Starting out as a Dragon Slave
Chapter 167: Arc: The War of the Eastern Kingdoms - 167: The Legions of Ignivara

Chapter 167: Arc: The War of the Eastern Kingdoms Chapter 167: The Legions of Ignivara

Dawn broke laboriously over the devastated plains of eastern Paris, staining the horizon with a blood-red that seemed to foretell the massacres to come. Where once stretched the fertile fields of Brie, now remained only scorched, sterile lands, marked by the gaping scars of previous dimensional incursions. The air itself still carried the acrid scent of sulfur and raw magic.

The portals opened one by one in a tearing of space-time, their edges crackling with violet energy. Each opening released a wave of suffocating heat, laden with the metallic smell of the draconic world a mixture of red-hot iron and scaled flesh that caught in the throat.

On this wounded earth now deployed the most formidable of armies: the legions of Ignivara.

The house standard snapped in the cold morning wind - a fabric black as obsidian, embroidered with a crimson dragon with outspread wings, its ruby eyes seeming to fix each soldier with millennial authority. Around this banner, thousands of draconic warriors aligned in perfect formations, their black armor reflecting the first light of day like so many deadly mirrors.

At the center of this military tide, on a platform of metal forged in the flames of their native world, stood Varnor Ignivara. The patriarch of the house embodied the raw power of his lineage. His massive silhouette, nearly three meters tall in his humanoid form, was girded with black armor engraved with incandescent runes that pulsed to the rhythm of his dragon heart. His obsidian eyes swept over his troops with the cold assurance of a born predator, gauging each unit, evaluating their combat readiness.

To his right stood Syléane Ignivara, his eldest daughter and presumptive heir. Unlike her father’s imposing stature, she had chosen deadly grace over brute force. Her slender silhouette was molded in scarlet armor that perfectly embraced her forms while maintaining formidable efficiency. Her flaming red hair cascaded over her shoulders like a fall of lava, framing a face with chiseled features where emerald-green eyes shone. But this beauty was deceptive: each of her gestures betrayed the deadly precision of a seasoned warrior, and her claws, delicately filed, remained no less capable of slicing through steel.

The silence reigning over the plain was almost religious. Ten thousand draconic soldiers waited, motionless, for their lord to speak. Dragons in humanoid form, domesticated wyverns, chimeras with reinforced metal wings, contingents of war griffons - all fixed their patriarch with devotion mixed with respectful fear.

Varnor finally raised his black metal-gauntleted hand. The silence, already profound, seemed to intensify further.

- "Warriors of House Ignivara!" His voice rolled across the plain like distant thunder, carried by authority forged in a thousand battles. "King Maelor has entrusted us with the honor of bringing iron and fire to the heart of the human Orient. Today begins our march toward a territory our ancestors have coveted for centuries: the Middle Empire."

An imperceptible shiver ran through the ranks. China - that distant land of which draconic legends had spoken for millennia, populated by humans with ancestral combat techniques and hunters reputed among the most formidable in the world.

- "The humans of this nation believe themselves protected by their mountains and millennial traditions," Varnor continued, his voice hardening. "They think their martial arts and elite hunters will suffice to repel us as they have repelled so many invaders before us. They are wrong. We are not barbarians at the borders of their empire - we are the storm that consumes everything in its path!"

He paused, letting his words resonate in the morning air. When he resumed, his voice carried a more personal, more dangerous note:

- "This war will not be a triumphal stroll. Chinese hunters are organized, disciplined, and they think their mastery of qi rivals our draconic magic. They will defend every city, every village, every inch of their ancestral land with the ferocity of despair. But that is precisely what will make our victory so savory when we crush them. For when their last fortress falls, when their last hero lies in the dust, the entire world will finally understand an absolute truth: nothing resists eternally the power of Ignivara!"

This time, the silence was broken by a collective roar that made the earth itself tremble. Thousands of draconic voices rose in unison, a primitive cry that evoked the ancestral hunt and the thirst for conquest.

Syléane observed this demonstration of strength with satisfaction, but her experienced gaze already noted details her soldiers didn’t see: the tension in certain officers’ jaws, the particular gleam in the eyes of those who had already faced human hunters and kept stinging memories of it. This war would indeed not be an easy triumph.

Further away, isolated from the rest of the troops by an invisible circle of contempt and mistrust, a solitary figure observed the scene. Belgaroth Ignivara, once heir prince of the house, now a simple fallen captain, stood apart under a dark hood that poorly concealed the bitterness etched on his features.

His scales, once a flaming red that rivaled his sister’s, had lost their natural luster. Tarnished by shame and the humiliation of his defeat against Isaac Mordred, they had taken on a dull, almost grayish tint, as if life itself had deserted them. But in the depths of his golden eyes still glowed an ember of cold rage, patiently maintained for months.

He listened to every word of his father, his claws clenched so tightly in his palms that blood pearled between his fingers. Each acclaim from the crowd was a reminder of what he had lost, of the glory that was rightfully his and that a human - a mere human! - had torn from him in a battle whose humiliation still haunted him.

"This campaign will be their triumph, he thought bitterly, but it will be my redemption. And when I find Isaac Mordred again, when I finally hold his life between my claws, only then will the honor of the Ignivaras be washed in blood."

While Varnor continued his directives to the generals - attack coordinates, force disposition, siege strategies Belgaroth silently withdrew. His steps led him toward the rear of the army, where the most impressive war creatures were aligned.

The Ignivara army was indeed colossal, but it was its diversity that made it truly terrifying. Besides the thousands of draconic warriors in black armor, its ranks included dozens of dragons in their original form - monsters forty meters long whose scales were so thick they would rival the most modern human armor. Their eyes, large as shields, shone with ancient and cruel intelligence.

The combat wyvern squadrons constituted the aerial vanguard: smaller than their dragon cousins but infinitely more maneuverable, they carried draconic riders equipped with enchanted lances and magical projectiles. Alongside them flew assault chimeras, hybrid creatures with metal-reinforced wings, capable of carrying explosive charges or deploying clouds of toxic gas.

On the ground, infantry legions stretched as far as the eye could see. Each soldier wore standardized black armor but personalized according to their rank and specialty. Enchanted weapons gleamed with a dull light - swords capable of cutting human steel like parchment, lances whose points could pierce magical armor, war maces so heavy they required the supernatural strength of draconics to be wielded effectively.

But what struck observers most was the absolute discipline reigning in these ranks. Unlike the barbarian hordes humans sometimes imagined, the Ignivara army was a perfectly oiled war machine, where each soldier knew their place and role with military precision inherited from millennia of warrior tradition.

When the sun finally reached its zenith, bathing the plain in golden light that contrasted strangely with the martial atmosphere, Varnor gave the long-awaited order.

War mages stepped forward, their robes embroidered with symbols of power floating around them like living flames. They raised their runic staffs in unison, beginning an incantation in the ancestral draconic language - a guttural melody that made the air itself vibrate.

The dimensional portals then opened in all their terrifying magnificence. No longer the hasty tears of the beginning, but immense arches of purple and gold light, wide enough to let dragons pass in their original form. The energy escaping from them distorted the air, creating trembling mirages that gave the whole an almost hallucinatory aspect.

- "Soldiers of the Ignivaras!" thundered Varnor, his voice carried by magic to be heard to the last ranks. "We depart today to conquer an empire! We will return with its crown or we will not return! For Maelor! For Ignivara! For the eternal glory of our kind!"

The roar that rose then made all previous ones pale. Ten thousand draconic voices proclaimed their thirst for victory in an surge that made the portals themselves tremble. Then, with precision that testified to months of training, the legions began their march.

Dragons in original form launched first, their immense wings raising tornadoes of dust. They disappeared into the portals like gigantic shadows, followed by combat squadrons that darkened the sky with their tight formations.

Syléane approached her father, her gaze fixed on the main portal that pulsed before them like a giant heart.

- "Father," she murmured, "our scouts confirm total mobilization of Chinese forces. They await us."

Varnor smiled, revealing his sharp fangs.

- "Perfect. A prepared enemy offers more interesting combat than a lamb to slaughter. And when we have broken them despite their preparation, their despair will be all the more savory."

Syléane nodded, then also launched herself toward the portal. Just before crossing it, she turned one last time toward the devastated French lands. Something in her, a warrior’s instinct perhaps, whispered that this campaign would mark a turning point. That not all would return from this distant war.

But Ignivara pride was stronger than prudence. She disappeared into the purple light, carried toward an Orient that did not yet know what storm was descending upon it.

Belgaroth was among the last to cross the portal. He contemplated one last time this land where he had known defeat and humiliation, clenching his fists with glacial determination.

- "This time, Isaac Mordred," he murmured into the wind. "This time, you will not escape me."

He too launched himself into the blinding light, and the portals closed behind him in sudden and troubling silence. The desolate plains of eastern Paris regained their apparent calm, but the air itself still seemed to vibrate with the echo of draconic roars.

Far to the east, above mountains and oceans, the greatest army ever assembled by House Ignivara flew toward its destiny, carried by pride, thirst for conquest, and confidence that had not yet been tested against the hunters of the Middle Empire.

The War of the Eastern Kingdoms had just begun.