Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1050: Chapter 1049: Hope and Future

The meteor suddenly appeared in Melita Ponia’s field of vision, with its bright tail and scorching firelight, drawing a striking path across the dim twilight, like a sharp blade abruptly slicing open the sky of Talronde—it quickly vanished from everyone’s sight, slanting downward towards the distant land.

After a while, Melita Ponia saw a vague glow of firelight and dust rising near the horizon.

"Did you all see that!?" Melita Ponia reacted at this moment, widening her eyes and looking at Carladore and the other clansmen, "Was that... a meteor!?"

"Meteor?" Carladore said softly out of instinct, raising his head—many of the Dragonkin present also lifted their heads, then half of them quickly withdrew their gazes from the sky as if fearing impending punishment. However, the punishment did not arrive—gazing at the stars was no longer taboo on the Talronde Continent.

Carladore only managed to see a faint remnant of light disappearing on the skyline.

"That’s very strange... I’m not sure if it’s a meteor," Melita Ponia, still gazing into the distance, said hesitantly, "I’ve only accidentally seen meteors a few times, but just now... it seemed slower than the meteors I’ve seen, with long flames and smoke..."

Carladore withdrew his gaze from the horizon, his eyes returning to the container in front of Nuoletta, and continued the prior conversation before focusing on the fading starglow at the horizon, "We need to rescue those dragon eggs—those with lighter injuries, still capable of flying, step forward."

Melita Ponia looked around, and before her gaze had scanned the entire crowd, one figure after another stepped out from the Dragon Herd.

"I still think using claws to dig through polymer molten piles and alloy barriers isn’t a great idea," the Black Dragon not far from Melita Ponia shook its head, "but count me in—the Black Dragon at least has more strength."

Carladore nodded: "Alright, then we’ll first..."

Before the Red Dragon could finish his sentence, the sound of dragon wings stirring the air suddenly resonated from the sky, Melita Ponia instinctively followed the sound and saw a massive and elderly dragon extending its wings, descending slowly from the sky.

It was a Black Dragon, but due to being extremely aged, its scales had almost turned gray-white, and traces of implant modifications were scattered all over its body; from the head to the tail, almost every inch of its scales had metal-glossed components—at this moment, many of those implants had gone dark and halted, and many parts were obviously dismantled halfway, making the ancient dragon look like a relic out of a museum, worn, ancient, majestic, yet scarred.

The moment the Black Dragon landed from the sky, nearly all Dragons present lowered their heads, including Melita Ponia—she recognized the Black Dragon’s identity, it was Duke More, a grand elder of the Senate. Although the Five Kings Council and the Senate function independently, Melita Ponia had seldom interacted with members of the Senate, yet at this moment, the land of Talronde Dukedom no longer distinguished between the Senate and the Five Kings Council, a surviving Ancient Titan is an unparalleled treasure.

"Elder Duke More," Red Dragon Carladore immediately stepped forward, "Why are you here? Your implant surgery is not yet completed; these components must be dismantled quickly..."

"I’m alright—the advantage of primitive implants is even being disconnected from the Omega System, their basic life functions can still operate normally," Elder Duke More slowly said with a slightly hoarse voice, "Did you see something fall from the sky? It fell northwest of the camp..."

"I saw it!" Melita Ponia quickly said, "It seemed like a meteor!"

"Meteor?" Duke More lowered his head, the giant gray eyes along with a mechanical prosthetic eye staring at Melita Ponia, "No, that’s not a meteor... I received an ancient navigational signal, our leader has returned..."

He then disregarded Melita Ponia and the surrounding Dragonkin’s astonished and puzzled expressions, directly turned to Carladore: "I need a couple of assistants to go with me to investigate the crash site."

Melita Ponia blinked, although she was still unclear about the situation, she knew Elder Duke More’s appearance must be of utmost importance, she glanced at Nuoletta standing nearby and her fellow kin preparing to dig for dragon eggs, then decisively stepped forward: "I’ll go with you—others are getting ready to search the hatchery ruins to see if there are any surviving dragon eggs."

"Alright, Melita, then you will accompany Elder Duke More, others who stepped forward earlier go with Nuoletta to the hatchery ruins to dig dragon eggs," Carladore quickly nodded, then looked at the elderly Black Dragon before him, "Elder, is just Melita enough assistance? If not, there are more in the camp..."

"Enough, we’re just going to investigate the situation," Elder Duke More said in a deep voice, "I’ll handle this matter, meanwhile... I hope you all do your utmost to save those dragon eggs—they are Talronde’s hope and future."

...

Northwest of the Ruins of Argondale, over molten lava lakes and a steep cliff that had solidified into a glassy formation, lay the final crash site of the Talronde Ship.

The impact crater created by the core cabin’s fall still emanated astonishing heat, the rising smoke mixed with the unique burning smell of some polymers, liquid substances leaking from the spaceship’s pipes spilled onto the crater’s edge, burning fiercely with blue-green flames.

At the bottom of the crater, a twisted metal mass, almost unrecognizable, was half-buried in the loose and scorching soil and gravel, its appearance was extremely tragic, seemingly having undergone challenges unimaginable to humanity, yet despite this, its core framework remained stable, the reinforced alloy walls covering the framework generally maintained their integrity.

This was an intensely dramatic fall—yet also a precisely calculated "safe crash."

It wasn’t until dozens of minutes had passed that some other movement finally occurred within the wreckage fallen from outer space: from deep within the wreckage came thunderous bangs as if someone inside was striking the twisted, deformed alloy armor plates with immense force, and bright light burst from the gaps between the armor plates and the frame, indicating someone was using powerful Magic to cut through the interlocked and distorted framework; such a rough "disassembly" process lasted a long time, ultimately accompanied by a metallic crack and an explosion, a large piece of the armor plate on the wreckage surface was dismantled and flew straight outside the crash pit.

Then, a massive silver-white dragon claw extended out from the newly opened breach, tearing at it forcefully to widen the hole further. After another bout of struggle, the silver-white dragon finally managed to drag its scarred body out of the opening.

Following closely behind the silver-white dragon were Heragor and Andar, who had transformed into their dragon forms.

They struggled out of the ship’s wreckage, which was now completely destroyed and burning fiercely. Despite having transformed into powerful dragon forms, the impact from the fall had still inflicted considerable damage. The three ancient dragons, dragging their wounded bodies and dizzy heads, took quite some time to recover their strength in the impact crater. Supporting each other, they struggled for a long while before finally making it out of the crater.

The silver-white dragon turned back to gaze at the wreckage of the ship, from which thick smoke was rising at the bottom of the crater, and after a long pause, it sighed with an inexplicable melancholy: "This time, it’s completely ruined..."

"Stop lamenting the ship, Balogar. How many times have we orbited..." Beside the silver-white dragon, the elderly Black Dragon shook his groggy head. The aftereffects of the shut-down implants made it even harder for him to adapt to the current environment than his two companions, as the noise in his neural system ceaselessly interfered with his judgment. "I feel like I’ve seen dozens of sunrises and sunsets..."

"Much more than that, we were continuously decelerating, and upon reaching the near-Earth orbit, our orbital speed was incredibly high..." Heragor, with golden scales, raised his head, looking at the empty sky. "We should be grateful for these orbits; without such prolonged deceleration, we might have become part of this land now— a direct impact from space to the ground can’t be withstood, even by dragons."

"This land..." Balogar had finally regained some strength. Listening to Heragor, he slowly propped up his massive upper body, raising his head high to observe the devastated place. He didn’t speak for several minutes until a particularly biting cold wind blew past his ears, prompting him to take a light breath, "Have we returned to Talronde?"

"...I’m not sure, but there doesn’t seem to be any other explanation," Heragor said in a low tone, "The last time I could view the scenery outside the window, it appeared we were falling towards the north pole, which means the only landing point should be Talronde."

Andar also raised his head, gazing silently into the distance, with a faint red glow flickering in the mechanical eye embedded on one side of his head— despite the Omega System being offline, many of the implants in this ancient Titan used very old technologies. They function inefficiently but can operate independently without Omega.

It was after a long silence that Andar finally broke the silence: "Is this really Talronde..."

"This is its current appearance... I’ve seen it countless times in my dreams and in the ’revelations’ shown to me by the gods," Heragor took a step forward, and under the golden dragon’s feet, the scorching, dried land cracked inch by inch, with the already fragile rocks turning into dust amidst high heat, "...Andar, Balogar, what I’m seeing now is slightly better than what appeared in those ’revelations’, after all, we’re somehow still alive."

"Indeed, we are somehow still alive," Balogar shook his head in disbelief, "So why are we still alive? What was that thing that appeared at the last moment... what pushed us back from space?"

"I don’t know, but it was clearly a meticulously calculated ’rescue’," Heragor said, "Without extremely precise calculations, we couldn’t have survived, given the absence of propulsion and attitude control."

The three ancient dragons simultaneously fell into silence. This unexpected ’survival’ was too bizarre, and there were no clues in the current situation, leaving even the wisest dragon unable to fathom any solution.

The silence lasted several minutes, and then Balogar spoke with a deep voice: "So, what do we do next? What can we do on this wasteland?"

Andar sighed: "Let’s at least not play word relay again."

Heragor shook his head, thinking aloud, "I need to seriously consider what we are going to do next, this wasteland... we are probably the last surviving ancestor dragons, Omega must have already..."

"Wait, Heragor," Andar suddenly interrupted him. The elderly Black Dragon raised his head, looking at the distant sky, "Did you just say we might be the last surviving ancestor dragons?"

"Hmm?"

"It seems something is flying over here," Andar raised a huge wing, pointing in a direction in the sky, "...Doesn’t it look familiar to you?"

In the far-off sky, a massive and aged Black Dragon was swiftly approaching, along with a smaller blue dragon flying beside it. They had evidently spotted the crash site on the ground and quickened their pace, descending towards it in a diving motion.

Beside the crash site, Andar, Heragor, and Balogar all saw the figures appearing in the sky. Besides Balogar, who had been away from Talronde for many years, the other two "individuals" could already identify them visually. Heragor stared at the sky, his citrine-like eyes suddenly reflecting a complex emotion: "...perhaps we’re just seeing nodes of Omega..."

Upon hearing this, Andar and Balogar lapsed into silence simultaneously, both aware of all of Omega’s primitive commands and naturally anticipating what would transpire once this final battle concluded—to minimize the impact of ’humanity’, to prevent Omega from forming a ’heart’ and establishing a connection with the gods, they set Omega’s operational logic eons ago. The latter operated with the most efficiency, precision, and composure, while the future of the dragon race was entirely left to Omega’s AI judgment. In the simulation feedback generated over thousands of trial runs, Omega had executed the plan to erase all Dragokin consciousness without hesitation...

Amidst complex emotions, the three ancient dragons watched as the two figures approached ever closer from the distant sky, observed their deceleration in the lower altitudes, and gradually neared the ground. They saw the aged black dragon land smoothly among the ruins, while the blue dragon seemed to misjudge the landing point, stumbling down before Balogar amidst the debris and broken walls.

The atmosphere turned slightly awkward for a moment.

Balogar slightly turned his head to look at the silent Heragor.

"Why do I feel this isn’t one of Omega’s nodes?"