Chapter 23: The Origin of the Holy Dragon Knights
According to legend, this branch of the dragon race was exceptionally powerful. So much so that their leaders were often strong contenders for the title of Dragon Emperor.
And the dragons, being as proud as they were, naturally could not stand the sight of the Light Dragon clan’s Dragon King. Therefore, any Dragon Emperor would absolutely not tolerate a branch of their own kind running off to the human world to become humanity’s “contracted pets.”
“O’ King of the Light Dragons, should you and your kin choose to settle in the human kingdoms, the dragon race shall henceforth never again acknowledge your clan as one of our own, nor shall the gates of the Dragon Kingdom ever be open to you again.”
That is what the Dragon Emperor of that era had said.
And the King of the Light Dragons actually went and did it. This led to a situation where the other seven clans and the Light Dragons were like fire and water, with neither side being able to stand the sight of the other.
This was why Eirya’s attitude toward Wendymia was so poor, even though Wendymia was only affected by association. In the ice dragon princess’s eyes, the fact that she was the crown princess of the human kingdom where that group of Light Dragons had gone was reason enough not to give Wendymia any pleasantries. In fact, Yier Meng felt that Eirya only freezing her hand and not Wendymia’s earlier was already giving this classmate of hers, the crown princess, a great deal of face.
Of course, the term “pet” was just a derogatory nickname the other dragons had for the descendants of this Light Dragon clan. And the relationship between dragons and humans was no longer as rigid as it once was. After all, too many races coveted dragon blood, and the dragons’ reproductive rates had always been low. Even though individuals were powerful, the growth period for a young dragon of any clan was excessively long. This resulted in the number of adult dragons in each clan being only a little over a hundred. The seven clans combined could barely muster a thousand combat-ready individuals.
So, due to a series of very practical issues, the Dragon Kingdom and the human kingdoms now had a certain degree of interaction. The fact that Eirya, the ice dragon princess, would come to study in the Holy Light Kingdom, a nation under the Goddess of Light, was the best example of this.
In reality, the Light Dragons living in the Kingdom of Alicia held an extremely high status. The contracts they signed with the Holy Dragon Knights were partnership contracts of equal standing. One could say that not even the Queen of the Alicia Empire could ignore the will of the Light Dragons or force them to do anything against their will.
Perhaps it was due to their faith in the Goddess, and the fact that women have a much greater affinity for the power of both the Goddess of Light and the Light Dragons, that from the Pope and the Queen on high, down to the clergy and military commanders, the core power was, without exception, held in the hands of women.
Unlike other human kingdoms, both the Holy Light Kingdom and the Kingdom of Alicia were matriarchal societies. And supported by special secret arts, these two human kingdoms were also the only ones that permitted same-sex marriage, with such unions being protected by the kingdom’s marriage laws.
There was even a rather romantic theory that this was the very reason the Light Dragon clan’s Dragon King had broken with the other dragons at the time and led their clan to the Kingdom of Alicia.
There are many theories today. Some say that the Goddess of Light of that era had bestowed a great divine grace upon the Light Dragon bloodline, which is why their clan announced its separation from the dragon race and went to the human lands.
But the theory that Yier Meng found most plausible was that the Goddess of Light, during her mortal trials, had met the Dragon King of that generation, and the Dragon King had fallen in love with the Goddess of Light.
And the Dragon King of that era was a female.
A god and a dragon, mutually in love, were naturally unwilling to be bound by the secular conventions of the world. So, with a slam of the fist, they simply went off to a place that worshiped them and founded a nation.
