"Humans really have changed a lot!"

Facing the grim war situation, Old Flame did not appear worried like Raphael and Arnold. Instead, he had a pensive look.

He muttered to himself, "In the past, I secretly traveled the continent with Robert. He was very young then, even younger than you and Raphael, having just become an adult."

"We stole the transfiguration spell from Lunchenard and transformed into various creatures - cows, sheep, birds, even lizardmen. Back then, humanity was bound by religious and monarchical taboos everywhere, with great mage lording over commoners, the whole society stagnant. For over a thousand years, apart from some minor clever inventions, there was no real change."

"But now, look at this—"

Old Flame's cloudy vertical pupils reflected the barrage of cannon fire illuminating the dusky evening storm - these mass-produced, easily usable weapons were leaving the supposed top of the food chain, the dragon race and its kin, dazed and confused.

"Spells of the fifth level that once required a human genius in a thousand, suffering twenty years of arduous study, are now being cast by someone who may have been born a mere farmer's son. This is terrifying."

Seeing Old Flame deep in thought, Arnold couldn't help but clear his throat.

"Dear Elder Surut, I think such profound contemplation of the future can wait. For now, we should hurry and cover Raphael's dragon kin's retreat."

He then charged towards Hessman's approaching army.

The infantry below had been watching the sky, and immediately sounded the alarm when they spotted a massive golden dragon approaching.

"Scatter! Enemy air strike incoming!"

"Anti-air gunners, form ranks and retaliate!"

"Call in the griffin squadron for support!"

Ryton's soldiers reacted swiftly, instantly adopting combat stances.

Arnold slowed his descent, raising his four wings as his claws gathered before him, concentrating draconic magic.

Soon, a vast wellspring of magical power converged from his bloodstream through his claw conduits, threads of gold and crimson mana coalescing into tangible flows.

The golden dragon's elemental affinity, like red dragons, was fire intermingled with an essence of earth, and they had an additional earth attunement. Red dragon bloodlines had an additional metallic attunement.

"Fanged Precipice!"

The draconic incantation began altering the natural environment, though the Ryton soldiers remained focused on the great dragon above, oblivious to the changes around them.

"What is this?!"

They suddenly felt their infantry vehicles shaking, and by the time they looked down in alarm, it was too late.

The solid, quiescent earth erupted in a towering rage, jagged stone spires thrusting forth and impaling many unlucky vehicles and mana cannons, detonating them.

The ensuing quake left the Ryton troops struggling to keep their footing, many falling to the ground.

Seizing the advantage, Arnold gathered more mana into his claws, ominous dark oscillations rippling outward into fading voids, then bursting into a cascading hail of obsidian meteors.

Draconic spell: Dark Novae!

One by one, the elementally-charged obsidian stars of despair and dread rained down upon Hessman's vanguard. Facing such a high-tier aerial assault alone, Ryton's men had no means to retaliate except fleeing on their commander's fearless orders.

BOOM! BOOM!

Each impact of the fell meteors triggered thunderous detonations, the terrible miasma of corrupted darkness oozing outward in vile black ichor.

Witnessing this from his command vehicle, Hessman urgently called for scouting griffins.

Soon, he received a report:

"General Hessman, the golden dragon unleashed its expected air strike, but instead of focusing lethality, it used draconic spells to destroy our path - jagged earth spires now block our advance and the escape route of the dragon kin. The localized quakes also felled many trees across the remaining passes."

"What narrow trails remain are poisoned by the Dark Novae's residue, saturated with toxic, virulent spell waste. Any soldiers without protective gear entering will slowly lose bodily function, ultimately weakened to die of the corruption."

Hessman slammed a fist in frustration. "The terrain here is too confined! Pushing our forces too quickly has split the army's vanguard from its rear, leaving us unable to concentrate effective fire on that golden dragon!"

He shook his head, abandoning his plan to force a wedge. "Pull back the infantry and vehicles, regroup and rest. Have the artilleries establish firing lines to bombard those fleeing dragon kin from the griffins' reconnaissance."

Seeing the snaking human army grind to a halt, stymied by the obstacles he created, Arnold finally set his mind at ease.

"This should prevent total annihilation."

He let out a relieved breath.

The infantry vehicles advanced too quickly, their excellent cross-country mobility far outpacing the fleeing dragon kin on foot.

Had they been overtaken, Arnold and Old Flame would have been entangled by the combined griffin air squadrons and remaining battle dragons, unable to assist the ground forces. The fewer than ten thousand exhausted, under-equipped dragon kin would have been no match for Ryton's emboldened troops.

Annihilation would have been inevitable, at best a few dozen or hundred escaping.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

So he had to leverage the environment to impede the enemy.

"Hopefully they can escape now, and the human bombardment goes astray," Arnold inwardly prayed before being set upon by several squadrons of griffin knights.

...

On the other side, Old Flame had a relatively easier time, facing almost no aerial interception.

The Ryton men were not like Raphael - they needed to rest and rotate after a day's battle, most griffins had already expended themselves. Those still fighting had been swapped in, almost all dispatched to engage the two battle drakes Arnold had slain.

Old Flame slowly glided his outstretched four wings high over the Andalos Corps, his draconic silhouette languidly eclipsing the ground below, like in human fantastical novels depicting a true dragon.

Soon the anti-air batteries sent their "greetings" - thunderbolt after thunderbolt streaking up to form a dense web of lightning.

"The old tricks again," Old Flame made no attempt to evade, extending a talon that rapidly radiated a rippling flare, the lightning bolts below immediately emitting smoke upon contact.

When the wind cleared the haze, the ordnance had been stripped of its electrical properties.

"Hm?" Old Flame was surprised to find these lightning shells had not lost momentum despite being denuded, still hurtling towards him at high speed!

He froze for a moment in shock as the anti-air barrage closed in, the sheer kinetic impacts as his aged softened scales buckled making him frowned with pain.

"Tsk—this is not magical force, humans are using another system!"

Old Flame realized his prized draconic spells could negate elemental properties of any matter they touched, including himself.

But uranium-derived kinetics were neither magic nor elemental - they could not be nullified.

"Target hit!" The ground batteries reported to Andalos.

"Excellent, maintain high rate of fire, prevent interference with the mana artillery lines."

Andalos continued issuing orders, "We must maximize attrition on those fleeing dragon kin!"

Old Flame quickly experienced the meaning of unrelenting, overlapping barrages - the sustained, dense hail of anti-air fire forced him to repeatedly purge elemental properties, but the residual kinetic impacts took their toll.

"An old bone like me still has to wade through this?!" Old Flame cursed himself, twisting his aged body form in a futile attempt to evade, to little effect.

The torrential bombardment rapidly wrought its toll - Old Flame's flaccid scales shattered and sloughed off, blood slowly seeping out.

After haphazardly lobbing a few fireballs down, he quickly fled the area.

"Raphael will understand, after all what can a two thousand-year-old dragon do? The vigor and passion were burnt out a millennium ago."

Old Flame consoled himself as he retreated - the raging red dragon bloodline's influence had long since faded within him. Being wounded by the "lesser race" of humans did not ignite inner fury, only excuses to flee.

Self-preservation came first!

Andalos smiled watching the draconic silhouette retreat powerlessly into the night.

"So this is the vaunted dragon race, riding on their ancestors' glory like the Natterians, stubbornly clinging to vast fertile lands when their might has long since waned."

His aide quickly cautioned, "Careful your words, sir. We are still subordinate to the Empire."

"Hmph." Andalos casually picked up a fallen dragon scale, a dull coin still clinging to it.

"I'd say the Empire treats us as dogs and cannon fodder. Whenever the Kingdom tries to develop any industries, it gets immediately suppressed and absorbed by certain merchant cabals. Where else on Mu do you think those cabals originate?"

The aide fell silent.

Andalos brushed the ash off the scale and coin, pocketing them. "You and I are Rytons, raised under the glory of the House of Wittelsbach. Watching our countrymen grow up eating the inferior rations imported by foreign merchants, shouldering the triple threats of dragons, exiles and orcs for the Empire, dying in constant border skirmishes - were we born to live like this?"

He grew more impassioned, removing his gauntlet to expose his unsullied fingers.

"Look at this - see how our industries have been stifled? The mines across the land are all controlled by foreign merchants. They hire us Rytons at the lowest wages to excavate mana ores, only to take them back and mark up the processed goods by hundreds of times! As a major general, I'd need ten years' salary just to buy a single ring of spatial storage - can you imagine its raw materials came from the mines near my own home?"

"So this time we must enter Oakenburg faster than the Natterians. When the time comes, we must adopt a hard stance to prevent them from entering the city. This is the first step we must take."

The aide cautiously said, "But this first step is still some distance from completion. We need the Empire to transport supplies by water route, our corps' uranium reserves are running somewhat low at the moment."

Andalos stated dispassionately, "Never mind that, focus all firepower on the escape routes of the dragons' minions!"

...

As dusk deepened, Raphael could feel his eight opponents flagging, no longer casually unleashing spells above the 6th circle as freely as drinking water. Lightning bolts became their main offense, even resorting to paltry mana arrows.

He himself fared little better, his radiant breath waning as his physical wings gradually weakened, requiring full magical augmentation to fly.

"I think we can probably withdraw…"

Raphael tried shifting slightly towards Pillar Mountain, but the Ryton dragons showed no intention of closing in, simply lobbing a few auric shafts as a token effort.

One battered battle dragon spoke up softly, "Captain, it seems the evil dragon is retreating. Our mission was to prevent it from attacking the ground corps, not stop it from going home."

This immediately resonated with the others, who all clamored to return as well.

Battling Raphael required their full concentration, minds and bodies operating at overload - even dragons could not withstand such strain indefinitely.

The captain had long wanted to flee, but without orders to withdraw, he could not properly disengage.

"Maintain this distance, harass it with random spells," he commanded.

Soon the aerial battle devolved into a desultory exchange, Raphael and the Ryton dragons steadily increasing the gap while launching halfhearted attacks, accuracy plummeting compared to the initial engagement.

Both sides tacitly offered each other a path to disengage. Gradually their foes' silhouettes faded into the night, neither side claiming victory or defeat.

"Whew! Homeward!" Raphael could finally relax.

He looked around - previously focused on the high-altitude clash, he had paid no heed to his surroundings. Now under the empty night sky, not even a bird flew, only a distant glimmer of white-stone lamps from a passing griffin squadron.

The ground was utterly ravaged, primal nature and man-made destructive weapons blending into a dismal battlefield. The darkness obscured revolting details, but did not prevent one from imagining the cruelty within.

Raphael wearily flew back to Pillar Mountain, entering through the main cavern mouth.

Everywhere dragon kin and goblins toiled by torchlight, frantically reinforcing the fortress. Humans and other vassals from the old domains crowded every nook of the mountain, the cacophony setting the red dragon's head ringing.

He glided slowly through the bustling tunnels into the newly expanded inner structures.

Arnold and Old Flame were resting in the central plaza constructed for dragons. Milmos and a host of draconic functionaries had set up a command post in a corner for easy access.

Upon Raphael's return, the dragon kin paused their work and flocked over, but the red dragon ignored them, flying directly to plop down beside Arnold and using his rump as a pillow, sinking his head deep to shut his golden eyes.

"Master, as much as I wish to consider your need for rest, you must apprise yourself of our current situation and make decisions accordingly," Milmos said, unfurling his slender claws as Evelina and Garry held stacks of parchment reports.

"Speak…" Raphael's muffled thunderous voice came without opening his eyes.

"First, our losses on the northern and southern fronts," Milmos took some scrolls from Garry. "One hundred hammer drakes killed, one thousand three hundred combat ineffective and requiring massive meat rations. Two hundred twenty-one blood wyverns killed, three hundred sixty severely wounded - including prior losses, only around two thousand remain battle-ready."

"Casualties among the kobolds are over nineteen hundred. Excluding logistics, barely two thousand remain able to fight. Yet we must garrison both Pillar Mountain and the southern suburbs - dividing forces equally leaves only a path to doom."

Raphael listened silently, then slowly extracted a communication orb from his spatial ring, holding it in his claw. He initiated a long-range transmission to Alvis.