The thick tail covered in iron-colored scales slammed into the ground, the dull thud shaking a cloud of dust from the ceiling, silencing the words Olga intended to use to continue testing him.
The Ferro-Dragon slowly rose from the straw pile, his metal scales grating against each other with a teeth-grinding clatter.
His dark red, slit-pupiled eyes gathered a chilling light, looking down from a height at the two refugees of a fallen kingdom.
“Stupid… very… stupid, Olga.”
Although the voice still sounded like rusty gears turning, intermittent and hindered by physiological adaptation, every word struck the Dark Elf Queen’s most fragile nerves like a heavy hammer.
For the two Dark Elves, the presumption of being addressed by name caused the atmosphere in the entire mine tunnel to instantly drop to freezing point.
“What good… does it do you… to provoke a dragon?”
Upon hearing this, the color drained from Olga’s beautiful face in an instant.
With a low growl, the Young Dragon’s mouth, filled with fangs, opened slightly, exhaling a gust of hot air smelling of sulfur that blew directly onto the Queen’s face.
“Do you think… you can use your currently waning magic… to perform sorcery and control a… dragon, even if it is only in its Young Dragon stage?”
This sentence pierced through Olga’s final facade like a sharp knife.
The Queen’s body trembled slightly; she instinctively wanted to retort, to mobilize the magic within her to prove her majesty, but the faint purple light that had just appeared at her fingertips instantly dissipated under the pressure of the dragon’s might.
In her proud phoenix eyes, her pupils contracted violently—an instinctive reaction to being targeted by a predator.
“If you really… could do that, then the moment the mercenaries breached… the kingdom’s defenses… they would have been killed by a single glare from you.”
The dragon had realized immediately upon waking that Olga had absolutely no way to deal with him.
Because he could move freely, completely unconstrained by this Dark Elf Queen who controlled monsters, and the enslavement seal from just now had been easily repelled by his willpower.
“Enough!”
Chloe let out a sharp cry; although her teeth were chattering and the sword hilt in her hand was soaked with sweat, she still blocked firmly in front of the somewhat unsteady Olga, pointing her sword tip at the massive dragon head, her eyes filled with desperate determination.
“I will not allow you to insult Her Majesty!”
The Ferro-Dragon ignored the knight’s cries entirely, his cold red eyes locked firmly on the woman attempting to maintain a proud posture.
“Your magic… has clearly waned, yet you still cling to… the self-esteem of a superior race… and chatter here…”
The massive dragon head slowly approached until the tip of his snout was less than half a foot from Olga, and one could even see the Queen’s paper-white face reflected in his red eyes.
“You have always been… overly… stupid.”
He continued to speak in a voice that was not fluent, yet magnetic, majestic, and hoarse: “I know, your power has waned… because you are preparing to return to the Dark Elves’ homeland… to conceive the next generation of Dark Elves.”
With this opening revelation, the mask of composure that Olga had managed to barely maintain instantly cracked.
Her amber pupils contracted violently, as if she were looking at some unspeakable horror.
“Stop…”
She instinctively wanted to scold him, but her voice was so weak that even she found it unfamiliar.
However, the judgment from the Iron Dragon did not stop; instead, it poured out like mercury, permeating every crevice of the secret garden deep within her heart.
“Your pregnancy… is a form of asexual reproduction… conceived by bathing in the Holy Spring of the Father’s Cave… deep within the underground temple of Nidavellir in your homeland… to bear the next generation of Dark Elf offspring.”
“Such acts… only occur once every thousand years… You hold selections and sacrifices, and finally you were chosen… and came here… after the Northern Theocracy weakened due to a magical runaway… to establish the City of Darkness near the Northern Mountains… and engage in fasting and meditation.”
Olga’s face was as pale as paper, her lips devoid of color; she looked as if she had been stripped naked and thrown into the cold wind—an expression mixed with shame and fear.
The longsword in Chloe’s hand hung limply.
As a half-breed despised by the Dark Elves, she did not understand those ancient secrets regarding the “Father God” and the “Holy Spring.”
But she could see that the Queen, who in her heart was always as immovable as an iceberg and always high above, was trembling violently at this moment.
“Because the magic of the Father God you speak of… was gathered and attracted by your fasting and meditation, and the radiating magic also enhanced the monsters here… The power of those goblins, trolls… orcs, cave giants… and gargoyles was enhanced by you… That is the reason they revere you as Queen.”
“You… stupid… truly too stupid… You should never have accepted this title; you are skilled in court intrigue… but you are fundamentally unskilled and disdainful of managing a country.”
“The City of Darkness and the status of Queen… are merely temporary in your eyes, convenient identities for your meditation… so you remain undisturbed.”
“Now, your country has been breached… do you really think… your kin… would care if you live or die?”
The cold air in the mine tunnel seemed to freeze completely at this moment.
The sound of water droplets seeping from rock crevices and hitting the rubble was amplified in the dead silence.
Listening to that hoarse, magnetic dragon speech, Olga’s originally pale face, under the reflection of the faint firelight, shifted from initial terror to a sense of near-numb absurdity.
She staggered back half a step, her gown soaking into the black muddy water in the corner; her slender fingers gripped the rough rock wall beside her, leaving several small scratches on the stone surface due to the excessive force.
“Ha… ha ha… ha ha ha…”
Low laughter spilled from the depths of her throat, weak and dry at first, then gradually becoming loud and sharp.
Olga tilted her head back slightly, her jet-black hair spilling onto her shoulders as her body trembled.
There was no smile on her cold, beautiful face, only a twisted curl of her lips.
“Truly excellent. I thought I had found a handy weapon, but instead… I have actually found a ‘prophet’ who knows the dark scandals of my race.”
Olga stopped laughing, lowered her eyelids slightly, and her gaze fell on a point in the void.
Her voice returned to that arrogant and cold tone, only mixed with an undisguisable weariness.
“You are right. In the eyes of those’sisters’ in the North, having lost the City of Darkness, my magic diminished, and even reduced to wandering in a mine pit, I am already a rag fallen into the mud.”
“They do not need a failed kin, nor do they need a breeder who might have been ‘tainted’ by the filthy human scent.”
“After receiving my plea for help, they will only throw my letter into the fire, and then choose the next candidate to go bathe in that Holy Spring.”
As she spoke, she released her grip on the rock, and a black ball of magic energy, radiating dangerous fluctuations, condensed in her palm.
“Since there is no homeland to return to, and no sacred mission…”
Olga smiled palely.
“Rather than being captured by those lowly mercenaries, or rotting in this dark mine like an insect, at least… I can grant myself some dignity.”
Indeed, in the original work, the Dark Elves did not care about Olga at all.
Being inherently arrogant and reclusive, and even somewhat cruel, they did not care whether Olga had been tainted; the moment the City of Darkness was breached, they defaulted to Olga being a dead person.
Therefore, they stripped Olga of her status and moved on to prepare for a new ritual to choose someone else.
Thus, in the original plot, Olga became a public commodity serving the kingdom.
And she herself chose to commit suicide to preserve her dignity.
“Your Majesty! Please abandon this thought!”
Chloe let out a distorted scream, almost instantly crossing the distance between them and grabbing Olga’s wrist.
The knight’s red pupils were bloodshot, her breathing ragged and heavy due to extreme anxiety.
“No matter what those people think, and no matter what this… this dragon has said!”
Chloe gritted her teeth, her body trembling slightly.
“You will always be my Queen. As long as I am alive, as long as I hold a sword in my hand, I will never allow you to commit suicide here!”
Olga looked down at her wrist being held, her eyes empty and devoid of any luster; she did not resist, just letting Chloe hold it.
The Ferro-Dragon slightly adjusted his posture on the straw mat.
His iron-colored dragon claws scratched tentatively against the ground, creating a harsh, creaking sound.
His dark red, slit-pupiled eyes locked onto the two despairing Dark Elves before him, his throat moving again.
“Dignity?”
That magnetic, majestic voice echoed in the hall once more.
“Olga… your so-called dignity… is nothing but escapism… As you are now… aside from that bit of false self-esteem… you truly have nothing left.”
“But you have forgotten one thing… the rules of this world… were never set by those arrogant women sitting in caves meditating…”
The Ferro-Dragon’s head slowly approached until his warm breath, carrying the scent of ore, blew directly onto Olga’s cold cheek.
“The reason I saved you… was not to watch you perform a suicide drama here…”
“Your value… depends on whether you are willing, at this end of despair… to grasp the thing that can truly let you return to the throne… your future…”
Hearing the Ferro-Dragon’s words, Olga leaned against the rock wall and managed to straighten her upper body; her thin gown was still dripping with muddy water, but in her amber eyes, which had been unfocused for so long, a glimmer of clarity finally gathered.
With lingering fatigue, confusion, and a hint of incredulous shock, she spoke with a dry, hoarse throat, her voice as light as a candle in the wind, yet every word was clear:
“Dragon… you… what exactly do you want?”
As soon as she finished speaking, the Ferro-Dragon raised his head slightly, his dark red slit pupils calmly locking onto her eyes, and his breath, carrying heat like molten magma, brushed over the top of her hair.
The next second, a low, hoarse voice slowly echoed in the mine tunnel.
The words were not fluent, carrying the awkwardness of a dragon speaking human language, yet they possessed a magnetism that pierced the soul and an indisputable majesty.
Every word fell like heavy iron, causing the rubble on the rock wall to rattle:
“I… want… you.”
One sentence, so direct it was almost crude, causing Olga to tremble all over.
The hoarse, majestic voice did not pause, continuing to echo steadily in the dead-silent mine, carrying unquestionable certainty and grand ambition:
“I will… help you restore your kingdom, help you… expel the invaders.”
“Letting you… continue to live your previous life.”
Olga’s amber eyes widened abruptly.
The words “restore your kingdom” were like a thunderbolt, splitting the despair and gloom of the past few days.
But before she could recover from her ecstasy, the other’s words fell once more, carrying the domineering aura of one who rules the world: “You may… continue to be… your Queen, but I will crown myself… as the Dragon Emperor.”
“I will build a… vast, world-spanning… interdimensional empire.”
These words were spoken with weight, every syllable dripping with the arrogance to swallow the universe.
“As the eternal Steel Dragon Emperor… I shall rule over it… forever.”
As the last few words fell, the crimson light flowing between his scales flared suddenly, and the pressure belonging to a dragon quietly spread, making Chloe, who was standing nearby, afraid to even breathe loudly.
Olga’s heart was like a raging sea, the hope of restoring her country intertwined with the other’s monstrous ambition, leaving her speechless for a moment.
But in the next second, the Ferro-Dragon’s hoarse voice sounded again, his words straightforward and domineering, carrying an irresistible force that instantly shattered all her trance:
“But first… you must offer up your body.”
“I will possess you… make you conceive my children, and give birth to an army.”