“Gold Coin, now close your eyes, and listen to my command!” Morgan shouted loudly from the back of the metal dragon, always racking his brains to control this gold dragon in order to maintain his status as a dragon knight, avoid having his dragon flute taken away, and not become a laughingstock.

Although the gold dragon was always scheming to get rid of its own rider, it would never do anything so irrational on the battlefield. Without a rider’s assistance, its combat power would be greatly diminished, and the enemy would never let a riderless dragon go. As the pride of the dragon race—especially as the legendary gold dragon, said to be the incarnation of the gods’ strongest weapon—there was even less reason to flee. Once on the battlefield, the gold dragon would knowingly choose to fight alongside Morgan, without the slightest thought of slacking off or playing tricks.

No matter what, during combat missions, the gold dragon disdained taking the opportunity to stab Morgan in the back. Even the dullest dragon knew that betraying its comrade in battle—unless it had made a secret deal with the enemy—was almost suicidal, and a dragon’s honor absolutely forbade collusion with the enemy.

Boom...

A faint shield of light burst from Morgan, rapidly expanding to envelop the gold dragon Gold Coin’s body, like a giant pale golden eggshell shooting upward toward the clouds. Suddenly, this pale golden shell erupted with a blinding, dazzling light, as if the midday sun had suddenly appeared beneath the clouds. The world was instantly flooded with white light, making it impossible to open one’s eyes.

The brilliant ball of light shot into the clouds. The clashing of weapons and the roars of giant beasts intertwined. Amid a discordant, agonized howl, a figure in azure armor fell helplessly from the clouds, trailing a string of blood like a meteor plummeting to earth. Having lost his mount and lacking the power of a sword saint or archmage, the fate of this sky knight was all too clear.

Immediately after, accompanied by the mournful howls of unknown beasts and the continuous rumble of thunder, a long chain of lightning flickered in and out of the clouds. Suddenly, Gold Coin’s dragon form flashed below the clouds, its claws gripping a giant bird covered in black iron feathers. If someone on the ground with sharp eyes looked up, they would see that this black-feathered giant bird was the legendary ninth-rank flying beast, the Thunder Roc—known as the spirit of wind and lightning. Its feathers, as hard as refined steel, were impervious to blades and arrows. It could control wind and lightning, was immune to all magic below the third rank, and was highly sought after by noble families as a guardian beast. Yet now, it was being torn apart like a rag doll under the gold dragon’s claws. With a twist of its body, the dragon’s razor-sharp scales shredded the Thunder Roc.

A shower of blood and feathers rained down. After its rider was killed, the Thunder Roc was brutally dismembered by the gold dragon, a testament to the dragon’s relentless, merciless ferocity.

Several black dots that had been lurking in the clouds realized things were going badly and scattered in all directions. One griffin knight’s arm was still impaled by a gleaming blade, leaving a trail of blood in the air—the result of one of the blades Gold Coin had launched earlier. Dozens of fireballs shot up from below, bombarding the clouds in a wild barrage. Red flashes lit up the sky, leaving the fleeing figures in utter disarray. After Gold Coin’s protective fireballs and lightning had been expended in the clash, the fire dragon Michael sent two more fireballs to shield the gold dragon, then unleashed a reckless barrage of fireballs around Gold Coin. These pale blue-white, highly compressed fireballs radiated a danger far surpassing that of ordinary fireball spells.

“Damn it! These cowards run as fast as rabbits! Morgan! I want to wipe them all out!” Having slain a Thunder Roc knight of the Texi Empire and gravely wounded another, the gold dragon was still unsatisfied. The sharp blades on its wings extended even further as it shook, and its flight grew even swifter.

Morgan said nothing, his gaze beneath his helmet as sharp as a sword, scanning the sky for the next target. The massive dragon-slaying sword in his hands gleamed with a hint of crimson. With a flick of his wrist, that crimson was swept away by the high-altitude wind, vanishing as a droplet of blood in the breeze.

Section 6: The Dragon of Slaughter

The shield of light enveloping the dragon still crackled with several serpentine bolts of electricity, which only faded after a long while. Morgan hadn’t expected to use one of his and Gold Coin’s combination techniques, “Blazing Sun Storm,” so early, and the results still left him unsatisfied. The gold dragon’s metallic, fully reflective surface amplified his light magic’s large-scale flash spell, turning it into a blinding ball of light in an instant. This required extremely precise control over the dragon’s body—any imperfection in the surface would ruin the effect.

This move was a special combo skill Morgan had developed through long experimentation. Once “Blazing Sun Storm” was used, any non-light-element dragon beneath him would also lose its sight, forced to rely solely on the rider’s precise control. Only with perfect cooperation and trust could this technique be fully unleashed; otherwise, it would be like flying blind to certain death.

In the distance, more than a dozen dragons carrying riders charged over with earth-shaking roars, splitting up to surround the black dots fleeing through the clouds.