What are the Dragonia?
In this world, the Dragonia hold the fourth rank among the sixteen sentient races, extraordinarily powerful. It takes about fifty Flügel to bring down a single Dragonia—and the Flügel are ranked sixth. That alone illustrates the might of the Dragonia.
They are a supremely proud race.
First among the Three Dragonia Rulers, the "Oldest Being," the "First Dragonia"—the Final Dragon Hartyleif—was hailed as the "Strongest" upon birth.
Because the title of "Strongest" clashed with the God of War, Altus, fifteen thousand years ago during the Great Ancient War, these two "strongest" figures chose the world's tallest mountain as their battlefield.
Final Dragon Hartyleif, as King of the Fourth Rank, challenged the strongest Old Deus Altus. Their final duel turned the world's tallest peak into a strait.
The strongest Dragonia fell to the strongest Old Deus.
The second Dragonia Ruler, Aranleif, dared to wage war against the Ex-Machina with just seven subordinate dragons. In the end, he unleashed "Far Cry," dying in the process, but grievously wounding the Ex-Machina and leaving them weakened.
...
"Far Cry" is the Dragonia's ultimate attack, unleashed at the cost of their life. It summons heat and fire essence enough to destroy heaven and earth, the explosion releasing a devastating shockwave.
As the only surviving Dragonia Ruler, and the sole female among the three, Reginleif—the Wise Dragon—and her kin avoided needless conflict, disliking battle. But now?
The invaders marched right up to her doorstep, raining destruction upon her Gigant neighbors, sharpening their blades, slaughtering wildly—and killing her younger kin who guarded her home.
And now, the bald-headed leader of the invaders appeared, smashing one of her dragons dead with his hammer. Then, with a look of pity and righteous conviction, he declared to her:
This is your last chance. For your own good.
Two choices only—become dogs, or die where you stand, your race annihilated.
Could the Dragonia's pride endure this?
After the deaths of the other two Dragonia Rulers, Reginleif served six thousand years as sole Dragonia Ruler and plenipotentiary of her race during the Ten Covenants era (long since abolished by Selene). How could she possibly bow her head now? What would she become?
As for the Luna Wolves' prior gestures of courtesy—the envoy sent under Elven Gard bearing their letter of surrender, which the Dragonia burned unread and cast out as an insult—well… did that ever happen?
Roaaar—!
A trembling, muffled roar erupted suddenly from beneath the ruins. It was as though vast stockpiles of explosives had detonated underground, thunderous booms echoing as dragon cries pierced the sky!
"For Selene—!" came the Luna Wolves' answering war cry.
Zzzzt—hiss—!
That was the final wail before death.
Whoosh!
From the choking smoke, a jagged dragon's head burst forth.
Only the head remained.
The contorted bone visage bore clear signs of the torment it had endured. As the severed head reached its arc and fell, boiling blood poured down.
At its neck, the scales had lost all luster, like fossilized stone, cracked and broken. The gaping wound bore burn marks blackened and split, nearly covering the whole cross-section.
The cut divided into two parts: one section smooth as butter, its muscle fibers exposed in neat striations—clearly the work of a disintegration field from a power weapon. The rest was ragged, torn as though by jaws, tendons stretched and ripped, blood flowing.
Judging by the combatants' proportions, the former was the disintegration field's handiwork; the latter, brute force tearing.
"..."
In the midst of his formal parley, Horus turned his eyes to it. His mouth twitched, his brow furrowed, as if shaking his head at such brutality from his own warriors.
This was the style of the World Eaters, the Space Wolves, the Night Lords. But the style he had always sought for his Luna Wolves was silence and efficiency, elegance and precision, courage and harmony.
"So, there's no room for talk after all," he muttered. "Then capture the king to fell the army. By your Dragonia Ruler's head, I will honor my Empress."
"Insolent wretch, worthless scrap of iron!"
Reginleif, the Wise Dragon, burned with unprecedented fury. Not only at Horus' dismissive tone—but because she recognized the severed dragon's head. It had belonged to one of the most gifted of the new generation of Dragonia.
Roooaaaar—!!
As the roar of undying fury echoed across the world, the war itself… had already ascended to unimaginable heights.
The Spirit Corridors roared and boiled, as though the entire battlefield was aflame, lighting the sky in crimson.
Nothing could hide, nothing could resist, nothing could endure.
Ashes clashed with the power of the stars, and from the blood-red sky fell only drifting gray.
Once-great dragon lairs turned to dust. The torn earth was riddled with massive craters. The air reeked of burning blood. Pools of molten dragon blood and giant bones seeped into the ground, the ecosystem irreversibly shattered.
...
That was the planet itself wailing, bleeding…
"Hmph! Shameful dwarf tricks, unworthy scraps of iron! You wield such mighty bodies and high adaptability to magical energy, yet you stoop to the same pathetic toys as those contemptible dwarves!"
Fixing her gaze on the Luna Wolves' Titan formations dominating the horizon, Reginleif, the last Dragonia Ruler, thundered with scorn.
Before the Covenants were forged at the end of the ancient war, the Dragonia had fought alongside the Elves and Fairies as part of the Elven Alliance against the Dwarves.
The Dragonia were born with massive bodies, immense strength, profound wisdom, sharp intellect, and eternal lives. The Dwarves, unable to wield magic directly, crafted magical machines instead. The two races could never see eye to eye.
To the proud dragons, those who relied on tools and borrowed strength were nothing but trash!
True strength lay only in oneself. To Reginleif, Horus and his legion—though personally powerful and highly adapted to Honkai—demeaned themselves by wielding such machines. It was a distortion of values, a betrayal of truth.
Even the calmest of the Three Dragonia Rulers, the Enlightened Dragon Reginleif, could not hide the innate arrogance of her kind.
"Men and beasts differ in this: men make and wield tools."
Unfurling lightning claws, each blade shimmering with violet-red Honkai particles, Horus spoke calmly. "Every race walks its own path. Mine is to fulfill the will of Empress Selene—to walk the road of the Empire's rise."
Roaaar—!
Reginleif roared. The ancient Draconic Language, incomprehensible and raw, spread out with immense power, striking the void-borne warships and the Titan legions arrayed along the horizon.
The Draconic Language was one of their innate abilities. Their very words were magic, commanding all of creation.
It was the remnant power of creation itself—the primal language of Disboard.
Legends called it by many names: the Universal Tongue, the Language of Creation. Only the Dragonia knew its secrets and wielded it as a weapon.
"Even if the Dragonia fall to extinction, you pitiful trash are fit only to turn to dust beneath my wings, forever consigned to ash!"
"Roar, my wrath!"
"Burn all! Shatter all! Destroy all!"
Rumble—!
Terrifying, ominous, viscous spirit particles surged from Reginleif. Vast magic circles bloomed across her platinum-white scales. A storm of power erupted, dazzling and searing.
"For the dignity of your race you fight… Hmph. In spirit, I respect you."
Horus raised with one hand the warhammer named Worldbreaker. To other Astartes, it was too heavy to wield with ease, a black metal rod of colossal size, its spiked head as massive as a Space Marine in full armor.
...
Clad in that breathtakingly ornate pale armor, he stood like a merciless iron statue before the shadow of death.
"Advance!"
Boom! Boom-boom! Boom-boom—!
The Titans roared as though mountains collapsing, their colossal rail shells screaming through the skies. In mere fractions of a second, the shells struck the thick hides of charging Gigants.
...
Rumble-rumble-rumble—!
Bodies stronger than steel itself buckled under the relentless storm. Their fur was scorched away in breaths, flesh sizzling, oils burning, writhing like maggots before sloughing off. Yellowish, rancid fluids sprayed in torrents.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!
The air itself screamed.
Titanic light-lance arrays and squadrons of airborne laser turrets painted the ash-darkened skies with dazzling fire. Uncountable beams and solid shells turned the primal continent into a rainstorm of fire.
Bang! Bang!
Beam and shell, light and mass, interwove into a torrent that tore the heavens, striking the onrushing flying beasts. Bursts of plasma flared midair like iron trees blossoming fire.
Explosions and fire spread in cascades, engulfing even the densest of scales.
...
Worldbreaker traced a sweeping arc through both dragon and Gigant. Space folded around his motion, his form a blurred afterimage.
The white wolf-pelt cloak trailing his back whipped like layered shadows at blinding speed. Lightning and storm were cast behind him.
Raising the massive lightning claw on his right hand—its twin barrels loaded with custom storm bolts—Horus fired. A violet-red cone of energy punched through a Gigant's chest.
One shot was enough.
The corrosive Honkai energy seared like venom, tearing screams from the colossus as it fell, breath guttering. In moments its massive body withered, leaving only skin draped on bone.
Its death cry was drowned in the thunder of battle, fading swiftly into silence.
Whoosh!
Horus swung Worldbreaker backhand. Violet-red crystalline energies flared, his protective field shimmering like a halo.
BOOM—!!
A vast skeletal gauntlet grasped the crystalline hammer, blotting out the sky as it crashed down. A black dragon attempting a diving strike was pulped instantly, its skull obliterated.
Worldbreaker swung again, shockwaves tearing the fog for hundreds of kilometers. The air howled like a torn sack, the earth beneath shattered like glass, fragments scattered in all directions.
A single strike sent multiple dragons tumbling. Their bodies shredded midair, falling in pieces across the shattered land.
All in Disboard knew: Dragonia scales, bodies, and bones were harder than any mineral of the earth. Even in death, their remains endured forever.
But before Horus and his legion—or rather, before the ominous violet-red Honkai particles—they shattered like glass beads.
Calm, unhurried, striding straight ahead, neither Gigants' death charges nor the Dragonia's suicidal Far Cry could halt him. Horus moved like an artist of war, embodying his doctrine:
Silent and efficient. Elegant and concise. Fierce and harmonious.
Roaaar—!
A white dragon narrowly evaded the deadly arc of Worldbreaker, its chest torn open by the lightning claw. Blood gushed, but as it had foreseen, it survived the blow.
And its choice—Far Cry!
Rumble—!
Light and heat exploded outward.
Temperatures soared, vaporizing all matter in an instant, unleashing lethal shockwaves.
Yet in the next moment, the fireball spanning nearly a kilometer seemed to reverse, as though rewound. Vwooom—!
The storm dissipated. Horus stood unscathed, his massive lightning claw gripping the condensed heat of the Far Cry like a second sun—before crushing it to nothing.
"The so-called Dragonia—for us, their destruction is effortless. Break their defenses, inject but a trace of outside force, and their own 'strength' will undo them."
"Enough."
The immense body of Reginleif, hundreds of meters long, cast her shadow upon Horus. At arm's length, face-to-face, her words ground out between her teeth: "How far will you go to insult me? I told you—never shall we be slaves.
"Even if Tet, that false god, has fallen… even if the 'Suniaster' was seized by your Empress… even if your master has learned every secret of my race, our fatal weakness laid bare… still—"
For Dragonia, past and future deaths all bore the same cause: self-destruction.
Their essence was as vessels containing a unique space. Their past and future echoed within, granting boundless power—drawing from themselves across time. They were, in a sense, multidimensional beings, living across past, present, and future.
But their strength was also their Achilles' heel.
If the vessel was breached, external force slipped inside, even a minor wound became infinitely magnified by reflection, devouring them from within until they perished.
Thus, to slay a Dragonia—one needed only to crack the vessel, then drip a single drop of water within.
And Honkai energy possessed precisely this power to pierce and expand.
Especially since the Suniaster—the authority of creation itself over all Disboard—had been consumed by Selene, Honkai had gained the ability to swiftly erode and assimilate Spirit Corridors.
"I am a Dragonia Ruler! Never has a Dragonia Ruler bowed—never!"
Before her words fell, a metallic resonance shook the air. Reginleif's wings spread, defying Titan fire as she ascended. Her scales, carved of billions of spirit particles, groaned and cracked.
Even the weakest Dragonia held within each scale as many spirits as a Flügel could command to their utmost. Dragons bore billions of such scales. And this was a Dragonia Ruler.
Whooosh—!
In an instant, platinum wings blazed with fire, her crimson body trailing light as she soared skyward. Explosive radiance expanded, scattering the ash-thick clouds like flies.
Her resolute roar shook the heavens.
Another Far Cry?
Horus understood well: Dragonia might submit—but never a Dragonia Ruler.
Had he let his sense of honor, his compulsion to duel, lead him astray again?
Silently he clenched his claw. A radiant Honkai crystal cube rose.
"Sacrifice."
...
Reginleif, the Wise Dragon, was dead.
Her fall marked the end of war for the dragon lairs and Gigant nations.
That cataclysmic battle shook the races of Disboard, who had gone six millennia without knowing true war.
One by one, the sixteen sentient races surrendered.
If the conquest of humanity's kingdoms had seemed, to other races, like a feat anyone might accomplish—then the ruin of the Dragonia and Gigants filled them with dread.
Most of all, it was the humans of Elkia who felt revelation. For the first time, they realized that humans, too, could be mighty—could be valorous, could be indomitable.
To wrestle giants. To dance with dragons…
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