The oil lantern flickered, casting a warm, unsteady glow over Kenshin’s face.
His dark-green eyes were wide, completely absorbed in the Master’s tale.
“My father…” Kenshin whispered, his scarred hands trembling slightly against the wooden table.
“He stood against you? With his warhammer?”
“Yes,” Brados replied, his deep voice carrying the weight of centuries.
“But to understand what happened in that moment, you must first understand the sheer, apocalyptic scale of the battlefield. The clash between the Gladeons and the Dragons was not a mere war. It was the end of a world.”
Brados closed his eyes, and the shadows in the room deepened as the ancient memory took hold once more.
-Break-
The horizon of the third realm was entirely blotted out by dust and magical miasma.
On the eastern ridges stood the army of King Bellod—twenty million highly trained, heavily armored Gladeon soldiers.
At the front lines stood the Strong Holders.
Amator hovered in the sky, his golden dual warhammers crackling with destructive green kinetic energy.
Arguton stood tall, his crimson ring-blade spinning violently around its spear shaft.
Miluki grinned a predatory smile, her massive scythe bleeding a toxic, highly acidic fog into the wind.
On the western volcanic plains stood the defending forces.
One million massive, emerald-scaled Dragons roared into the stormy sky, their wings beating like thunder.
Beside them stood Brados and his three million loyalist Gladeons, holding the line against impossible odds.
The silence before the clash was deafening.
Then, Bellod raised his dark metal spear.
The ruby at its center flared with blinding red lightning, and the King brought the weapon down.
The Gladeon army charged.
The earth violently shook under the weight of twenty million boots.
Brados did not hesitate.
He pushed his flash-step speed to its absolute limit, launching himself high into the ash-filled sky.
Hovering near the dark, rolling storm clouds, Brados gripped the long, spiraling shaft of the Green Dragon Guandao.
He funneled every ounce of his massive aura into the weapon.
The beautifully sculpted golden dragon head at the base of the blade roared with spectral fire.
“Open!” Brados commanded, pointing the vibrant jade-colored blade directly at the heavens.
The cosmic laws of the dimension shuddered.
A colossal, multidimensional rift tore open the heavy clouds.
The Gate of the Dragon Realm was unlocked.
From the absolute darkness of the rift, a deafening, primordial roar echoed across the battlefield.
Five million savage, ancestral dragons—massive drakes with impenetrable scales and terrifying wyverns with razor-sharp wings—poured out of the gate like a living avalanche of fangs and claws.
The ancestral dragons dove toward the Gladeon army.
The collision of the two forces shattered the air, creating a shockwave that leveled the surrounding mountains.
Blood rained from the sky.
The screams of dying soldiers and the roars of dragons blended into a horrifying symphony of war.
Brados descended into the chaos, his single-edged translucent jade sword in his left hand, and the heavy Dragon Guandao in his right.
He was a whirlwind of absolute destruction, his Verdant Horizon Slash severing hundreds of enemy combatants with a single swing.
As Brados carved a bloody path through the vanguard, a dark comet suddenly plummeted from the upper atmosphere.
BOOM.
The impact was thunderous.
The ground violently cratered beneath the newcomer’s boots, sending a shockwave that threw dozens of soldiers off their feet.
As the dust settled, Zenjiro stood tall from the crater.
He wore heavy, dark-gothic armor, his pure blackish hair whipping wildly in the violent winds.
His dark, expressionless eyes locked onto Brados.
In his hands, he held his legendary weapon—a massive, dark metallic warhammer.
At the center of the heavy iron head, the glowing, golden-yellow Amber Sun-Core pulsed with terrifying gravitational power.
Brados tightened his grip on his weapons.
He knew of Zenjiro’s Weightless Paradox.
The massive hammer was as light as a feather in Zenjiro’s hands, allowing him to swing at flash-step speeds, but the moment it struck, it hit with the force of a falling mountain. Read the latest chapters at g.com.
“Zenjiro,” Brados rumbled, his voice filled with sorrow.
“Have you come to claim my head for the King?”
Zenjiro did not immediately raise his warhammer.
He looked around the blood-soaked battlefield, observing the horrific slaughter.
Then, he looked back at Brados.
“Go away, Brados,” Zenjiro said, his deep voice carrying a rare, desperate urgency.
“Flee this realm. Before you die here today.”
Brados blinked in surprise.
The absolute, unyielding Strong Holder was offering him a chance to escape.
“I cannot run,” Brados replied firmly.
“I chose the path of true justice. Bellod has gone mad. You know this in your heart, Zenjiro.”
“My heart belongs to my oath,” Zenjiro stated, his tone flat, yet lined with a heavy sorrow.
“I am bound to my King. But you were my brother in arms. I do not want to kill you, Brados. So… I will hold back.”
Zenjiro stepped forward, gripping the long shaft of his warhammer with both hands.
He did not aim for a lethal, crushing overhead strike.
Instead, he swung the massive hammer horizontally in a wide arc.
Projection of the Dark Blade.
The Amber Sun-Core flashed black.
Instead of a blunt impact, the dark metal of the hammer projected a colossal, crescent-shaped wave of pure, pitch-black aura.
The miles-long “Dark Blade” severed the air itself, rushing toward Brados with world-ending momentum.
Brados instantly crossed his Guandao and his jade sword, channeling his aura to meet the strike.
CLASH.
The collision of the dark blade and the jade weapons created a blinding flash of light.
Brados was pushed backward, his boots carving deep trenches into the rocky earth, but he held his ground.
Zenjiro had indeed held back; had he used the hammer’s true gravitational crush, the impact would have shattered Brados’s arms.
Before either of them could strike again, a massive, concussive boom echoed from the center of the battlefield.
Through the smoke, Brados saw Draglus.
The Dragon King was fighting furiously against Amator.
Amator was laughing maniacally, his dual golden warhammers radiating destructive green shockwaves, forcing the mighty Draglus to step back.
Suddenly, a telepathic, piercing command echoed across the battlefield, originating directly from King Bellod’s aura.
Zenjiro’s dark eyes shifted toward the center of the chaos.
“I have been ordered to assist Amator against the Dragon King,” Zenjiro said quietly.
He lowered his warhammer, resting the heavy weapon upon his shoulder.
He gave Brados one final, lingering look—a gaze that held no malice, only the tragic burden of a man chained by absolute loyalty.
“Survive, old friend,” Zenjiro whispered.
With a burst of flash-step speed, Zenjiro vanished into the smoke, racing toward the colossal clash between Amator and Draglus.
Brados watched him go, a profound realization settling in his chest.
Zenjiro was not a heartless monster.
He was a warrior trapped in a cage of his own honor, willing to risk the King’s wrath to spare a friend.
But there was no time to dwell on Zenjiro’s mercy.
The atmosphere around Brados suddenly spiked in temperature.
The stormy, emerald clouds above began to violently churn, turning a deep, apocalyptic blood-red.
The stench of ozone and scorched earth became suffocating.
The power of the Dragon Guandao was beginning to consume Brados.
The ancient, draconic energy flowing from the golden shaft surged into his Gladeon biology.
With a sickening crunch of reshaping bone, two massive, dark-green wings burst from Brados’s back.
They were the majestic, powerful wings of a Drake.
As Brados spread his new draconic wings, a figure descended slowly from the blood-red sky.
It was King Bellod.
He possessed a tall, heavily muscular frame, clad in ornate, dark-crimson armor.
In his hand, he held his sinister, double-ended spiked spear.
The weapon was enveloped in a crackling, bright red aura of highly volatile energy.
But it was not just his weapon that radiated terror.
From Bellod’s back stretched two colossal, leathery wings.
They were not the wings of a Drake, but the jagged, terrifying wings of a Wyvern.
He is a Dragon-type, Brados realized, his eyes widening as he stared at the sovereign he had served for centuries.
A Wyvern…
that is why he hates Draglus.
That is why he wants to exterminate the Drakes.
The rivalry between the draconic species was ancient, older than the Gladeons themselves.
Bellod’s lust for extermination was not born of strategy; it was born of primordial, genetic hatred.
Bellod landed on the ash-covered earth, his dark red Wyvern wings folding slightly behind his back.
The crackling red lightning from his spear scorched the ground beneath his boots.
He looked at Brados, his eyes burning with a tyrannical, arrogant fury.
“You betrayed us,” Bellod’s voice boomed, carrying the concussive force of a thunderous impact.
“You betrayed your King for these beasts.”
“I chose the true path,” Brados replied, his voice steady despite the suffocating magical pressure.
He raised the Green Dragon Guandao, pointing the vibrating, jade-colored blade directly at Bellod’s chest.
“I chose justice.”
Bellod’s grip on his dark metal spear tightened.
The ruby at the center of the crossguard flared with blinding intensity.
The dark red aura shaped itself into a massive, ethereal Wyvern around the King’s body.
“We were brothers once, Brados!” Bellod roared, his voice laced with venomous betrayal.
Brados’s dark eyes narrowed.
His drake wings flared out, glowing with absolute, unyielding green energy.
“Once,” Brados answered coldly.
With a deafening sonic boom, both ancient warriors vanished from sight.
-Break-
The memory faded entirely, leaving the small, lantern-lit room of the sanctuary in absolute silence.
Kenshin sat frozen in his chair.
His chest was tight, his mind reeling from the revelations.
Zenjiro had held back.
Zenjiro had told Brados to flee, risking punishment from a tyrannical king just to spare his friend’s life.
My father is not a heartless monster…
Kenshin thought, his hands shaking as the carefully constructed hatred he had held for eleven years slightly fractured.
He is loyal.
Purely, absolutely loyal to his King.
But…
if he has a heart…
why did he lock me in that dungeon?
Why did he let Null torture me?
Brados looked at the conflicted teenager, seeing the storm of emotions raging in the boy’s dark-green eyes.
“Your father is a man of his word, Kenshin,” Brados said softly.
“He has served his entire life as a Strong Holder. But the clash with Bellod… that fight taught me the lengths a sovereign will go to protect their pride.”
“Who won?” Asami asked, her icy blue eyes wide with anticipation.
“Between you and King Bellod?”
Brados took a deep breath, resting his hands back on the table.
“The battle that followed,” Brados murmured, “nearly tore the realm apart.”