In the Lions Den bedroom at noon.
Arthur closed the last small parchment chapter of the Laws of the Domain, written by Evelyn, whose figure had already vanished outside the door.
Arthur felt himself engulfed by an overwhelming, inexplicable drowsiness that suddenly appeared. His body lay down on the soft silk bed carefully purchased by Evelyn, but his consciousness did not immediately sink into oblivion.
His knuckles turned white from exertion; something was very wrong. His heart was beating too fast, and he was gasping for air. He wanted to call Evelyn, but no sound came out.
He heard his own heartbeat, one beat after another, like the drumbeats of war drums he had once heard, continuously falling and striking.
Then, everything changed; he was no longer lying on the bed.
The hard stone ground disappeared, replaced by an omnipresent sense of being lifted, light yet powerful.
Arthur opened his eyes and saw not the familiar bedroom ceiling, but the boundless night sky and the continuous Brightmoon Mountains below. Moonlight, like mercury, outlined the mountain ridges in silver.
He could feel huge wings stretching beside him, and every part of his body was filled with explosive power.
Wind whistled beneath his wing membranes, carrying the thin chill of high altitude and the damp scent of water vapor from the clouds. He was flying, flying without restraint, or rather, he was flight itself.
He looked down and saw his enormous shadow, like a moving dark cloud, covering the mountains below.
This feeling of controlling the sky—he was a dragon.
Ahead, a colossal mud-brown dragon was fleeing in panic. Its wings were like two enormous withered leaves; each flap seemed frantic and powerless.
The mud-brown dragon was slightly smaller than him, but its movements were agile. There was no anger, no hatred; only one thought filled his mind, a command from the deepest part of his soul: catch it, eat it.
An unprecedented thirst consumed him, a thirst that went deep into his bones.
This was not the emptiness of hunger, but a'sense of depletion' from the very source of life.
Arthur could clearly feel that his life, or rather, some core energy that constituted his existence, was dissipating into the thin air around him with every heartbeat.
He was like a block of ice exposed to the sun, slowly melting.
If he didn't find replenishment, he would die—this realization was cold and absolute.
With every wingbeat, every breath, the feeling of loss became clearer.
The sky was no longer a realm of freedom, but a vast desert, and he was a traveler on the verge of dying of thirst.
The brown dragon ahead was the only source of water. He saw clearly that on the back of that brown giant dragon sat a figure.
It was a petite woman with healthy tanned skin and long black hair fluttering in the strong wind.
He couldn't make out her face, only a pair of terrified brown eyes.
Dragon rider.
The word flashed through his consciousness but stirred no ripples.
Arthur had no capacity for thought, or perhaps this giant dragon, whose life was constantly ebbing away, was left with only animalistic instincts.
He didn't even think about who the other party was.
"If I don't eat it soon, I will die."
This thought overwhelmed everything. He opened his massive maw and let out a roar.
The sound was not a human shout, but a pure, sky-shattering thunder, making the valleys below echo.
He flapped his wings violently, his body like a huge black arrow released from a bowstring, tearing through the air with a resounding roar, and the distance rapidly closed.
Arthur kept roaring! Faster! Even faster!!
Clouds rolled beneath them like a boiling ocean, and two giant dragons engaged in a deadly yet beautiful dragon dance high in the sky.
This was a struggle for survival, primitive and savage. Arthur spat out green dragon flames, and the fire, like a torrent, swept towards the opponent's flank.
The brown dragon spun in an odd posture, narrowly dodging, then flapped its wings to retreat, but never fully escaped.
Its movements carried a desperate need to protect the human on its back, preventing it from unleashing its full power. Claws tangled, blood flowed across their bodies, sparks of fire flew. Every collision was filled with deadly intent, every dodge exhausted all their effort.
Fortunately, Arthur felt complete control over his massive body. With a human dragon rider on its back, the brown dragon couldn't engage in a full beastly life-and-death struggle, giving him a complete advantage.
But he could feel his strength accelerating its dissipation, that sense of depletion becoming like a black hole, threatening to completely swallow him.
He had to be quick! Arthur abandoned long-range flame breath, accelerating sharply, attempting to overwhelm the opponent with his body weight and sharp claws.
The brown dragon clearly anticipated his move. Just as he lunged, the brown dragon suddenly banked sideways at a low altitude, its entire body rotating at an incredible angle, and dragon flames spewed forth.
The brown dragon's flame sprayed onto Arthur's scales. This was a trap, but also an opening.
A cold instinct flashed through Arthur's massive body. He ignored the flames spewed by the opponent and the bared claws, instead opening his gaping maw and fiercely biting down on the exposed neck of the other dragon.
Arthur recalled the crocodile death roll he had once seen and constantly mimicked the motion, shaking his massive neck, tearing and swinging.
He bit down hard on the opponent's neck, violently shaking and never letting go, dragon blood splattering.
He truly hadn't expected that watching Animal Planet would one day help him, after all, who would have thought that one day he would turn into a dragon and fight another dragon…
The two dragons were locked in a death grip high in the sky, losing the ability to fly, and plummeting downwards, entangled.
"Ah!!!" A human's short scream was swallowed by the howling wind. In this violent roll, the brown-skinned dragon rider lost her grip.
She was thrown from the dragon's back, her tiny figure arcing through the air, then swallowed by the thick clouds below, disappearing like a speck of dust falling into the ocean, without even uttering a word or a tragic cry.
"ROAR!!!!!" The brown dragon, having lost its rider, let out a heart-wrenching wail. Its movements froze for a moment, a solidification of despair and pain.
Now! Arthur seized this fatal opening.
He used all his remaining strength for a fierce charge, his sharp teeth biting firmly into the base of the other dragon's wing, tearing violently.
Green dragon flames surged from deep within his throat, at close range, completely igniting the brown dragon's body.
Similarly, the dragon flames the brown dragon sprayed at Arthur also ignited Arthur.
Both sides' flesh charred in the high heat, their scales crackled and popped, but neither dragon stopped.
What kind of feeling was this? Pain! So much pain!
But Arthur did not loosen his massive maw; compared to living, any pain could be endured.
Finally, the brown dragon let out a last unwilling wail, its life force rapidly dissipating.
Two burning behemoths, like meteors, trailed long black smoke trails as they plummeted towards the earth.
With a massive impact, a forest was leveled, broken tree trunks splattering in all directions, and dust and smoke filled the entire sky.
Arthur recovered from the impact's dizziness; one of his wings was aching, but the fatal sense of depletion left him no time to care.
He felt all his consciousness was lost, his ability to think completely gone.
Only eat! Eat! Eat! Eat it!!
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