Intense air currents whistled in Balthazar’s ears.
As his altitude climbed and the distance closed, the black domain gradually occupied his entire field of vision.
The wind here seemed heavier than elsewhere, even carrying a strange, metallic scent like rust.
The temperature in the air dropped sharply, but for Balthazar, who had the constitution of a Ferro-Dragon, this cold instead caused his scales to tighten, entering a more acute combat state.
With a deafening sonic boom, the massive black dragon body broke through the final layer of mist surrounding the mountains.
What unfolded before his eyes was not a disorganized pile of rocks.
It was a breathtaking, continuous black mountain ridge.
Its path was strange and twisted; the texture of the rocks was not formed by natural weathering but appeared like muscle fibers that had been instantaneously petrified.
Enormous black stone pillars pierced the sky, some even curving into arcs like the exposed ribs of some giant creature.
Balthazar hovered in mid-air, his dark red vertical pupils contracting sharply.
As he got closer, his Ore Vein Perception went wild at this moment.
In his sensory world, the black mountain before him was not a range formed by rocks and minerals through eons of tectonic movement.
Instead, it was a massive high-level aggregate containing endless magic—an ancient and sacred substance in a dormant state.
He descended slowly, landing on a seemingly flat black platform.
*Thud.* New chapters come out on g.com first.
The moment his heavy dragon claws touched the ground, there was no sound of cracking rock, but rather a dull echo similar to striking solid metal.
Balthazar lowered his head and extended his long, moist, flexible tongue to lick the bone-chilling black ground.
A pungent, ancient, and tyrannical flavor instantly exploded on his taste buds.
That taste was a mixture of iron, sulfur, and a hint of decaying divinity buried deep underground for ten thousand years.
[What is this place?]
He lowered his head, his nostrils close to the pitch-black surface, and took a deep breath.
There was no stench of rotting corpses, nor the rank smell of dangerous magical beasts—only an ancient smell of dust that bordered on nothingness, and a trace of extremely pure male power that made the dragon blood in his body stir slightly.
A mysterious resonance.
This feeling was wonderful; Balthazar instinctively felt that it was like facing an ancient behemoth that had been dead for countless eons, whose soul had long since vanished, leaving only a shell that had turned into the earth.
[There is no… killing intent.]
Balthazar looked up, his dark red vertical pupils scanning the endless black undulations.
Those so-called “no returns” were likely caused by the dangerous forest and swamp terrain here, or by getting lost in these labyrinthine mountains and eventually dying trapped in these valleys.
Although Balthazar understood there was no danger here, the confusion in his heart did not diminish.
[Perhaps Olga would know the identity of this corpse…]
[What enviable intuition, my King, to be able to tell at a glance that this is a corpse.]
A soft, low, and sarcastic laugh with static interference echoed in his mind.
At this moment, Olga’s voice carried a pleasure akin to showing stolen goods to an accomplice.
[Indeed, what you are stepping on is the “Father God” whom the Dark Elves worship day and night as sacred and inviolable… or rather, his physical body left in this world.]
Balthazar did not interrupt her; his massive dragon head lowered slightly, his dark red vertical pupils staring at the texture that looked like petrified muscle fibers, waiting for an explanation.
[A long, long time ago… an ancient era so far back that even those decaying old fogies in the Dark Elves’ homeland, Nidavellir, can’t remember it, this planet was still a primitive land with only seawater.]
Olga’s voice became distant, as if chanting an inglorious epic.
[Two giants from the sky descended. That great Male Giant, the owner of this corpse, arrogantly and proudly believed that “discovery is possession” and wanted to rule this land; whereas that Female Giant foolishly believed in mercy, thinking the land should belong to the life inhabiting it.]
[Thus, the two sides with different stances began a great war, eventually perishing together and transforming into this continent.]