Chapter 152
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 152
Chapter Title: 15th Floor - Lv. 3000 Blue Dragon Arka (3)
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Dragons are arrogant, but they're not stupid.
The Dragon King of his era, Arka, knew full well that his strength fell woefully short of what it took to bear that title.
Battleships and such scrap heaps? He couldn't care less. Even planetary fortresses would merely slow him down—he could just keep striking and withdrawing endlessly without issue.
No pinnacle of magitech engineering could match those who had reigned as powerhouses since ancient times.
Experience built over eons—that's what the saying was made for.
But things changed if the enemy knew how to properly wield the powers of that bygone era.
Dragons were undoubtedly the strongest living beings, but strongest and invincible were different concepts.
One-on-one, no problem. But in a many-against-one? Even dragon lives could be threatened.
The Great Saintess of old.
The Human Hero of old.
And that loathsome goblin necromancer named Arcana, who was surely still alive somewhere.
Every last one of them reeked of influence from some Exile.
How could expelling a single vampire clan spiral into all this?
The previous Dragon King was dead. Slain by that vile Exile's hand.
When word came that the fiend had resurfaced, the dragons' reaction wasn't rage or thirst for vengeance.
It was fear.
And with it, a searing shame that gripped every dragon.
They felt anger too. But not toward the enemy—toward themselves.
This can't go on.
How could the mightiest and oldest beings in the universe cower before some mere human by birth?
They hadn't stepped forward at first, but that fury had festered within them all the same.
Then the Empire's Emperor appeared.
The dragons finally had their excuse to shake off the terror. A perfectly rational justification, no less.
"Far earlier in the timeline than when the Dragon King fell?"
The God of War vouched for it.
A god was still just a moldy old Exile at heart, but Exiles were natural foes of Exiles.
Thus, a dramatic pact was forged with dragons who had never favored the God of War's faith.
The God of War and the Emperor wanted to save their Empire. The dragons wanted to excise their fear right here and now.
Verification came easily via the dragons' immense magic.
The current version of that monster hadn't detected distant observation, nor counter-scryed when [Prophecy] stirred.
His companions were different too.
No hulking, muscle-bound human casually gauging skull thickness with his axes.
No knight clad in heroic enchanted armor, wielding a gleaming magic sword.
No sign of that other undetectable foe either.
He really did seem weak.
And the tiny human girl at his side had no wings.
"Then it's time for dragons to take the stage!"
The Emperor burst out laughing upon seeing them in the Hall of Dragons, but they couldn't retort.
It was true—they were ashamed and pathetic.
But they were still this universe's apex predators.
The tide of war shifted dramatically.
Three months passed with no incidents.
Dragons remained supreme.
Blasting starship fleets with magic barrages, unleashing [Dragon's Breath] on planetary fortresses—their wounded pride was mending, bit by bit.
At some point, they reclaimed their arrogance.
Victory—the one they'd half-doubted they could achieve—seemed at hand.
All that remained was one final push.
Eliminate the Exile who had traumatized their entire race, so no future dragons would suffer the same.
Arka, who had become Dragon King simply as the eldest survivor, even tried something he'd never done before: prayer.
"I beseech you. Please let us become the Dragon Slayers' Slayers..."
The God of War was utterly baffled.
"Why pray to me?"
"Isn't that what gods are for?"
"Well, yeah, but..."
"Then grant my wish already!"
The God of War sighed. That's what passes for prayer?
In a world where gods had tangible forms, perceptions of divinity naturally differed.
To the God of War, who still remembered human-era faiths from outside the Labyrinth, it all felt like a joke.
Even he sometimes felt that way, scheming for server dominance.
No wonder they called gods prisoners.
There was no real battle to speak of.
The Alliance openly declared they'd stand aside.
They'd seemed agreeable when pledging to block the Empire here, but now that it was go-time, they balked.
The Federation couldn't outright condemn it as treason—their own guilt was too glaring.
In truth, they'd never truly united; each faction had just warred against the Empire on the same front, independently.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
That was the depth of it.
Federation commanders grumbled but didn't see it as a disaster.
The Holy War would triumph regardless. The Great Warrior had forged them a dragon of their own.
Of course, everyone knew it was just Sylphid, the Wind Spirit King passed down under that name.
But sometimes, facts didn't matter.
In a short time, it had wrecked several planetary fortresses and mauled fleeing warp fleets with countless losses.
Like trolls and ogres in melee, a fleet-combat dragon was a terrifying symbol.
And now we had one.
That alone sent morale soaring amid the war-weary troops—a raw, instinctual surge, not fanaticism.
From the rearmost ships of the advancing fleet, brimming with fervor, the Hunter watched it all with a smile.
"Seen it plenty in movies. But life..."
On the 15th floor, all party members were sidelined.
An Exile's impact in such massive campaigns was negligible.
Not even ground ops—truly nothing to do.
The party leader wasn't stepping up for his own prowess; he was the contractor of a Spirit King treated as a strategic asset even in future stages.
He laid it out simply and clearly.
"The Shadow Spirit King is a monster who wields immense power even in campaigns like this. But he's still just one oversized individual."
I see the enemy, and the enemy sees me.
One-on-one.
As an Exile—or anyone, really—the real headaches weren't unbeatable foes.
It was the battlefield's heart, where stray bullets could strike anytime, anywhere.
The Labyrinth ultimately guided solo victory, for Exiles or otherwise.
Viable paths to win always existed.
But massive clashes of titans bypassed those subtle Labyrinth rules.
Pure variables, unbound even by the Labyrinth.
And variables were what Exiles had to watch for, always.
"Quantity has a quality all its own. Dragons excel because their mobility defies their firepower. Head-on? They'd be rags drifting as space junk."
The Girl countered.
"But Uncle, aren't you heading out now to flip this whole battlefield?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying you shouldn't do. I'm only butting in because fate dragged me here. These fronts have the highest mortality rates as is."
The leader sighed at her What the hell? expression.
"Avoid group fights when possible. It'll be worse in the kingdoms, so stay sharp. This is an insane outlier."
"You mentioned guilds? Aren't we making one?"
"Small-scale only. Tried large-scale—definite limits."
With that, the leader boarded a small starship and departed.
The Girl was now taking magic lessons from the old man with the kid and the little mage.
More precisely, not magic itself, but the minimal mana literacy every Exile needed, as the leader had instructed.
The youngest sat it out.
So did the Hunter.
He tinkered with his array of firearms.
No need to take these back to the village.
For him, lounging in the rear as a spectator was ideal.
His chance was spent.
Die here, and that was it—no next run.
So, safely. He just hoped to fulfill that long-cherished dream.
Not a bad finale.
Thinking of his wife and kids' faces brought a swell to his chest.
He wasn't sure how he'd fared as a family man.
But the years as an Exile—utterly exhausting.
Back to those warm days soon.
Any moment now.
Artillery fire erupted the instant they entered effective range.
Word had come: Empire dragon-riders were already swinging wide in a massive flanking maneuver.
Likewise, assault ships attempting boarding spread not just frontal but everywhere.
Dragons weren't singular either. Empty space posed no barrier to spatial-magic warps.
Far swifter and efficient than short-range warps, they'd scatter [Breath] everywhere.
The Alliance's withdrawal stung, but Federation grand strategy held.
Heavily reliant on the Great Warrior—but possible precisely because he existed.
The manifested Wind Spirit King, fueled by vast mana, appeared even mightier than in the spirit realm.
Upon sighting the dragon amid utter vacuum—no air, let alone wind—the Dragon King bellowed.
Darkness elements pervasive in space carried the mana-charged roar to every ear.
[What can a mere wind spirit do in this universe!]
Meanwhile, dragon mana stemmed from the [Dragon Heart].
This famed natural powerhouse output no magitech had replicated.
Objectively, with its core element absent here, the Wind Spirit King had scant options.
Wind was gaseous matter, after all...
Dragon King Arka sensed a sudden wrongness.
The Federation fleet, battle-ready, seemed to be choosing the field.
Luring us.
But the Alliance had explicitly told the Empire they wouldn't side with the Federation.
They watched from afar indeed.
Too close for warp, too far to thrust in.
True bystanders.
No trap elements.
Greenskins didn't dodge traps anyway.
Nor did dragons.
Resurgent pride fueled a mindset to smash through any ambush.
So they'd followed this far.
When the enemy main force hugged that gas giant, hiding behind—gravity would slow their warps. Advantage them.
No escape? Annihilate here.
Pound them to dust, set the universe right.
The nagging unease? That colossal gas giant—wasn't it non-wind elements?
No, he knew. It was.
But could a Spirit King move that?
Even if possible, at what scale?
On a server without Spirit King contractors for ages, dragons lacked certainty.
Thus, they missed the planet subtly distorting.
Older dragons, if alive, would have warned them.
A true Spirit King owned its element.
Moved it not like a mage, but as its living embodiment.
Did moving your own body cost anything?
The mana a Spirit King consumed was mere manifestation fuel.
After? Just perceiving "where wind ends."
And this era defined wind elements as "all gases."
Sylphid, in colossal draconic form, swung its arm with all its might at the contractor's will.
The dragon finally grasped why Spirit Kings were timeless strategic weapons.