Beneath the Red Dragon

In the tenth year of the Giant Dragon Calendar, late autumn.

Time flows like water, indifferent to the will of all things. In the blink of an eye, another five years had passed.

Over a thousand days and nights may seem like a long time to short-lived races like humans and kobolds, but for a Giant Dragon, it’s merely a brief rest.

At the summit of the highest peak in those mountains, within the volcanic lair where the Master of Dragons slumbers, Karon Gogomola has transitioned from deep sleep to ordinary sleep.

The heartbeat inside his body begins to slow down, becoming gradually faster and heavier.

Having consumed the spiritual authority once belonging to the King of Nightmares a few years ago, Karon’s main consciousness subtly influences his subconscious, continuously refining and purifying this authority with the Power of Heart Energy within his body.

Only recently has Karon managed to gradually digest and decode it, transforming the massive spiritual authority into nourishment for his knowledge, becoming the key to unlocking another great door.

Within Karon’s body, the Ancestral Dragon Blood emerges from the depths of his bloodline, forming a Source of Dragon-blood composed of countless fragmented runes.

This is the source of every Giant Dragon’s bloodline, the foundation of their abilities, and the Power of Origin from which all Giant Dragons are born, created by the Dragon God.

Yet this Power of Origin is incomplete and fragmented. Perhaps, if all the source blood from the world’s dragons were combined, it might compare to the essence power of the Five-Colored Dragon Queen Tiamat or the Platinum Dragon God Bahamut, traces of which still linger in their bodies, derived from the Primordial Dragon God Ayo.

Even with Karon’s formidable Spiritual Power and will, it took years of study referencing the findings on the Evil Dragon True Blood from the young Red Dragon Kedelos to finally capture and anchor this near-regulatory Power of Origin deep within his bloodline.

This delicate Power of Origin has gradually grown over years of sleep, signifying the continuous growth of the Ancestral Dragon Blood within Karon’s body.

And as Karon moves from deep sleep to an ordinary sleep state, under the influence of his main consciousness, the immense Power of Heart Energy accumulated throughout his entire youth phase, extracted endlessly from his beloved and subjects, floods explosively into the depths of his bloodline.

The spiritual authority of Gluttony, too, is cast into the roots of the bloodline at this time, causing that trace of the bloodline’s origin to expand rapidly, making sounds as if a giant beast were drinking water, gurgling and echoing within the entire lair.

Even with the immeasurable Power of Heart Energy and the wondrously potent spiritual authority, it seems unable to fully satisfy the reinforcement Karon envisioned.

Only a few pieces of information quietly surfaced within Karon’s river of bloodlines.

[Bloodline Solidification - Superlimit State Growth]: Your body’s overall qualities will grow to the utmost extent within the range of your bloodline’s growth, maximizing the development of your potential.

[Bloodline Solidification - Mental Overclocking]: With a powerful mind and will, you will always remain in overclock mode, freely unleashing all your powers and abilities.

[Bloodline Solidification - ****]: Everything has its root. They are the nourishment of your bloodline, the steps up your ladder of power. You are the apex predator!

Apart from this, much information awaits Karon to accept and digest, but all of this is nearing its end.

Thump, thump-thump, thump-thump-thump.

Upon completing all this, a sound like heavy hammers beating drums grows increasingly rapid inside the lair; it is the twin hearts within the Red Dragon’s body beginning to adjust their operation mode, adapting to the impending transformation.

And from the boiling Magma Lake, a huge Red Dragon slowly emerges from the sea of fire, measuring nineteen meters from head to tail!

...

The Golden City, a place named after precious and rare treasures, always seems to attract calamity, repeatedly built and destroyed.

After thoroughly eliminating the invading Beastmen of the Beastman Kingdom from the territory, the Beastmen no longer had the capacity to stage further attacks.

Although the Beastman Kingdom still has large legions, they no longer have sufficient ships or extra resource reserves to sustain the war.

Thus, the war officially ended, and the Dragon Group’s territory still proudly displayed the royal banner of the Giant Dragon.

Due to this war, all the Giant Dragon Lords unanimously decided to rebuild the Golden City’s scale and defenses to match the Royal Capital, transforming this most crucial seaport into a fortified citadel.

The entire city’s walls are made of sturdy granite, soaring twenty-five meters high, with countless heavy cannons and giant crossbows positioned at every battlement, overlooking a vast coastline.

Such a colossal project undoubtedly requires massive manpower and materials, especially since the Dragon Group territory suffered population losses after the war. Residents who had relocated to the west and settled in their new homes couldn’t simply move back again.

This made some Giant Dragon Lords regret not keeping those Beastmen to exploit as labor.

However, the goblin Shanshan, dispatched to conduct trade with other continents and various countries, played a vital role at this time.

This daring and astute Goblin Merchant not only recruited large numbers of mercenaries at the start of the Beastmen and Dragon Group war, supporting the territory’s war effort.

But after the war ended and the Dragon Group achieved victory, this guy even spent the profits accumulated over the years before reestablishing communication with the territory, forming a gigantic commercial fleet.