“Mil…

Milianna?” Lance muttered in shock as he looked up at the angel from his dreams.

The last thing he remembered was him being brutally attacked by a giant saint-level dragon before directly losing consciousness, but now the woman he’d spent the last year thinking about was standing over him – his confusion could be easily understood.

“Who else?” Milianna smiled warmly as she stroked his beard.

Lance couldn’t help but relax as the dainty hands of the only woman he had ever loved softly stroked his face.

Every night for the last year, hers would be the last face he saw before he fell asleep and the first person he thought about when he woke up – he wanted nothing more than to be by her side. Still, after everything that happened that day, he couldn’t. At least not until…

“I came to bring you home!” Milianna said directly, ignoring the inner turmoil he was feeling.

“Milli, I…”

“You can’t give me that excuse anymore,” Milianna smiled as she pointed to the centre of the battlefield where a dark-haired teen was dancing around a giant dragon, casually piercing its giant frame with his burning spear. “Ace is awake!”

“Ace…” Lance muttered, tears welling up in his usually stoic eyes. “He’s really awa…”

“Oi brat!” Wukong hollered lazily, cutting Lance off mid-sentence. “Can you hurry up already – this King’s bored!”

Previously, Harelk had been put under so much pressure that he hadn’t noticed the arrival of the powerful newcomers, but when he did, his eyes immediately constricted, as every fibre of his being was overwhelmed with fear.

He didn’t recognise the others, but it was impossible for him, a senior member of the Dragon’s Pitt, not to recognise the ape-like young man – Wukong!

It was almost a decade ago now; at the time, he was just a newly ascended saint in the Dragon’s Pitt when Ignus, the king of the dragons, returned with Yasha, a black dragon, after going out on what could be considered a very important but still, very simple mission.

But unlike what they all had expected, not only had one of their saint-level experts forfeited their lives, Yasha, a senior member of the Dragon’s Pitt, came back in critical condition.

It was only after the Dragon King explained what happened that they all understood they had kicked the iron bucket that time.

After that, it was passed down through the Pitt that no dragon was to do anything to antagonise anyone even remotely related to Wukong and his mysterious faction.

Still, that was only part of the reason behind his fear. The main reason was because Zarconix, the dragon-scaled bear Wukong killed, though only a newly promoted saint, was apparently easily defeated, to the point where it apparently looked like he was being toyed with, a feat he knew he still wasn’t capable of doing, and back then, Wukong was only at the 8th rank.

He had no idea how strong Wukong was back then, but whichever way you sliced it, getting tangled up with this group was the definition of a bad idea.

Without a second thought, Harelk took off like a bullet in the opposite direction, releasing an earth-shattering roar as he flew, the sound of which caused several of the weaker warriors and beasts to collapse, holding their bleeding ears in agony.

“Ooh no you don’t,” Ace muttered as he flicked his wrist, changing his hold over his spear as though he was now holding a javelin. “[Blazing Jet]!”

As the spear left his fingertips, the previously peaceful flames at the back of the spear erupted in a wild and imposing manner, propelling the spear forth at speeds that caused several sonic booms that threatened to drown out Harelk’s thunderous roar.

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Wukong, Amira, and Leo were the only ones able to follow the trajectory of the spear with their eyes, and without fail, each and every one of them cringed slightly as they watched Ace’s spear pierce through the Dragon’s rear end and out of its eyes, bringing with it a chunk of brain matter.

“That’s gotta hurt,” Ace shuddered, subconsciously clenching his arse muscles as he watched the now-deceased dragon fall from the skies onto the still retreating army of beasts.

“You definitely did that on purpose!” Amira snorted, her body appearing by Ace’s side as though she had teleported.

“You really think so little of me?” Ace pouted back as he strolled through the air towards the corpse of the dead dragon.

“Yes!” Amira replied matter-of-factly.

“I’m hurt!” Ace feigned heartbreak as he slowly bent over to remove Lance’s Azure Dragon Spear from within Harelk’s coiling tail.

“You not gonna pick up your weapon?” Wukong teased.

“I’m alright,” Ace said, glancing back at his spear, which was now covered in dragon insides. “It was just a spear I picked up from one of the soldiers of the O’Brien Army a while back.”

As he said that, Ace came to a stop in front of his would-be stepfather. “I believe this is yours.”

“Forget the spear,” Lance said, knocking it away and taking Ace in his arms. “I’m just glad you’re okay!”

“It’ll take more than a trivial O’Brien Empire to keep me down,” Ace grinned as he returned the man’s bear hug.

“Unfortunately, the reunion’s gonna have to wait,” Ace sighed as he turned back to face the forest of Darkness. “It appears we have an old friend to greet.”

Before Lance and the others even had the chance to voice their confusion, an ear-splitting roar sounded from the difference.

If it wasn’t for the fact that this roar came from so far away, Killian and the others understood that it would be no less loud than Harelk’s from moments ago, especially as the aura it projected was several times that of the Rainbow Dragon’s.

“Cirulus,” Lance called out sombrely as he turned to the man he had become good friends with over the last year. “We need to get all the troops to retreat.”

“There’s not enough time for that,” Milianna sighed helplessly as she saw several towering and imposing creatures fly towards them, slowly covering the sky in what may as well have been an eclipse.

“Why is it always lizards?” Ace sighed.

“Maybe stop calling them that when five saint-level dragons come over, looking like they wanna eat us!” Yulana scolded silently.

“Why?” Faye smiled mockingly. “You scared?”

“Who’s scared, you barbaric little girl?!” Yulana snapped back. “I’m just stating the obvious!

There are five saint-level dragons, and judging by their auras, one of them is at the peak of the saint realm, but we only have four who can fight against saints.

You do the maths, you braindead brute!”

Even though Yulana’s words were true, and each member of the group had come to the same conclusion, not an ounce of fear could be seen on any of their faces – including Yulana’s. Instead, there was a hint of excitement and anticipation.

This was the reason they had chosen to venture out of the safety of the Pavilion’s walls – to use the pressure of real life-threatening situations to push themselves past their limits.

And although the only one to see tangible results so far was Killian, no one felt demoralised; if anything, it had spurred them on even more.

Cirulus’ army, on the other hand, felt their knees weaken under such pressure. Each of them had faced beast tides in the past, but never could they imagine the seemingly ordinairy beast tide developing in such a way.

Cirulus, whilst not as scared as his subordinates, wasn’t able to be as relaxed as Ace and his group.

Still, he was nothing if not decisive. As he had decided to stand behind Ace, he would continue to do so until the very end – a fact he had already proved time and time again over the last year and a half since they first met.

But the person with the strangest reaction to the arrival of the Dragons was undoubtedly Kannal. The moment they appeared, a dense and chilling killing intent erupted from the youngster, and strangely enough, it appeared to be directed straight at the largest and most powerful of the dragons.

“Calm down,” Ace said slowly. “It’s still too early for you to be looking for revenge.”

“I know,” Kannal replied as he took a slow, calming breath, allowing for his blistering killing intent to gradually recede. “I won’t do anything foolish.”

Still, despite saying that, Kannal’s young but piercing eyes never left the face of the titanic black dragon covering the skies.

The dragon’s eyes fell on Kannal momentarily. After all, it wasn’t every day it saw a mortal daring to glare at it so brazenly. Still, it didn’t recognise the youth, nor did it think much of him. Especially not when there were two figures he couldn’t forget, even if he tried, among the group.

Though Mathias was the one who beat him to within an inch of his life, it was these two that kept him from sleeping soundly at night. The threat they posed to not only his, but the future of the entire Dragon’s Pitt was terrifying.

“Wukong, Ace…” Yasha growled, a menacing light flickering in his dark, callous eyes. “It’s been a while.”