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“Roar”

Not far away, the broken remnants of walls shifted, and a weak roar emerged.

It was the young white dragon, Tinia.

Buried beneath the collapsed structure, her entire body throbbed with pain, and her usually simple mind was in rare disarray. She only remembered seeing a terrifying red star, followed by what felt like a dream, leaving her with scattered fragments of memory.

Charred all over but showing extraordinary resilience, Tinia struggled to push aside the debris, dragging her scarred dragon body out of the ruins.

Her head, dusted with bits of stone, emerged, and her eyes slowly opened.

The pupils suddenly widened, her jaw hanging slightly open.

At that moment, Tinia witnessed a sight she would never forget.

—The red dragon stood on the enormous corpse of the monstrous creature, its wings spread wide as it roared triumphantly, emanating an aura of majesty.

The nearly twenty-meter-long body was covered in bright, armor-like scales, with majestic horns curving back like a crown, and clouds of sulfurous smoke swirling around it.

Beneath its feet lay the familiar scent of a foe—Wagner, the one Tinia had dreamed of killing countless times over the past century.

“So big, so strong.”

Tinia thought gleefully.

Her simple brain couldn’t hold many words, leaving her with only these few thoughts.

From birth, with her unique bloodline, she was always the strongest of her kind. Her siblings had starved because they couldn’t take food from her, leaving her as the lone surviving hatchling. Even when her mother was killed and she was imprisoned in the Polar Night Demon Tower, Tinia had maintained her innate pride, refusing to bow to these lowly humans.

But now, for the first time, she saw a being she genuinely looked up to.

The joy of seeing her enemy dead, the awe for strength, and an indescribable feeling all filled her heart, making it beat wildly. Even her stubby tail began to wag side to side.

“This white dragon has awakened as well.”

Cassius noticed Tinia stirring.

The red dragon allowed himself a slight sigh of relief. After all, she was his first genuine dragon subordinate, albeit a “white beast” of seemingly lower status, but she did have the noble bloodline of an ancient dragon.

It would have been a shame if she had truly died under his lightning strike.

“Although she almost made things go terribly wrong for me, she is still a true dragon.”

Thinking this, Cassius let out a soft whistle, and a golden beam of vitality descended from the sky, showering over the wounded white dragon, rapidly healing her.

【Dragon’s Vitality】

However, the years of blood extraction, flesh carving, and experimentation under Wagner had weakened her body considerably. Had it been any other white dragon, they would have long been reunited with Tiamat. This spell could only barely heal her external injuries.

“Roar!”

Tinia felt her vitality slowly returning, and she let out a contented sigh.

She pulled herself completely free from the rubble, eagerly approaching Cassius, bowing low once more, her head pressed to the ground, her vulnerable neck exposed in submission.

“...”

Cassius observed her wagging tail, feeling an odd sense of familiarity—it reminded him of a village dog he had once seen as a child.

Still, he tried to maintain a dignified posture, saying to the white dragon:

“Cassius Claudius Norrixius, your future master. Remember this name.”

Tinia raised her head slightly, nervously uttering her first words in Draconic.

“Master...”

“Good.”

Cassius was quite satisfied.

Due to the magical nature of true dragons, their submission had a contractual quality to it, forming something akin to the classic seventh-tier spell 【Pledge of the Dragons】.

This also proved that Tinia’s loyalty came from her heart—a true surrender.

Hearing this response, Tinia was elated.

“Master!”

She repeated the still unfamiliar Draconic term.

The white dragon affectionately licked the red dragon’s claws, rubbing her scaled cheek against his thick forelimb as her tail continued to wag eagerly.

Cassius couldn’t help but pull back his forepaw, a strange feeling rising within him.

“Could it be—”

“Is this white dragon in heat?”

No time for these trivial matters. Cassius looked towards the panel, where numerous messages had already refreshed—he had been too focused on the battle to pay attention before.

Now, he finally had the chance to browse through the refreshed notifications.

[Achievement unlocked: 【Dragon Lord】]

【Dragon Lord】

“Dragons are typically proud creatures. To become their master, one might need to spend hundreds of years, raising them from an egg. But even the weakest white dragon can often turn on those naive and overconfident ‘masters.’ Unless you wield power far surpassing that dragon, never attempt to make a dragon submit.

However, sometimes, greater dragons will become masters of other dragons. Such events are most common among the evil chromatic dragons. —Aloysius, Dragon Scholar”

Gained Passive Trait:

【Thinned Ancient Dragon Bloodline】

[You trace your lineage back tens of thousands of years, feeling the echoes of the ancient age of dragons.

Your form will grow more massive, your breath deadlier, and your body will become closer to those ancient and mighty progenitor dragons. Your subordinates can also share in this glory, gaining further evolution.]

Cassius could feel powerful seeds of strength entering his body, flowing with the dragon blood in his fiery arteries, eager to sprout and unleash their potential.

He closed his eyes slightly, countless visions appearing in his mind.

Giant dragons, as immense as mountains, each with a unique form, roared as they spread wings that stretched for thousands of meters, blocking out the sky. It was unimaginable that such massive beings once existed between heaven and earth.

Farther away, there was an endless, multicolored metallic disc—the symbol of Io, the Nine-faced Dragon God.

In the legacy passed down among dragons, Io chose to focus his will, giving life not only to elemental beings but also to mundane bloodlines endowed with elemental power and souls. To harness this terrifying power, Io had to use enormous strength to shape those mundane bloodlines with resilience.

And thus, he created the mightiest beings of the mortal world—dragons.

This was the origin of the first progenitor dragons, some of whom stood shoulder-to-shoulder with gods, including the infamous chromatic queen, Tiamat, and the platinum dragon king, Bahamut.

Cassius’s body trembled slightly as he finally grasped the weight of this power.

“This... is a progenitor dragon.”

“Why then did it come to this?”

Modern dragons were a diluted lineage, weakened over countless generations, yet still incredibly powerful, securing their place across various planes. This made Cassius think of the splendor of the ancient era when dragons ruled supreme.

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