Defeating the World with the Power of One Dragon!

As the first rays of morning pierced the horizon, golden-red dawn light splashed freely across the vast, boundless land still carrying the slight chill of night dew.

At this break of dawn, Garoth concluded his all-night training session.

He slowly withdrew his stance, his chest rising and falling like a massive bellows, then let out a long, deep breath of intensely scorching air that lingered for a long time.

Immediately after, he turned his head toward the young Gold Dragon on the other side.

After a brief earlier respite, Alberto was now gritting his teeth, enduring muscle-tearing soreness and extreme mental exhaustion, once again mimicking Garoth's fluid yet powerful movements from before, beginning another round of exercise.

His movements were somewhat stiff and clumsy, but showed no intention of stopping.

Was his competitive spirit really this intense? This was practically self-torture.

The Red Iron Dragon's gaze lingered on the young Gold Dragon's movements for a moment, a trace of surprise and amusement flashing through his mind.

He pondered briefly, then said, "That's enough, Alberto. I understand your competitive heart that refuses to fall behind others."

"But even the sharpest blade needs to be returned to the forge for maintenance. Appropriately giving yourself some breathing room, allowing your tired body and tense mind to recover slightly, is inherently harmless—it might even make subsequent training more efficient."

Hearing this, the young Gold Dragon Alberto's eyelids twitched violently.

Was it that he didn't want to rest?

He couldn't!

Alberto's golden tail drooped weakly, completely ignoring Garoth's advice as he continued his high-intensity training that nearly pushed his physical and mental limits to the extreme.

By the looks of it, he wouldn't stop until he had trained himself into complete collapse on the ground again.

Garoth stood silently, taking in Alberto's unusual reaction.

After several seconds of silence, he slowly spoke, "Alberto, it seems you've made yourself quite a peculiar vow?"

These words struck like a stone thrown into deep water, shattering the dam Alberto had been desperately maintaining.

The long-suppressed frustration with nowhere to vent and the heavy burden surged out like a bursting flood, the intense desire to confide almost overwhelming him.

While pressing his head against the ground, clumsily rolling his heavy body to imitate Garoth's neck exercises,

he intermittently explained in a numb, exhausted voice:

"Yes... Garoth... I was momentarily carried away by passion... and made a vow... with strict content... and severe consequences for breaking it."

"Oh?"

Garoth's tone lifted slightly, revealing some curiosity, his eyes sparkling with interest.

"What exactly is the vow?"

Tell me so I can have a good laugh... Garoth only silently muttered the second half in his mind.

According to abundant records in ancient inherited memories, examples of Saint-Dragons making bizarre vows in moments of impulse, then becoming deeply entangled and overwhelmed by them, were simply too numerous to count.

Alberto's current miserable, self-inflicted suffering was a prime example right before his eyes.

Garoth's curiosity was ignited—he wanted to know what kind of vow could drive a proud Gold Dragon to such a state.

"Sigh..."

Alberto let out a long, heavy sigh filled with regret and helplessness.

He lifted his eyelids, his golden pupils carrying complex emotions as he repeatedly glanced at the Red Iron Dragon beside him, his lips trembling as words reached his throat only to be forcibly swallowed back.

He wanted to speak but stopped, stopped but wanted to speak again, as if an intense internal struggle was raging within him.

After such repeated hesitation and torment for a full seven or eight seconds,

finally, under Garoth's silently encouraging gaze, Alberto finally dropped his last psychological defenses.

"It's like this..."

He began to explain, his voice broken by the difficult exercise movements.

Soon, listening to Alberto's words, a flash of understanding appeared in Garoth's eyes, followed by sudden realization.

"So that's how it is."

He nodded slightly, his tone carrying a hint of strangeness and interest: "The vow's content actually involves me."

It turned out that after encountering Garoth and being defeated by a dragon of lower level, Alberto simply couldn't accept the reality of being beaten by a Young Adult dragon.

Driven by intense frustration and wounded pride, he had made a vow in the heat of the moment to definitely defeat Garoth.

During the vow's effective period—that is, before defeating Garoth—he must completely abandon all entertainment and leisure, wholeheartedly and unreservedly devote himself to training his strength and tempering his will.

More seriously, the vow stipulated: if he broke this vow, he would be reincarnated as the lowest-level White Dragon in his next life.

"I can see."

Garoth's voice sounded quite considerate as he said, "This vow is currently causing you great distress and suffering."

He paused briefly before proposing, "How about this? Challenge me to a new fight right now, and I'll intentionally hold back a bit during the battle to let you win. That way, your vow condition would be satisfied, right? It might help you end this vow."

However, the Gold Dragon shook his head, his movements somewhat slow from exhaustion.

He gasped, "No, there's a key phrase in my vow—until I become stronger than you, indisputably stronger."

"Indisputably—"

He emphasized these four words, saying, "—This means that so-called victories relying on an opponent's pity, charity, intentional holding back, or any opportunistic methods are invalid, all blasphemy against the vow."

"I must defeat you completely in a fair, honorable, straightforward confrontation without any external interference or favoritism, relying on absolute strength, for it to count."

Then you probably have no chance.

Garoth calmly assessed in his mind.

The essence of his adaptive evolution talent was a long staircase leading to ultimate power—theoretically, the later stages would see accumulated advantages growing exponentially, eventually forming an insurmountable gap.

Right now, while he was in his Young Adult phase, Alberto couldn't defeat him.

As time passed and Garoth repeatedly broke through life shackles, repeatedly completed adaptive evolutions, the gap between them would only grow larger, victory becoming increasingly distant and unattainable for Alberto.

But for now, Garoth felt the Gold Dragon's self-pressuring behavior seemed somewhat excessive. What exactly were the vow's specific wordings that bound him so tightly?

Driven by intense curiosity, Garoth demanded that the Gold Dragon recite the vow to him verbatim.

At this point, Alberto understood that hiding was meaningless and would only make him appear more embarrassed.

With a kind of "the worst has already happened" frankness, he no longer hesitated and openly told Garoth the vow content that bound him, word by word.

[Before completely surpassing—Red Iron Dragon Garoth Ignas.

Refuse all entertainment and leisure, no longer allow myself any meaningless rest or laziness, tirelessly day and night, exhaust all efforts to hone claws and fangs, temper scales, and forge will and strength.

Until becoming stronger than Garoth, indisputably stronger.]

Alberto's voice was filled with melancholy: "The vow I made was too strict. Aside from defeating you, I've practically cut off all my escape routes."

The Red Iron Dragon didn't respond immediately.

His massive head lowered slightly as he pondered.

In his eyes, Alberto's vow that seemed to trap him in a dead end was actually full of loopholes, far from being as impregnable as he imagined.

First, the core penalty for breaking the vow—reincarnating as a White Dragon? This was practically a huge joke.

Given the Platinum Dragon God Bahamut's biased favor and expectations toward the Gold Dragon race, how could he possibly stand by and watch his most favored darling, symbolizing justice and order, fall into the evil camp because of an impulsive vow, and as the lowest, most ignorant White Dragon at that?

This penalty clause, in Garoth's view:

Its binding force was infinitely close to zero; it was more Alberto's own intensely distorted self-esteem and unsullied pride at work, scaring himself.

As for what Alberto considered strict, Garoth saw it as full of exploitable gaps.

[Refuse all entertainment, do not allow meaningless rest and laziness]

—What constitutes entertainment?

If an activity objectively significantly enhances combat skills, tactical literacy, and real-time reaction ability, while subjectively also allowing tense nerves to relax and feel pleasure, can it still be simply defined as entertainment?

—What is meaningless?

Planned rest can greatly restore physical strength, repair hidden injuries, improve efficiency and quality of subsequent training, and accumulate strength for higher-intensity training—how can this be roughly classified as meaningless?

Then there's the requirement for complete surpassing.

Does this only refer to physical strength and combat skills?

Shouldn't wisdom, strategy, depth of understanding of the world, even charisma also be included? The vow's original intent should be comprehensive surpassing.

Therefore, reading knowledge texts (increasing wisdom), socializing with powerful beings (understanding the world, enhancing influence), appreciating art (cultivating mind, enhancing charisma), even sunbathing to maintain dragon scales (enhancing charisma)—these behaviors aren't meaningless and completely fit the vow's major premise.

"Vows ultimately stem from inner power, arising from the heart, bound by intent."

Garoth's gaze fell on the Gold Dragon as he calmly contemplated.

"Strictly speaking, the final interpretive authority over the boundary between entertainment and meaningful activities actually lies firmly within the vow-maker Alberto's own heart."

As long as Alberto could truly convince himself from the bottom of his heart that certain degrees of rest, certain purposeful entertainments, were also indispensable parts of his training plan,

he could actually cleverly avoid the vow's constraints.

Of course, that purely aimless sleeping or spacing out just to pass time definitely wouldn't work.

That would be self-deception, something even the vow-maker couldn't convince himself of.

The key was that Alberto needed to find those logically consistent, reasonable explanations and behavior patterns that he could genuinely accept internally without any self-doubt.

"So, the question arises."

Garoth extended his hard-scaled claw, gently stroking his sharply defined jawline as he weighed things in his mind.

"Should I enlighten this Gold Dragon who's clearly gotten himself stuck in a dead end, help him analyze these backdoors in his vow, and assist him in escaping his current dire predicament?"

Just then, the Gold Dragon let out another heavy gasp, his massive body finally unable to support itself as he collapsed to the ground with a thud, too exhausted to even move the tip of his tail.

"Alberto."

Garoth looked at his condition and stated calmly,

"Wanting to completely resolve your vow-induced predicament through the path of directly defeating me is itself a nearly impossible task—its difficulty is probably a hundred times greater than you imagine."

However, the exhausted Gold Dragon clearly didn't think so.

He barely lifted his heavy head, gasping for breath, and said, "No, I still have a chance. When I complete my youth phase hibernation and welcome that leap in life essence and transformation, at that time, I'll have a high probability of being able to defeat you in a fair fight!"

Alberto pinned his hopes on his next most crucial transformation node—the youth phase hibernation.

He firmly believed that as long as he could enter and complete this hibernation earlier than Garoth, obtaining the leap in life level, he could rely on the absolute advantage of life level to completely turn the tables and defeat Garoth.

Garoth privately dismissed this notion.

Alberto was currently around sixty years old, and youth phase hibernation, according to normal dragon growth patterns, typically begins around eighty years old.

Even with diligent training that might advance the hibernation period, it would be extremely difficult to start before seventy.

Meanwhile, Garoth himself would certainly soon begin his Young Adult hibernation, entering the youth phase.

By then, when Alberto awoke from his youth phase hibernation, Garoth's life level would likely have already increased.

The gap between them wouldn't narrow as Alberto fantasized, but would instead likely become even more unbridgeable due to the continuous effect of Garoth's talent.

"Since you believe so firmly."

The Red Iron Dragon's mouth curved slightly upward as he made his decision: "Then I'll wait and see."

He suppressed his original intention of guiding Alberto on how to exploit loopholes in his vow.

Since Alberto had his own ideas, Garoth decided to respect his choice and let him use his own methods to crash into the southern wall he was determined to hit.

Although the Gold Dragon's training intensity was indeed ridiculously high, given the Gold Dragon's robust physical constitution, it wasn't completely unbearable.

At most, he'd just lack normal leisure time and live an exceptionally arduous life.

Moreover... Garoth calculated in his mind.

If they encountered any troublesome strong enemies in the perilous wilderness in the future, he could just pull along this straightforward and quite capable Gold Dragon to serve as a reliable shield.

The stronger Alberto trained now, the more useful he'd be later.

He seemed quite capable of enduring hardship, so let him suffer a bit more.

"By the way."

Taking advantage of this rare rest moment, Alberto caught his breath slightly and remembered something, asking, "On the way to these convergence lands, I noticed your followers were busily preparing for battle. Are you planning to venture deep into the wilderness?"

Garoth slowly nodded, his black eyes gazing toward the distant undulating mountain ranges.

He said in a deep voice, "Yes, I plan to first establish a firm foothold in the border regions of the wilderness."

"Then you should be careful." The Gold Dragon reminded him in a serious tone.