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"Ever since the Dragon Renegades' Rebellion, Dragon's Valley has walked a downhill road. Your Dragon's Valley bloodline came under an eternal curse. Not only did the bearing of offspring turn hellishly difficult, but never again has a single one of your people managed to break through to the Supreme Realm."
Dragon's Valley's clansfolk ran universally stronger than Card Masters of the same level, yet their numbers were pitifully few. Before the Rebellion of the Dragon Renegades, however, the Valley's population, while never vast, had dwarfed the present count, exceeding it ten times over with ease.
But the Rebellion's greatest wound to Dragon's Valley was this: the Valley's reigning Supreme of that era died in the fighting, and in all the countless years since, not one clansman has broken through to the Supreme Realm again, the ceiling locked fast at the Undying Realm.
Were it otherwise, the powers holding Supreme-realm existences today would not number only the three great empires. There would be a Dragon's Valley added to the list.
Even diminished, a titan remains a titan. That Dragon's Valley's standing could sit second only to the three great empires spoke plainly enough of foundations that could never be taken lightly.
"It is exactly so." Drake nodded, the cold in his voice easing by half a shade. "All these years, though the Dragon Renegades' schemes against our people have come one after another without end, they've never yet managed to shake our roots."
"I once heard my teacher mention it. Dragon's Valley holds a most singular Dragon Transformation Pool, and every clansman of the Valley must be immersed in that Pool at birth. In this way, their talent upon the Card Master's path is raised." Selene slipped into the conversation. Following at Lilith's side, the girl clearly knew no small number of history's secrets.
"And it's precisely because of that. Their people may be few, but every single clansman of Dragon's Valley carries tremendous talent and strength, and even with their overall power fallen from what it was, they still stand second only to the three great empires."
"The Dragon Transformation Pool was also the very trigger of the Dragon Renegades' Rebellion back then. So whether the thing is blessing or curse, no one can truly say." Tobias shook his head. He knew well enough that Dragon's Valley's transformations traced back to the Pool, but as for the grudges buried beneath it, odds were that not even Drake, an Immortal born of the Valley itself, could speak of them with clarity.
More to the point, Tobias was no clansman of Dragon's Valley, but the Head of the Ancient Kingdom's Celestial Academy, and in a certain sense, he would even have preferred to see Dragon's Valley's strength drop another step.
"A pity that this time, that Dragon Renegade's methods of concealment proved rather special. Even I lost the trail at the very end." The Pool touched Dragon's Valley's very core, and the matters entangled with the Rebellion were the Valley's darkest scar. Drake plainly had no wish to say more on that account.
"Even you lost them?" Hearing that, a flicker of surprise crossed Tobias's face. The man before him was, after all, an Immortal Realm Card Master the same as himself. "Don't tell me that Dragon Renegade has reached the Immortal Realm, same as you?"
Even Selene and Moira wore rising disbelief.
"Nothing of the sort." Drake shook his head. "That Dragon Renegade's strength is nothing remarkable. Going by my tracking of his aura, he stands at the Monarch Realm at most."
"But just as I made ready to strike, that Dragon Renegade vanished without warning, as though he had never appeared at all. Deeply strange."
"By my inference, the other party very likely departed by teleportation. What I cannot work out is why that Dragon Renegade would deliberately travel to this vicinity, only to abruptly teleport away." A thread of strangeness turned in Drake's eyes. He was confident the other side could not possibly have discovered his pursuit.
"You tracked that Dragon Renegade to the space near here?" Tobias, who hadn't paid the matter overmuch mind at first, was no longer calm, his brows knitting hard.
This ground might not fall formally within Celestial Academy's bounds, but for a Dragon Renegade to come probing this close, even one at a mere Monarch Realm, was something that simply should not happen.
It seems that once this Trial Road's assessment concludes, this whole vicinity will want a thorough sweeping and cleansing. Tobias resolved it in silence.
Even Drake had lost the target. Tobias had uncommon means of his own, but at present he held no good options either. He didn't so much as have the other party's aura in hand, and searching blind like that amounted to fishing a needle from the open sea.
To say nothing of the fact that, if that Dragon Renegade had truly departed by teleportation as Drake described, then there was nothing left out there to find at all.
Time slid past in a blink. Several hours went by, and the number of new students still remaining on the Trial Road plunged sharply once again. Tobias, who had been idly trading words with Drake with one thread of attention, perked up in this moment. "After all this while, things are finally getting somewhere interesting."
At his words, Drake, Selene, and Moira all turned their eyes to the light screens as well, and soon enough the groupings of this round of forced battles resolved into clarity, though the expressions on each of their faces differed entirely.
---
"Huh. This round's opponent is you?" Teleported into the battle space once more, Luke had long since grown used to the transition, but gazing at the dragon-maiden Violet before him, a flicker of surprise still crossed his face. He genuinely hadn't expected the opponent he drew this time to be one of Dragon's Valley's sister-flowers.
Very quickly, though, Luke's gaze was drawn to the dragon-kind at Violet's side, and whether Dark Magician Girl, Sistermon Ciel, or Growlmon X, all three card spirits' eyes carried a thread of gravity.
The two sides had yet to formally cross claws, but the aura radiating off that dragon-kind was already enough to pose them a measure of genuine threat.
*「 Skywing Dragon 」*
Race: Dragon Clan
Quality: Collectible
Level: ★★★★★★★ (Seven-Star)
Skills: Windsoar Stride, Gale Breath, Wind Roar Cannon, Hurricane Barrier
"A Seven-Star Collectible dragon-kind. With strength like that, even if Elise ran into it, she wouldn't necessarily walk away with anything good." The Skywing Dragon's information swept past his eyes, and a thick interest climbed onto Luke's face. This was, after all, the first time he had ever laid eyes on another Card Master's dragon-family card spirit.
"It's you!" Facing her own opponent for this battle, Violet blinked in equal surprise. So long as the one she drew wasn't her own younger sister Viola, she had no real complaints to speak of.
It was only that, recalling the trial's very beginning, and that strangely familiar aura upon Luke that she and her sister had both sensed, a thread of puzzlement flickered through Violet's eyes once more.
Her gaze swept across, vertical dragon-pupils passing straight over the two girl-form spirits before locking at last onto the crimson dragon-form at Luke's side. "No wonder. So it's because you are also a Dragon Envoy!"
The creature's exterior differed in no small measure from the dragon-kind Violet knew, but that wild, draconic ferocity rolling off its body was something she refused to believe her own senses had mistaken.
And it was precisely because of this, she reasoned, that she and her younger sister had sensed that familiar aura upon Luke. After all, this was the first time since the two sisters had left Dragon's Valley that they had ever encountered a Card Master who held a dragon-family card spirit of his own.