarlet meteor!
It smashed through the heavens with an unbearably arrogant posture, moving so fast it left a brief streak of light behind.
A supersonic shockwave violently shoved aside and vaporized the wind and snow along its path.
The thick, wall-like blizzard of the north was torn open by a scorching, straight wound.
Within only a few breaths, the scarlet meteor, carrying unmatched might, reached the stronghold’s overhead.
Centered by the hovering red silhouette, a ring of searing pressure rolled outward in all directions.
Countless snowflakes in the air hissed as they met the heat, melting and evaporating instantly into vast plumes of steaming white vapor.
The rising steam and fog only served to highlight the ferocity and majesty of the figure at the center.