Chapter 396: The Remade Dragons

Esteban's cannons struck the place Aurelian had indicated. Mountains, trees, and streams alike were leveled in an instant. The blast bored through dozens of meters of earth, shattering the crust and exposing what lay beneath.

What remained was a charred wasteland of torn, perforated flesh clinging stubbornly to the fractured rock. The only reason the ground had not collapsed entirely was because veins of sinew and root-like growths bound the soil together.

Beneath the surface, the hollow underground caverns had long since been filled with flesh—not the bright crimson of living tissue, but a strange pallor that stretched and braced the hollowed spaces to form a grotesque yet coherent structure.

The beating of wings rose from the ruptured opening. From the subterranean vaults, dragons emerged, twisted beyond recognition.

Shreds of gore clung to wings not yet fully formed. Their scales were uneven, their hides mottled and raw. Tumorous flesh had grown over their eye sockets, as if a blindfold of living meat had been sewn across their faces. How such aberrations perceived the world was unknowable.

"These dragons are dead," Aurelian said coldly from Esteban's deck. "What still moves is nothing but husks, hollowed out and stuffed with... something else."

The flesh propping up these caverns below had been torn from her own kin, harvested to serve as scaffolding for this grotesque hive.

The infernal lord nodded. "Then we'll keep firing. Your allies from the material plane are already on their way. I have no intention of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them—so end these wretches quickly."

To the infernal lord, this could hardly be considered tragedy. Demons lived and died by slaughter; a lost hand or slain companion were trifles. These dragons were long dead. What remained were enemies, nothing more.

Again Esteban's cannon spewed out ruin. A river of molten energy lashed toward the malformed dragons.

"Hm?"

Then, the infernal lord gave a low murmur of surprise. The blast widened the fissure, collapsing more of the unstable ground and revealing deeper chambers—yet not a single altered dragon was struck.

The creatures had moved. At the instant the cannons reached a critical charge, they had made their move. Light flared along their diaphanous membranes. Their warped pinions shimmered with wizardry.

The next heartbeat, they were gone, their bodies dissolving into streaks of light. They had slipped through space, evading the cannon fire as if forewarned.

"Keen senses for energy, swift beyond reckoning..." The infernal lord's voice grew grave. "Your kin have been turned into weapons of war. That abyssal creature has reshaped them for battle."

Though these mutated dragons had displayed little of their prowess, the infernal lord was an experienced master strategist. One blow had been enough for him to deduce much about their capabilities.

"Its main body has yet to appear. I must stall until it does so. By our compact, you must hold out until then."

Aurelian said little, her gaze fixed on the widening chasm. The deeper layers glistened with yet more flesh that supported the ruptured earth. She knew what she saw.

The abyssal beast Milos was forging a body for itself. Below was its workshop, its crucible. All was wrought entirely of the dragonflesh of the inhabitants of the Isle of Dragons. What scraps remained were poured into making these mutated dragons.

Soon, they revealed their strength. Their power had only grown stronger. Melos knew dragons too well. Its alterations were brutal but effective—true enhancements, even if the dragons' minds were scoured away and only their bodies remained.

One dragon bellowed. But instead of unleashing its breath, the flame condensed, layering itself upon its body in a shell of molten crimson.

It became a suit of translucent armor that radiated searing heat. Then, it dove toward Esteban like a living meteor.

Swarming around the warship were flocks of infernal firebats, deployed to shield its flanks. The armored dragon crashed into them, igniting a chain of explosions as it plowed through the living barricade.

𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Fire and flesh burst apart, but its armor held. Its flames incinerated all barriers as it carved its way forward.

The swarm of infernal firebats barely managed only to sap the momentum of the charging dragon. Its advance faltered, leaving it stranded amid the throng before it could hurl itself against the warship Esteban.

But the beast did not hesitate. With a savage heave of its talons, it detonated the shell of condensed scarlet flame cladding its body. The eruption tore outward in a devastating shockwave, clearing a great swath of firebats in an instant.

A storm of black beams seared through the smoke. They were the anionic rays of mindflayers hidden among the swarms, mounted as steeds by the spell devourers.

Dense volleys of withering energy lanced into the remade dragon, their gray-black brilliance piercing flesh and corroding bone with pitiless precision.

The dragon uttered no cry. Riddled by a hundred beams, it plunged from the heavens. The onslaught had reached a critical threshold: no body, however grotesquely remade, could endure such concentrated annihilation.

But it was only one among many.

The Isle of Dragons had once boasted ten thousand dragons. About five thousand possessed actual combat ability. Then, after the heretics' and Milos' assault, only two thousand combat-ready dragons remained.

More and more of these remade dragons now poured forth from underground fissures. Over a thousand had emerged, each stronger in death than in life. Without exception, they hurled themselves at the infernal dreadnought.

The tumult of battle shook the sky. The remade dragons, fearless and relentless, assailed the invading legions with all their fury. Dragonfire tore open the heavens in ceaseless torrents. Dazzling brilliance covered the firmament until the world itself seemed drowned in light.

Between the rivers of flame, others clad in shells of condensed energy turned their bodies into living weapons, executing kamikaze attacks at dense flocks of demons without hesitation.

Against such monsters, common demons were nothing but chaff. Dragonfire melted them into slag, dragon claws pulped them to paste, and every detonation scattered their sundered flesh like rain.

The dragons were like wolves among sheep. This was no war of attrition where many ants might gnaw an elephant to death. The dragons themselves were tearing the demonic ranks to ruin before the latter could encircle the former.

Dragonbreath cascaded toward Ishubonto. Most of it was intercepted by the outer swarms of firebats and flying demons, but some blasts tore through unscathed and continued toward their true mark.

At the instant of impact, a thick, translucent barrier flared around the warship. It deflected and diffused the dragonfire, siphoning its energy into intricate channels that fed back into the ship's inner workings.

Esteban unleashed not its main cannon but rather its side ones, their armored housings sliding open to unleash colossal beams. The searing lances raked the heavens in sustained barrages, forcing even the space-warping dragons to their limits.

Their sheer numbers gave the gunners little need for precision. By saturating whole swathes of the sky, they caught dragon after dragon in their net of destruction.

Yet the dragons pressed on. Dodging, weaving, and circling the massive beams, they strove to close in on Esteban. Between evasive maneuvers, they loosed spells—lightning spheres, torrents of flame—into the packed demon hosts. Even when struck down, their bodies shattered and tumbling from the heights, the dragons remained weapons even in death.

Yet this, too, was an opportunity for the demons. From Esteban's decks, armored warriors hurled themselves into the fray at their lord's command. Their broad wings beat the air as they dove, weapons enchanted with hellfire cleaving and striking against the dragons.

The battle was carnage. Neither side was holding anything back. Save for Esteban itself, which endured untouched behind its barriers, every kind of demon perished in droves, spending the last of their strength to bring ruin upon the dragons before their demise.

A volley of high-tier spells from a mindflayer and its rider shattered a dragon's wings and claw into mangled gore. Yet in the next breath, the maimed colossus hurled itself bodily into the enemy ranks, ripping the mindflayer and its mount apart before a tide of fireballs from the swarm engulfed it and blasted it into fragments.

A blackened greatsword, forged of infernal steel and burning with infernal fire, drove through another dragon's skull. Even with its brain seared away, the dragon continued to clutch the warrior close before it detonated. Both parties were reduced to ash in mid-air.

Such was the nature of this battle. One dragon might drag down a champion or slaughter scores of common demons before it fell. The clash seemed balanced, but in truth the scales tilted toward the dragons.

Ordinary demons were too frail. Their numbers could not make up for the gulf in power, and the high-tier demons numbered little more than a hundred. Esteban's barrages scythed through dragons but also caught vast swathes of demons in the same killing light.

The demons began to falter. Though the infernal gates spewed out fresh legions at breakneck speed, the rate of slaughter outpaced the reinforcements. The remade dragons pressed ever closer and began to encircle even the warship itself. Soon, even the titanic war-machine forged from an infernal lord's own body would be at risk.

The infernal lord's face darkened. Its power was not yet spent, but to summon more of its strength would sap at its dominion on the infernal plane.

"It has not emerged itself," Aurelian said coolly. "These dragons are a vanguard, nothing more."

She needed the pact to weigh upon her ally.

The infernal lord's projection grimaced. "When did I stoop to bargaining under such conditions? That dragon soul is precious, yes, but not worth..."

Its words were cut short. The battle had shifted.

From afar, ranks of alchemical constructs soared into the sky, a steel tide descending upon the battlefield. Their numbers rivaled the demons'. Skyborne City's mechanical legions had arrived.

A colossal shape crashed down: an iron titan, its weight shaking the land. Layered with countless upgrades, Iron King Bogul strode forth, each step a quake.

With the legions of Skyborne City entering the fray, the battle briefly turned in the demons' favor. Demon reinforcements meshed with alchemical constructs to suppress the dragons' fury.

Yet this was but a feint. The true enemy had not yet shown itself. Deep beneath the ruptured crust, hidden within a cocoon of dragon flesh, something stirred. The shell quivered, swelling as it nourished the birth of a monstrous body.