The Epic Dragon Titan

Bud City, with its walls formed from piled-up snow and ice, bustled as usual. Fur-clad merchants peddled their goods in the streets, hunters carried their game, and adventurers, armed to the teeth, passed in and out of the city gates. Ordinary citizens were busy with their daily lives, while patrolling soldiers kept watch over the walls and streets. It was a scene of peaceful normalcy until the ground began to shake.

In a place beyond the city's view, a vast white mist, stretching for over ten kilometers, was approaching. As it moved, the earth cracked, ice mountains collapsed, and animals native to the icy plains—wolves, rats, snakes, rabbits—fled in a panic.

Creatures touched by the white mist were instantly frozen into ice sculptures, unable to withstand the cold, even those naturally suited to the harsh climate. The mist's progress was swift, and any creature that lagged behind was consumed and frozen solid. High above, at an altitude of over a thousand meters, the silhouette of a colossal figure could occasionally be glimpsed—a being so immense that merely its presence terrified the wildlife within miles, causing the stampede ahead of the mist to grow larger.

The tremors reached Bud City, alarming the guards. Panic quickly spread from those who first saw the approaching mist to the entire city. However, there was little time for action as the mist advanced too rapidly. The powerful entity behind the disaster, spotting the human city, felt its rage surge even higher.

The ancient dragon felt an urge to vent its fury. Though it knew the humans who had killed its offspring were not in this city and were further away, they were still humans, the same race as those ants. Killing them would be a way to avenge its dead child.

A sorrowful and enraged roar echoed above, and with it, the white mist expanded, consuming the lagging beasts and enveloping the entire city. The city's hastily erected magical barriers shattered within moments, and the frigid mist engulfed everything. Amidst screams and cries for mercy, silence fell over the city, leaving no sound behind.

As the dragon continued towards the heart of the human territories, the city was revealed. It looked unchanged, yet no sound emanated from it. All its inhabitants had been frozen in place, their final expressions and actions preserved in icy stillness, casting a haunting and eerie silence under the pale sunlight.

The calamity left no survivors. Even those who had fled over ten kilometers away met the same fate, frozen like statues. Not even the two gold-ranked humans capable of flight survived. With a murderous ancient dragon on the rampage, no one could escape.

The dragon, having decimated the city in a brief but brutal act, did not stop. It continued its flight into human lands, searching for those responsible for its offspring's death. Along the way, it vented its wrath on any human settlements it encountered, a dragon's brutal revenge for the loss of its child.

...

"Prince Muria, urgent news!" A cloud giant rushed into the hall where Muria was overseeing the plan to eliminate dragon hunters.

"What is it? Speak," Muria responded, looking up.

"The Duchy of Norman in the north has been attacked by a crystal ancient dragon. Eleven cities have been frozen into ice sculptures by this dragon."

"Do we know why?" Muria's expression remained calm as he inquired, "Crystal ancient dragons don't attack humans without reason."

"According to our investigation, the dragon's offspring was killed by a group of dragon hunters, prompting the dragon's actions," the cloud giant reported.

"I see," Muria nodded, taking a moment of silence for the grieving ancient dragon. He understood the dragon's grief. For dragons, having offspring before reaching the ancient stage was crucial, as they typically became infertile afterward. The loss of a child, especially one potentially the last, was devastating.

"The continent is becoming chaotic," Muria sighed. This wasn't the first time a dragon had sought vengeance for a slain kin. Muria himself, along with Claudia, was orchestrating a similar campaign against dragon hunters.

However, the crystal ancient dragon's rampage marked the first instance of such an extreme retaliation, targeting human cities indiscriminately. Unlike Muria's methodical approach of targeting specific enemies, this dragon unleashed a broad and violent assault, which would surely lead humans to label it as an evil dragon. Among dragons, however, no one would fault it for avenging its offspring.

"How bold! Someone has infiltrated!" Muria's face suddenly turned serious, a playful smile crossing his lips as he sensed an intruder breaching the protective wards of Synapse.

...

"Where is this place?" Hiraue, a dragon hunter, wandered in the lowest layer of Synapse, his face unreadable, but his eyes betrayed his astonishment. "So many cloud islands?"

Hiraue had never imagined ending up in such a place. He had only intended to infiltrate Frostwhite Dragon City to investigate the whereabouts of the rumored Ice Queen, Claudia. But upon entering and looking up, he sensed something amiss in the sky, as if something was hidden there.

Possessing exceptional skills, Hiraue avoided the patrolling white dragons, ascended higher, and broke through an unseen boundary to discover the floating islands above Frostwhite Dragon City.

Stunned by the sight of Synapse, Hiraue cautiously infiltrated the lowest cloud island, primarily because he noticed humans there and hoped to blend in to gather information. The other islands seemed inhabited by non-human creatures, with no signs of human activity.

Upon landing, Hiraue quickly noticed something was off. The humans on this island appeared to be in poor condition, supervised by various powerful monsters, and seemed to be the lowest class. In reality, these were criminals captured by Muria.

"Another force enslaving humans," Hiraue quickly concluded upon seeing the situation. The humans, some with a fierce demeanor, were being forced into heavy labor under the watch of more imposing creatures.

Mining, blacksmithing, construction—the dragon hunter, disguised as a laborer, soon realized these people were not ordinary citizens. They were criminals, pirates, bandits, and thugs. Despite their rough pasts, the aura of violence and lawlessness clung to them.

"Hey, which ship were you on? You work hard," a burly man with a black snake tattoo on his shoulder approached Hiraue, grinning maliciously.

"I wasn't a sailor," Hiraue replied coldly, already aware of the types of people around him.

"So you're a landlubber, huh? No wonder I've never seen you before. Are you new?" The former pirate, now a laborer, seemed unperturbed by Hiraue's response. "Why do you keep looking at the sky? Thinking about getting up to those islands?"

Realizing his actions were attracting attention, Hiraue lowered his head and stayed silent.

"Why so quiet?" The pirate laughed. "Everyone here wants to move up. Those cloud islands are like heaven. We used to visit the drow islands for fun, though we'd leave feeling drained. But now that the drow have changed their deity, they don't need us anymore. Life's gotten harder. I envy those living up there."

"Humans live up there too?" Hiraue asked, surprised. He had noticed that the higher the creatures lived, the higher their status, a simple and clear hierarchy.

"Of course. Humans are always the lucky ones."

"Really?" Hiraue's eyes gleamed with interest. He wanted to infiltrate higher to uncover more secrets. There were too many dragons here, but even more cloud giants, indicating something significant.

This dragon hunter's intuition told him he was about to encounter something extraordinary.

While Hiraue pondered how to ascend, a commotion broke out among the human criminals nearby. The overseeing monsters and giants prostrated themselves, and the humans followed, kneeling like crops before a scythe...

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