Ashen Dragon

"Hahaha, this is way too fast! It's like feeling the wind!"

Mantou sat atop the back of the Bipedal Wyvern, soaring recklessly through the skies at ten thousand meters altitude, leaving behind two long contrails in the sky.

"Awooo!"

Noodle, the wyvern beneath him, stretched out its neck and let out an ecstatic howl—it was their first time feeling the thrill of high-speed flight so effortlessly.

"Whoosh—"

Suddenly, a sharp whistle of the wind came from above, and Mantou immediately looked up. There, he saw Singo, riding a Bipedal Wyvern equipped with the "Skyfire" suit and moving at speeds far surpassing his own, streaking across the sky like a bolt of scarlet lightning!

Singo began flying horizontally, his wyvern lifting its head sharply and increasing its pitch angle until it adopted a posture with its tail in front and its head trailing behind—like a predatory cobra striking upwards.

Next, under Singo's precision control, the apparatus beneath the wyvern's wing armor blasted turbulent airflow and dazzling flames.

In an instant, it performed an astonishingly fast somersault around its own tail, leaving a peculiar blade-like trajectory in midair.

Mantou was momentarily dumbfounded, and his earlier sense of pride vanished completely: "Holy crap, this showboat is already pulling off aerial stunts?"

"No way, Noodle, we can't fall behind!"

Gritting his teeth, Mantou frantically manipulated the controls of his Bipedal Wyvern. The steel pipes spewed flames, and the wyvern shot almost vertically skyward, attempting to perform a midair somersault.

However, Mantou quickly realized he had lost all control over direction. The airflow around him became chaotic, and as a novice pilot, he had no clue how to rectify the situation.

His entire body trembling, Mantou muttered under his breath, "Oh crap, we're not going to crash, are we—"

Soon, like headless flies, they careened wildly through the sky before plummeting straight down, almost vertically diving toward the ground with sparks already flying off the wyvern's head.

The sharp-edged headpiece of the Skyfire Armor, which had been tearing through the air so impressively, now seemed like their death sentence.

"Awooo—" The wyvern let out a panicked howl, as both it and Mantou fell together. At the critical moment, Mantou pressed the emergency brake button.

Suddenly, the Gravity Reversal device beneath the wing armor activated instantly, causing them to spring back into the air and hover mid-flight just before smashing into the ground.

"Phew... Nearly ended up as scorched Mantou."

Singo's lively voice came through the intercom: "Mantou, are you experimenting with aerial stunts too?"

Trying to maintain composure, Mantou replied awkwardly, "Ah, of course, I'm trying this uh..."

"Vertical landing?"

"Yes, exactly, vertical landing."

"Idiot, headfirst into the ground is not called vertical landing—nose-diving into dirt qualifies as an accident," Singo mercilessly exposed Mantou's lie and mocked him gleefully.

"Alright, now that you two have gotten comfortable with the basic flight operations, it's time to complete your training mission..."

Holan's voice chimed in through the intercom, tinged with exasperation. For starfallen like these, whose attitudes bordered on arrogance, the choice of "special measures" seemed inevitable.

He chuckled and said, "You must understand, these pieces of equipment were rented to you by the Empire, and using them outside of official missions means paying rental fees—one Gold Coin an hour..."

Instantly, Mantou and Singo's expressions froze; to their ears, it sounded like the whispers of a demon!

Mantou's tone turned serious: "Lieutenant Colonel Holan, I'll start the mission immediately!"

The two Bipedal Wyverns streaked across the sky at ten thousand meters altitude, their wing spans extending to ten meters under the enhancement of the "Skyfire" suit.

Mantou stared intently at the display screen, which presented a detailed map showing his current position as a black dot, along with several flashing red dots.

—Clearly, those were the targets for this training mission.

Following the targeting parameters displayed on the screen, Mantou continuously adjusted his heading and speed, maintaining level flight, as the black dot on the map steadily approached the intended targets.

Holding his breath, Mantou murmured under his breath, "It should be now..."

"Click."

Mantou pressed the release button, unleashing the bombs stored beneath his wyvern in a downpour of deadly projectiles, cascading from high above like dense raindrops.

"Shoo—"

Earsplitting shrieks filled the air as the metallic bombs ruptured through the atmosphere along their preprogrammed trajectories, plunging toward the designated targets.

Little did Mantou know, the targets that Holan had prepared for them were not mere practice dummies—they were a dozen steadfast Dwarven insurgents captured from the corners of Flying Dragon City.

"You despicable Orc-bred bastards!"

"Dwarves will never surrender!"

"Let me go!"

"Cursed reptiles, vile lizards!"

The courageous dwarves were bound with heavy chains to wooden stakes. They were battered and bloodied but continued to struggle ceaselessly, hurling curses at the Ashen Emperor and his retainers.

"Hahaha, now I see—you're scared! Because one day, Emperor Zeen will lead the fearless dwarves back to reclaim our freedom!"

One particularly robust and stout dwarf lifted his head, laughing heartily even in the direst of circumstances.

He was none other than the former Dwarven General and leader of this band of insurgents—Fearn, the Favored of Stone, renowned for escaping the Empire's clutches by hiding amidst piles of rubble.

"General Fearn..."

"We have to rescue him! He's a hero of the Shield Dwarves! We cannot let him endure humiliation at the hands of the Evil Dragon Kin!"

Not far away, inside a cavern, another group of dwarves was deliberating how to retrieve Fearn from the grip of the Imperial People. They were the last remaining rebels in Flying Dragon City, or perhaps all of Aivendel.