Narrator pov:
The Draconium Empire was led by the Dragonheart royal family. The empire is the main super power of the continent. Even if the rest of the continent joined hands together they still wouldn't be able to match the military might of the Draconium empire.
A massive portion of their military might is from the noble houses that function as the pillars of the empire. These families have a military might that is similar to that of a small nation. There used to be 4 pillars in the empire, at least until the revolution.
The emperor is the most powerful man on the continent, not just in terms of political and military power, but the strongest as well when it comes to physical might.
The emperor was commonly referred to as the "Monarch of Monarchs". It wasn't because he led the strongest force on the continent. Or because he was the lord of families that could rule nations or had might comparable to one.
No, the reason why he was called the "Monarch of Monarchs", was because he was the lord of dragons. A mythical species nicknamed monarchs of the sky, thus it was an unwritten rule that whoever is the lord of the dragons would be the Monarch of Monarchs.
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Arius Lionheart pov:
Rogue dragons or ones that have a grudge or hatred for humanity are natural disasters. They are unrelenting, unpredictable, and uncontrollable, they are destruction incarnate.
These overgrown lizards can change the climate of an area by just flying through it, not to mention their ability to manipulate the weather to their liking and using it as a weapon whenever they'd wish to.
And that's not considering the blistering heat their breaths produce or their bodies expel while performing any action. Just by sleeping, they can increase the ambient temperature, sometimes destroying ecosystems by creating imbalances.
To cut to the chase, they are terrifying creatures that can change and destroy the world by simply existing and breathing. And, one of those terrifying creatures was flying straight at me. Despite the encroaching threat, I was far more worried and afraid of the man atop the dragon, for he was far more monstrous than the dragon could ever be.
The man who was using a natural disaster as a mount belonged to the most elite order of knights in the world, the Scarlet Knights. There are currently 5 Scarlet Knights within the Dragonheart empire.
The emperor himself is the leader and the strongest member of the order. Then we have the vice captains of the order who are evenly matched. That being the crown prince and the emperor's advisor and right hand.
At this very moment the crown prince, who was holding the reins of the dragon untill moments ago, was managing to hold off the onslaught of an entire squad of wyvern knights single handedly. What was more remarkable was that he was managing this while suffering from minimal damage.
Noticing the state of the dragon he decided to let the dragon off its leash. He then released the chains he was holding with his left hand, signalling the dragon and giving it permission to run as wild as it wants.
The dragon began to charge at me at breakneck speed, its speed not matching its size at all, further selling the idea that this creature was an unexplainable calamity.
At the same time I began to rush towards the dragon as well, and as the distance between us began to dissipate, our collision became imminent .
Golden flames wrapped around my body as I sped toward the hideous creature, leaving a trail of light behind me. Then as we were about to crash, the flames flared up as I took an explosive step towards the right side of the dragon where now it was missing an eye.
Taking advantage of it vulnerability, I took another explosive step and leaped toward the head of the dragon and landed next to its now blind eye.
I grabbed the base of the spear that was lodged into its eye, trying to pull it out. But, as I did the spear snapped in half. That one single throw was enough to almost turn the spear into dust.
I then improvised, I held what I managed to scavenge of the spear in my right hand and used the other half of the spear, that is lodged in the dragon's eye, as a foothold to propel myself straight up, treating the spear as if it was some sort of a spring board.
As I soared through the air vertically I focused my attention on the knight on the dragon's back. Now that he had freed both of his arms he had now picked up bow and arrow instead of a one handed blade.
He was looking straight at me with his bow aimed directly at my torso. He had managed to predict my action and knew beforehand where I would be. Then he let his arrow fly, and it soared straight at me with unnatural amounts of force.
The arrow shaft had an unnatural thickness to it and seemed to be made of some sort of alloy, and the tip of it looked to be as big as an average man's fist. The whole thing seemed to be as big as an entire human arm. And the bow used to fire this giant arrow was naturally just as unnatural and massive as the arrow it shot.
The pitch black bow seemed to be bigger than a normal human being in both height and width. That monstrous bow and arrow could only be used by a monster as overbearing as the bow itself.
The arrow closed the distance between us in less than a blink of an eye. If something that massive moving that fast hit me, I would die on the spot. There was now way I could take the hit and not be reduced to mush.
I swung what remained of the spear handle to the side of the arrow trying to alter its trajectory. The spear handle shattered as it came into contact with the arrow, thankfully my desperate attempts to save myself resulted in the arrow losing some momentum and force.
I failed in diverting the trajectory of the arrow, but I could still salvage the situation. My body moved automatically without thinking, by following through with the singing motion, I was able to twist my body and took the arrow right into the side of my arm.
My arm was protected by layers of armour and aura, so the arrow failed to pierce my arm but the transfer of force cracked my bones and sent me flying up even higher.
However I knew that things wouldn't end here, the knight knew I would survive his attack. And he probably was preparing his next attack while I am trying to get a handle on my situation.
As I was flying higher into the air, I made sure to keep my eyes glued to the knight at all times. Yet, contrary to my worries the knight wasn't doing anything, he simply stood on a metallic platform on the dragon's back, simply staring back at me.
Then in the corner of my peripheral vision I saw the dragon head turn and look towards me, flames leaking from his mouth. There was nothing I could do, the chances of me surviving a dragon's flame breath, while mid air and with no mobility options, were close to zero.
I was in every sense of the word Fucked. I stared at the all consuming and destructive flames that the dragon began to bellow towards me, it was beautiful in a sense, the deep crimson flames rendered everything equal and embraced everything without question or distinction. These flames were a volatile manifestation of death itself as scorched and destroyed everything in their burning embrace.
I must be going insane now that I am about to die. Is this how senile elders feel right before their death? Do they see the beauty of the world in their last moments as they relive their lives?
I am certainly not that young, through this long war I have lost my youth, yet I wouldn't consider myself an oldman, I have so much life left ahead of me.
I have given everything I have and am to this war, I have pushed through too much pain, too much hardship to fall here. There is too much responsibility placed on my shoulder, I can not fall here, who else will be able to pick up the weight that is crushing me?
I am not the only one that has dedicated everything to this war, thousands that are dying at this very moment are evidence of that. How dare I resign myself to a pointless death? How dare I, when so many are sacrificing themselves while believing in me?
I must continue to fight, even if I die while doing so I will do so till the bitter end.
Having resigned myself to fight till the end, I felt a shift in my soul. I felt my existence become more defined and more pronounced. And as a result my aura grew to match my soul.
Aura is the manifestation of a soul, the stronger and more pronounced the soul of a person is, the stronger their aura would be.
The golden flames licking off my body flared and grew around my entire body, the bright flames illuminated the dark sky and shined as brightly as the sun.
I balled myself up and concentrated most of the flames that surrounded my entire body in front of me, as I braced myself for the ever encroaching crimson flames.
Then the crimson flames came into contact with mine, swallowing all light and pushing against my flames to get to me and deliver death.
Despite pushing my aura to its extremes to protect myself I could still feel the inexplicable heat from the flames. I felt my body drying up and losing moisture rapidly, every second that I was being bathed in the flames was bringing me closer to my death.
I felt myself losing consciousness while I was submerged in the river of flames. This couldn't be the end for me, not after everything that has happened, not after I swore that if I were to die it would be while fighting to the bitter end.
It became harder and harder to hold on as I felt my skin begging to completely dry up, I was caught in the flame breath for a few seconds, yet I was about to perish.
In a last ditch effort I began to shout, and I put everything I had in that shout. All my anger toward the empire, all of the pain circulating through my body, all my dissatisfaction towards this end of mine and even my unwillingness to give up.
"I REFUSE TO DIE AT YOUR HANDS, YOU FUCKING OVERSIZED LIZARD!!"
At the same time I felt an arm wrap around my waist and begging to pull me outside of the flames.
I was then soon pulled out of the flames and noticed that I was on the back of a scorched wyvern with holes burnt into its wings and torso. On the back of the wyvern was a knight, her armour which used to be light blue was now charred black. She let go of my waist as I grabbed on to the saddle on the back of the wyvern.
She then unbuckled a long sword from her waist and handed it to me. She followed that by taking off her helmet as I took the sword from her.
Her face couldn't be compared to a human, almost all of her features were lost due to the flames, the only features left of her former face were a single eye that somehow survived and her charred lips. Not even a miracle would be enough to heal her at this rate, to be honest the mere fact that she was alive at this moment was a miracle.
Even if she were a superhuman knight who could manipulate mana, there was no way a human would be able survive after diving into that flaming river of death. I am sure that she was well aware of the fact that she would die even if she spent a single second in those flames. Yet, she chose to dive in head first just to save me.
"Sir….. I leave… the rest up... to… you…..please…..avenge us" She coughed out, her voice strained and deflated, it was clear that it took her everything just to say those words.
I nodded to her and replied "Thank you for your sacrifice, I will not let it be in vain." I said trying my best to remain stoic and reliable.
Though it was probably in vain, she was unable to hear me and even her remaining eye was unfocused and soulless. She had died right after saying her last words. Her burnt and ruined body was still upright and on the slab of raw flesh that used to be her face was something resembling a smile. It seemed that she was satisfied with how she died.
The image of her ruined face was burnt into my memory as I continued to look at her corpse. At the same time I felt the weight on my shoulders grow. As my burdens grew, I wondered how much more weight could I hold before I collapsed?
I was interrupted out of my trance as I heard a shout to my left, "My lord! Please jump over quickly we do not have much time" the shout came from another wyvern knight and wyvern that were flying to my left.
As I took a step off the charred wyvern and onto the other one, an arrow made contact with the torso of the charred wyvern, completely mangaling it and reducing it into an unrecognisable chunk of flying flesh.
The knight and wyvern that saved me, both began to freefall. Their bodies wouldn't even be salvageable for a proper burial after this.
In the back of my mind all I could think of and imagine was the ruined face of the knight, her soulless eyes, her ripped and burnt lips twisted into a smile and the rest of her melted and destroyed features.
That image never left my mind, my mind just wouldn't stop focusing on it. From that image emotions such as rage, hate and sadness flooded out, taking control over my thoughts.
The only thing I could think of to honour her and the only thing I wanted to do was rip apart that scarlet bastard and his demented mount.
"My lord, I trust that you have a plan in mind to defeat our enemies, me and my knights will do anything to aid you in your efforts" said the knight.
"I take it that you are the leader of the remaining knights, I do have an idea on how to deal with them, and I do need your help. It's a dangerous task, are you and your men up to it?" I replied.
There was a hint of nervousness in his voice as he replied, "Your wish is our command, we shall follow any orders." I knew that he meant his words, and that he was willing to put his life on line. It was only natural that he'd be nervous when knowing that he was going to his death.
I began to explain my plan while he manoeuvred his wyvern dodging arrow fire from the scarlet knight as he did so. " I need you and the remaining knights to circulate around the dragon, I need you guys to rotate around its sides, fly above it, fly below it and surround it. You guys must not attack the dragon and grab its attention, we need them to be completely focused on me till the time is right."
"you guys will serve as my mobile platforms using whatever means to help increase my movement options. And whenever I create an opening do your best to take advantage of it and deal as much damage as you can, that is all"
It was not a complicated plan, and they were not directly involved so they wouldn't be attacked as long as I am a big enough problem, but they will still be caught in the crossfire that was inevitable.
The knight tried his best to process my plan while focusing on manoeuvring the wyvern, after a few moments he spoke up, "I ll share the plan with the rest of the knights, but the only way I could do that is if you are able to buy me some time for me to get in contact with them".
I already knew that this would be the case, I was prepared to dive towards the dragon at a moment's notice, there was no hint of fear in my mind, my entire mind was consumed by the image of the female knight in her last moments. There was no place for fear to take root in my mind.
We were now flying at a higher altitude than the dragon that was chasing us. The dragon was hot on our tail, sticking to our rear like a parasite.
I could now finally take a good look at the platform on the back of the dragon. The metallic platform that was nesting on the back of the dragon was embedded into its body, digging into it and then held down further by thick metal chains that wrapped around the torso of the dragon almost like the straps on a backpack.
The platform had blue hue to it, it seemed to be made out of an alloy mixed with magic stones, the platform probably used resonance with the armour of the knight to keep him stuck to it, allowing him to stand on the platform and move around like normal despite the fast and erratic movements of the dragon.
On the edges of the platform there were a few racks of weapons. Where spears, swords, bows and arrows of all sizes were resting waiting to be used, all the weapons were made out of a scarlet metal that matched the armour of the knight.
The knight himself was wearing a black leather undergarments that were covered with partial plate armour that was more focused on mobility than defence. It was mostly focused on his torso while not fully covering his joints
He threw away his large bow, picked up a lighter one from the stand, replenished his quiver with smaller arrows to match his new bow, he placed the bow on his back and drew a short sword from his waist. He held it in his right hand and grabbed a shield from the rack with his left.
He had even predicted the fact that I was planning on charging him, this level of dominance over a battle was unsettling, how far ahead of me was he seeing, is there even a way for me to surprise him and throw him off guard?
As I began to doubt myself, I felt a pit in my stomach. Doubt began to take over me, and for the first time in my life I was unsure of how a battle would go.
Could I even beat a monster like him?