Lord of Disease (JP-GL) 319

319: The Dragon with the Sun at its Back

The attack on the imperial capital began at noon the next day.

“—Then, let us go. Follow me. Fly for Listrea.”

Lital-sama declared, and the dragons’ roars echoed in response.

The sound was so loud that it made our eardrums vibrate, even from a distance.

Lital-sama rose into the air, as if freed from gravity, and the other dragons, though not as gracefully, followed, kicking up sand as they took off, accelerating rapidly.

Once they had gained enough altitude, they converted that altitude into speed.

As I watched them, the blue of the desert sky stung my eyes. The reason we hadn’t chosen dusk or a night raid, as usual, was because of Lital-sama’s suggestion.

She had said, “I want the sun at my back.”

And so, at noon. At the time when the sun was at its zenith. The forty-five dragons, including Lital-sama, who had charged with the sun at their backs, ravaged the imperial capital. Countless buildings were crushed by the impact of their landing. I couldn’t see the details, as the city walls were in the way, but they must have been breathing fire as well. Black smoke rose in an instant.

As planned, they began to withdraw, and the city gate was shattered from the inside. A dragon, shrouded in dust, crashed into the sand.

The fixed ballistae on the city walls were adjusted… and they were fired at the dragon, which was half-buried in the sand, writhing. A rain of arrows, from crossbows and longbows, rained down, and its mana, which had been used for its defensive barrier, was depleted. Its scales were damaged, chipped, and with a thick arrow embedded deep in its long neck, it roared. And then, its voice was cut short, and its long, lifeless neck was thrown to the side.

In the skies above the imperial capital, a fireball hit the wing of a dragon that was trying to retreat, and the dragon, its membrane heavily damaged, crashed into the city, raising a cloud of dust, and did not rise again.

And another, perhaps wounded, stalled in the air and, unable to recover, crashed headfirst into a sand dune near the imperial capital and stopped moving.

Dragons were the strongest race. But… they were not invincible.

Lital-sama turned in the air.

“Lital-sama? …I hope she’s not getting carried away.”

“It would be impossible not to.”

Liz, who had answered my words, gritted her teeth.

The emblem of Listrea was a ‘dragon with a serpent’s tongue.’ The numbering of the six armies of the Demon King’s army was not in order of importance… but the name of the First Army had been given to the dragon race.

To see that symbol, the dragons—their comrades—being shot down before their eyes was nothing but pain.

“You all, not yet! Wait until they have completely withdrawn. There will be a signal.”

As if to convince herself, she shouted at the impatient knights.

Even if they were to charge in, there were no dragons they could save. They had to avoid friendly fire.

Arrows flew towards Lital-sama, their arrowheads glinting in the sun. She deflected almost all of them with a wall of air created by her rapid descent and flew at an extremely low altitude over the city wall.

The soldiers on the wall, along with the fixed ballistae, were blown away. A moment later, the wall collapsed, and a sound that was incomparable to that, a double, explosive, deep bass sound of the air wall being shattered, echoed, and I covered my ears.

“Sonic boom…” I muttered.

“…Is that the name of a spell?”

“No… but it’s similar.”

A shockwave that occurred when you flew at supersonic speeds. That shouldn’t have happened unless you were at Mach speed.

No wonder Lital-sama had been so insistent that we stay away, that we never get close during a battle.

Lital-sama, her silver scales glinting like an arrowhead, charged into the skies above the imperial capital again.

Offensive magic was concentrated on her. [Blizzard] and [Lightning] were chosen. They must have judged that a [Fireball], which was slower, would not be able to catch up to her mobility. The [Blizzard] that was deployed in the air was impossible to avoid, and the raging ice particles struck her beautiful, glacial scales, but she avoided the violent bolts of [Lightning] that converged on her with an artistic maneuver, a spin with her wings tucked in.

And she opened her wings and stopped in mid-air, opened her mouth wide, and unleashed a torrent of fire. A pale blue flame, following the turn of her neck, became a ribbon that licked the ground. A [Lightning] bolt struck her as she was stationary, but Lital-sama turned her neck and unleashed her flame, silencing it. From her stationary position, which had lasted less than ten seconds, she beat the air with her wings and escaped to a height far beyond the reach of offensive magic.

Come to think of it, how could she stop in mid-air?

After confirming that the dragons had completely withdrawn, Lital-sama returned. She did not land, but passed overhead.

That was the signal. As the dragons retreated, we advanced. If they had been unable to do so, and had been forced to retreat in a different direction, we had been told to retreat immediately as well.

I adjusted my mask and shouted, my voice raw.

“All forces, advance! Do not let the opportunity our comrades have created slip away!”

A roar, as if a sonic boom had occurred at close range, was unleashed by the death knights. And over three hundred Black Hound Barghests advanced, as if the desert were a wave, and nearly six hundred death knights followed, running towards the imperial capital.

Leaf, who had been left behind, let out a small cry, and Aithys patted his neck.

“Calm down, Leaf. Our time to fly will come again.”

“I’m sorry, for leaving you behind with me.”

“No, I understand. Today, it is the dragons who should be flying.” Aithys nodded lightly.

Only I, Aithys, and Liz were left on the sand dune. The supreme commander of this place, her bodyguard, and the emergency escape personnel.

“A chaotic battle is expected. I wanted to go, but…”

“Rebecca told you, didn’t she? —‘This is not a battlefield that requires an assassin’s blade.’”

“Yes.”

“And besides, because you’re staying behind to guard me, we don’t have to divert any extra forces here.”

“I understand that, but…”

“If I could go, I would. After seeing that…”

For the dragon race, death was a heavy thing. The saying that death was the great equalizer… I was beginning to doubt if that was true in this world. The undead, who had no ‘death,’ and the demons, whose origins were unknown. The dark elves, who lived for a long time, and the beastmen, who, though not as long, also had long lifespans. Was the death of a long-lived race the same weight as a human, who could only live for a fraction of that time?

And besides, the concept of ‘battle’ was not something that was originally in the nature of a dragon, an apex predator. To maintain their numbers at a slow pace was the ‘job’ given to the species at the top of the food chain. No dragon should die of anything other than old age.

…And yet, even such a species, when faced with concentrated firepower, would fall so easily.

Three, as far as I could see. There were probably others who had fallen inside the city walls. How many thousands of years of dragon past and future had been lost here today?

I didn’t know if it was a fair trade for the ‘military achievement.’ And I didn’t know how many tens of thousands of years of human past and future had been lost in the imperial capital. And I had no intention of knowing.

There was a line drawn in the world.

The future of humanity was only on the ‘other side.’

And the future I wished for was only on ‘this side.’