A Dragon Idol's Reincarnation Tale

“Dragonkin of Frozen Nest! Our enemy has been identified!” With a mouth filled with flames, Fehrkatruk roared his words as he decorated the orange sky with his red-shimmering scales. “Watch this divine failure! A mere corpse of the age of elementals, crawling back onto its feet, attempting to regain its lost favor and glory. Mercy granted to them by the Origin Gods, and they slither into the darkness before coming back in such a grotesque form. Ha, and they dared to threaten these lands! Dragonkin! Fly and stride the world with all your might, and let your elemental fury eviscerate this invader on our country!”

“For Frozen Nest!” the armada of dragons and drakes roared after that speech.

Fehrkatruk roared once again, causing the air to tremble. The oldest elder scale amongst a group of mostly “young scales” inspired like a natural leader. To us dragonkin who valued physical and magical strength, age was another kinda strength as it emphasized wisdom, experience, and survival. To us young scales, an elder scale like Fehrkatruk, who was over 800 years old, was either a symbol of terror or a herald of hope.

Even in his fiery, infernal form that contrasted so starkly with the white, snow-capped mountains, his presence managed to inspire every single ice dragonkin he was leading as the temporary marshal of the army. The historic rivalry between ice and fire was ignored. All that mattered was to rid Frozen Nest of an invader destroying their lands.

And just like a torch in the middle of a dire night, Fehrkatruk charged forward in a veil of flames, spewing flames onto the elemental as the latter tried to protect themselves by freezing the air into a barrier of ice. The fire dragon swooped back into the air before the elemental could grab him, prompting the latter to prepare multiple ice spears, but his attempt to counter Fehrkatruk failed before it could start as multiple ice dragons, wyverns, and dragoons dove at the barrier.

Protected in a layer of ice or armor, the ice dragonkin pierced through the ice barrier like giant ice picks. Their horns or spears, fortified by ice magic and mana, left holes in the ice armor before they returned to the sky, avoiding an immediate response by the elemental.

As the barrier started to reform by freezing the air within the holes, spheres of pure mana were shot through those holes, hitting the elemental directly as they started to quiver from the impact. Some of the dragons flying in the sky and the many drakes roaming the mountain with the stride of leopards, were unleashing a barrage of cannonfire with the mana cannons strapped to the back of the boat saddles with ice.

This was the reason why I had asked King Fugnarus for support. I already experienced my sister, Neill’s, usage of dragon paths and how pure mana ignored all resistances but the natural magical defense of the wisdom stat. The dwarven warhammer mana cannon might not be as destructive as its ancestor—the dragon-killing cannon of Castle Fatalisa that was called “dragonator” during the demon war—but the dwarves managed to reverse-engineer as much as they could. It was Edjurian technology, after all, and the original behaved more like an organic cannon, so you couldn’t expect 100% replication. Regardless, as a siege cannon, the warhammer mana cannon was probably the best in the industry.

Fueled by mana batteries, the cannon could turn mana into a projectile. As such, the lightweight nature of their ammunition meant that as long as the “vehicle”—the dragons and drakes, in this case—could carry the cannon, you could mount as much as you wanted on a platform without slowing down your movement through conventional ammunition like actual cannonballs or bullets.

Since dragons were naturally blessed with mana control, they were highly adept at empowering their bodies to fly better. Similarly, drakes could move through the land with swiftness and incredible balance using mana, allowing them to even scale walls like geckos. As such, we dragonkin were incredible “vehicles” for mountable large-scale weapons, as long as you could get rid of our pride.

True dragonkin despised being used as mounts if you weren’t their close kin. The dragonkin who allowed dragonewt fishers to use them as marine mounts were an extreme exception to this rule, like me.

Yet, at this very moment, those very proud drakes and dragons were carrying multiple dragonewts from different clans on their backs, while each one even had a dwarven engineer leading the cannon squadrons. Either the streams were a huge success in convincing so many dragonkin to follow my order, or Fehrkatruk was a better commander than I thought.

Speaking of streaming, this entire process was being streamed to Iceskale and King Fugnarus. These mana cannons were originally meant to be used in the Shakaie-Narn Alliance’s war against the Folschreck Empire, and the dwarves were loaning them and their engineers to give both the chance to test and experience real warfare. That was my payment to them for their help. Real battle experience was hard to get, and they could review this stream once they bought the recorded video after we got through this disaster.

“Higher! Higher! Our cannons are made for long-distance barrages! Use gravity for the harder-hitting artillery shots!” I could hear the dwarven engineers shouting orders through voice-amplifying manatech to communicate with each other.

“Drake squad target close. Dragons rely on damage!” another dwarven artificer roared, prompting the formations to move.

“Listen to the stunties!” one of the ice dragonkin yelled in affirmation, though since it was in Draconic, the dwarves probably couldn’t understand him. “Protect our princess and get into position. Weaken that elemental!”

“Fire dragonkin, to me!” Fehrkatruk ordered as fire dragons, dragonewts, and wyverns—mostly my fire wyvern retainers—joined him to blast super hot flames on the elemental.

Fire and pure mana were our methods to damage the elemental since the majority of Frozen Nest could only use ice attacks. Fehrkatruk’s and Nong’s flames would force the elemental to react to them by creating an ice barrier, while our ice dragonkin took advantage of their high defenses to break down the barrier through sheer force. This would leave the mana cannons free rein to shoot.

That was the strategy I came up with, and it was all due to [Space-Time Magic] easing logistics. Load everything into the subspace, and then I could use [Spatial Rend] to open portals for the engineers while the cannons could be transported without a mana cost.

Seeing my armada of cannon-blasting dragon “pirates” darkening the sky like a cloud of flies while the swarm of drakes were zooming around like hyperactive dogs and cats with the “zoomies” made me cheer like a little girl in my mind. To be fair, they came a bit earlier than scheduled, but then again, Nong and Vifi were still trying to break out of that monsoon the elemental emperor created, so all was fine! All that mattered was that it was working, and the elemental was reeling from the onslaught!

“Krrriiiiiaaaagh!” And this brought enough time for Nong and Vifi to rejoin the battle as the former flew into the battle like a lightning bolt, slicing the elemental with one of his aflame wings. “Dragonkin of Frozen Nest! I am the fourth prince, Nongramos Eluccierra Kargryxmor! I am the prince of Storm Nest, but today, my fangs, flames, and rage belong to all of you! Fight with me and my younger sister, Princess Hestia! Our empire shall not be threatened by an invader!”

“For Frozen Nest! For Princess Hestia!” the dragonkin roared in a cacophony of air-trembling and earth-shaking voices, as an orchestra of cannonfire continued nonstop. Scorching flames and crackling ice were like an antiphony—a conversation between two different instruments.

Even if the elemental were to attempt to use wind, water, and ice magic to dissuade our attacks, the ice dragonkin were fully capable of intercepting the different attacks. Since Nong could thwart the wind-aligned attacks with his wind spells, the ice dragonkin could brute force through the water and ice attacks by sheer numerical advantage.

Naturally, this was only the start of the battle, so none of the dragons were exhausted yet. It might seem like they had the advantage here, but it could easily be turned around once even one of the dragons responsible for destroying the ice barrier started to become exhausted or too hurt to continue.

We were still talking about the former epitome of water and wind magic. The elemental could create rain made from true water that dissolved dragon scales upon touch, while remaining completely unfazed by the ice breath the dragons spewed. True wind mana could morph the air around the elemental to the point it felt like a thick barrier of metal, while it could act like a natural vacuum to pull people out of position so its razor-sharp wind blast could maim somebody.

Furthermore, the elemental had true ice. Maybe it wasn’t as potent as Mom’s, but it was still true ice. Just as it was dangerous for ice elementals, true ice could kill ice dragonkin as if they didn’t have any ice resistance.

Time would tell how well my plan would work, but that was why you needed a good commander. And I had Nong, Vifi, and Fehrkatruk to lead everybody as I began preparing for my part of the place.

“Ready!” Beth and Shay said next to me. Once the armada had arrived, we had taken the time to flee to a safer position.

Beth had scattered her silver dust over my body, hardening my body and momentarily raising my ice resistance, while Shay kept watch of the battle, reporting back that the elemental had completely diverted their attention from me. They were struggling to move south. The barrage of attacks might just be mosquito bites to the elemental, but a thousand needle strikes would annoy even the largest giants.

“I’m ready,” I said in Draconic as I reapplied my buffs and held [Providence’s Will] and the Earth Elemental Emperor close to my chest. [“[Providence’s Will]… I trust you, okay? Keep me warm and alive.”]

[“Yes. Your orders have been received.”]

This was the first time we agreed on something. Even if [Providence’s Will] could listen and obey, it would always be done out of reluctance. Today, though, we would work together to achieve our personal goals.

[“And, well, I will put my life in your hands, as well, Earth Elemental Emperor,”] I added to the disgruntled earth elemental, fastening the catalyst and the fairnite ball to my chest with [Panzer].

No matter how you saw it, after the incident with the Event Quest, Ankor-Nazta had imprisoned the EEE for what they had done. Technically, they were forced by the Prince of Greed and Maagneil to act as the core of a giant mechanical armor the size of a monster movie’s titanic robot, so it wasn’t like the EEE was that guilty. Though somebody had to be a scapegoat, considering the main culprits were either back in Bole’Taria or dead.

Furthermore, the animosity between the dwarves and their racial father was more ingrained than you would think after over 2700 years since the EEE’s fall from demigodhood. The Earth Elemental Emperor might have created the dwarven race, but they considered both the taz and inko dwarves “imperfect” due to their inability to release mana through spells. Yet their “perfected” dwarf variant went extinct.

So, the dwarves still imprisoned the EEE and were treating them like a “noble prisoner” with a grand view over Inkoran-Tazul to watch over the progression of the dwarves as if they were actually still a god. Crustacia didn’t mind them being alive, and King Fugnarus and his hold kings weren’t vengeful enough to kill their own ancestral father despite their ancient animosity. Unlike Maagneil trying to resurrect his son by entering a contract with the Prince of Greed, to the dwarves, the EEE was like a proud father unable to accept that their “average middle son” would be better than their “genius last born.”

So, why would this former demigod help the person who was responsible for everything? Well, while Aurora did lead to the EEE being imprisoned, we were also responsible for freeing him from Maagneil’s clutches as a mana core for his giant mech.

A favor for a favor; the EEE might be as grumpy as most “long-bearded” dwarves, but they shared the same characteristics. Just like their children, the EEE valued debts and honor just as any dwarf, and they were ready to repay a small kindness with a rather large kindness.

Although we shouldn’t forgive the EEE for what they did after we freed them, for how they went on a rampage with their army of gnomacotta warriors. That giant dwarven statue only fell ‘cause Neill had to go all out with [Battle Frenzy (Major)] to defeat the EEE.

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[“I will be joining you within the dream, Champion of Aurena. Usurper of Divine Authorities.”] The EEE’s words were solemn as they readied themselves.

A part of me felt paranoid that they would go back on their words. Just ‘cause the dwarven culture valued personal and familial honor didn’t mean the EEE wouldn’t go against such a custom. After all, seeing their former companions re-obtaining their divine mana to the point they were controlling three “true” elements must make the EEE mildly jealous.

The only reliable ally in this plan was [Providence’s Will] due to the slime’s unwavering loyalty to Andira, or, at least, I hoped that would be the case. They couldn’t replace my solar core’s ability to keep me warm, but they could act as a permanent healing option, like an actual light elemental. This was one of the benefits of having your catalyst possess artificial intelligence.

“Kraaaaaaaaaah!”