Chapter 706: The Battle of Dragon Riders

This chapter is an additional update sponsored by "Love Smoke, Love Wine, Love Books."

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As a Fire Dragon, considered alongside evil dragons as part of the Elemental Dragons,

Leo is proud, domineering, and has inherently evil instincts. Without the power of the Milon Mind Fruit, Liszt might never have been able to ride on its back. Moreover, as this malevolence continues to grow, Leo might even turn against Liszt, who hatched and nurtured it.

Though now harmoniously united with Liszt in mind, its evil thoughts are constantly suppressed by him.

Yet its pride remains as strong as ever. A crippled Sapphire Dragon is beneath its contempt, let alone tolerating such a broken dragon showing off before it.

Liszt had no choice but to soothe it, calming it down.

He had to prevent it from recklessly bursting out of his body, revealing its true form and clashing with the Sapphire Dragon, thus ruining their plan to reap the rewards while others fight.

"Brother, the Sapphire Dragon looks badly scarred. With a dragon's powerful regenerative abilities, why hasn't it healed its body?" Acheronides gazed at the flying Sapphire Dragon, her eyes filled with questions. "Is it deliberately keeping the scars, or is the injury truly irreparable?"

She shared the same question as Liszt.

"Keeping the scars deliberately seems unlikely. If it truly wanted to keep them as a reminder of past suffering, it should have done so long before the kingdom was founded," Liszt could only analyze it this way. During the dragon-slaying battle before the kingdom's founding, the Sapphire Dragon was nearly killed by the White-Mouth Iron Dragon.

That would have been a far more memorable and profound experience.

"Could it be that its soul is damaged, making the wounds unhealable?" Acheronides asked further, but Liszt had no answer.

Just as everyone assumed the Grand Duke had arrived on the Sapphire Dragon to deal with the Eagle Kingdom invaders, the dragon circled in the sky without any intention of descending or driving away the invaders.

"Liszt, what's going on?" Marquis Niuwei approached again.

He had planned to make his move during the Sapphire Dragon's grand entrance, but with the dragon refusing to land, the sea battle had ground to a halt.

Liszt looked at the figures of the Sapphire Dragon and the Grand Duke, then at the distant horizon.

He had already guessed: "It seems the Grand Duke isn't here for the fleet. The Eagle Kingdom's ships will be handled by the Blue Sapphire fleet. His target must be Alonso Cyclamen."

"Alonso is here?"

"I can't sense him. When not riding a dragon, my sensory abilities aren't sharp enough to detect a dragon knight from afar."

So they could only wait.

The Grand Duke, atop the Sapphire Dragon, also waited above the battlefield.

At this moment, the sea waves still raged, but the battlefield had eerily fallen silent. No ship dared move recklessly under the watchful eye of a dragon. With the Grand Duke issuing no orders, the Crown Prince, who was commanding the Blue Sapphire fleet, also remained inactive.

The minutes dragged on.

Restlessness crept into everyone's hearts; even Liszt began to feel agitated. The arrival of the Sapphire Dragon made it impossible for Leo to rest peacefully, let alone ignore the ugly, arrogant dragon soaring above.

The agitation became unbearable, drenching his underclothes with sweat.

"Neither advancing nor retreating—what exactly is the Grand Duke up to?" He tightly gripped the Frostbite Dragon Slayer Sword, channeling ice mana to cool himself down and calm Leo down.

The ice mana worked well.

Leo calmed somewhat.

But the calm lasted less than five minutes before Leo became restless again, suddenly communicating to Liszt—another dragon was approaching!

"A mighty roar!"

The Sapphire Dragon let out a resounding cry, its head aimed at the southern horizon, its eyes blazing with dazzling blue light.

Guided by Leo’s instincts, Liszt also turned his gaze to the south. The sky was clear and unremarkable at first glance, but as he raised his binoculars, he soon spotted a dragon barely discernible among the clouds. Moments later, it burst through the cloud layer and flew toward the battlefield.

Now, its full form came into view.

It was an emerald-hued adult dragon, its scales gleaming with metallic brilliance. Compared to the Sapphire Dragon’s fifty-meter wingspan, this one’s wings were smaller—about thirty meters across. Its body was slimmer and shorter than the Sapphire Dragon’s, but on its *Dragon Tooth Platform* sat a knight clad in black armor.

Without a doubt—this was a true Dragon Knight, bonded to his dragon.

In his hand, he wielded a lance about five meters long, the same jade color as his mount, the Bronze Dragon. Unlike a typical knight's lance, the spearhead resembled a collapsed parasol. A full third of the weapon consisted of the conical spearhead, its thickest part as wide as a knight’s round shield.

It inexplicably reminded Liszt of Athena’s golden spear from *Arena of Valor*.

"A five-meter dragon lance would be just right for a bronze dragon’s build. I’d love to snatch it and use it with Leo… When Leo’s fully grown, with a hundred-meter wingspan, a ten-meter lance would be ideal—but five meters would do. For now, while Leo is still young, this would be perfect."

Rather than marveling at the Dragon Knight’s imposing presence, Liszt, like Leo—who was itching to fight—first thought of grabbing some gear.

Of course,

He quickly suppressed the urge and silently observed the standoff between the two dragons and their riders from a bystander’s perspective.

……

"Alonso, think carefully—invading my Sapphire will come at a cost!" Duke Andrew Sapphire thundered.

Across from him, the Bronze Dragon Knight Alonso Cyclamen’s expression was unreadable beneath his visored helmet, but his voice was low, hoarse, and laced with authority: "Do you really think I went through all the trouble of diverting Steel Ridge’s Dragon Knights just to hear your threats?"

"So there's nothing left to negotiate?"

"You never had the right to negotiate—a broken dragon and a grounded old man... I'm making my move, Duke Andrew." Alonso seemed poised to mock further but held back, calmly declaring his decision before swinging his emerald-colored lance.

Man and dragon surged forward toward the Sapphire Dragon.

Duke Andrew had no dragon lance, nor was he a Dragon Knight—he stood atop the *Dragon Tooth Platform*, commanding the Sapphire Dragon. Yet, faced with a true Dragon Knight, he showed no fear, calmly drawing a massive blue sword from his waist.

The blade was two meters long.

Blue flames surged along its edge like flowing water.

This was a longsword never before described, unlike the famed *Wailing Prison*, which Liszt had heard of. That legendary weapon—a *Grand Sprite* artifact—was only one and a half meters long and did not burn with blue fire.

Instead, this weapon bore more resemblance to the sword Liszt had once seen wielded by the Bull Marquis—the one he jokingly called *"Flame of Delight"*—which also burned with blue flame.

And he had speculated that it might have been forged from the Sapphire Dragon’s forelimbs.

Regardless of its origins, the moment the sword was drawn, the Sapphire Dragon flared with radiant blue light, its power surging even higher. Then, to everyone’s shock, the Duke sat down on the *Dragon Tooth Platform*. Man and dragon achieved perfect unity—within Liszt’s Magic Eye vision, their mana flowed together seamlessly.

"Roar!"

Swinging the greatsword, he charged toward the Bronze Dragon Knight, Alonso.

At that moment, only a select few—including Liszt—understood the truth:

Duke Andrew Sapphire was also a Dragon Knight!