Chapter 68: The Blood Battle of Kanarsen City

“Morax, I’ve been away from the Dukedom for over three months; it can’t remain without a Legendary presence. Pack your things and return within these days!”

“As you command, Your Grace. Your will is my guiding path. I shall depart tomorrow.”

“Sakavi, I’m back! How’s that? Isn’t my efficiency impressive?”

“Oh? How did Count Coriv die?”

“Excess indulgence—has nothing to do with me. No one will ever know it was us. They say he captured a Drow assassin, but due to lack of restraint, he died within ten days. True Legends from large planes are so easy to fool.”

“Fine. Only you could think of such a method. If the problem’s solved, we’re leaving here for other matters—Kanarsen City is under siege by the Dragonworship Cult. Let’s go watch the show.”

“Are we going to settle scores with Kanarsen Velin? I remember that bastard caused us no end of trouble. This is the perfect chance to wipe out his entire family.”

“No. We’re going to help them break the siege. To grow, we must publicly draw a clear line against all evil factions. This is the perfect opportunity.”

“I understand. I’ll arrange it immediately. When do you plan to leave? If you’re late, it’ll be too late—better move quickly.”

…………

The dome of Kanarsen’s inner city was riddled with spiderweb cracks; the magical barrier flickered erratically under the continuous assault of Dragonworship Cult sorcerers, like the labored breath of a dying man. The city lord gripped the rampart, splattered with dragon-beast blood and ash, his knuckles white with strain. Below the walls, once a bustling marketplace, now lay only twisted metal and charred corpses. The remaining defenders made desperate last stands behind their final line.

“Roar… Kanarsen, never thought I, Lei En, would have the chance to settle scores with you! Oh right—I’m not Lei En. That was my brother’s name. Ahahahaha!” At this sudden turn, both the Dragonworship Cult commander and the Kanarsen city lord wore grim expressions, for the shadow standing atop the tower’s ruins had appeared soundlessly—and yet, it was dreadfully dangerous.

After the initial silence, the Dragonworship Cult’s rank-and-file soldiers erupted in frenzied cheers. They mistook the mighty black dragon for a new ally, believing it to be a revered dragon come to deliver the final blow. Many devotees even dropped their weapons, prostrated themselves, and bowed to the colossal dragon in the sky, muttering incoherent hymns of worship.

Sakavi did not glance at the fanatics. His molten-gold vertical pupils pierced hundreds of meters, locking onto the figure on the rampart who stared back at him. Then he spoke. His voice was a deep, magnetic, endlessly malicious thunder, echoing directly within every living being’s mind, carrying a chill that froze souls.

“Kanarsen…” Each syllable was a curse dug from hell, “I smell your fear. I taste your city’s despair. How… exquisite a sensation!” He slowly lowered his head and exhaled a breath laced with necrotic Qixi .

On the rampart, the defenders’ faces turned instantly ashen. The last hope shattered utterly before the absolute, dual threat of dragons. Even the most hardened warriors trembled in their grip on swords. It was over. Everything was over. This was the only thought in every defender’s mind.

In this suffocating moment, Sakavi suddenly changed tone.

“But,” the black dragon’s voice suddenly carried a cruel, almost mocking edge, “these foolish crawlers—” (his gaze swept for the first time over the devotees still prostrating below, brimming with undisguised contempt) “—defile the glorious name of dragons.”

“And dare to usurp my stage of vengeance? That makes me sick. Their existence ruins my mood. Therefore, these filthy rats must pay a terrible price!”

As Sakavi issued his “clear the field” order, six chromatic dragons unleashed their attacks like a rain of death. The Dragonworship Cult’s ranks did not fully descend into chaotic panic. At the heart of the turmoil, two powerful auras surged skyward, steadying the cult’s army.

From the crowd stepped a Dragonworship Cult cardinal, clad in shadowy robes. His blasphemous staff, inlaid with juvenile dragon bones, slammed into the ground. An instant dark-purple barrier flared up, barely holding back the first wave of dragonfire. His eyes held no believer’s confusion—only sacrilegious fury and icy murder. The shadows around him stirred to life, coiling and whispering hissingly.

The other was a Dragonblood Warlord. His bare torso was covered in dark-red dragon-scale tattoos, muscles knotted like iron. He gripped a two-handed greatsword wreathed in You green flames. A monster forged by forbidden rites that fused dragon blood into his flesh, his strength and magical resistance reached the peak of mortal limits. He let out a subhuman roar—the soundwave briefly shattered the dragon aura hanging in the air—and fixed his gaze on the diving blue dragon.

“For the true might of dragons! Kill these traitors!” The warlord roared. The ground beneath him cracked. His body shot skyward like a cannonball, targeting the blue dragon wreathed in lightning.

“Hmph. Got a drop of blood from some self-degraded dragon and think you’re one now? How laughable.”

The blue dragon was utterly enraged. He abandoned his breath attack and dove straight down—claws, fangs, and a tail lashed with thunder—engaging the warlord in the most savage aerial melee. The warlord’s strength was beyond imagination; he could physically withstand attacks from Vex, who had broken through to Legendary. Each swing of his flaming sword emitted a shriek that tore through space, putting immense pressure on the blue dragon.

During the brutal clash, Vex deliberately left an opening, taking a sword blow squarely on his left shoulder. His azure scales shattered, dragon blood sprayed. The warlord’s heart leapt with triumph—he moved to press the advantage—when suddenly he felt weightless. A powerful updraft erupted beneath his feet without warning: it was Aquilon striking!

In those few seconds of distraction, Vex’s attack was already upon him. The condensed Leiting exploded at point-blank range. The warlord’s You green flames, which absorbed magical energy, instantly overloaded and died. His mighty body violently carbonized and disintegrated under the massive electric surge, reducing him and his greatsword to a shower of black ash.

“Idiot. Thought you were tough after two rounds of close combat?”

While Vex battled the warlord in furious melee, the bronze dragon Aquilon, whose scales shimmered with a metallic bronze luster, faced the cardinal. Unlike Vex’s ferocity, Aquilon’s combat style was marked by the elegant, lethal efficiency unique to wind magic.

The cardinal swung his staff. The ground split open, and countless shadow-and-negative-energy hands clawed toward the bronze dragon. Simultaneously, green rays of Disintegrate shot skyward like venomous snakes.

Aquilon let out a clear, resonant cry. His wings fluttered gently, and his form instantly became a streak of blue light. He defied physics, leaving behind curved, air-twisting trails in midair, effortlessly dodging every venomous ray. He didn’t even look at the shadow hands—his natural hurricane armor shredded them into fragments.

“To oppose me in the sky is sheer folly,” Aquilon’s voice mocked, crisp and cold as wind over metal leaves.

He curled his claws—and the air above the cardinal instantly compressed, then exploded violently! The cardinal’s shadow shield rippled violently, nearly shattering. He staggered, jabbed his staff into the ground, and summoned several massive bone dragon puppets to charge the bronze dragon.

Aquilon remained calm. He drew a deep breath and exhaled a unique breath infused with magic: a high-frequency sonic wave. Visible as twisted ripples, it swept over the bone dragons. Their hardened bones cracked instantly under resonant frequency, then collapsed into piles of dust with a “crash.”

At that moment, an anomaly erupted—a shadowy wraith suddenly appeared behind the cardinal. Sensing disaster, he immediately cast a defense spell—but it was too late.

“Oh dear, my lord cardinal, didn’t anyone ever tell you to watch out for assassins during battle? Letting them get close is extremely dangerous.” Seeing the dagger tip protruding from his chest, the cardinal tried one final struggle—only to have his skull crushed by a single claw.

“I said, Verna, why waste words with him? Just stab him and be done with it.”

“Call me Auntie, Aquilon. You’ve got no manners at all. Didn’t Sakavi teach you anything?”

As they chatted, chaos brewed at another end of the battlefield. The Dragonworship Cult’s front line crumbled like an ant nest doused with boiling water. Countless low-ranking cultists and monsters fled in all directions under the dragon-beasts’ slaughter. Amid this flood of retreat, one figure stood out—cautious, deliberate.

He was a Legendary Dragonborn Necromancer. His towering frame was covered in dark-red scales, but many now cracked, oozing thick, foul-smelling dark blood—wounds inflicted earlier during the siege of Kanarsen City by the city lord’s surprise strike. His staff, carved from the spine of some colossal dragon, now dim and lifeless, its swirling wraiths weak and listless.

“Must leave… Sakavi’s a madman… His target was never us—we’re just pawns in his game against Kanarsen…” Malzark hissed softly, enduring the stabbing pain in his magical pathways. He channeled his remaining death energy; gray-white mist began to swirl around him—High Invisibility and Anti-Detection.

His plan was clear and efficient: use chaos and magic to slip silently into shadow, away from this battlefield now turned into a dragon’s feast. Give him three seconds—no, two—and he’d vanish completely.

But he made a fatal mistake. All his attention focused on the dragons above and the city lord on the distant inner wall. He guarded against grand magic and dragonbreath—but ignored one of the oldest, deadliest threats on any battlefield: the hunter from the dark.

A faint, almost drowned-out sound pierced the air—less like a bowstring’s roar, more like something sharper, more contained—as if space itself had been silently slit by a blade.

A streak of emerald light, like a comet slicing the night sky, carried no magical signature whatsoever. It shot from the shadow of a collapsed arrow tower, an angle so impossibly precise it seemed to anticipate every pulse of Malzark’s magic.

At the instant the arrow was loosed, Malzark sensed the danger—the instinctive premonition of death in a Legendary. He tried to forcibly interrupt his spell, twist his body, harden his shadow scales, and use magic to shift his position.

But it was too late. The emerald streak pierced cleanly through his half-formed shadow shell, through his hastily conjured undead shield, through the weakest spot beneath his toughest scales—the area weakened by old wounds.

“Pthsh!”

The sound of the blade piercing flesh was chillingly soft. Malzark’s body froze. The shadow-dash spell, nearly complete, snuffed out like a candle. He looked down, disbelieving, at the ancient, jade-carved arrow piercing his neck, its fletching trembling faintly.

The arrowhead bore no magic—but something purer, more absolute: the principles of “Anti-Magic,” “Guidance,” and “Withering.” Emerald light spread from his wound. Where it passed, his mighty undead body melted like snow under sunlight—flesh withered, scales peeled away.

He didn’t even cry out. He never saw his killer. His once-commanding, death-controlling vertical pupils now reflected only the shattered sky above the ruins—and the jade arrow that stole everything. The light vanished from his eyes.

The Legendary Dragonborn Necromancer, “Whisper of Bones” Malzark, collapsed in the act of fleeing. His body decayed rapidly as it hit the ground, finally reduced to a skeleton entwined with emerald runes, the jade arrow still embedded in his neck vertebrae—a cold tombstone.

Far away, in the shadow of the collapsed arrow tower, a blurred figure slowly lowered the longbow forged from the Star-Tongue Tree of the Night Elves. His form merged perfectly with the darkness, his presence utterly gone—as if he had never existed. Only a faint, cold scent of the hunt lingered in the air, proof of the arrow’s origin.