Chapter 34
“Those who stood behind you are gone!”
Antonius’s voice thundered across the battlefield.
“If you still intend to raise your swords against the King of Imresia—even now—then I trust you know the price of such treason!”
The sheer force of his authority crushed what remained of the lords’ coalition.
The army had already been on the verge of collapse, and now it broke completely.
The hastily gathered soldiers threw down their weapons and fled in blind panic.
“Isakios. Take both lords alive.”
Dragged before Antonius—the Crown Prince of Imresia and Lord Commander of the Royal Guard—the two lords collapsed into desperate pleas for mercy.
“M-Mercy, Your Highness! We were deceived!”
“They told us the child of that Dracotyrannus harbored hatred over his mother’s execution—that he would bring Tatsuno against Imresia and destroy the kingdom!”
“They warned that our lands, being the southernmost territories, would be the first trampled into ruin by the dragons! They said Your Highness Antonius had to be persuaded—that the realm must strengthen its forces before Tatsuno descended upon us!”
It was the oldest trick of swindlers: weave enough truth into the lie to make it believable.
Yet the sheer malice of it was nauseating.
Though mountainous, these southern territories were among the most fertile lands in all of Imresia despite the kingdom’s brutal winters. For generations, the wealth born from their harvests had made the two lords powerful figures within the realm.
And though these lands lay near the border, they had long remained untouched by war.
The reason was simple.
The nearest neighboring power had always been Tatsuno.
The Dracoserpens had never sought conquest. But if they truly marched upon them, there would be no hope of victory.
The mages had preyed skillfully upon the lords’ fears.
At the same time, they had tempted them with promises of power—whispering that with the mages as their patrons, they could seize dominance over all Imresia itself.
The outline of the scheme had become clear.
Yet the true mastermind remained hidden.
The mages had repeatedly spoken of “that person.”
But who was this unseen figure?
Who had set the mages in motion—and for what purpose had they sought to plunge Imresia into chaos?
One possibility—one Andri could scarcely bear to entertain—had begun to creep into his thoughts.
The ones who might want him back… the ones who might seek to bring Imresia under their rule… were the Dracoserpens themselves.
The mages had claimed they were acting to resist the Dracotyrannus.
But what if this had never been about opposing the Dracotyrannus at all? What if the chaos had been stirred to help bring the Dracoserpens into Imresia?
He hated himself for even thinking it.
And yet the thought would not leave him.
Andri stood motionless, so shaken he had forgotten to return from his draconic form.
He wanted someone to deny it.
Wanted Yuki to laugh in his face and call the idea absurd.
He needed to see Yuki and the others. Immediately. He needed to look them in the eye and hear the truth for himself.
As if we’d ever do something like that.
He wanted to hear her scoff at the very idea beneath another thunderous crack splitting the sky.
“Do not let your guard fall, Andri!”
The shout snapped him back to reality.
Antonius was yelling beside him, undaunted even by the towering draconic form looming at his side.
Then the earth shook again.
A deep, monstrous rumble thundered up from beneath the mountain—unlike anything Andri had ever heard before. It sounded less like an earthquake than something immense stirring far below the world itself.
Theodoros reacted instantly, hauling Antonius onto Kito’s back as she surged into the air.
The summit exploded.
Black smoke burst skyward. Countless rocks came crashing down across the mountainside.
Andri threw himself over the soldiers below, shielding them with his massive body on instinct alone—but there were too many men scattered across the slope. Panic-stricken screams erupted from every direction.
The blast hit him like the strike of a giant warhammer.
A violent shockwave tore outward from the shattered peak, the pressure so immense that even Andri’s enormous frame staggered beneath it.
