Back then, he had watched from afar across a deep valley, and that strange beast had spotted him instantly as well. The crushing pressure enveloping his entire body right now was exactly the same as the suffocating sensation brought by that cold gaze all those years ago.
It wasn't furious hostility, nor was it a simple warning deterrence; the mere existence of a higher-order creature was enough to crush the minds of lower-order beings.
Back then, he had clung tightly to the gravel on the mountain ridge, not daring to slowly back away and leave until the beast closed its eyes to rest.
Finally, the giant dark shadow landed. A brilliant crimson body broke through the backlit halo, revealing its full form. Its scales, resembling wrought iron forged at high temperatures, reflected a dark, heavy metallic red glow under the midday sun.
The moment its limbs stepped heavily onto the ground, the earth shook like a giant drum being struck violently. A distinct tremor rippled along the dirt road, causing the ropes bound to the defensive wooden stakes to sway gently.
This red dragon stood half a head taller than the largest detached stone house in the village.
Yet its build was slender and lithe, still retaining the characteristics of a juvenile dragon. Its back lacked the massive, mountain-like silhouette of an adult dragon, and its limbs were sleek and light, exuding the explosive power unique to a young beast.
As it folded its massive wings, the hard scales at the tips lightly scraped against the wooden railing of the watchtower, producing a sharp, grating sound.
Silence fell over the entire area. The sentry on the watchtower had long since crouched down, his fingers tightly gripping his bowstring, his nerves stretched to their absolute limit.
An iron shovel slipped from a villager's hand and hit the gravel below, the crisp clatter sounding exceptionally jarring in the dead silent village. No one dared to bend down and retrieve the dropped tool.
The short-bearded villager instinctively gripped the hunting bow on his back but never raised it to aim. His survival instinct urged him to hold a weapon for self-preservation, but a deeper intuition told him clearly that in the face of this giant beast, any weapon was utterly meaningless.
The red dragon lowered its head, its slitted pupils slowly sweeping over the frozen villagers behind the defensive fence.
Its pupils were not the thin vertical lines of a reptile, but closer to the narrow, elongated slits of a feline predator, contracting slightly against the light to hide the sharp glint deep within.
It spoke, its deep, resonant voice vibrating directly from its chest. There was no high-pitched roar, yet it carried the sharp aura of a young beast whose edges had not yet been softened.
“My name is Lola Omel Feuerbach. A strange phenomenon has occurred here recently... Do you know what caused it? Has anyone seen anything unusual?”
Lola shook her head slightly, her phrasing sounding somewhat unnatural, yet she spoke with the familiarity of someone who had rehearsed it repeatedly.
Carson's throat felt dry and tight, as if filled with dust. He swallowed hard and croaked, “A... a dragon.”
Beside him, a dazed villager subconsciously repeated, his voice faint and trembling, “A dragon...”
The moment Carson uttered the word, panic spread silently through the crowd. The farming tools and implements of several people fell to the ground one after another. The sharp clatter of iron hitting stone broke the silence, yet still, no one dared to look down and pick them up.
In the village's popular picture books, the corners of the pages had become curled and yellowed from years of handling. Those books depicted dragons perched atop snow-capped peaks, painted by artists in deep blue or silvery white, their outstretched wings large enough to cover an entire mountain.
The dragons in the picture books were always majestic, solemn, and aloof, their eyes polished by the artists like exquisite colored gemstones, with rolling mountains and drifting clouds serving as mere backdrops to emphasize their presence.
These picture books were the children's favorite reading material. By the fireplace, under the oil lamps, or when the adults were too busy to supervise, the children would flip through them over and over.
The pages had been rubbed so many times that they were frayed, and the most frequently turned page—the dragon illustration—could never fully close, as if permanently held in place by countless fingers over the years.
Then there were the epic ballads sung by minstrels in the taverns.
In the evenings, when the tavern was quiet and the patrons were lightly buzzed and relaxed, a minstrel would pluck the strings of a lute to sing legends of dragons guarding ancient treasures, and tales of brave heroes journeying through fire and ash to face the great beasts.
The dragons in those songs were proud and majestic, speaking with elegant and refined grace. Their lines sounded like epic poetry passed down through the millennia, carrying a natural sense of otherworldly composure and sacredness.
When the minstrel performed these songs, the lyrics would refer to red dragons as the “incarnation of fire” or “primordial children of the earth.” The magnificent and grand language was enough to make a child sitting alone in a dark room close their eyes and picture the sacred, distant, and colossal silhouette of a dragon.
The dragons in picture books and ballads had always been distant, fictionalized legendary creatures.
Frozen on paper and flowing through lute strings, they were packaged within the framework of stories, existing only in fantasy, never to descend upon the real world.
Yet at this moment, the legend stood right before them. A living red dragon was in the center of the village, and the grating sound of its folding wings completely shattered the barrier between fairy tales and reality.
Lola withdrew her gaze from Carson and slowly swept it across the row of defensive fences and the terrified villagers behind them. Only after confirming the state of everyone present did she look away.
Her nostrils flared slightly as her warm dragon breath blew away a thin layer of dust on the ground. When this heavy breath swept past the inner side of the fence, the mental pressure on everyone present intensified once more.
“No one wishes to answer me?” Lola spoke again, her tone growing colder as the pressure rose accordingly.
Carson's back was completely drenched in cold sweat, but his feet remained pinned to the spot without backing away. Taking a deep breath to suppress the fear in his heart, he spoke up, “Great Dragon, we truly do not know of the unusual thing you speak of.”
Lola raised her head slightly, her narrow, amber slitted eyes locking onto Carson's face.
She seemed to have a subtle reaction to the respectful title. Though her posture did not change, the pressure enveloping the area visibly eased for a brief moment.
Her tone became increasingly detached and cold. “Do not attempt to deceive me. Consider carefully the price of lying.”
Cold sweat continued to run down Carson's spine, soaking his undershirt, yet he still did not take even half a step back.
Facing the red dragon's slitted gaze directly, he silently endured the mental pressure of the high-order beast while quickly sorting through all the clues in his mind.
He was certain he wasn't hiding any anomalies, but he knew that a simple plea of innocence would not suffice to dispel the dragon's suspicions. He decided to offer the only key clue he had, even if the information was incomplete.
“R-Right! Some refugees fled here from the dungeon earlier,” Carson said, his voice still trembling slightly.
“They said an unprecedented monster tide broke out there, and a massive horde of monsters has already destroyed several towns along the way. We aren't sure if this disaster is related to the regional anomaly you detected.” He paused slightly after speaking to catch his breath.
Lola shifted her gaze away from Carson, looking off toward the distant dungeon, as if communing with the invisible air currents through her nostrils.
In the next second, she slightly tightened her wings, the scales on her slightly raised neck settling back into place with her breath.
Rate on N.U.
