Chapter 1: The Son of Red Iron

The continent of Atlant, the Ser Wilds.

A black-feathered, red-beaked hawk soared through the sky, cutting through dense forest, clear emerald lakes, and boundless wasteland, slowing gently before landing on a jagged cliff, preening its feathers as it gazed downward.

This place was a massive circular crater, as if carved by a meteor impact.

The center held forests and rivers, surrounded on all sides by steep, towering cliffs.

The black-feathered hawk tilted its head, puzzled—its vision reflected a creature at the crater’s bottom, relentlessly gathering all its strength to slam its flesh-and-blood body against the rocks.

It measured about six meters from snout to tail, scaled and horned, with wings and a long tail—clearly a young dragon, though its appearance was unusual, unlike any common breed.

Its head resembled that of a red dragon, with the same rear-curving horns, but the horn bases were encased in shovel-shaped metallic bone, forming an angular structure like a knight’s helmet.

Its dragon scales layered thickly, black with a silvery sheen, marked with faint patterns that glowed dark red like molten lava flowing over iron, their edges razor-sharp, refracting cold, obsidian-like light with every breath, giving the whole body a distinctly metallic quality.

Though young, it already radiated a ferocious might far beyond ordinary beasts—its limbs, tail, and wings were exceptionally powerful.

Thud!

Galos flapped his broader-than-average wings, accelerating before slamming headfirst into the base of the cliff—stones shattered and sprayed, dust billowed upward.

He shook his head, pulling his skull and forebody free from the rock.

Galos shook his scales, dislodging small stones lodged in the crevices and brushing off the dust, then ceased his baffling Shanling routine, leaning against the hole he’d carved to rest.

“I’ve been a dragon for six years now, without even realizing it.”

Galos sighed inwardly, lowering his gaze to his dragon claws, opening and clenching them repeatedly.

He, or rather, it, was not a normal dragon.

First, he was a hybrid of red dragon and iron dragon—a fact evident in his peculiar appearance.

Yet red-iron dragon hybrids, though rare, still fell within the realm of normalcy.

Both red dragons and iron dragons were paragons among evil dragons, both worshipping strength and power.

One was the leader of the chromatic dragons; the other, the leader of the iron dragons.

Though under normal circumstances these two dragon kinds fiercely competed, often despising each other and erupting into battle upon meeting, as evil dragons who both revered strength, it was not impossible for their fights to suddenly turn into courtship, then into uncontrollable passion.

But what made him abnormal was far more critical: within this young red-iron dragon’s body resided a human soul from another world.

Yes, Galos was a transmigrator.

He didn’t understand why he’d transmigrated, nor did he care to ponder it—it was meaningless. Besides, a dragon’s body was vastly stronger than a human’s; Galos had long accepted his new form as a rebirth.

After six years of dragon life shaped by dragon heritage.

His human soul and dragon nature had fused, indistinguishable, forming a personality dominated by dragon instincts—fiercely seeking power and strength, yet tempered by human logic and wisdom. He possessed the dragon’s resilience and might, yet lacked the arrogance, vanity, or pathological obsession with treasure common among dragons.

In short:

He took the essence, discarded the dross.

Raising his claw, Galos carefully traced the top of his head, where he’d slammed against the rock for so long.

The fine scales on his faceplate and the horns above felt harder, more solid.

“Though subtle, my body has definitely grown stronger.”

The young dragon nodded in satisfaction, his tail—lined with razor-edged scales—swaying left and right, carving dense grooves into the ground.

Over six years, Galos had relentlessly studied his dragon body.

Beyond the innate supernatural abilities of dragons, he discovered with delight that perhaps due to his red-iron hybrid nature combined with his human soul, some unknown, wondrous reaction had occurred, granting him a unique, innate talent no other dragon possessed.

—Adaptive Evolution.

This talent was subtle; its initial effects were negligible, almost imperceptible, and Galos hadn’t even noticed it until he was two years old.

Even now, it was limited—it required daily, repeated training and adaptation to trigger even a single effective evolution, and the gains were minor, requiring additional energy intake through feeding.

Years had only made Galos’s physique noticeably tougher and harder than a normal young dragon’s, giving his scales a metallic sheen already.

But.

As Galos used it and aged, the talent itself grew and evolved—each year’s effect surpassed the last, and its upper limit remained unknown.

As everyone knew, evolution-based talents were extremely overpowered. Galos looked forward to his future with great anticipation.

“With a dragon’s long lifespan and its natural trait of growing stronger with age, combined with my Adaptive Evolution talent, one day I will evolve to an unimaginable degree.”

Galos thought happily.

He turned to glance at the thick cliff, then stretched his powerful limbs, pulled back, and slammed into it again and again—dust rose, stones flew.

The bright future was still just a fantasy.

As for now… keep hitting the mountain.

This was one of Galos’s daily training methods.

Others included, but were not limited to: flying into the sky and free-falling back down, leaping into fire to burn himself, letting Iron Dragon Mother whip him with her tail, holding his breath underwater until he nearly drowned.

Time passed slowly.

The sun sank lower, finally disappearing into the embrace of the distant mountains.

A star-strewn night sky descended; two moons—one full, one crescent—cast their bright, silvery glow, making the night world far from dark.

After finishing his Shanling training.

Galos left the clearly collapsed and sunken entrance.

Around him, there were many, many such holes—all his handiwork.

By the mirror-clear lake, Galos’s arrival startled countless birds and beasts.

He paid them no mind, drank deeply, then lifted his head to gaze at the twin moons.

One of these moons waxed and waned, changing with the night; the other remained a perfect, unchanging orb—the “False Moon.”

The False Moon was, in truth, a celestial magical fortress built by the Elven Empire [Nausil].

Besides this False Moon,

many twinkling stars, seemingly no different from ordinary stars, were in fact artificial “satellites” constructed by various Empires through magical means.

(End of Chapter)