Chapter 136: Chapter 136: The Dragons’ Humiliation

“Roar! Activate the Dragon Mountain Array! We must protect our resources before His Majesty sends aid.”

“But Sire, those damned Sky Serpents are surrounding us. We will be trapped like this.”

“Damn those despicable snakes!”

Across a massive, sprawling, snow-covered mountain, about a dozen dragons, mostly young and old with one foot in the grave, were stationed to guard the Spirit Iron Ores.

One particular dragon delved inside the mountain to activate the protective array they had built using leftover treasure from their ancestors.

“ROARRRR!”

Soon, a massive blue dragon the size of a half-kilometer-tall mountain rose with a terrifying roar.

BUZZZ!

It did not meet the Sky Serpents head on. That was not its purpose.

It transformed into a kilometers-scale protective shield that shimmered in the air like a translucent wall of blue light.

“HISSSSSSSS!”

Not long after, the Sky Serpents arrived.

They were approximately 70 meters in length and 20 meters in width, surrounding the mountain like white eels circling prey in dark water.

Their bodies were sleek and divinely white, almost beautiful from a distance, the kind of beautiful that existed specifically to lower defenses before it killed something.

Their slithering tongues flickered in and out with occasional hissing sounds that made the natural chill around the mountain peak feel somehow inferior, as though the cold the Serpents held within them was a different and more fundamental variety than mere weather.

“S~S~S~S~S.”

They moved in slow circles around the mountain, the way things move when they are completely confident that time is on their side.

They stopped only when the translucent blue dome of the protective array denied their entry.

“HISSSSSSSS!”

The lead serpent pressed its massive head against the barrier as its white scales pressed flat against the shimmering surface.

Its cold eyes looked at the dragons mockingly.

“Hiss, oh how low the mighty predators have fallen.”

Its voice dripped with contempt.

“Hiss, hiss… well said, Sire. These lizards hide behind an array thinking it can save them,” one among the hundreds of Sky Serpents added, equally disdainful.

Another laughed so hard it started shaking.

“HAHAHA… to think they once ruled above us. How does it feel to be reduced to mere lizards hiding behind withered scales?”

“Sire, why do we not peel their scales and attach them to our bodies? They are useless on them anyway,” added another cruelly.

The dozen dragons inside the array shivered hearing this.

If they were really skinned alive, how would they show their faces to their kind, even if they survived today?

The captain of the garrison, Thrax, stood firm.

“Agniel, do not be so arrogant!” he shouted. “Our ancestors made a mistake by granting wings to you filthy snakes. They did not know their kindness would come back to bite their own kind. You Sky Serpents should never have existed. You two faced traitors!”

Agniel, the Serpent Leader, narrowed his gaze coldly.

“Address me with respect, you mongrel. I can kill you with a swat of my tail. As for your ancestors, they were the truly despicable ones. They granted us wings simply so we could serve as worthy vessels to carry their offspring. Our kind had been breeding slaves for generations. But not anymore. We will take revenge for everyone who suffered under your tyranny.”

He paused, a mad glee crossing his features.

“After that, we will take your Queen. I hear she has been untouched for centuries. Our King will surely enjoy having his way with her and forcing her to carry his offspring. An offspring born of the Dragon Queen and the Serpent King will surely be magnificent, do you not think?”

He smirked.

Humiliation. This was pure humiliation for the entire dragon race.

Their pride and dignity had been washed away by the other party’s overwhelming strength and numbers.

“ROAR! Damn snake! How dare you insult our queen? I will kill you!”

Unable to endure the humiliation of Queen Sapphira, Thrax charged through the barrier opening with the blind fury of someone who had run out of patience entirely.

He lasted approximately thirty seconds.

Agniel did not even use his full strength.

Bang!

He swatted Thrax aside with his tail the way one swats something small and annoying, and what followed was not a battle. It was a demonstration.

“Hisss~ How weak!”

Agniel’s coils wrapped around the garrison captain with unshakable grip.

Crack, crack, crack.

The scales came off one by one.

The dragons inside the dome watched in horror.

“Captain! Roar! NOOOO!”

Some turned away. Some could not.

The youngest among them, barely past his first decade, was shaking so hard his claws were scratching grooves into the stone beneath him without him noticing.

“Captain… Captain Thrax.”

Nobody answered.

Rip!

Thrax’s wings tore with a sound that carried across the entire mountain and came back as an echo, and the garrison captain who had stood firm through the humiliation of Agniel’s words fell to the snow without them, bleeding and still and robbed of the sky.

“HA HA HA HA!”

The Sky Serpents laughed.

The dragons wept.

Agniel looked down at Thrax’s crumpled form with cold, satisfied eyes and opened his mouth to speak again.

Then, suddenly, the sky changed.

HUMMM!

One moment the sky above the mountain was the pale gray of high-altitude winter. In the next moment it was gold and purple, and the pressure that preceded the change hit every living thing on that mountain simultaneously and without mercy.

The laughter stopped.

The weeping stopped.

Everything stopped.

“WHO DARES TO HURT MY SUBJECTS?”

The voice did not come from one direction. It came from everywhere at once, rolling down from above and through the mountain stone and across the snow and into the bones of every serpent coiled around that peak.

Agniel looked up, and his eyes narrowed.

What descended from the clouds above the mountain was not a dragon in any sense that the Sky Serpents had encountered or prepared for.

Just what was this thing?

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