Dragon Assault
The dragons had been relentless, their massive forms blazing through the skies like living cataclysms of fury. Kim Jae-hyun's voice rang out sharp and commanding, cold authority slicing through the chaos as he stood among the gathered knights and priests.
"Quickly, move!"
He shouted to the humans caught in the dark army's ranks, clad in the skin of a red-haired dragon, who were firing off attack spells and slashing with blades. Jae-hyun and the others blocked every defensive magic, countering with blasts of their own, while urging the knights and priests forward. They raced across the battlefield, gathering into one tight knot, surrounded by other dragons perched in the distance like vultures waiting for the kill.
Their only goal was to gather as many of the knights and priests as possible and teleport them to the Intermediate World, deep within the Kingdom of Astraea, to safety.
It was the dragons' single target now. They were proud and solitary creatures who despised crowds and craved their own company, but ten years ago the war against the dark army had shattered that arrogance and forced them to learn the value of cooperation.
Thanks to that lesson, the dragons fought side by side today, their ancient rivalries set aside in the heat of battle.
Kwaaang!
"Kyaaaaak!"
The red-haired dragon unleashed a nine-circle Absolute Barrier, but it shattered like glass under the impact. The dragon himself screamed in agony, hurtling backward through the air.
Even with full-body protective magics layered over his form, the blow still sent him crashing. Without those defenses he might have been killed outright.
"What... what is this?!"
"That can't be—!"
Two other dragons, one with silver hair and one with blue, gasped in shock as the red dragon flew past them.
"Sneaking in like some rat..."
The words were muttered by a dark elf woman. Her sleek black hair and piercing black eyes, paired with pointed ears, marked her as one of the elite among the dark elves, yet she paled beside the legendary beauty of the dark elf queen, Lucien. Still, her looks were striking enough to turn heads, and her body was slender enough to seem delicate. But the dragons knew better. The same woman who had just hurled the red dragon away carried power that placed her firmly inside the top hundred of the Demon World's strongest demons.
Compared to the supreme mages who had fought beside the former Demon King, Laylana, during the final battle in the Demon King's Castle ten years ago, she held equal strength.
But the dragons faced more than just dark elves.
"Do not let the traitors escape!"
"If they escape, we will face His Majesty's wrath!"
Within the Kingdom of Astraea, seven-circle archmages who had become black mages under their contract with the Demon King Kim Jae-hyun now unleashed dark magic. The holy power once held by knights and priests had been corrupted into demonic energy, though their abilities remained formidable. The contract made them stronger than before, and thousands of mages below seven circles had also sworn themselves to black magic, swarming the knights and priests along with the traitors among them.
"They cannot escape!"
"We will not allow it!"
Kraaaaaar!
From every corner of the Kingdom, the roars of countless monsters echoed. At the same time, monsters erupted into the open across the land, including the strongest of them all—the Demon Beast Emperor, Behemoth, who served as Jae-hyun's personal mount.
The dragons could not allow Jae-hyun's revenge to be interrupted. The dark elves and monsters fought with desperate loyalty, bound by the same unbreakable will.
Those who served the Demon King could not defy him. Servants of the dark were slaves to the Demon King and could never turn against him. Moreover, the thought of Jae-hyun's punishment for the traitors was enough to freeze even the boldest.
He was a tyrant who rewarded success and punished failure with exquisite cruelty. Among all the Demon Kings of old, he was the worst, born from pure revenge, hatred, and fury. His torment was legendary.
The dragons' faces hardened with tension as monster legions rose from every corner of the Kingdom.
"My name is Lirien. One of the dark high elves who serve the queen of the dark elf race, the Dark Queen Lucien."
Lirien, the dark elf woman, stepped forward to introduce herself to the three dragons. She watched the knights and priests huddled together, swaying in battle formation, and smiled brightly.
"Thankfully, you are all gathered in one place. Fufu."
Lirien laughed with genuine delight. Once she captured them all, she would receive a reward from His Majesty the Demon King.
"You dare attack me! Hellfire!"
The red dragon, who had just been blasted away, fired a devastating eight-circle Hellfire spell straight at her. But the spell never reached her. A figure erupted from the ground, intercepting it and absorbing the explosion in an instant. The dark elf had absorbed the fire before it could touch her.
Dark elves were far stronger than ordinary elves, yet they could never bond with pure nature spirits. They themselves were tainted, radiating dark energy that made them loathed and feared by normal spirits.
But they could bond with spirits of the Demon World. The Demon World was another realm, and its spirits could be summoned just as easily as those of the Abyss.
The entity who had blocked and absorbed the red dragon's Hellfire was a supreme dark spirit of the Demon World, one of the highest-ranking dark beings in existence.
"Flame of Gehenna!"
"Hellfire Cannon!"
"Ray of Light!"
Following the command of the Dragon Lord, black, gold, and green dragons arrived to join the fray. Every one of them unleashed nine-circle and eight-circle spells, fire and light magic that burned against the supreme dark spirit.
Despite its ability to devour all things, the dark spirit's power was too great to swallow nine-circle and eight-circle spells of opposing elements so easily. Even the Hellfire it had already absorbed had been neutralized and swallowed whole.
'I really must use this power.'
With more time, six dragons might fall. But the six dragons now coordinated their attacks in perfect sync. Lirien knew she could not bring them down in under an hour.
These were not the arrogant dragons of old who fought alone. The red dragon had even shifted his focus from offense to defense, proving the dragons had learned the lesson of cooperation.
That cooperation made their combined strength unbearable. The former Demon King, Laylana, had failed to conquer the Intermediate World precisely because of human, beast, and dragon alliances. If all the forces there joined together, who knew what new possibilities might arise?
Therefore she had decided to make use of the orders given by the Demon King.
'I will use these powers given by His Majesty to the fullest!'
Powerful summons that could be consumed as consumable items were rare. The knights, each stronger than a sword master, and the priests' souls could be turned into Death Knights or upper-tier ghosts like specters and phantoms, then infused with demonic energy to serve as summons.
But the knights and priests had all been turned into consumables from the beginning. The common thread was simple: they had all betrayed the Demon King. Jae-hyun had deliberately created them as disposable tools.
[They shall never embrace the embrace of the gods in death. They shall never find peace in death. They shall never enter hell, nor exist in any world, and shall simply cease to be.]
That was Jae-hyun's revenge. The six traitors would suffer endless torment, never dying, forever craving death. Their followers would meet tragic ends in that agony, their souls forever denied the gods' mercy, trapped as summoned creatures until they were finally consumed and vanished into nothingness.
'A powerful strike is needed.'
Lirien, sword in hand, desired only one thing at this moment: a strike so overwhelming it would end the fight. Her sword had already shattered the red dragon's Absolute Barrier and torn through layer after layer of magical defenses, sending the dragon flying.
Yet the red dragon had survived her ambush. She had failed to kill him outright.
She must fell at least one before the six dragons began their coordinated assault.
She would disable rather than kill, leaving them unable to fight.
To deliver such a strike, Lirien activated the power granted to her as a demon.
Kwakwaang!
Her strength surged, nearly doubling in an instant. In exchange, a powerful summon screamed in agony and vanished, consumed utterly.
"Hellfire!"
The red dragon hurled another Hellfire spell at her. Lirien moved like a streak of lightning, closing the distance in a heartbeat. Her blade, woven with demonic energy, sliced through the spell, shattered the dragon's protective barriers, and carved a deep gash across his torso.
"Kyaaaaak!"
Even though the cut had been controlled to avoid killing, the wound was agonizing. The dragon screamed as demonic energy poured through the injury, flooding his body and wreaking internal chaos.
Now in his human form, the blow had been devastating.
"What?!"
Other dragons noticed their comrade's peril and rushed to assist, but monsters erupted from all sides, blocking their path.
Lirien was not alone. The Demon King had sent monsters to her as well.
The knights and priests were already being overwhelmed. Even as they poured out holy power and resisted the monsters, the dark army's numbers were too great. They were captured and dragged away.
"The ambush was well planned, but you chose the wrong target."
Lirien sneered coldly as she charged toward the next dragon.
At the same time, across the Kingdom, battles raged between dragons and the combined forces of dark elves, monsters, and traitors. Not a single knight or priest escaped.
And more than two hundred dragons had been captured and turned into prisoners.