In a seemingly boundless stretch of flat and scorched earth, there were what appeared to be thousands upon thousands of individuals clashing and attacking one another. There were spears, swords, bolts of magic zipping by, there were all sorts of interactions going on.

If it were all to be summed up, it would be chaos.

In one edge there would be a man stabbing another with tears streaming down their cheeks while on another one might see a mad man hacking down individual after individual.

While that implied the groups were chaotic, this was not true for all.

"Make way! Magicians! Fire!" One of Bosque's company commander barked an order. This was the war at the border.

A thunderous explosion sounded out as a concentrated beam of solar energy charged out to meet the brunt of the enemy force.

"Go! Fire Bulwark!" On the opposite side, a Volcan five hundred man commander roared an order.

The squad of fire magicians immediately cast out their spell. They were waiting for this! A towering wall of fire magically came into being. It seemed capable of warding off all sorts of spells. This made it ideal because-!

The beam of light was flashing forward! It was powerful and blinding, the Volcan commander was caught off guard.

A new loud explosion rang the eardrums of those in the vicinity

"ROOOOARRR!!!!" But another loud noise soon took over. It was the chilling roar of a superior existence.

Pyre had bloodshot eyes after being forced to take such a powerful beam. His scales singed but this was only momentary. As he swept his gaze past the enemies, the armies on both side stopped. They were petrified by the dragon's might.

"The Bosque people sure are capable" The Bosque Kingdom had a weak military? That did seem to be true in terms of pure combat power. But it was evident that the money of the Bosque kingdom was simply being spent elsewhere.

Research.

With so many exotic plants found in Bosque, and the materials provided from some of their rich dungeons, developing various trump cards like the previous solar beam certainly seemed like a viable strategy. Though that seemed to be a spell more than anything. There were all sorts of viable research venues.

"It's too bad they'll need time" Mite volcan said from atop the head of the mighty dragon. Pyre agreed with this and laid down on the battlefield.

,m "All of you, wait a while" Mite said nonchalantly to his troops.

It was here when the smoke and debris from the collision dissipated. Only now did the reality they were facing hit the Bosque people.

"Dr- Dragon!!!" The soldiers and warriors of Bosque exclaimed in utter shock. Th- That was a dragon! The real deal!

Seeing his subordinates freak out, another company commander, the young and capable Cassis Flos frowned. There was a tinge of fear in his eyes which he barely managed to suppress.

"Retreat!" Cassis suddenly heard someone shout. He was shocked.

"What!?! Retreat!!?" The idea was ludicrous. This was the border of Bosque, if they retreated the Volcan army which they fended off at the border would encroach on their territory.

"Cassis, don't cause trouble!" A muscular woman came over and said upon a horse. She was wearing an impressive set of green silver armor.

"What do you mean!?!" They couldn't retreat, it made no sense to retreat!

"Cassis! You are young, don't try to die so soon, ok? That's a dragon! You think that just because they are not attacking they are weak?" The woman, Petra, was already in her 40s. She knew better than to throw her life away evidently.

But Cassis, he still felt unwilling.

At the top of the dragon stood a man, the emperor of Volcan. He stood there arrogantly looking down on them, the people of Bosque! No wait... his back was turned to them, the disregard! Cassis thought he could almost see a sneer!

"This is almost too easy, why didn't we do this from the start?" Mite asked with a satisfied expression. The recent failures were being washed away from both his mind and body. The fatigue his body had accumulated was now evidently gone and his mind was refreshed.

Though Cassis could not hear the words of Mite, he could see the indifference through the casual gestures. He could see this because he was an archer.

With much proficiency, Cassis reached for his bow. This was not any bow, but the War Thorn. This was one of Bosque's unique magical weapons.

The War Thorn. It appeared to be almost made entirely out of plants. Even the bow string was an elastic green vine.

"Cassis!" Petra was terrified after noticing his motions.

But the young man was concentrated. Even if they couldn't kill the dragon, they could kill the emperor whose back was not even turned towards their direction at the moment!

The War Thorn's string was pulled back, an arrow seemed to magically come into being. The arrow looked like a bloody red thorn. At its tip was a fluid. It was poison.

"No!" Petra however was not far away. She pounced on the young commander causing him to let go of his string.

The poisoned arrow darted across the sky before eventually reaching its target destination.

Mite heard a small clink.

The arrow struck the hot scales of Pyre who stopped mingling with Mite to look at the origin of this.. this pittance. Pyre's eyes glanced over Cassis with lethargy. He proposed going there but he wasn't really ever willing.

"If you are so resigned to life then I won't be polite" Unfortunately, he couldn't refuse their wish to court death. Pyre's piercing eyes narrowed before his large body stood off the ground.

His hot red wings expanded from their initial resting position. With a single flap, he took to the air and the Volcan army behind him now wore wide smiles on their face. They all looked at one another gleefully before following after the flying dragon.

"""Our blood burns with Vigor!"""" The volcan men exclaimed as they let out battle cries and charged forward. The march of the united men shook the earth. Not just that, the fiery and lively atmosphere heated up the atmosphere-

On second glance, that was just the fire from the dragon in the sky! Pyre did a fly by and rained down fire onto the fleeing Bosque men.

"ARRRGGH!!!!" The already tarnished earth was scorched a pitch black color. The lumps of what used to be humans could not be distinguished from the ground. A possible reason was that some were directly turned to ashes, however.

***

"So that's what happened?" Miller asked seriously. The injured Petra nodded.

Most of them didn't make it out. If it weren't for the sacrifices of many of her own capable subordinates, Petra might not have made it back with the news.

Brennan who was overhearing the conversation grit his teeth. Mite played a dastardly trick on them.

If they chose to attack they would be annihilated but if they didn't, they would be humiliated. This shame would be brought back to the citizens and morale as a whole would crumble.

If such rumors were to spread... there was no need to speculate about what would happen. Just the short period of hesitancy to attack Petra displayed caused many unsavory rumors on its own. If it wasn't obvious before, it was obvious now that the young emperor placed spies in the capital and other areas to spread rumors.

"Damn it!!!" Brennan was the most frustrated by these rumors. As petra had just stated, they were true!

"How much Bosque territory has been lost?" Samuel who was also in the nursing ward asked.

"They've taken the area well past Rift city" Miller informed Samuel who nodded. If he remembered correctly, that was the place where the famous Monte Auction house was usually held.

"What's the plan?" Brennan asked as he took a look at many beds of injured patients.

"Fighting a dragon is impossible" Samuel said. The few times he encountered any draconic creature in his adventuring career he was forced into a disadvantageous position and forced to flee or hide.

Now, he would be able to contend with those beings. But contending against some fake dragons was not a praiseworthy feat.

"How about we have another entity deal with the dragon?" Samuel said brainstorming.

"Another entity?" Duke Lansworth said with gleaming expectation.

"I know a dungeon" Samuel replied.

The others also knew of the dungeon he knew. Putting aside the matter of evacuating the civilians, would the dragon even enter the dungeon? No wait.. could they even fit in!?!

While the humans were trying to figure out what to do about this dragon, W was panicking.

'Should I support them on this or not?' This was not a simple matter. It was a dragon! If it was hostile to the dungeon it could definitely try to harm the dungeon core.

On the other hand, by not doing it he would be missing out on dragon scales and dragon meat which might help with equipment or potions. Heck, even the blood of a dragon would be great considering that it could be used to make great arrays.

He wanted to discuss this with Ed but...

'I can't reach Ed' The spiritual mark and transmission combo was in the end not as invincible as Ed and W thought it to be. Their communication outside the dungeon was cut off anyway.historical

This meant that W had to make a decision for himself right here and now.

"Won't the town be destroyed even if we evacuate the citizens? Will they tolerate that?" They settled the matter of getting the dragon in, but the citizens would not like to see their houses turned to ash.

"Recently there have been a lot of new shops too.." They might end up destroying many businesses. Luring the dragon was still an issue.

"Maybe we are in over our heads.." Samuel muttered.. Facing a dragon, they may as well surrender.