Devouring Dragon Heir

The night air was thick with smoke and iron.

The battlefield outside Riverdale had become an ocean of corpses.

Men, monsters, and abominations, each twisted, broken form, lay piled upon the churned earth, their blood pooling into steaming rivers.

The verdant plains, once proud and fertile, were now reduced to a wasteland of mud and gore, the soil unable to drink any more of the red that spilled upon it.

The air was heavy with the stench of death. Even the wind refused to blow, as though the heavens themselves were holding their breath.

The moans of the dying mixed with the clang of scattered steel and the distant crackle of flames that had erupted from the recent meteor shower.

Thousands of soldiers had already perished, not by blade nor by skill, but by the mere aftershocks of two titans colliding at the center of the carnage.

One of those titans stood bloodied yet smiling.

Klaus.

His face was marked with cuts, his knuckles raw and bruised, and his upper body bore streaks of blood and darkened flesh.

Yet in his eyes, those cold, burning eyes, there was no defeat but a crazy sense of thrill.

The system's voice had been droning in his mind for minutes, sharp and insistent:

[Warning: Critical condition. Use of the skill Dragon's Might is recommended. End the battle immediately.

[Warning: Host's body is accumulating damage. Activate Dragon's Might.]

But Klaus had refused, again and again.

End it early? Without tasting the full depth of a transcendent's strength?

He chuckled inwardly, the metallic taste of blood at the corner of his mouth.

"That would be wasteful. To kill without learning is no different from squandering the rarest vintage without savoring the taste."

He relished this battle, not for survival, not even for victory, but for the sharpened edge it carved into him.

Although he still believed in swiftly killing his enemies, there were some moments that he wanted to relish; this was one of them.

Fighting the duke, he was adapting to his battle style, although the unawakened dragon bloodline could only show latent effects and not cover up the sheer strength gap between the two of them.

Unfortunately every spectator was too ignorant for their own good.

The leftover soldiers, the commanders of the army, and Riverdale's queen and commander, Caesar, all thought that Klaus was being pushed back.

Plus, the idea of Klaus's defeat was reinforced by the fact that he was one rank below the duke, and also the amount of mana he must have had used up in the process of death army summoning must have been immense in the eyes of spectators.

And then there was the Duke himself.

Duke Albrecht stood unscathed.

His silver-crimson armor gleamed despite the blood-soaked ground, his face untouched by pain.

A booming laugh escaped his throat, rolling like thunder across the battlefield.

"Enough!" he declared, his voice filled with the arrogance of one who had never known defeat.

"Enough games. Look at you, bloodied, broken, clinging to life like a worm. This battle is over!"

He raised his arm skyward. Energy gathered instantly, a thick, violent torrent that swirled in the night sky.

The world itself seemed to recoil.

Arcs of lightning crackled, coiling around his hand as a sphere began to form that was dense, unstable, and seething with catastrophic might.

The ground scorched beneath its glow. The air vibrated as though reality itself strained to contain it.

This was no ordinary skill; once this ball of energy detonated, it would cover the entire city in front of him and its people with it. This was one of those rare attacks that was so catastrophic that its use was taboo even among transcendents.

The soldiers of the Falcon Empire erupted into cheers.

"Yes! The Duke will end this!"

"Victory! Victory for the Falcon Empire!"

"We can finally return home!"

Their tired voices carried desperation and elation, tears mixing with mud and sweat. To them, the doom ball filled with thunder mana was like a salvation from the torturous battle they had fought till now.

It was a final blow that would erase their nightmare-like enemy and restore their dreams of survival.

Far from the front line, the painter's masked face tilted upward. His brush fell from trembling fingers.

The canvas before him, once alive with the chaotic strokes of battle, remained unfinished.

"This," his expression inside the mask faltered; he felt that this was a very critical point in the battle, and he was nervous now.

The sphere above the Duke's hand pulsed, arcs lashing outward to scar the heavens.

The painter's heart hammered. If that falls… there will be no Riverdale left to paint. No tomorrow for this land. No future for any of us.

His shoulders shook. For the first time, the silent observer regretted ever seeking to capture this war in strokes of ink.

But then, as if a whisper had sounded in his mind, a relaxed expression replaced the panicked one, and he picked up the paintbrush again while chuckling.

Upon Riverdale's wall, Queen Andrea's knuckles turned white as she gripped the battlement.

Her nails cracked against the stone. Her chest heaved, but her eyes remained open, fixed upon the glowing doom forming above the Duke's palm.

Is this the price? she thought bitterly. Did my father gamble my kingdom, my people, and my mother for it to end like this?

She wanted to scream, to curse, but her lips trembled, and only silence emerged.

Beside her, General Caesar's teeth ground together, jaw tight enough to crack. His fists clenched, blood seeping from his palms where nails dug into flesh.

"This…" he muttered, voice raw with disbelief.

"This … It is not a war anymore. It is a genocide. The hundreds-of-years-old Riverdale's legacy will be gone in a few minutes; we cannot match such might."

Yet despite his despair, his stance did not break. His eyes, bloodshot and furious, fixed upon Klaus.

The Duke's laughter returned, venom dripping from every word. His eyes locked onto Andrea, then swept across Riverdale's walls.

"You wretches!" he spat. "You dared touch my sister, dared to shame my name. For that alone, you shall pay!"

The thunder ball swelled larger, arcs now tearing furrows into the earth. His soldiers roared, their confidence unshakable.

"Once your capital is dust," the Duke continued, his voice thundering with cruel joy, "the world shall know of your disgrace. Your collusion with demons will be carved into history! Riverdale will rot as the stain of the Empire!"

His words were poison, seeping into every ear; everyone knew he planned to frame a very deep story after he killed an entire population of millions of citizens.

And yet, Klaus moved differently.

He turned from the battlefield, from the roaring Duke, and walked slowly, calmly toward the dark throne he had conjured earlier amidst battle.

His steps were measured and unhurried, as though the thunderball in the sky were nothing but a flickering torch.

Gasps rippled among the soldiers watching. Was he retreating? Accepting his end?

Klaus lowered himself onto the throne, leaning back with a relaxed grace. Blood still dripped from his cuts, but his expression was one of serenity.

His gaze, cool and detached, rested on the Duke, who now stood consumed in his own fury.

The Duke sneered. "Hmph. Sitting on a throne? want to let your last breath at least feel like that of a king."

Hearing the sneers he got at last, Klaus spoke.

His voice was calm, cutting through the chaos with effortless weight.

"Shut up, dog. You bark too much."

The battlefield fell into stunned silence.

The Duke's face darkened, fury erupting.

Klaus's eyes glimmered faintly, his lips curling into a smirk.

"I toyed with you for amusement. But you misunderstood. There is no equality here. Mind your place, bitch."

"Courting death!" the Duke bellowed. His roar shook the ground, his veins bulging with rage.

He could not comprehend it. That gaze, that voice—there was no fear, no despair, not even acknowledgment of danger.

It was unbearable.

This man… this anomaly… He must die.

His caution crumbled. His plans of conquest and his desire to preserve his army were worthless now. All that remained was an obsession to erase this one existence in front of him.

The thunder ball in his hand pulsed violently as he poured everything into it, every shred of transcendent mana, every ounce of it.

"This is the end!"

He hurled it in the sky towards the capital walls.

The sky split open.

The sphere screamed, tearing the heavens apart as it descended, like a blazing weapon of destruction rushing toward Klaus and the capital of Riverdale.

On Riverdale's wall, soldiers braced themselves. Some fell to their knees, clutching shields or walls, whispering prayers to gods who no longer listened.

Others simply closed their eyes, awaiting the end.

Seconds stretched into eternity.

But the end never came.

No blast. No fire. No collapse of walls.

Silence.

A soldier, trembling, dared to open his eyes. He expected nothing but ruin and blood.

Instead, he was alive.

The city still stood. The battlefield had not been scoured from existence.

And the Duke…

The mighty Duke Albrecht was on one knee, coughing blood, his aura shattered. His face was pale, and his body was trembling as if crushed beneath an invisible mountain.

Another scene revealed itself.

Around Klaus, seated calmly upon his throne, an aura radiated vast, ancient, and suffocating. It pressed upon every soul, every soldier, every mote of life within reach.

The mythic-ranked ability, Dragon's Might, was active.

The weight of an ancient sovereign and the roar of dragons that had ruled the universe itself descended upon the battlefield.

The Duke's transcendent power shattered like glass under its presence. His thunder-ball had been erased from existence.

Klaus sat unmoving, his eyes cold as winter.

"Kneel," he said quietly, his voice carrying to every ear.

And then the almighty Duke, who had been the decider of fates a short while ago, choked on his own blood and was forced to comply.