The Mighty Dragons Are Dead

This chapter is "Encountering You in the Deepest Part of My Life" - a paid extra release. ----- Night had already fallen. From the sensing of the Space Magic Beacon, all five dragons were back on Hot Spring Island. Liszt sent a message via the Magic Platform to the Magician stationed on Hot Spring Island, instructing him to keep a close watch on the food transportations. Liszt no longer dallied and headed straight back to Black Horse Island to rest. After a whole day of laborious traveling on the sea, Bard was exhausted. He needed to conserve his energy to prepare for tomorrow's events. The next morning, Liszt continued to approach Hot Spring Island to monitor the five beacons. He also kept calling on the Smoke Mission. "Mission: Your daily routine is being probed, danger lurks in the shadows inching closer. Even as a Dragon Knight, you cannot guarantee safety from ambush, and fighting is the best solution. Resolve the crisis in the shadows. Reward: Carnivorous Ogre Shadow Tracing." The mission had not changed; the crisis in the shadows was still unresolved. This meant that Alex and Alonso had not given up and wanted to attack again. Hence, Liszt couldn't relax yet, he needed to continue monitoring the five dragons. However, By midday, the Smoke Mission changed. "Mission completed, Reward Carnivorous Ogre Shadow Tracing." The mission had been successfully completed; after some discussions, Alex, Alonso, Piero, and others decided not to continue and chose to give up the dragon slaying battle. "But did you ask me before giving up?" Liszt's eyes flickered. The Smoke Mission also seemed to shift with his feelings, slowly transforming into another Serpent Script: "Mission: A dragon slaying battle was averted with correct handling and you achieved the surprising result of killing a Dragon Knight. However, 'pursue the desperate enemy with your remaining courage, do not sell fame to learn from tyrants.' Why not continue to strive for more glorious results in this dragon slaying battle. Reward: Man-Eating Tree Cluster." This was his resolve. When he noticed the beacons of the five dragons started to move, he quietly followed. Along the way these beacons didn't scatter; they continuously flew towards the interior of the Sapphire Archipelago. Liszt maintained a distance of two hundred kilometers, not too far yet not too close, quietly trailing behind, waiting for the team to disperse. From afternoon to evening, the five dragons finally stopped moving at one spot. Using the map of the Duchy of Sapphire and the sextant to determine their position, Liszt quickly identified their landing spot as an inhabited island. It wasn't big. It was merely the domain of a Viscount Lord—Square Island. The lord of the island was the Viscount of Square Island, and he was a follower of Marquis Deep Throat, Wallace Pineapple Green. "Is this a traitor, or have the five dragons not alarmed the lord of the island?" Liszt also found an island and quietly landed to rest. Regardless, the Viscount of Square Island was highly suspect of betrayal. … At the same time Liszt was quietly tracking the dragons of the Eagle Kingdom. Far away on Flame Island, Emily was leading the Mammoth Knight Brigade to build the second raceway—Charcoal River Great Road, connecting Charcoal River Parkway between Flame City and Estuary City. Whirlpool River twisted and turned—it wasn't straight. Therefore, Charcoal River Great Road needed to be built deep into the jungle. These days, the construction reached deep into a dense forest, yet numerous serfs transporting materials went missing along the way. Gradually, a legend about carnivorous ogres erupted among the serfs of Moon Slayer people, starting first with the serfs of the River Tribe. According to the serfs of the River Tribe, they were a large tribe ten years ago until they encountered a murderous, formless carnivorous ogre, which reduced them to a small tribe of less than five hundred people. Against their will, they moved to another forest that had been conquered by knights. Unexpectedly, after ten years of hiding, the carnivorous ogre appeared again, and the ancient mage of the River Tribe confirmed the serfs' accounts were true. Originally, investigating the carnivorous ogre was not under Emily's management, but when a knight disappeared while camping, it raised her alertness. After several days of close investigation, she finally discovered the reason for the Knight's disappearance; "Is it this tree?" "Yes, Captain, we saw with our own eyes how it bound the serf bait and then other similar tree creatures dismembered the serf. Unfortunately, these tree creatures run fast, and we only captured this one. It seemed to realize that it couldn't escape and just turned into what it looks like now, motionless." This was a slender tree, over three meters tall, with sparse branches and leaves and an even thinner trunk and branches, without many other distinguishing features. However, the Knights earnestly assured that the tree could move like a vine and pull out its own root system to run on the ground. "Set it on fire!" Emily said. Torches ignited the branches, crackling as they burned, but the tree showed no reaction at all, as if a regular, nonresponsive tree was being burnt. Watching as the tree's branches were being burned completely. With a youthful accent and a mature tone, she said, "Interesting." ... After leaving Square Island, Alex and Alonso's Dragon Knight Squad passed through two deserted islands and finally left the Sapphire Archipelago three days later. What followed was a nautical journey of over a thousand kilometers, but soon Liszt discovered there were still some deserted islands in the sea where they could make stops. It was these islands that allowed the Eagle Kingdom to let Dragon Knights tread freely across the Sapphire Archipelago. With insiders like Count Hot Spring Island and Viscount of Square Island, they initiated a dragon slaying battle involving five dragons, but, unfortunately, the outcome was still a failure. "Have they not split up yet?" Liszt was sitting on a seashell, next to a huge block of ice. Bard lay on the ice block, grumpily chewing on some smoked grass. "Woo ee ya!" Bard responded, indicating that it hadn't sensed the beacons splitting. Ach was swimming cheerily in the sea, she retracted her cloaks using Magic Armament and swam freely in the sea as before, with only a water strip covering the key areas. Liszt's gaze followed her figure, a smile forming at the corner of his mouth. Then, he took a cup of steaming semip tea from the Space Ring and savored it slowly. Chasing over the seas was not arduous for him, merely a relaxing journey. A moment later. Bard stood up; "Woo ee ya!" It detected the beacon starting to move, so Liszt and Ach immediately set off, continuing to track the beacon. After tracking another hundred kilometers, the eyes of man and dragon suddenly lit up—they sensed that the consistently grouped five beacons had finally dispersed, with four continuing together. But there was one that left the group. "Who could it be leaving?" Liszt immediately abandoned the four grouped beacons and steered the Formless Dragon Bard towards the lone beacon. However, he didn't approach rashly, wary of it being a counter-ambush. They quickly neared the coastline of the Eagle Kingdom, the other four beacons had long disappeared, presumably the four dragons had returned to the Eagle Kingdom from another direction. At this time. Liszt was pleasantly surprised. Because the lone dragon flew near the Siren Reef Cluster, close to a natural node there that allowed Liszt to directly shuttle through space. "So what are we waiting for, Bard, let's go!" "Woo ee ya!" Flying high-speed, tearing through the material boundary, entering a world outside of matter, Magic Return Positioning locked on the natural node at the Siren Reef Cluster. Open. Back to the real world. The beacon response was just twenty kilometers away, and he had already sensed the breath of that dragon: "Grey Iron Dragon, so it's Duke Piero from Grey Iron Duchy, trying to take a straight line back to his own territory... Iron Dragon... Had it been Alex White Iron, I might not have dared to engage, but you're just a lone dragon without a rider!" He pulled out the Thunder Fury Dragon Lance. Liszt roared, "Bard, charge!"