Chapter 872: Peak Power

This chapter is an extra update sponsored by "Wu Ma Wei Yang".

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Splash.

The Purple Copper Dragon plunged into the sea, gulping down several mouthfuls of salty water before barely managing to struggle back into the air after retracting its copper plating—since the dragon-slaying battle was to take place over the ocean, these dragons had all learned basic swimming. Except for fire dragons, which were elemental fire dragons, most other dragons could learn to swim.

On its dragonback, Loyel remained encased in the purple-tinged copper plating, gripping the pitch-black Dragonlance, locked in his dying posture.

He was already dead.

Lifeless.

Yet the Purple Copper Dragon refused to abandon him, flying up with grief-stricken determination to join the White Iron Dragon Knight, letting out a deafening roar.

"Loyel!" Alex approached the Purple Copper Dragon, shouting loudly.

No response.

Alex stiffened, realizing the grim truth. He had witnessed it himself—the dragon of translucent crystal extending a Dragonlance from its back, running Loyel through, then swiftly withdrawing the lance before disappearing into thin air.

"Loyel!"

Still no answer.

"Roar!" The Purple Copper Dragon’s cry was filled with desolation, confirming to Alex that Loyel was truly dead—inconceivable, yet undeniable.

"Impossible!"

Alex’s face twisted in rage. He and Loyel had known each other since childhood—one a prince of the Kingdom of the Eagle, the other the Grand Duke of Purple Copper. They had even been selected together for the Kingdom of the Eagle’s Dragon Knight candidate program, though Loyel had inherited the dragon of the Purple Copper family.

Their friendship had seen its share of strife.

Moreover, their nations—one the suzerain, the other the vassal—had always maintained strong ties. Just yesterday, they had toasted to the coming battle.

Now, they were separated by death forever.

Suppressing grief and rage, Alex coldly commanded, "Purple Copper Dragon, with me! We will avenge Loyel! Once I kill that treacherous snake Liszt, I will personally escort Loyel’s remains back to the Purple Copper Duchy!"

"Roar!"

The Purple Copper Dragon was battered and bleeding, its once-lustrous violet-copper scales now half-destroyed—slashed by draconic gusts, scorched by searing flames, torn apart by Dragonlances, and ravaged by enchanted water cutters and drills.

Though the bleeding had stopped and its powerful healing factor kicked in, its muscles slowly knitting back together, its magic reserves were severely depleted. The repeated copper plating had drained its special draconic metamagic, drastically reducing its combat strength.

Yet its spirit seethed with vengeance for its fallen knight!

Unlike Ka Erluo Violet, the *Pale Emerald Dragon Knight*—whose dragon was raised by the royal family of the Kingdom of the Eagle, making Ka Erluo just a selected rider with no ties to the First Dragon Knight—Loyel was a descendant of the First Dragon Knight, sharing a deep bond with his dragon.

However.

Now.

Alex and the three dragons scanned the battlefield but found no trace of Liszt. The faint presence of the invisible dragon lingered, but it was already too distant to pinpoint—only a vague direction remained.

"He went that way—toward Dodo Island... Alonso’s direction. After him!" Alex’s eyes flashed as he divined Liszt’s plan.

He's addicted to killing lone dragon knights and now wants to ambush the Bronze Dragon Knight.

Yet, Alex not only felt no tension but saw it as a heaven-sent opportunity, for Alonso was not acting alone—a Grey Cast Iron Dragon accompanied him.

There are many types of iron dragons, categorized by the iron ores they produce into five kinds—White-Mouthed Iron Dragon, Mottled Iron Dragon, Grey Cast Iron Dragon, White-Cored Iron Dragon, and Black-Cored Iron Dragon. All are formidable in combat, ranking among the strongest of metallic dragons, especially in size, typically exceeding sixty meters in length.

...

Dodo Island came into view.

It was impossible for Alonso Cyclamen not to feel a hint of pride.

Under his scheme, Liszt had become a cornered rat, waiting only for the veteran hunter to personally capture him. But soon, he realized something was amiss. According to the plan, he was supposed to arrive as the second wave and join the battle, yet no dragon-slaying battle was underway on Dodo Island.

The island was unnervingly calm, save for a group of serfs toiling away, who suddenly pointed at the sky and trembled in shock.

They saw the approaching Bronze Dragon and Grey Cast Iron Dragon. Even though they had witnessed their lord’s Fire Dragon before, the serfs still shivered in terror at the sight of these two metallic dragons.

They dropped to their knees, helpless to resist.

The dragons in the sky paid them no heed.

Alonso scanned the island, confirming there was no trace of any dragon. "Liszt’s gone? Did he flee after seeing Prince Alex?" According to the plan, Alex was to launch a surprise attack first with the White-Mouthed Iron Dragon and the silver dragon, and Alonso would join the fray once the battle was at its fiercest.

When Liszt attempted to escape, Grand Duke Loyr would assist in the encirclement.

But something had clearly gone wrong.

Just then, he suddenly sensed a pulse of draconic magic power—a signal from the White-Mouthed Iron Dragon. The pulse carried a warning of "danger" and an urgent summons to regroup. This was a simple long-distance communication method among dragon knights, effective as long as they were within each other’s draconic sensory range.

"What?" Alonso frowned, unable to fathom why Alex would warn him of "danger." "What threat could Liszt possibly pose, even if he has a juvenile Fire Dragon, a mediocre Lightgreen Gem Dragon, and a newly promoted Archmage? What could they possibly do?"

Though his mind remained at ease, he didn’t hesitate. He swiftly steered the Bronze Dragon toward the White-Mouthed Iron Dragon’s location, the Grey Cast Iron Dragon following closely behind.

They’d barely flown a moment when he detected another draconic presence—one that differed from the Fire Dragon he had sensed in the last dragon-slaying battle, nor was it the Lightgreen Gem Dragon’s aura.

Yet he knew—this was Liszt’s arrival.

"Perfect timing!" Alonso’s spirits soared as he charged forward.

The distance between them rapidly closed, yet when the Bronze Dragon sensed the enemy was right before them, there was no sign of the dragon in their line of sight. Even after descending from the high clouds, there was no trace—no Fire Dragon, no Lightgreen Gem Dragon.

Even when the Bronze Dragon repeatedly warned that the enemy was now within a kilometer, still nothing appeared.

"What’s going on? Why can’t I see them?" Alonso raised an eyebrow, faintly grasping the meaning behind Alex’s "danger" warning. Then, a flash of insight struck him. "Is this some invisibility magic conjured by the Archmage? Ridiculous. I’ve already locked onto your position—to the left!"

He tightened his grip on the Dragonlance, merging with his dragon, charging fiercely toward the sensed location.

The lance split the air with a thunderous crack, slashing viciously at the empty space. But just as he felt he was about to strike his foe, the Bronze Dragon suddenly detected the enemy’s presence—now behind them. Before he could react or evade the ambush—

A dragon of translucent crystal abruptly materialized, lunging forward with terrifying speed. The Dragonlance in its grasp flashed with lethal purpose, ready to run through the Bronze Dragon in a single, brutal thrust.

A roar erupted!

"Whoosh!"

Just as the two dragons were about to cross paths, an unexpected event occurred!

A ferocious burst of energy crashed in from the side, directly forcing the Invisible Dragon to abruptly change course and abandon its chance to deal a heavy blow to the Bronze Dragon.

"Roar! Roar! Roar!"

A deafening, tyrannical roar echoed across the sky—it was the Grey Cast Iron Dragon, closely following the Bronze Dragon, now spreading its sixty-meter-wide wings in a display of apex predator's fury as it lunged at the now-visible Invisible Dragon.

The air currents stirred by its wings were visible to the naked eye.

Wisps of mist swirled behind it.

The sunlight dimmed as if eclipsed.

With a mere fifteen-meter wingspan, the Invisible Dragon was far smaller than the thirty-meter Bronze Dragon, let alone the sixty-meter Grey Cast Iron Dragon.

"Curses!"

Liszt, riding atop the Invisible Dragon Bard, frowned slightly under the overwhelming pressure of the Grey Cast Iron Dragon. Without hesitation, he immediately chose to abandon his assassination attempt on the Bronze Dragon Knight Alonso. Then, in a flash, he slipped into the material boundary and fled into the distance.

Boom!

The moment he entered the material boundary, the Grey Cast Iron Dragon's tail—like a living Dragonlance—lashed out with a blur of afterimages, striking the empty air where the Invisible Dragon had just disappeared.

Despite its power, the attack struck only air.

Yet Liszt, hiding within the material boundary, felt his scalp prickle. He could distinctly sense that the Grey Cast Iron Dragon's tail was just a hair's breadth away from piercing the material boundary and striking him and his dragon—a terrifying display of raw physical power capable of shattering the material boundary.

A Grey Cast Iron Dragon in its prime adulthood likely rivaled the strength of an adult Elemental Dragon.

He activated Crystal White Trace.

Looking back from a distance at the Grey Cast Iron Dragon, its magic power dense as steel, Liszt gulped. "Too strong... Leo, only when you’re fully grown can you match it!"