Balthazar walked to the entrance of the cave and spread his wings.
The wingspan, reaching over a dozen meters, blocked out the sunlight.
As the dragon soared into the air, the black scales on the surface of his skin began to undergo a strange distortion.
The thin, membrane-like substance rapidly adjusted its refractive index under the light, and the surrounding scenery rippled like water.
Then, this ten-meter-long behemoth eerily vanished into the air, leaving behind only a transparent shockwave caused by high-speed flight.
High above, the airflow rushed over Balthazar’s keratin layer, emitting a sharp whistling sound.
His dark red dragon pupils looked down at the world below.
Balthazar flapped his wings, turned his dragon head, and flew backward.
He crossed the Black Forest, which was filled with magical beasts, and reached the edge of the Black Forest.
For humans in the Black Beast worldview, the world is divided into two parts: the North and the South.
In the North is the City of Darkness, known as the City of Demons, where countless magical creatures reside, and where the Dark Elf Olga Discordia once served as Queen.
Further north of the City of Darkness lies the Black Mountain and the homeland of the Dark Elves, Nidavellir, surrounded by snowfields and blizzards.
In the South lies the fertile and pleasant Aios Plains.
Once, there was the powerful Aios Kingdom, but with the establishment of the City of Darkness and the magical beasts—greatly strengthened by the divine power overflowing from Olga Discordia’s meditation—raiding southward, the Aios Kingdom collapsed and became the Seven Shields Alliance, a federation composed of seven fortresses.
Now, on that Aios Plains belonging to the Seven Shields Alliance, several wisps of ominous black smoke were slowly rising.
“Hurry up! Move faster! Push that wagon full of grain out!”
In a small border settlement called “Mill Village,” shouts, pleas for mercy, and the harsh sounds of breaking objects intertwined.
A dozen fully armed mercenaries, wearing black cloaks and with the mark of a twisted Black Dogs’s head tattooed on their chests, were wantonly breaking into the villagers’ homes.
A bearded mercenary leader was kicking open the wooden door of a mill, his turbid eyes flashing with lewd light, dragging a young woman who was struggling desperately.
“Boss! This village has more gold coins than the last one! Those pig-like villagers actually tried to hide them in the well!”
A short mercenary ran out of the village chief’s house carrying a bag of gold coins, his face twisted with excitement, his mouth splitting open to reveal a mouthful of yellowed teeth.
“Please wait… that is money for repairing farm tools and housing for next year…”
“Shut up! That is the’special tax’ for the Captain!”
The leader rudely slapped the girl, and watching her cry out in despair on the muddy ground, he let out an unpleasant, raspy laugh.
“What we are doing this time is making them understand who it is that can truly take their lives, compared to those softies sitting on thrones giving orders!”
“Go, drag the rest of the women to the statue of the Goddess in the village square; we are going to teach them in front of the whole village… what the rules of the Black Dogss are!”
Amidst the leader’s lewd laughter, the old and weak villagers were forced to kneel in the square by mercenaries using spears, their eyes filled with dead, silent despair.
Balthazar hovered at an altitude of a thousand meters, his Optical Camouflage making him completely invisible under the sunlight.
His cold vertical pupils were locked tightly onto the Black Dogs mercenaries, who were as busy as ants below.
In the square below, the fleshy-faced mercenary leader had already pinned the crying girl onto the moss-covered pedestal of the Goddess statue.
He roughly tore at the girl’s remaining clothing, while the surrounding mercenaries whistled and made obscene jeering noises.
“Look closely! This is the Goddess you pray to! She can’t save you!”
“Here, my crotch is the only truth!”
The leader laughed wildly, unbuckling his belt, preparing to commit the final act of violence.
The villagers kneeling on the ground closed their eyes in despair, not daring to look at this blasphemous scene.
Then.
“Hum…”
A thousand meters above, the Optical Camouflage field instantly disengaged.
Without any warning, a massive black shadow appeared out of thin air under the noon sun, followed by an ear-splitting sonic boom.
Balthazar folded his wings, his massive body turning into a black battering ram, carrying destructive kinetic energy as he plummeted vertically toward the ground.
“Wha—”
Before the mercenary leader could even look up, a suffocating wind pressure crushed him onto the stone slab first.
“Boom!!!”
The earth groaned.
The short mercenary who was still watching his boss take off his pants and joining in the jeering, along with the gold coins he was holding, turned into a puddle of indistinct meat paste in an instant.
Balthazar’s dragon claws, capable of crushing tanks, stepped heavily into the center of the square, and the shockwave, mixed with gravel and blood mist, spread wildly in all directions, sending the dozen or so mercenaries around flying like ragdolls.
Before the survivors could recover from the ringing in their ears, a dazzling blue-white beam of light swept across.
“Zzzzt—”
That was the burnt smell of ionized air.
Whether wearing leather armor or chainmail, whether holding spears or running away, in front of Balthazar’s [Molten Iron Ray]—which was only a minimal release but accelerated electromagnetically through his throat—seven or eight mercenaries, along with the house walls behind them, melted directly into molten iron and bone slag flowing on the ground.
“Mon… Monster!!!”
The only survivor, the mercenary leader who hadn’t even pulled up his pants, collapsed physically and mentally beneath the Goddess statue, warm liquid flowing from his crotch.
He looked in terror at the steel dragon that had descended from the sky, a meaningless gurgling sound coming from his throat.
Balthazar slowly turned his head, those vertical pupils burning with hellfire locking onto this tiny insect.
“Tru… th?”
He repeated the word, his massive dragon mouth splitting into a cruel arc, revealing blood-stained teeth.
Before the leader could beg for mercy, that bloody maw lunged forward.
“Snap.”
It was a teeth-aching sound of bones shattering.
The mercenary leader’s upper body disappeared into the dragon’s mouth instantly, leaving only two legs twitching helplessly outside for a moment before they went still.
Balthazar did not swallow, but instead spat out the broken corpse.
His massive dragon claws gripped the pedestal of the Goddess statue and applied a little force.
“Crush—”
The Goddess statue, which symbolized protection, collapsed with a roar and shattered into powder.
In its place stood this black dragon, exuding an aura of sulfur and blood.
He stood tall on the ruins, suddenly spreading those wings that blotted out the sky.
“Roar—!!!”
[Dragon Might] fully unleashed.
It was not just a sonic roar, but a soul-shaking impact from the dragon, a superior being.
In that instant, whether it was the surviving villagers, the rats hiding in the houses in the distance, or even the dust in the air, it was as if they had all been hit with a pause button by this terrifying pressure.
All the villagers, those who had originally been crying out in despair, including the girl who had almost been raped, now had blank minds, their bodies instinctively making the only possible reaction.
They trembled, their knees going weak, and facing the black demon god standing on top of the ruins, with blood and visceral fragments dripping from its mouth, they knelt down in unison, their foreheads pressed tightly against the ground, not even daring to breathe loudly.
That was submission to absolute violence.
Balthazar narrowed his eyes, enjoying the taste of fear permeating the air.
“This… is… the… only… truth.”