Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1049: Chapter 1048: In the Twilight and Cold Wind

Seeing Melita in such a hurry, Calador instinctively shouted from behind: "Your injuries..."

"I’m fine, after all, it’s just a short-distance flight," Melita flexed her wings and glanced back at the Red Dragon left behind, "I feel much better after removing those faulty neural enhancers, and the healing spell is quite effective—I’ll leave this place to you, I’m going to check on Noreta. By the way, which direction is she in exactly?"

Having known each other for many years, Calador understood Melita’s character; he knew he couldn’t deter her at this time. After confirming that her aura had indeed recovered significantly, he spoke with a trace of helplessness: "Take off from here and head directly south, to Industrial Heights No. 22. Most of that area has been flattened, with only one tower remaining. You should easily find traces of Noreta."

While listening, Melita unfolded her massive dragon wings, invisible Magic Power gathered, slowly lifting her enormous body: "Thanks, I’m off now—whether I find her or not, I’ll return within three hours!"

Accompanied by a sudden gust of wind, the blue dragon soared into the sky once more.

After leaving the temporary shelter, Melita immediately felt weakness and discomfort throughout her body. Pain radiated from several wounds that hadn’t fully healed. The pain was bearable, but the pervasive sense of weakness was excruciating. It felt like her muscles, bones, and organs were filled with lead, making every action require more effort than usual, and her body responded slower than before. After several minutes, Melita finally realized the source of this weakness.

It stemmed from her nervous system, which had grown accustomed to implants and enhancers over thousands of years.

Part of her power muscles had been removed, the neural enhancers near her spine were also taken out, and more than half of her implants had shut down or semi-shut down as the Omega System went offline. Only the basic reinforcement or health-assisting implants, which didn’t require networking, remained operational. Meanwhile... she hadn’t consumed any enhancers for quite some time.

"I thought I wasn’t very dependent on these things..." Melita felt the heaviness throughout her limbs and couldn’t help but murmur jokingly to herself, "After all, I’m still a dragon of Talronde..."

She raised her head and looked into the distance as the sky began to dim. The outline of Industrial Heights No. 22 already reflected clearly into her view—she felt some discomfort, a feeling that had persisted for a long time, troubling her since she woke up. Now she finally understood why this discomfort existed: In her view, she didn’t see the current time, directional indicators and coordinates, wind information, magic curves, or advertisements and communication windows popping up from the edges... nothing was there, not even basic filters. When she looked into the distance, she saw only the pure, untouched sky and land.

She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen such a clean and clear world... or perhaps she had never seen anything similar since her birth.

Even she felt so much inconvenience; how long would it take those deeply transformed comrades to adapt to this "empty" view?

Melita couldn’t help but feel some sentiment in her heart, and almost at the same time, her peripheral vision caught a flash of white—she almost missed it because her visual aid plugin could no longer automatically lock onto active/interesting information in her view, but when that figure was about to flick across the edge, she finally noticed it.

She finally understood why Noreta previously flying across the sky hadn’t noticed her—it turned out that it was so easy to make mistakes searching with only the naked eye after losing the aid of implants.

Melita swiftly lowered her altitude and dove toward the flash of white, and after confirming the white figure was still moving on the ground, she finally breathed a sigh of relief—Noreta was still alive, crouched among some ruins, busy digging for something with her head down.

"Noreta!" At a few hundred meters above ground, Melita hovered and shouted loudly toward the ground, "What are you doing here? Why didn’t you report back to the camp? Are you digging for something?"

"Melita?" The White Dragon, busy with her excavation, only then noticed the shadow appearing in the sky. She looked up in surprise at her hovering friend, "Why are you here? Is your body alright?!"

"I removed some damaged parts and treated my wounds with healing spells; it’s no longer a big issue," Melita said as she cautiously lowered her altitude, doing so very carefully because her nervous system and muscle groups were nowhere near as efficient as before, "What are you doing? You’re late for report time, the camp is worried about you."

"What? I’m late for report time?" Noreta seemed quite shocked, as if only now realizing the passage of time. She glanced at the massive sun already near the horizon, with surprise in her voice, "It’s gone by so fast... Sorry, my clock is inaccurate, my visual aids are shut down, I had no idea..."

"Alright, I encountered more or less the same problem..." Melita shook her head, then murmured to herself somewhat self-deprecatingly, "Leaving Omega System, even our sense of time goes awry... we were truly tended to meticulously by those automatic systems..."

As she spoke, she also noticed the large pit that Noreta had already dug—not to mention the many similar pits around, indicating that this White Dragon had been digging here for quite a long time: "Did you find anything? And why are you using your claws to dig? Where’s your spell?"

"I’m worried the spell’s power might collapse the structure below... let’s not talk about that, help me here, it’s just beneath—I’m sure I found the right spot this time," Noreta suddenly recalled what she was doing, pulling Melita to assist her without explanation, "Come on, come on, let’s dig together..."

Confused, Melita leaned in, muddled, helping Noreta move the broken metal sheets and heavy stones out of the pit. It wasn’t long before she heard her friend’s shout: "I’ve found it!"

"This is..." Melita watched in surprise as Noreta pushed her entire upper body into the depths of the newly excavated hole and carefully extracted something. Upon seeing the item, her expression changed slightly.

It was an elliptical container, its surface full of scars yet still intact. Inside the container lay quietly a single object.

A dragon egg—which, however, had already shattered, its interior substance had seeped out and solidified against the container’s inner walls like flesh.

Evidently, the intact outer container hadn’t been able to withstand the impact force.

"...It’s broken," Melita stated softly, her foot claws instinctively tensed as the steel beneath her foot was torn apart with a grating noise, "Noreta, this one’s already broken."

Noreta stared blankly at the container she’d excavated, and remained in a daze for two to three minutes before suddenly tossing the container aside and rushing toward the newly uncovered pit: "There must be some that aren’t broken! There are countless dragon eggs down here, surely there are some intact ones!"

Here?

Melita Ponia only then realized something belatedly. She looked up and saw a massive structure resembling a spiraling mountain standing quietly in the glow of the sunset, the pale golden sunlight illuminating its shell, which had melted and re-solidified. From the hideously deformed main structure, one could still vaguely distinguish the former landing platforms and transport pipelines.

She finally recognized it—this is the hatchery factory, the largest breeding facility near Agondale.

"Melita Ponia! What are you still standing there for?" White Dragon Noreta’s voice came from the depths of the hole. She raised her head, looking at the dazed blue dragon outside, her tone urging, "Come help me open this gate below—I hurt my claws, can’t move such a heavy thing... Speaking of which, why are these gates so sturdy..."

"There’s no way we two alone can dig it out," Noreta lifted her head and glanced at the size of the hatchery factory, then immediately shouted toward the entrance, "The storage area on the lower level of the hatchery factory is too large; even if we dig until tomorrow, we might not find the next isolation chamber. We should go back to find more dragons for help!"

The digging sounds in the depths of the cave finally stopped, and after a few seconds, Noreta slowly emerged from inside, with a hint of hesitation: "You’re right, but... there are limited people at the camp, Calador might not be able to send much help..."

"We’ll take this back," Melita Ponia cradled the dragon egg container placed on the ground with her forepaw—even though the egg inside was already broken, she was still very careful when picking it up, "Calador will understand. He’s a Red Dragon, and a very old Red Dragon... He understands the significance of dragon eggs better than other dragons."

...

In the temporary shelter, the Dragonkin gathered once again. After distributing the resources they had, they had to start discussing how to continue surviving in this ruin. Calador stood among his kin, listening to every member’s thoughts, yet couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.

Things were moving in a bad direction, he had anticipated but was powerless to change.

More and more dragons were exhibiting symptoms of Enhancer backlash, while others faced various physical issues due to implant failures, and nearly all of his kin were dealing with the huge "psychological void" left by the loss of the Omega network. Physical weakness, pain, and psychological instability were continuously undermining the will of all fellow dragons, gathering here had reduced them to a group of refugees in every sense.

But still... these are dragons.

Powerful dragons that once dominated the skies and the earth.

Calador knew that even without implants and enhancers, even without the Omega or automatic factories, these ailing dragons were still dragons, still some of the strongest beings in this world. In a way, without implants and enhancers, they reverted to the original state of Dragonkin, back to the "normal domain" in their evolutionary path. Yet... these words had no meaning now.

Survival plight was the pressing issue at hand.

In the midst of sighing, he suddenly thought of Melita Ponia and Noreta, who had left the camp a long time ago—how were they?

Just as Calador thought of this, he suddenly heard a gust of air from high above; he instinctively looked up, seeing two figures of blue and white approaching the camp from afar.

Melita Ponia and Noreta landed in the heart of the camp, and the kin around instinctively directed their gaze toward them. Noticing an unusual atmosphere at the scene, Melita first reverted to human form and then walked briskly toward Calador.

"Calador, what’s happening here again?" Melita Ponia couldn’t help but ask, "Is there another issue with work or resource distribution?"

"We’re discussing expanding the camp and recovering supplies from the collapsed rift area," a Black Dragon approached from the side, "but we’re short on tools and manpower—the ground is covered everywhere with layers of alloy and polymer plate, melted and solidified. We can’t just claw out a new camp..."

Melita listened to the other’s words, but her gaze moved across the camp, looking at the weary faces and injured bodies. Ultimately, what she saw was still the White Dragon Noreta standing on the open ground in dragon form, cautiously cradling a container with her forepaw.

"Why can’t we use claws?" Melita suddenly raised her voice a bit, staring at the previously speaking Black Dragon, then at Calador and the surrounding dragons, "Use your claws, your teeth, your breath, your magic, aren’t these powerful? The things that human beings on Loren Continent can do, what can Dragonkin here not accomplish—just because the environment is harsher?"

A nearby dragon opened its mouth, seemingly wanting to say something, but Melita didn’t give anyone the chance to speak. She strode directly to Noreta’s side, pointed at the item held by the other’s forepaw, and said loudly, "This is what we just dug up with our claws!"

"That’s..." Calador finally noticed what Noreta was holding, his eyes instinctively widening, "That’s from the hatchery factory..."

"It’s a dragon egg. We dug it up, and it’s already broken—but there are thousands upon thousands of dragon eggs in the hatchery factory, many storage rooms yet to be excavated; there are surely salvageable eggs," Melita quickly said, "This is what I want to say—we need help, no matter how many helpers, even one would do, to help us dig out those dragon eggs buried in the ruins. Who’s willing to go?"

The camp fell into a short silence, then finally slowly began to fill with deep discussions and commotion. One gaze after another fell on the container covered in scars and dust, on the broken dragon egg inside.

Melita looked at the owners of those gazes, finally seeing some spark and warmth in these gazes again. She raised her head, wanting to say more, but at that moment, she suddenly observed a bright arc streaking through the distant sky.

A burning meteor suddenly lit up the dusk, crashing toward the northwest direction of Agondale.