Standing on the Black Mountain, Balthazar looked down at the Iron-Eating Tribe.
He ignored the group of Kobolds who were shivering in front of the cliff, trying to use iron picks to chisel footholds on the hard “God’s Muscle.”
The Kobolds were fanatical but stupid.
Their intelligence and their racial nature of serving dragons made these lowly species, who were not recognized as dragons, appear very clumsy and inefficient in activities other than simple, fragmented handicrafts and stealing or looting property.
Letting such a group of clumsy slaves carry the mother carrying the dragon offspring to climb such a cliff where even apes could hardly stand was simply making a joke of his future.
“Whoosh—” Balthazar spread his wings, lowered his head, released his dragon claws which had become sharper and larger, flapped his wings, left the mountain, and dove downward.
Subsequently, Balthazar thrust out his dragon claws.
Amidst an exclamation from Olga, Balthazar did not pick them up gently like a human, but instead, like grabbing prey, accurately and firmly grabbed the top beam of the palanquin, while his other claw more carefully scooped up the stretcher holding Chloe along with the cushion on it, protecting them in his chest full of hard armor.
“Hold tight.” After the simple two-word command, his huge dark wings flapped violently.
“Boom!” A gale suddenly rose, and dozens of Kobolds were blown about.
Balthazar ignored the chaos on the ground, rose directly into the air with the two women, and flew toward the Black Mountain.
After seeing Balthazar fly away, the group of Kobolds scrambled to get up.
Kral was even busy kowtowing, rolling and crawling to command his clansmen to start trying to climb the black cliff that they had never dared to think about before.
The Kobolds felt that this cliff was probably a trial for them.
As dependents of the dragon, if they couldn’t even do the instinct of digging and climbing on a rock wall with rich ore veins (God’s Flesh), then they deserved to fall to their deaths.
Kral, who had finally waited for a True Dragon to be their leader, was frantically waving his whip to avoid being abandoned, driving his clansmen to chisel their iron picks deeply into the black rock wall, which was as hard as refined steel, and like a group of tenacious ants, they struggled to crawl upward, following the scent Balthazar had left behind.
Then, another shadow was cast from below the mountain.
At this moment on the cliff, that group of poor Kobolds was climbing bit by bit by smashing their picks into the cliff.
However, their low stamina meant they could only hang on the almost vertical black rock face now, unable to go up or down.
The cold wind cut through their thin fur like a knife.
Several elderly Kobolds who were exhausted had already started to slip, and it looked like they were about to fall into the abyss and become a pool of meat paste.
Suddenly, a huge shadow obscured the wind and snow above their heads.
“Hold… on.” That nightmarish, majestic voice exploded in the wind, but for the Kobolds in despair, it was simply like heavenly music.
Balthazar was like a giant bird of prey.
His powerful hind claws grabbed the palanquin frame from which all valuables had been dismantled, and his front claws carried the stretcher.
He flapped his wings and hovered beside the cliff, his dark red eyes staring coldly at this group of creatures that were his “property.”
“Those who fall… will have their… rations deducted.”
His raspy voice, with the texture of metal grinding, although intermittent, carried an unquestionable stinginess and severity.
The Kobolds, who were almost about to give up, heard this and suddenly erupted with a brute force for survival.
They scrambled to stuff their cubs and the old and weak into the wobbly palanquin frame, while the strong ones hung on tightly to the edges of the stretcher and the gaps in the dragon claws like hanging sausages.
“Fully loaded… take off.”
After confirming that no “assets” were left behind, Balthazar’s wings flapped violently.
The pulling sensation brought by the weight of 33 Kobolds made the muscles in his neck tense, emitting a faint aching sound, but for his current strength, it was nothing more than a slightly heavy shopping bag.
A few minutes later, Balthazar traced a black arc in the air, carrying this string of screaming “pendants,” broke through the clouds again, circled half the mountain, and then lowered his altitude, dumping them steadily in front of a huge rift on the mountainside facing the northern ice sheet.
“Oh my… is this your ‘mercy’?” Olga leaned against the stone wall, looking at the pile of Kobolds rolling into a ball, kowtowing to the dragon like garlic pounding, and shouting long live the True Dragon, a playful smile curling at the corner of her mouth.
“No.” Balthazar turned his head, exhaling a puff of hot air with a sulfurous smell from his nostrils, his vertical pupils scanning the mess on the ground indifferently. Find the original chapter at novelping.com.
“This is… cost… control.”
Minions were his assets, and he was not yet rich enough to throw money around everywhere.
“Is that so?” Olga was obviously not interested in continuing this topic.
After confirming the safety of Chloe, who was resting on the cushion dismantled from the stretcher, she walked into the huge rift in front of her with Balthazar.
This rift was not a natural wind-eroded cave, but rather more like a natural fault space formed between two huge “muscle fibers” of this ancient giant.
The entrance was ten meters high, shaped like a torn wound, extending into deep darkness inward.
Looking out from the cave entrance here, one could overlook the entire northern wasteland and that white, dead, and silent land shrouded in blizzards in the distance—which was Nidavellir, the homeland of the Dark Elves.
“We’re here… this is it.” Olga said while tidying up her messy dress.
She looked at the familiar cave in front of her, a hint of complex nostalgia flowing in her eyes.
“This is a’stoma’ of the giant’s latissimus dorsi, internally connected to a vast mana circuit. I once spent fifty years of meditation time here.”
Balthazar stepped in first with heavy strides.
The interior of the cave was extremely spacious, enough to accommodate him at his current size to move freely or even fly.
The ground was flat and smooth, presenting a warm and moist texture of dark red, as if the giant’s body temperature still lingered here.
Not only was there no damp, moldy smell in the air, but it was filled with a rich, invigorating aroma of high-level metal.
What made Balthazar even more satisfied was that on the rock wall deep in the cave, clusters of black-gold ore veins winding like blood vessels were exposed.
That was unrefined, high-purity divine metal.
For a Ferro-Dragon that fed on metal, this was simply living in an unlimited self-service granary.
“It’s… very warm here.” Balthazar flicked his tail with satisfaction, the tail tip covered in iron scales striking the ground and splashing a string of sparks.
Most of the ambient temperature here was constant at around 25 degrees, and in the deepest part, it was even 30 or 40 degrees.
For ordinary humans, this might be a bit hot, but for dragon offspring in the incubation period and a growing young Ferro-Dragon, it was the most perfect dwelling.
Balthazar gently placed Chloe, who was still sleeping, on a warm, glowing, dark red stone platform, and the latter let out a comfortable grunt.
“This… is… the prototype… of the future imperial palace.”
“[Iron Imperial Palace]…”
Balthazar, having named his future dwelling, turned around and coiled up in the deepest part of this lair filled with divine aura.
That pair of vertical pupils burning in the darkness watched the cave entrance, looking at those Kobolds who were still cheering.
“Kral.”
“Yes! Great… master!”
The Kobold leader, who was praising Balthazar, shuddered, almost rolling and crawling using his hands and feet to Balthazar’s claws, and knocked his head, which was wearing a Young Dragon’s skull cap, deeply onto the hard bony ground, emitting a crisp “knock” sound.
Balthazar did not look at him; his cold gaze swept across the cave surroundings.
Subsequently, he slowly raised a massive foreclaw covered in dark iron scales, the sharp claw tips tracing a cold trajectory in the air, scraping across the surrounding walls.
“Here…”
His voice paused, as if he were organizing the appropriate vocabulary in his mind; that slightly raw, stuttering pause made the command seem all the more weighty.
“Dig.”
After uttering the single word, Kral snapped his head up, following the direction of that massive claw to look at the surrounding walls.
A flash of confusion first crossed his murky eyes, which then transformed into realization and ecstasy.
Balthazar’s head tilted slightly, his dark red slit pupils finally focusing on this humble dependent.
“Dig… inward.”
“To the maximum extent.”
“But… no collapsing… no… danger.”
Every one of his words struck Kral’s heart.
The Kobold leader instantly understood the magnificent blueprint behind this command.
Digging meant expansion, meant more space, meant their “Master” intended to use this place as a permanent lair, and they would become the cornerstone of this new kingdom.
As a slave, being able to participate in such construction filled their twisted race with ecstasy.
“Future… construction…”
“Production…”
“And… army. Training.”
Balthazar used the limited vocabulary he could manage with his throat to sketch out the prototype of an empire.
“At once! At once! Great Lord of Exploration!”
Kral was trembling with excitement; he couldn’t even think of more flowery language to praise this foresight.
He kowtowed heavily several more times until blood seeped from his forehead, then jumped up, dancing wildly, and rushed toward the prime-aged Kobolds who had just managed to rest, roaring sharply in their own language to convey the Dragon Emperor’s expectations.
Soon, the deep, crisp, and rhythmic sound of iron pickaxes striking against hard bone plates echoed through the depths of the cave.
The construction of the empire began between two muscle fibers of this divine corpse.
Balthazar exhaled a breath of stale air.
Although the current cave could still accommodate his body, which was 5 meters in length and 2 meters at the shoulder, he was still in his juvenile stage and far from adulthood.
Considering the future, he needed a larger palace.
“Ha…”
Coiled in the deepest part of the lair, Balthazar, buoyed by the warmth, lazily let out a yawn.
In this comfortable environment, a wave of sleepiness washed over him.
[Sleepy? Dragon?]
“Mm…”
Traveling, flying, and even his body’s growth had not drained much of Balthazar’s stamina, but the urge to sleep for a while had firmly occupied his entire mind.
[Then sleep… Dragon, you are still growing.]
[I am here.]
The voice of Olga, which rang in Balthazar’s mind at this moment, was filled with gentle reassurance, causing Balthazar’s consciousness to slide into the depths of sleep.
“Don’t… do anything reckless…”
[Heh.] Olga laughed twice in Balthazar’s mind; as an elf who had lived for a thousand years, she unconsciously adopted the composure of soothing a young child to sleep.
[Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.]
[Sleep now.]
[When you wake up, you will be stronger.]
Thus, Balthazar allowed his heavy eyelids to fall, closing his dark red eyes, and sank into a dreamless slumber.