Chapter 141: Raging Northern Lands
The Sky Palace was a massive fortress situated in the sky on the back of a colossal serpent.
As such, the Sky Palace was always moving, making its defenses untraceable and unreachable for thousands of its inhabitants.
The sky outside was bright and clear; however, inside the palace, dark clouds hung above everyone’s heads.
Serpentoids with long arms moved with hurried footsteps, as if their very lives depended on their pace.
"Your order is unacceptable, my King!" A serpent hissed, wearing golden armor. "The dragons have a long lineage, and their queen is still alive. Waging a full-scale war would be very detrimental for us."
He was speaking to the Serpent Chief seated upon a throne built from a serpent skull monument.
He was the chief of the Sky Serpent Clan and the self-declared king of the sky. His body was humanoid, but his head was serpentine, with a regal halo hovering above it like a crown.
He sat upright with a cold expression while his followers watched in tense silence.
"Your words disappoint me, General," he uttered coldly. "Those despicable vermin destroyed three hundred of our clansmen, and you speak of caution?"
"My King, that is not my intention. I think—"
The General’s words were cut off.
"Age has dulled your mind, General. We have five thousand active warriors willing to lay their lives down for the kingdom we built together. At such a time, your overly cautious mentality is no longer suited for this role."
He paused, letting the words settle like a stone into still water.
"I think it is time someone else took your position."
The words fell like a nail in a coffin.
General Krug had no choice but to remove his badge and leave in silence.
Shortly after, a new general was chosen.
General Akira. Known throughout the entire clan as the most ruthless individual who had ever lived among their kind.
General Akira rose from his seat slowly.
He was not physically imposing by Sky Serpent standards. Lean and precise, his scales a deep ash grey, his eyes the particular flat yellow of something that had removed emotion from its decision-making entirely and found the process more efficient without it.
He looked at the Serpent Chief and bowed once.
"My King. Just give me three days."
"For what?" the chief asked.
"To make the Dragon Ling regret the day the moment he attacked our kind," Akira replied simply.
The Serpent King smiled for the first time since the report of the northern border arrived.
"Granted. You have three days."
---
The first wave hit the outermost dragon settlement at dawn.
No warning. No declaration. No demands.
Thousands of Sky Serpents descended from the clouds above the settlement before the morning watch had finished its rotation, moving in coordinated formations that Akira had spent the previous two days designing specifically to exploit the gaps left by the 300 lost at the northern border.
The settlement elder, an old dragon named Ferrus who had lived through the aftermath of Linea’s Battlefield three centuries ago, stepped outside at the sound of the first impact and looked up at what was descending.
"Sound the alarm," he said quietly to the guard beside him.
"Already done, Elder. The runners are—"
The runner did not finish his sentence.
What followed was not a battle. Akira had specifically designed it not to be a battle. Battles implied two sides engaging on roughly comparable terms.
This was a systematic dismantling of every structure and every soul in the settlement’s perimeter, conducted with the cold efficiency of someone executing a pre-planned operation rather than responding to resistance.
The civilian shelters were hit alongside the defensive positions, which was not standard military practice and was entirely intentional.
"Akira, the shelters," one of his lieutenants said through the chaos. "Those are civilians."
"I know," Akira replied.
"B-but, the orders were to attack Dragonia."
"Hehe, and Dragonia includes its civilians," Akira laughed cruelly. "A wounded soldier heals and returns. A destroyed home produces despair that lasts generations. We are not here to win a battle. We are here to break their kund."
The lieutenant said nothing further.
Elder Ferrus stood in the center of his burning settlement and refused to move.
His old body was planted in the ash and smoke with the stubbornness of someone who had decided that this was where he stood and this was where he would remain.
"Bastards, you will never have this land," he said to the Sky Serpents moving around him.
Akira stopped before him.
He looked at the old dragon with those flat yellow eyes.
"I do not want your land, old one," he said flatly. "I want your king to feel this. Every ember. Every name. I want him to understand what it costs to destroy three hundred of ours."
"He will come for you," Ferrus said. "And when he does—"
"Sss, I am counting on it," Akira hissed.
By the time the alarm reached the Dragon Palace, three settlements were already burning.
---
Sapphira received the report standing, which was how she received reports that required immediate decisions.
"They attacked civilian settlements?" she said.
"Yes, Your Majesty. All three. They are not targeting only our garrisons," Orvyn replied.
Her sapphire eyes went very cold.
"Where is my husband?" she asked.
"His Majesty is returning from the northern border as we speak, Your Majesty. He should arrive before the sun sets."
"Did he receive the news?" she asked again, standing up.
"No. But I think he should be by now," he replied.
"Then get me Millia," she commanded like the queen she was. "Get me Rai. Get me every Dragon Lord currently on palace grounds."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
She turned to the window and looked out at the valley below, at the smoke visible on the distant horizon where three settlements used to be.
Her eyes simmered with hatred.
"Those despicable humans must be behind this as well. However—"
She paused, her lips curled in dark amusement. "It’s about time the game flips. And I must witness every second of it."