Defeating the World with the Power of One Dragon!

The biting wind carried down thick, feathery snow, transforming Dragon Valley into a silent world draped in silver-white.

The brass-silver dragon Deborah perched steadily on the Scorchsteel Fortress watchtower, her scales shimmering with a cold, beautiful light in the snow. The tiny faerie dragon Vira was there too, standing ready and listening intently.

"Vira, listen carefully." 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Deborah's voice pierced the wind and snow, carrying a hint of mischief as she asked, "A dwarf walks into a river that reaches his waist, but in the end he drowns. Why did that happen?"

Vira immediately stopped fluttering and hovered midair.

She propped her tiny claws under her chin, furrowed her brow, and thought hard.

After a few breaths, her eyes lit up and her body flipped an agile somersault in the air, announcing the answer in a crisp, cheerful voice.

"I know! Because he slipped and choked on water! Or... maybe there was a big fish in the river he woke up, and it bumped him unconscious because it was angry!"

Pleased with herself, she fanned her wings proudly.

Deborah blinked and the dragon-tip of her snout twitched as she corrected, "Vira, that's two answers."

"Don't be sneaky, think carefully and give me the single best answer."

She waggled one hooked claw in front of the faerie dragon.

Vira puffed out her tiny chest at once, put on a serious expression, and said, "One answer? No problem at all, clever Vira is not defeated!"

She cleared her throat and enunciated, "The dwarf was first knocked senseless by an angry big fish, then he slipped to the cold riverbed, so he drowned!"

She nodded with satisfaction as if the answer were flawless.

But what difference was there from before?

Deborah rolled her eyes inwardly, but seeing Vira's expression, she didn't scold her. Instead she sighed softly—she was used to the little faerie dragon's unpredictable train of thought.

"Is that right? Deborah, am I right?"

Vira demanded eagerly, nearly pressing her small body against Deborah's snout.

Deborah slowly shook her head, "No, Vira, the reason is quite simple—"

She paused, watching the faerie dragon prick up her ears before revealing the solution.

"Because dwarves are naturally short. Their height doesn't even reach another person's waist. A river up to someone's waist would already be deep enough to cover a dwarf's head."

Vira brightened with sudden comprehension, patting her small head. "Oh—! So that's it! The dwarf was just too short!"

She gave a crisp exclamation, which rewarded Deborah with plenty of emotional value.

Deborah was pleased by the faerie dragon's eureka reaction; the delight made her tail lightly sway, slicing a graceful arc through the air.

"Now it's your turn to ask."

she said.

Vira did not speak immediately.

Her little head seemed to undergo intense calculation; after a few seconds of contemplation she tossed out a question that sounded deceptively simple.

"Giants—we all know they're many, many times larger than normal humans, right? So, Deborah, if there existed a creature called a giant-dwarf..."

She drew out the last syllable, mischief twinkling in her eyes as she asked, "Would its size be bigger than normal people, or smaller?"

Deborah nodded without thinking, "Of course, a giant-dwarf would certainly be much larger than ordinary humans."

The words had barely left her mouth when a sudden heaviness dropped into her chest.

She had answered too quickly; now it felt wrong.

"Aha! Wrong, Deborah! You got it wrong this time!"

At Vira's triumphant cry, she spun around in excitement and laughed like a tiny silver bell, eager to declare victory.

Deborah's mistakes were indeed rare.

In the various riddles and brain teasers she played with Vira, the faerie dragon was usually the one who went away empty-clawed.

Still, Vira never tired of trying, and even a small victory left her ecstatic.

Fearing Deborah might change her mind or correct her, Vira immediately fired off the answer like a rapid volley.

"Giant-dwarf—see the name 'giant-dwarf'!"

"The key is the 'dwarf' part! It would be even shorter than a normal dwarf!"

She said this triumphantly, extending a tiny claw toward Deborah and curling a finger in victory, her face aglow with the thrill of success.

"Not bad, Vira. That was a tricky question; you've improved a lot."

Deborah praised.

She reached out a claw and scratched at a neck scale, producing a glittering gold coin in the snowlight, then tossed it into Vira's eager little claws.

That was the rule of their game.

If Deborah won, Vira didn't pay; if Vira won, she received a shining gold coin.

"A gold coin! Shiny gold coin!"

Vira hugged the heavy, sparkling treasure and emitted a delighted squeal, circling quickly around Deborah's massive form as her way of celebrating.

A moment later she carefully hid the coin in some secret loft of the Scorchsteel Fortress that belonged to her.

Soon she returned in high spirits to the watchtower, hands on hips, and proclaimed ambitiously to Deborah:

"Deborah! Just wait! I'm going to win all your riches, coin by coin! Vira the Great's treasury will rise!"

She was brimming with confidence.

"Fine, let's continue."

Deborah's expression turned serious and she adjusted her posture.

Her earlier slip had banished the last trace of distraction; when she focused fully on her area of expertise, Vira's chances of victory were slim.

"This time the question is: a white dragon—"

Deborah had only begun when her voice cut off harshly.

She seemed to sense something and abruptly stared toward the distant sky, her gaze penetrating the howling wind and snow.

On the horizon, a burning meteor trailed a long tail of light, tearing through the blizzard at terrifying speed toward Dragon Valley.

With every passing second, that figure grew clearer and more massive.

"It's Garoth!"

Deborah felt a flash of joy, quickly followed by intense unease.

She noticed the shocking, bone-deep wounds on the red iron dragon's body.

More alarming was the aura Garoth exuded—it was entirely unlike before.

It mixed frenzy, pain, and an indescribable evil.

"Whoa! Evil aura! So strong and so scary!"

Vira reacted more dramatically than Deborah, letting out a short cry before diving under Deborah's broad wing. She only dared to part the wing membrane a little and peek her head out.

"Is Garoth done pretending? Is he showing his true nature as a super evil dragon?!"

she cried.

The Lord of Molten Iron circled once in the high air, his colossal shadow casting a heavy gloom through the snow.

Then he snapped his battered wings closed and plunged downward. Amid the excited cheers of many followers, he crashed onto a clearing at the valley floor.

His thick tail lashed irritably from side to side, each strike gouging deep furrows into the frozen soil and sending spiderweb cracks scattering outward.

"Black oil! Gems! Flesh! Metal! Now! Immediately!"

Garoth inhaled the icy air and snarled in a hoarse voice, ordering his followers to present those things.

The followers, stirred by his oppressive, violent aura, sprang into action and prepared at full speed according to their king's command.

The werewolves rushed to the warehouse of black oil crystals, the kobolds sprinted to the icehouse to haul out large slabs of frozen meat, and the ogres quickly carried out the finest metal ingots.

Dragon Valley instantly fell into a tense, efficient flurry of activity.

At the same time, a faint tremor ran through the ground.

Deborah landed before Garoth and stared at him with mixed concern and doubt.

"What happened?"

Her voice was full of worry, her gaze locked on Garoth's terrible wounds. "Garoth, your injuries are so severe they alarm me."

Though the potent evil aura around him made her uneasy, her immediate focus was on those awful wounds.

Without hesitation, Deborah produced an exquisite mithril box containing more than a dozen thumb-sized crystals that looked like solidified blood-diamonds.

They were Saint-Dragon potions made by the silver dragon father Edri—excellent remedies for treating grievous injuries.

Deborah dumped all the potions from the box at once, one after another, stuffing every single one into Garoth's slightly open, gargantuan jaw as he panted.

Her movements were so swift it seemed she were filling his mouth with ordinary pebbles rather than priceless elixirs.

When the last Saint-Dragon potion vanished into the red iron dragon's maw, a vast, gentle vitality exploded within him.

The wounds that bled hotly to the bone instantly stopped seeping blood.

Within the wounds, red flesh sprouted and wove together at a rate visible to the eye, stitching and stabilizing his condition and halting further deterioration. Repair began slowly but steadily.

Garoth felt a warm current sweep through his body.

The intense pain and weakness ebbed like a receding tide, and his agitation and violence lessened somewhat.

"The fierce dragon potion, quick dragon potion, wise dragon potion... I didn't use any of them in battle. How foolish."

Garoth's thoughts cleared a bit as he recalled the pre-battle preparations.

Silver dragon Edrian had also pursued potion-crafting and his levels must be considerable; his concoctions were extraordinary.

Thanks to Deborah's generosity, Garoth had accumulated a stash through her, which could have provided ten or twenty percent boosts in combat if used at the right time. He had planned to use them.

But at the start of battle he had not chosen the moment, intending to wait.

Instead, he was consumed by frenzied fire, which plunged him into a berserk, dim-witted fury, and he completely neglected those lifesaving potions.

"I'll tell you more later. For now I need to eat."

Garoth's voice was still hoarse but calmer.

By then the followers had brought the first batch of provisions.

Piles of concentrated black oil, gleaming magic gems, cut precious metals, pieces of just-thawed high-grade beast meat—starving and hollowed out, the Lord of Molten Iron wasted no words and began to gorge.

He was ravenous.

With near-mad speed, Garoth devoured the mountain of food like a whirlwind.

The followers held their breath and dared not move, watching the dwindling piles and redoubling their efforts to bring more, endlessly supplying to satisfy their lord's terrible appetite.

Deborah and Vira both recognized Garoth's urgent need to replenish energy.

They did not disturb him and together slipped aside to wait quietly.

Time passed in the howl of the blizzard and the sound of the red iron dragon chewing and swallowing.

Night deepened; under the black sky only wind and snow roared, but that natural fury could not drown the sound of the Lord of Molten Iron eating.

Unnoticed, an entire day slipped by.

When a second night fell over Dragon Valley, Garoth had consumed far more than his own body weight.

The dim Dragon Pearl at his core finally glowed again with a faint but steady light.

His once-parched, exhausted body had begun to fill out; muscles bulged beneath his scales like knotted cords.

Though far from peak condition—his vast energies still needed time to digest and assimilate—his state was worlds apart from the severely wounded figure that had arrived earlier.

"Trixie, and the other little ones, aren't in the valley?"

Garoth finally found the leisure to look around and noticed that aside from Deborah and Vira, White Dragon Trixie and the younger dragons were absent.

"Trixie took the little dragons for special training. She said only the harshest blizzards can truly temper the hardest dragon scales," Deborah replied.

"I've just been through a brutal battle."

Garoth's gaze returned to Deborah and he recounted, as concisely as possible, what had occurred in the wilderness.

He skimmed over the tribe's conquest and expansion.

He focused on discovering Gorthax's dangerous existence, setting the trap to encircle him, and the fierce final battle.

Deborah faced the red iron dragon who had slain his own father and stained himself with the blood of their kind. There was not a shred of fear in her eyes.

Instead, a deep pity welled up inside her.

Having known Garoth for decades, she understood that cruelty was not his nature.

Reaching the point of patricide had to have been a last resort.

Moreover, Deborah had not been ignorant of the rumors about the red dragon Gorthax; she knew of his terrifying danger.

Having such a monstrously evil father was a misfortune for Garoth.

Now that Garoth had ended him completely, preventing further harm to himself and other lives, it might be the better outcome.

Perhaps Garoth himself felt little emotional turmoil, but Deborah—sensitive and emotionally rich—tried to put herself in his place and feel what he had endured.

The suffocating weight that flooded her in that instant nearly took her breath away.

Garoth's world seemed shrouded in boundless malice with only rare warm lights.

At that moment, Deborah quietly resolved in her heart.

She would be one of those rare lights, the brightest beam among them; no matter whether wind, snow, or flame lay ahead, nothing would change her resolve.

"Garoth..."

The brass-silver dragon stepped forward and gently pressed her forehead against the scarred, still-hard giant head of the red iron dragon.

"I feel your heavy exhaustion."

she whispered. "It's over. It's all over now."

"This place is safe. There are no enemies you must face immediately, no battles you must go to."

"Sleep. Let your tense spirit rest. I will stay here and watch over you."

Vira poked her head from beneath Deborah's wing and vigorously nodded, loudly adding, "Me too! Vira will watch with Deborah!"

Hearing their steadfast, warm words, Garoth's nerves—taut like a drawn bow—finally relaxed. His agitation and violent edge diminished greatly.

In that rare calm, overwhelming sleepiness surged upon him.

The red iron dragon's eyelids grew heavier and drooped, his gaze losing focus.

He sank into a deep slumber.

It would not be the decades-long dragon sleep required for full life transformation, but to thoroughly heal his wounds and process the immense energy and lessons from battle, this sleep would last for months.

"Deborah, Vira..."

"During this time... I'll be counting on you."

Garoth's voice was drowsy as he forced a tired smile.

Then he flexed his wings, his massive body lifted and flew back to the Scorchsteel Fortress, returning to his chambers and closing his eyes slowly.

The energy he had just consumed would now be efficiently digested and absorbed.

Those wounds would ultimately become his Battle-Hardened Patterns, and scales once shattered would regrow thicker.

Undoubtedly, when he woke he would be stronger.

What does not kill Garoth will make him more powerful.

Deborah and Vira exchanged a glance and each saw seriousness in the other's eyes; the light-hearted spirit for games had long evaporated.

They rose into the sky and guarded the vicinity of Scorchsteel Fortress.

The valley's followers—whether the circling bipedal wyverns or the massive Earth Rampage Bears—also raised their full vigilance and stood ready to protect their sleeping lord.

Not long after, White Dragon Trixie returned with a group of young hatchlings from training.

Upon learning what had happened, she canceled the rest of the training plan, granted the little dragons a rare holiday, and then joined the guardian ranks to await the Lord of Molten Iron's awakening with the other dragons.