Chapter 90: The cities destruction.

Rambosa City. The Duke’s Mansion.

The Duke, Eloit Von Lancer, stood by the massive glass window of his office, a glass of expensive red wine swirling gently in his hand.

He was waiting.

It had been barely an hour since he deployed the Four Great Dragons.

By his calculations, based on their flight speed and attack power, they should have reached the Jaun Land, turned that wretched Nameless Dungeon into a crater, and be on their victory lap by now.

“Any minute now,” he muttered, a smug, self-satisfied grin stretching across his face. “That ’Shadow of Victims’ thinks he can play god just because he has a few high-level mobs? Let’s see him handle four Calamity-class monsters.”

He took a sip of his wine, savoring the taste of victory.

In his mind, this was just another corporate takeover.

He had the resources, he had the assets, and he had the leverage. The dungeon was just a rival startup that needed to be crushed before it went public.

If anything else, he would be known as the man who defeated the virus and saved many from the game, rreturnng them back to thier original world.

Then, the ground shook.

It started as a low, vibrating rumble, causing the wine in his glass to ripple violently.

The vibration traveled up his legs, rattling the expensive paintings on the walls and knocking a priceless vase off the shelf.

CRASH!

“What the… an earthquake?” Eloit frowned, annoyed that his decor was being ruined. “Since when does this region have tectonic activity?”

Suddenly, the heavy oak doors to his office burst open.

A knight, the Captain of his personal guard, stumbled in. His armor was disheveled, his helmet was missing, and his face was drained of all color.

“Your Grace! We need to evacuate! Immediately!”

Eloit glared at the man, setting his glass down with a sharp clink.

“What is the meaning of this? Compose yourself, Captain! You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“The Dragons! The Dragons have returned!”

“Already?” Eloit’s grin widened, his annoyance vanishing instantly. “Excellent. Faster than I calculated. I knew they would make quick work of—”

“No, Your Grace! You don’t understand!” The Captain screamed, abandoning all protocol. “They are attacking us! They are attacking the city!”

Eloit froze.

“What did you say?”

ROOOAAAR!!!

A deafening roar, loud enough to burst eardrums and shatter glass, tore through the air from right outside the balcony.

Eloit rushed to the window and looked up.

His face drained of all color.

High above, the shimmering blue barrier that protected Rambosa, a barrier that cost millions of gold to maintain and was supposed to be impenetrable, was cracking like a fragile eggshell.

A massive Red Dragon, easily the size of a cathedral, slammed its body against the dome.

CRACK! SHATTER!

The barrier exploded into fragments of mana that rained down like glitter.

“No… that’s impossible,” Eloit stammered, his hands shaking as he frantically pulled out a small, glowing orb from his inventory.

This was the Orb of Domination. A Legendary-tier item, a tier 2 aritifact he had spent a fortune acquiring from the auction house before the game became reality.

It was the leash that held the four calamities in check.

While he could control the dragon belonging to his house without the need of the orb, the rest could not be said about the oter three dragons.

Eloit kept his eyes on the orb.

It was pitch black.

“My control… it’s broken? How?! It’s a Legendary Item! It can’t just break!”

Before he could process the system error, the Red Dragon opened its maw.

BOOM!

A beam of concentrated fire, hotter than the sun, slammed into the Merchant District below.

Instantly, an entire block of buildings was vaporized. Stone turned to magma, wood turned to ash, and people turned to shadows burnt into the pavement.

The shockwave hit the mansion seconds later, blowing the glass windows inward and throwing Eloit back across his office.

“Why?! Why are they attacking me?!” Eloit screamed, scrambling to his feet amidst the shards of glass, his corporate composure completely gone. “I am their master! I am the Duke!”

…

{The Streets of Rambosa}

Chaos.

That was the only word to describe the scene at the city center.

The Green Dragon swooped low, its massive wings clapping like thunder, creating gusts of wind that sent market stalls, carts, and people flying into the walls.

It spewed a thick, green mist over the Adventurer’s Guild. The sturdy stone walls hissed and bubbled, melting like wax under a blowtorch. The screams of the high-level adventurers inside were cut short as the roof collapsed on them, dissolving everything in its path.

“Run! To the shelters!”

“The gates! Open the gates!”

“Where are the guards?! Defend us!”

Thousands of civilians were stampeding towards the main exit, trampling over each other in a desperate bid to escape.

The city guards, usually arrogant and proud in their shining armor, were fleeing alongside them, casting aside their spears and shields to run faster.

“Hold the line!” a Captain shouted, trying to rally his men. “Archers! Fire at will!”

A volley of arrows flew into the sky.

They bounced harmlessly off the scales of the Earth Dragon, who had just landed in the middle of the Noble District.

The massive beast, covered in rock-like armor, didn’t even notice the attacks. It simply swiped its tail.

CRASH!

Three mansions crumbled instantly, burying the screaming nobles under tons of expensive rubble.

The Earth Dragon roared, stomping its foot. The ground split open, swallowing a platoon of soldiers and adventurers whole.

“It’s useless! We can’t hurt them!” one of the soldiers cried out, dropping his sword. “That’s a Level 350 monster! We are barely Level 60! It’s a slaughter!”

Dust, fire, and smoke choked the air. The sky turned dark as the city burned, the flames from the Merchant District spreading rapidly to the residential areas.

Children were crying, separated from their parents in the stampede. The elderly were left behind, crushed under the weight of the fleeing mob.

High above, the fourth dragon—the Wind Dragon—circled the Duke’s castle like a vulture.

It wasn’t attacking the city randomly like the others. It was focused. Its eyes were locked onto the highest tower.

Back in his ruined office, Eloit saw the Wind Dragon staring directly at him.

The beast’s eyes weren’t filled with the mindless rage of a wild animal. They were filled with recognition. And hatred.

“They know…” Eloit whispered, backing away until his back hit the wall. “They know I was the one holding the leash.”

WHOOSH!

The Wind Dragon flapped its wings, sending a blade of compressed air slicing through the top of the tower. The roof of the Duke’s office was sheared off cleanly, exposing him to the open sky and the smoke-filled air.

Eloit fell to his knees, clutching the broken orb.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen! I am the player! I am the protagonist!”

But the Dragons didn’t care about his status.

They only cared about one thing.

Burning Rambosa to the ground.

…

Amidst the screaming, the burning, and the falling debris, the flow of humanity was a desperate river rushing towards the safety of the open plains.

Thousands of citizens pushed, shoved, and trampled one another to get through the crumbling archway of the main gate.

Yet, in this chaotic tide, there was a single anomaly.

While the sea of people pushed out, trying to escape the jaws of death, one figure walked against the current.

He wore a pristine, sharp black suit that seemed completely out of place in the apocalypse. A simple black mask covered his face, and his hands were casually tucked into his pockets.

Kai, now fully immersed in his Aron persona, stopped just outside the city walls.

He looked up at the sky, his eyes calm despite the heat washing over him.

He saw the Red Dragon circling the Duke’s castle, preparing for another breath attack. He saw the Green Dragon tearing apart the barracks with acid.

He saw the Wind Dragon slicing the top of the Duke’s tower like a knife through butter.

“So that’s what happened,” Kai muttered calmly, his voice unaffected by the screams around him.

He adjusted his cufflinks, dusting off a speck of ash that dared to land on his sleeve.

“The control broke the moment they sensed Fanny’s aura. But since they couldn’t attack a higher predator like her, their aggression rebounded on the one who dared to enslave them in the first place.”

A heavy piece of masonry fell from the wall above, crashing just a few inches from Kai’s polished shoe. He didn’t even flinch.

“The Duke tried to play with fire, and now he’s burning his own house down. How poetic.”

He stepped over the rubble, walking past a group of city guards who were fleeing in terror.

One of the guards, a young man with a broken helmet, stopped for a split second, staring at the masked merchant walking into the city.

“Hey! Are you insane?!” the guard screamed, grabbing Kai’s shoulder. “Turn back! The city is falling! It’s a slaughter in there!”

Kai stopped. He slowly turned his head to look at the hand on his shoulder, then up to the guard’s terrified eyes.

“Unhead me,” Kai spoke. His voice was low, but it carried an authority that froze the guard’s blood colder than any dragon fear.

The guard instinctively let go, stumbling back.

“I have business to attend to. If you value your life, keep running.”

Without waiting for a response, Kai turned back around and resumed his walk.

As he entered the main street, the devastation was even clearer.

Buildings were reduced to skeletons of wood and stone. The heat was intense, enough to singe eyebrows, but Kai’s high resistance stats made it feel like a warm summer breeze.

He glanced at his system map.

The layout of Rambosa was burned into his mind from his previous visits as Aron. His destination wasn’t the Duke’s castle, at least, not yet.

“Leo and Sophia,” Kai whispered.

They were at the inn near the commercial district. Based on the trajectory of the Green Dragon’s acid breath, that area was currently being melted into slag.

Kai’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Sanovere,” he projected his thought.

(Yes, my Lord?) The reply was instant.

“Are you watching this?”

(We are, my Lord. The view from the dungeon entrance is… quite spectacular. Shall we intervene?)

“Not yet. Let the Duke suffer a bit more. Let the people feel true despair. Only then will a savior have any value.”

Kai stepped over a burning cart.

“However, I need to secure my assets. If a single scale on those dragons touches my employees, I will personally turn those lizards into handbags.”

(Understood. Shall I send assistance?)

“Yes.”

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