Chapter 201: Dragon society
"When we step through, please keep your head down. The Dragon Clan is a proud and angry bunch."
As a highly decorated human battleship slowly descended towards a large city, an older individual wearing dragon robes spoke.
His voice was completely calm, but the underlying warning was deadly serious.
The Dragon God Clan’s area of Dragon Ridge was not so different from the human side of the border.
It was essentially two sides of the exact same bloody coin.
The same ancient, scarred land stretched endlessly beneath them, filled with jagged mountains and ruined battlefields.
The sprawling region housed massive fortress cities and countless powerful, territorial creatures.
The only real difference was who actively controlled the territory and what kind of people occupied it.
However, they hadn’t opted to go to the desolate outskirts like they had done with the dragon families.
Instead, they had deliberately chosen one of the more prominent, heavily fortified cities in the Dragon God part of Dragon Ridge.
That strategic decision alone made this diplomatic trip exponentially more complicated and dangerous.
Ethen stood quietly near the front of the battleship, looking through the reinforced glass opening.
He watched intently as the massive city slowly became much clearer beneath them through the clouds.
Unlike the strictly utilitarian military bases on the human side, the city below carried a completely different atmosphere.
Massive, towering dragon statues carved from dark stone stood watch throughout the bustling streets.
Several enormous buildings had been constructed in ancient styles that clearly favored the pride of the dragon race.
They featured deeply curved roofs, towering stone pillars, and lavish decorations made entirely from the bones and scales of powerful beasts.
Even from high in the sky, Ethen could easily see large numbers of demi-humans moving quickly through the wide streets.
Many of them possessed obvious, dominant dragon characteristics inherited from their ancient bloodlines.
Sharp, curling horns protruded from their heads, while thick scales patched across their exposed skin.
Some possessed slit, vertical pupils that tracked the incoming human ship with clear hostility.
A rare few even had heavy, spiked tails or massive leathery wings folded neatly behind their backs.
"Smile."
The human elder’s face suddenly beamed with a bright, entirely fake glow as the docking door began to unseal.
The heavy metal ramp swung open, and bright rays of sunlight shone directly onto the observation deck.
The change in the older man’s demeanor was almost instantaneous and perfectly executed.
The grim seriousness that had been present just moments ago completely disappeared from his wrinkled face.
Ethen couldn’t help but glance sideways at him, silently impressed by the rapid shift in character.
The elder now looked like the perfect, harmless diplomatic representative sent to foster peace.
He appeared completely calm, incredibly friendly, and highly approachable to anyone watching from below.
Only Ethen knew for a fact that the warm smile was completely fake and carefully practiced.
He stepped forward confidently with the others as the heavy battleship finally completed its descent onto the platform.
...
"Blood humans. I wonder why they even bother coming here to sue for peace."
"They probably think we’re going to welcome them with open arms and forget the past."
"Dragon Ridge has been ours for thousands upon thousands of years. How could they even think of such absurdities like sharing?"
"I blame that bastard Long Clan for ever entertaining these weaklings."
The bitter, aggressive voices reached Ethen’s ears almost immediately after the ramp hit the ground.
As the human group dropped onto the stone courtyard, they immediately noticed a fighting force stationed where they landed.
Calling it a small welcome party was perhaps the completely wrong word for the situation.
There were nearly one hundred and fifty heavily armed individuals waiting patiently for them.
Almost all of them were powerful, elite demi-humans radiating intense spiritual pressure.
The sheer number of warriors alone made it painfully obvious that this wasn’t an ordinary diplomatic meeting.
They had come fully prepared to intimidate and suppress the human delegation from the very first second.
"Hmm."
Ethen smiled slightly, entirely unbothered by the heavy killing intent directed at his group.
The luxurious, silky black robes draped over his shoulders glistened smoothly in the afternoon sunlight.
He stared calmly at the almost 150-man-strong force standing in perfect, aggressive formation in front of them.
His elegant clothes were vastly different from his usual, heavily reinforced combat equipment.
There was absolutely no need to walk into a formal diplomatic meeting dressed for an all-out battle.
Even so, his quiet presence alone was more than enough to make several members of the opposing side uncomfortable.
"What an incredibly warm welcome."
Ethen said it completely casually, scanning through the dense group of demi-humans with a relaxed gaze.
His eyes finally landed on the leading figures standing at the very front of the military camp.
One of the younger, heavily armored Dragon Clan members stepped forward from the ranks.
"Blade Wielding Demon?"
The young man locked hands with Ethen in a very firm, testing handshake, squeezing tightly to gauge his physical strength.
The Divine Beast Mountain made it a strict military tradition to know all of humanity’s strongest warriors.
They kept highly updated records, especially regarding the rising stars of the younger generation.
The various beast clans had spent countless, bloody years fighting humanity across these borders.
So knowing the exact identities and combat abilities of their strongest enemies was simply a core part of surviving.
And after the highly publicized attack from Duke Ao, Ethen had become one of the most targeted individuals in the Bastion.
His name and his brutal combat record had spread incredibly quickly through the enemy intelligence networks.
His brand-new, terrifying status as a recognized Messenger of Karth had only made things significantly worse.
"Ahh, my reputation must be truly bad here for you to refer to me by my fighting name."
Ethen smiled back brightly at the young man, locking gazes with him without breaking eye contact.
There was absolutely no hostility visible in his relaxed, handsome expression.
At least, there was none that could easily be seen by the surrounding guards trying to read his intentions.
"Ao Lykos, I presume?"
Ethen asked the question smoothly, smiling from ear to ear as if greeting an old, dear friend.
The young man’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he gave a stiff, formal nod.
"Yes, pleased to meet you."
The Ao family being placed in charge of seeing them through the city might honestly be the worst thing they could have thought of.
Considering Ethen’s incredibly violent, recent history with them, there was no way the arrangement was going to be comfortable.
Right now, just about everyone standing behind Ao Lykos was probably panicking internally.
They were likely sweating bullets, wondering what the next logical step should be in this tense standoff.
They had officially received an envoy from the despised human leadership.
The envoy was a recognized Messenger of Karth with absolute divine backing.
And that very same Messenger had personally captured and enslaved one of their main family’s royal members just days ago.
The political situation could hardly have been worse or more volatile for the Ao Clan to handle.
But Ethen wasn’t worried in the slightest.
His dark gaze simply drifted away from the front of the group and landed squarely on Ao Lorn.
The captive prince had quietly come back to the enemy camp a single day before this meeting.
Their eyes met for a brief, incredibly tense fraction of a second across the courtyard.
Ao Lorn immediately lowered his horned head, staring rigidly at the stone floor beneath his boots.
He didn’t dare look directly at Ethen for too long, terrified that his absolute submission would be exposed.
The other dragon soldiers standing around him had absolutely no idea why the prince was acting so strangely submissive.
Ethen simply smiled, completely satisfied with the invisible leash he held over the Demi God.
He had absolutely no reason to be nervous in the middle of this enemy stronghold.
He was standing here legally as an official diplomatic envoy.
They couldn’t openly attack him without creating a massive diplomatic incident that could spiral out of control.
Any violence here would easily escalate far beyond the high stone walls of this single city.
Ao Lykos, completely not noticing the secret shift in dynamics, began walking forward with Ethen.
They moved deeper into the grand city alongside the human Dragon Knights and the over 150 Dragon soldiers from the Ao family.
The massive, heavily armed procession immediately attracted widespread attention from the local citizens.
The sight of so many powerful Dragon Clan warriors moving tightly together through the city was already highly unusual.
Adding a relaxed human walking directly in the middle of them made the entire scene look even stranger.
This ancient, sprawling fortress was called Reverse Scale City.
It was widely considered one of the more prominent and sacred places in Dragon Ridge’s long, bloody history.
According to the myths and stories passed down through the Dragon Clan for generations, a massive primordial dragon had died here.
Some even believed an entire ancient dragon race had been completely wiped out in this very place.
Its body had supposedly been so impossibly enormous that its blood had permanently dyed the surrounding ground a deep red.
The divine blood had soaked so deeply into the land itself that it changed the environment forever.
Even after countless thousands of years, the surrounding region still retained heavy traces of that ancient history.
The massive city had eventually been built completely around the sacred location of the fallen beast.
Reverse Scale City had quickly become one of the major, undeniable settlements of the Dragon God Clan.
And now, Ethen was walking casually directly through its historic main street, surrounded by his bitter enemies.
"Humans."
One of the tall, scaly passersby muttered in deep disgust after smelling a very familiar, unwanted scent in the air.
His vertical eyes quickly turned towards the solitary human individual being heavily shadowed by a massive group of guards.
More and more local people began to notice Ethen moving confidently through the wide main street of their city.
He was completely surrounded by the Bastion’s elite Dragon Knights and over a hundred Dragon soldiers.
To any ordinary human observing this, this massive escort would be seen as a great, undeniable honor.
To just about anybody with common sense, it looked exactly like Ethen was someone of extreme, high-ranking importance.
He was clearly a diplomatic figure powerful enough to have an entire military force surrounding him for his own protection.
But to the deeply arrogant, isolated dragons living inside of Dragon Ridge...
What they saw through their biased eyes was something completely, entirely different from reality.
They simply saw a weak human slave who had been successfully captured by their glorious city guard.
"Yeah! Flay him right now!"
"Hang him high in the city square for everyone to see!"
"Where are his iron cuffs? Chain that little thing up before it runs!"
Suddenly, the dense crowd erupted with loud mockery as they cursed viciously at Ethen and his human men.
Some of the demi-humans laughed loudly, baring their sharp fangs at the passing procession.
Others pointed thick, clawed fingers at Ethen, completely convinced he was marching toward his execution.
A few even began to follow the heavy procession, seemingly hoping to see the captured human publicly punished in the square.
Ethen made absolutely no move to correct their wild assumptions.
He didn’t even bother responding to the violent threats or the flying insults coming from the hostile crowd.
This was the true reality of Dragon society.
They were completely delusional.
They were overwhelmingly arrogant.
They were so blinded by their own inherent pride that they couldn’t see the truth right in front of them.
They could have absolute reality placed right in their eyes and still firmly think the world was upside down.
Ethen simply continued walking peacefully through the city, waiting for the perfect moment to shatter their fragile illusions.