Translator: AnubisTL
Frontierlands, southwestern region.
It was deep night, and two moons—one real, one illusory—hung high in the velvet-black sky, their hazy light bathing the land below.
Whoosh!
A fierce wind howled.
A massive black-red dragon soared across the sky, its wings shattering the moonlight like a comet streaking across the heavens.
Soon, the "comet" descended upon the Fertile Plains.
The Iron Dragon Solgorn, Red Dragon Samantha, White Dragon Treacy, Half-Centaur Elvie, and the sorcerers and shamans of the Annihilation Eye Warband were gathered on the plains, observing a central point.
As the black-red dragon approached, they all looked up, their gazes fixed on the familiar yet now even more majestic red-iron dragon.
Garos folded his wings, slowed his descent, and landed gracefully on the ground.
"Garos, the Ignis Brothers are reunited once more," Solgorn said with a wide grin. "Now that you've awakened, we no longer need to remain in hiding."
Though his voice was soft, it carried a penetrating quality that resonated deep within the mind, conveying a palpable sense of joy and relief.
Garos's gaze shifted slightly as he turned to look at Solgorn.
The iron dragon, four years older than Garos, had grown considerably larger, his body several times more massive than before. Yet he still couldn't match Garos in size. Each of his scales gleamed with a metallic sheen, their texture hard and unyielding. But the most striking feature was Solgorn's eyes, which seemed to pierce through the soul, burning with an intense, otherworldly light—a stark contrast to their previous appearance.
These are the eyes of a mind mage.
Iron Dragon Solgorn had become a fully fledged mind mage.
Thanks to their innate bloodline, dragons were naturally suited to most sorcerer classes.
Sorcerers didn't need to understand the principles behind their spells; they only needed to be able to use them. It was like a fish that swims without knowing why—it simply does it. Exploring the underlying principles was the spellcaster's domain.
"You should visit the Sulfur Hills," Red Dragon Samantha said, her tone almost boastful. "Inspired by your ideas, I rebuilt the alchemy workshop. Over the years, production capacity has increased dramatically, and this is just the beginning. It will become even more powerful in the future."
Garos nodded. "I look forward to seeing it."
Red Dragon Samantha had also undergone significant growth. After Garos entered his slumber, she too experienced the dragon sleep of adolescence, resulting in a substantial increase in both her physical size and life grade.
Thanks to the red dragon's naturally robust physique, she was the closest in strength to Garos.
But still, the gap remained vast and seemingly insurmountable.
To draw a human analogy, if we consider the red dragon to be a moderately successful bodybuilder, then Garos would be the dragon equivalent of Arnold Schwarzenegger. His colossal, imposing physique struck even dragonkind as overwhelmingly powerful.
In the eyes of other dragons, the white-scaled white dragon likely appeared as an underdeveloped gnome.
Garos glanced at Treacy, the white dragon.
Now over 190 years old, Treacy had reached the pinnacle of adulthood and was nearing her prime. Yet her physical stature paled in comparison to Garos's.
Over the past decade, her growth had been negligible, barely perceptible.
Both Treacy and Garos now measured 16 meters in length, but her waist was thinner than Garos's arm. Standing beside him, she looked like a frail reed—gaunt, bony, and almost pitiful.
Treacy bristled at Garos's gaze.
She wanted to snarl her displeasure, but when her eyes met his steel-forged, imposing physique, the words caught in her throat, leaving her speechless.
Just over a decade ago, when they first met, she could hold her own against the red-iron dragon in a balanced fight.
Now, she would likely be subdued in mere moments.
In a mere ten years, he had completely dwarfed her physically. What had this creature been eating to grow so monstrously? It was terrifying.
Could black oil somehow stimulate physical growth?
Having witnessed Garos guzzling black oil, the white dragon wondered if she should try it herself.
"What happened here?" Garos asked, glancing at the iron dragon. "Is it related to the Four Great Tribes?"
Solgorn shook his head. "We had a minor skirmish with the goblin tribe. We didn't expect those vermin to develop such a powerful tribe in the Frontierlands. But it's nothing serious—we've already resolved it. The incident on the Fertile Plains was an unforeseen anomaly, unrelated to the Four Great Tribes."
The sorcerers and shamans who had been gathered in a circle behind them, as if performing some arcane ritual, dispersed.
The iron dragon pointed to the exposed clearing. "Look, it's this thing."
Garos stared intently.
When he saw the target, his gaze sharpened, his pupils constricted slightly, and his heart pounded with unease.
Under the night-shrouded sky, a black-violet rift was etched into the ground. Roughly ten meters long, it was slender, twisted, and serpentine, resembling a colossal centipede or a scar on the earth.
A dense aura of malevolent energy surged from the rift, radiating an unsettling presence.
Even before approaching, merely catching a whiff of its emanations, Garos felt a surge of violent, bloodthirsty, and savage desires. Crimson veins crawled across his eyes.
"How could this thing appear on the Fertile Plains?"
The red-iron dragon's gaze was solemn, its indomitable will suppressing the surging negative emotions. A chill ran through its core.
For the black-purple rift before it was no mere crack in the ground.
It bore a widely known name:
The Abyssal Rift.
The rift's appearance in the material realm was merely one manifestation of its true nature. In essence, it was a spatial conduit connecting the material realm to the abyssal plane—a bridge for abyssal demons to invade the material world.
As for the abyssal plane, its full name was the bottomless abyss.
It was the plane representing chaos and evil among all planes. Even the gods themselves knew not its true depths nor the number of terrifying demons lurking within.
On Bernardo Planet's Middle-Earth Continent, within the Holden Empire, lay the largest Abyssal Rift.
To prevent its further expansion and purge the demons descending into the material realm, the Holy Flame Arbiter—a supreme golem—was originally designed to guard the Abyssal Rift.
Beyond the Holy Flame Arbiter, multiple legendary powerhouses were stationed at the Abyssal Rift. It consumed vast manpower and resources from the Holden Empire, yet remained stubbornly uneradicated, a constant thorn in the empire's side.
However, the abyssal rifts also provided the Holden Empire with abyssal material that were nearly impossible to obtain in the material realm.
The ten-meter-long abyssal rift before them was insignificant compared to the massive rifts within Holden territory. Any dragon present could easily conceal it by simply lying over it.
Yet it could not be underestimated.
These rifts grew.
They expanded gradually on their own, but if demons were allowed to emerge and rampage unchecked, the Abyssal qi radiating from their bodies would rapidly corrode the surrounding land, causing the rift to expand exponentially.
"Why has an abyssal rift appeared here?" the red-iron dragon frowned, his brow furrowing.
Staring intently at the rift's location, his eyes suddenly widened with realization.
The changes over the past decade had erased most traces of the fierce battle he had waged here with Chieftain Bloodhoof.
But dragons possessed exceptional memories. Garos still recalled this area as the battlefield where he had clashed with Chieftain Bloodhoof, and the exact spot where the abyssal rift now lay was where Baal Bloodhoof had met his final demise.
Remembering Baal Bloodhoof's body engulfed in burning demonic blood, his magic flame raging, it wasn't difficult to deduce a profound connection between his death and the rift's emergence.
Could the death of an individual with demonic blood ancestry cause an abyssal rift to appear?
The inheritance texts offered no clear answer.
There must be another reason behind this.
However, the specific cause remained unknown, and now was not the time for investigation. The abyssal rift before them demanded immediate attention.
"We've been trying to close it, but we haven't succeeded," Iron Dragon Solgorn said. "No demons have emerged yet, and its size is still small, but it's like a thorn in our territory."
Sorcerers and shamans from Annihilation's Eye, along with several juvenile dragons and the white dragon Treacy, had each employed their unique methods, yet none could eliminate the rift.
Red Dragon Samantha's flaming dragon breath had even widened it from nine meters to ten, like pouring oil on a fire.
The problem was that the dragons and monsters present all possessed varying degrees of evil alignment. If outsiders saw them gathered near the abyssal rift, they would likely be blamed as the culprits behind its creation.
"Has Elvie tried?" Garos asked, turning to the hybrid centaur.
Specialized skills were needed for this task. Elvie possessed the atavistic blood of a pegasus, celestial beings originating from Mount Celestia, who were naturally imbued with divine power capable of dispelling evil.
In theory, she could suppress or even eliminate the abyssal rift.
"My lord, I have failed to meet your expectations. I cannot handle the abyssal rift," Elvie said, bowing her head in shame.
Despite her mixed heritage as a half-centaur with elven blood, her innate talent had allowed her to advance rapidly. Over the past decade, her life grade had soared from Tier 9 to Tier 12.
However, she was not a purebred pegasus. The divine attributes inherited from her ancestral bloodline proved insufficient to resolve the abyssal rift.
Elvie had tried focusing her pegasus power to attack the rift, with limited success. While she could suppress its natural expansion, she couldn't shatter it.
As of now, Dragon Valley lacked the means to eliminate the abyssal rift.
"A ten-meter rift won't spawn particularly strong demons," the red-iron dragon said calmly. "At most, we'll face some low-level demons, easily handled by our forces."
"Besides, abyssal material is highly valuable. If we can harness it, this might not be a bad thing after all."
The emergence of the abyssal rift had caught Garos completely off guard.
Had he foreseen this, he would have gladly dumped Baal Bloodhoof far beyond the Duchy of Raymond's borders, forcing those humans who had provoked him to taste the bitter fruits of their folly.
But what was done was done. Time could not be reversed.
The key now was how to properly manage this situation, even turning it into a resource.
Danger and opportunity often coexist.
The perils of the abyssal rift were undeniable, but it could also become a valuable resource point for farming abyssal material.
Demons were the nightmare of countless creatures, but among those countless creatures, the dragon race was not included. Dragonkind never feared demons.
Even within the abyssal plane, powerful planar dragons like the abyssal dragon existed, preying on demons and surpassing even gold dragons in might.
As the chief of Dragon Valley, Garos's composure swiftly calmed his surrounding familiars.
"You're right," Iron Dragon Solgorn nodded in agreement. "The Holden Empire has been guarding the massive rift alone, refusing assistance from other nations. Clearly, they've been reaping considerable benefits. If we manage this small rift properly, it might bring us unexpected gains."
(End of the Chapter)
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