At the summit of a towering peak covered in sharp stone spires, an ancient, gray-white dragon stood in silence.
Her eyes, burning like fire, stared fixedly ahead.
A deafening crash rang out. She watched as a massive Flying Dragon slammed into the mountainside, sending shattered stone flying and dust billowing into the air.
"What... is happening?" Senessax thought.
Not far in front of her, that enormous Flying Dragon fell straight to the ground like a plummeting star, throwing up a cloud of dust.
She stood there in stunned silence, slowly raising her massive head. Her gaze passed through the layers of smoke and reached toward the distant sky.
Countless streaks of light flashed and crossed overhead like meteors. Those blinding lights came from the spears in the dragon slayers' hands.
The razor-sharp spears of light tore through the air with harsh, piercing shrieks, as if they meant to rip the world itself apart.
Jagged Peak Summit had become a slaughterhouse.
Before the dragon slayers, the Flying Dragons seemed terribly fragile. They were like a flock of panicked lambs, hunted by death with nowhere left to run.
They had not yet had the chance to flaunt their might before more Hornsents, and now they would never know when their Lord would return to that city in the heavens.
Senessax stared blankly at the brutal scene before her, feeling as if her mind had been filled with thick paste.
This sudden, inexplicable war left her completely at a loss. She could not understand how things had turned into this.
Where were the Flying Dragons guarding the perimeter? Why had none of them reported in?
That was Florissax's scent... How dare she come here? Was she not afraid of dying here, failing her mission, and betraying the command of His Majesty in the heavens?
Senessax's brows tightened.
"My lady! My lady! This is bad! A dragon slayer has broken in!" a panicked Flying Dragon roared at the top of its lungs.
Its sharp cry echoed through the entire valley, making the surrounding stones tremble faintly.
"Florissax brought a human with her! That guy is terrifying! He's already killed five of us! He's gathered an entire army!"
The Flying Dragons roared in terror at Florissax while beating their wings desperately, one after another fleeing toward the mountaintop.
Strangely, not a single Flying Dragon charged at the intruders.
They only hid far away in the sky, watching as dazzling spears of light rained down below.
Senessax stood frozen beside the huge Flying Dragon's corpse, as if she had turned into a motionless stone statue.
How could they have been attacked by an army? And how had the enemy already pushed deep into their territory before she knew anything?
Senessax could not make sense of it.
At the foot of the mountain, the one-sided slaughter continued. No one knew how long it had already gone on.
The entire western side of Jagged Peak Summit was shrouded in thick smoke. Across the piles of stone and winding mountain paths lay corpses of every kind, some torn apart, others mangled beyond recognition.
There was no fierce clash between great armies, only one side fleeing and the other giving chase.
Nolan had indeed brought an army.
Rotting, lifeless bodies crawled one after another out from the cracks between the rocks.
Within that army were dragon-slaying warriors who had once bathed in dragon blood, and proud Flying Dragons who had once loved looking down on the crawling creatures below.
They had once been mortal enemies, yet now they stood in the same ranks, fighting for the same unfamiliar Lord.
An unknown Lord had led an army here!
The instant that Lord appeared in her sight, Senessax felt as if an invisible hand had clamped tightly around her heart, making it pound to its limit.
That familiar, terrifying sense of dread and awe spread through every corner of her body with each violent heartbeat, like a rising tide...
At this moment, every second felt to Senessax like the countdown before death arrived.
And yet that suffocating pressure came from a figure who looked rather young.
A strange young man carrying a delicate young girl and an exquisite doll on his shoulders.
Senessax stood there in a daze, craning her neck to look outward as horror slowly crept over her.
Had her body not been covered in rock-like hide, she was certain she would already be drenched in cold sweat.
The Lord in silver armor seemed completely unconcerned by Senessax's trembling.
He stood at the very front of an army built from countless white bones, his gaze passing straight over the Ancient Dragon's massive body and looking farther beyond.
These corpses were all proof of Bayle's name as the "Mad Dragon."
They had once been heroes, celebrated dragon slayers, yet when they came to this mountain, it was as if they had stepped into a land of despair.
Heroes? Warriors? All had become withered bones beneath Dragon Lightning!
Their legends had long since ended, yet today they continued. They had returned!
"Human, halt!" Although her side had collapsed like a landslide, Senessax still stepped forward.
Perhaps stirred by the Ancient Dragon's courage, quite a few Flying Dragons stopped and remained behind her, giving the scene, for a moment, the feeling of two armies facing each other.
Nolan stopped and looked up at that massive, fearsome dragon body.
"Ancient Dragon... Senessax, is it? Not bad... That presence alone is stronger than those Flying Dragons. Though this might be the first time I've faced an Ancient Dragon from the Lands Between as an enemy."
Of the two Ancient Dragons he had met before, one had treated him like an old friend at first sight, while the other had come asking for a favor. He had almost started wondering whether he was some kind of Ancient Dragon seducer.
But feeling Senessax's undisguised hostility, he was now certain he had no special favorability bonus with Ancient Dragons.
To turn a proud Ancient Dragon with the body of a defeated Flying Dragon, one had to admit that "Mad Dragon" Bayle was indeed something else.
The wails gradually thinned out. As the smoke dispersed slightly, a voice filled with anger and disappointment came from overhead. It belonged to another Ancient Dragon.
"Senessax, you traitor. Are you still going to cling to your delusions?"
"Florissax, it has been a long time." Senessax's voice came from that fanged dragon mouth, clear, cold, and female.
"The gods have already abandoned us, and that old fool Placidusax can barely protect himself."
"Admit it. They do not care about us, just as they do not care about anyone else."
"Nothing you have done has ever entered their eyes. The one truly clinging to delusion is you!"
"Nonsense. His Majesty has always been watching over us!" Florissax's expression was cold.
"How laughable. Where is your Lord? Why can't I see him?"
Senessax let out a mocking laugh and looked upward.
"Oh, so he is hiding."