Ashen Dragon

"But one day, I will grow to that extent as well! And now—I have not lost yet!"

Dracalis slowly climbed up from the ruins, shaking her body. The blood of the Ancestral Dragon was repairing her wounds, allowing her to gradually recover.

She roared, flapped her wings again, soared into the sky, breaking through the rolling smoke, and appeared in the sky.

Dracalis opened her mouth, filled with fresh blood, took a deep breath, greedily absorbing the surrounding fire elemental energy, with firelight bursting forth from her throat.

"Boom——"

Only to hear the air instantly shatter, a waterfall-like dragonflame poured down, a cone-shaped breath spraying from Dracalis's mouth.

Hmm, a standard Red Dragon's breath, without those odd changes like Cassius's.

"To dare use flame breath in front of me... truly courageous."

Looking at the dragonflame coming straight at him, Cassius suddenly found it amusing—no one had dared to use flames against him in a long time.

He possessed the Fire Elemental Plane Authority, the sub-occupation of an Elemental Master, and even controlled the Sun God Power of Amanata.

Not to mention Dracalis's breath, even the full-force strike of the Lord of Fire Elementals couldn't do a thing to him.

Cassius calmly raised a claw, and under the authority of the fire element, he instantly claimed the dragonflame that Dracalis spewed as his own.

The flame became even more turbulent and fierce, repelling back at the female Red Dragon in the sky.

"Ah——"

Dracalis dodged in some panic, yet was still hit by the breath that originated from herself but was strengthened several times by Cassius, leaving a charred wound on her chest.

Her entire body burst into flames, ascending in urgency to high altitudes to avoid the ensuing flames.

What terrifying fire element control! I can't use dragon breath anymore!

This Ashen Empire's Emperor is undoubtedly the most powerful adversary she has ever encountered in her life, bar none.

The disparity in strength is truly too great, whether in size, strength, speed, or spellcasting ability, the opponent held an absolute advantage.

The Ashen Empire's Emperor felt like an insurmountable mountain, blocking Dracalis, leaving her with a profound sense of suffocation, even despair.

Yet, at the same time, she also felt an unprecedented thrill, as if dancing on the edge of a blade, her blood boiling.

Only by battling an opponent of such caliber, can she become even stronger.

Dracalis gritted her teeth, making up her mind, she spread her dragon wings, circled a few times, then seized the opportunity to dive down into the opponent's blind spot of vision.

"Swish——"

The edge of the dragon wings tore through the air, emitting a piercing scream as Dracalis once again pounced toward Cassius.

According to the residents' social status, Bod Gate was divided into the Nobles Upper City and the Commoners Lower City, with the Outer City scattered around Chenyi Mountain, and the gate that distinguished Upper City and Lower City was called Bod Gate, which the entire city was named after, serving as a monument to the city's founder, Bodlan.

Bod Gate is currently governed by a four-member council, all of whom are Grand Dukes, with one being the council leader. If a vote ends in a tie, Grand Duke Elder Ravenclaw makes the decision. The Upper City's law and order are maintained by an official elite police force called the Watch, while other areas are safeguarded by a mercenary group called "Flaming Fist." Grand Duke Elder Ravenclaw is also the highest leader of the mercenary group, headquartered at Bodlan Sea Tower, the strongest fortress guarding against naval invasions, whereas the city's economic lifeline—Gray Harbor, wrapped like a crescent around Bod Gate, welcomes hundreds of merchant ships daily, bringing gold coins, as well as greed and sin.

The Upper City, on higher ground, is comprised of Castle District, Temple District, Manoburn District, and Wide Alley District, hosting numerous religious buildings; Miracle Hall and Supreme Miracle House are the church centers of the God of Craft, Gund, showcasing grand inventions in Miracle Hall and serving a workshop function in the Supreme Miracle House. The Lower City's buildings, mostly made of stone, consist of six districts: Sea Tower District, Blonrich District, Steep District, Crowded Side District, East Road District, and Branpton District. The middle-class generally reside in Blonrich District next to the Upper City's nobility, while the East Road District, near the Stone Lizard Gate connecting the Outer City, is more of a mixed bag, with many bustling taverns and cheap inns. Sea Tower District is where the Flaming Fist mercenary group is stationed, with the headquarters built on the largest rocky offshore island near Sea Tower District, in the Bodlan Sea Tower, and Branpton District and Steep District are relatively rundown, homes for sailors and laborers. The Outer City is spread along the Chongsar River, populated by temporary structures and shantytowns, with a landmark stone bridge called Flying Dragon Crossroad, filled with vendors, even widening the bridge with planks, adding many structures on top—law and order are almost nonexistent here, and the Flaming Fist can offer limited protection, with poor or criminal individuals unable to find settlement in the city congregating here.

The moss on the sewer's dome glowed eerily green in the dim lantern light, the murky sewage sloshed over boot bottoms, each step eliciting a sticky "glug" sound. Purple-black mucus seeped from the wall cracks, converging like veins toward the drain—this was the spirit-sucking monster nest's unique neuro-corrosive substance, inhalation by ordinary people would cause auditory hallucinations, as if countless tiny tendrils were writhing in their ear canals. Suddenly, a "click" of dislocated bones came from behind a broken iron pipe, as if something was twisting and squeezing through a narrow space. Three patrolling guards raised their lanterns, when suddenly the sewage exploded! Four Spirit Sucking Monsters burst from the water, white humanoid bodies encased in rot, octopus-like heads with tendrils vibrating at high frequency, releasing visible purple mind shock wave ripples. The helmet of the foremost guard dented, eyes bursting into blood mist under increased cranial pressure; the second person, yet to scream, had a tendril stabbed into the ear canal, the spine was extracted like a puppet's string; the only surviving guard stumbled backward, his firearm's firing drowned by the Spirit Sucking Monsters' collective sub-frequency screech. These Spirit Sucking Monsters were evidently trained in tactics. Two feigned attack individuals struck the water with tendrils, stirring up a fog of corrosive liquid to obscure vision; a third hung from the ceiling, using suction cups to adhere to a guard's skull, tendril tip precisely penetrating the foramen magnum—not immediate death, but forcibly manipulating the captive like a puppet, using his trembling hands to reload ammunition for the companions' firearms. At that moment, the fourth Spirit Sucking Monster was slicing open the fallen guard's chest with a bone blade at its knuckle, extracting a warm liver and stuffing it into its oral apparatus, faint yellow digestive fluid dripping from its chin, creating wisps of smoke on the ground. The parasitized were not completely dead. The guard's mutilated body suddenly convulsed and rose, a half-transparent Spirit Sucking Monster larva tendril burrowing out from the neck wound, the pupils dilated into a cloudy milky white. The body then jerked up, and from the slit in the neckline emerged a translucent tendril of the infant Spirit Sucking Monster, dilating the pupils into a turbid milky white. As the last gunshot dissipated, the sewer returned to a heavy silence, more white figures surfaced in the distance at the sewage pool, dragging with them a dozen captives cocooned in viscous slime, their human faces twisting in silent screams under the cocoon. As the final gunshot dissolved, the sewers returned to heavy silence, with more pale figures surfacing, dragging a dozen captives cocooned in slime into the drainage depths, the cocoon sometimes twitching as if the slime-cocooned "Seed" was about to hatch. Meanwhile, in the mind network of the central brain, the coordinates of these new bodies are turning into a string of cold purple light, converging towards that looming giant shadow beneath Bod Gate.

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