Bear School Astartes

Chapter 960: Chapter 942: Ancient Dragon Summit

And after he put away the piece of parchment, he looked down and saw that there were still plenty of corpses on this not‑so‑large platform.

Most of them were frozen in the same posture as that corpse, some wearing Losric Knight Armor, others clad in all sorts of different armor, showing that they belonged to different Knight Orders, or were simply Wandering Knights.

And among them was another kind of corpse.

Roughly humanoid, with all four limbs, a head and so on.

But in a greater sense, they had drawn closer to the draconic.

Their heads were already similar to dragon heads, horns growing from their skulls, and their spines stretching down into tails.

Their whole bodies were skin and bones, yet judging from the broken limbs and exposed cross‑sections, the texture of these corpses had already become similar to stone statues.

In this World of Fire, Ancient Dragons were immortal beings of a nature different from ordinary life, a concept akin to ”inorganic matter.”

This was the guiding principle behind Pheim Dragon Academy’s development, and thus the basis of Magic itself: the ”Dragon’s Duality”—vitality and materiality.

”From here, we can reach the Ancient Dragon Peak?”

Lann drew his gaze away from the corpses and looked ahead.

The underground prison was built into the mountain mass of the Cold Valley, while this platform lay on the cliffside; looking forward, he could see in the distance a towering mountain range.

”In what form are we going up? Teleportation? Or something else?”

”No, neither.” You’Er Xia shook her head. It seemed the method was a bit hard to describe, so she frowned, yet still couldn’t put it into words.

”All right.”

Lann didn’t dwell on it, turning instead toward Qilin and Rong Buqiu.

”Qilin probably can’t contort into that posture. If you two see me disappear later, just withdraw on your own. When I come back I’ll use the Magic Ring to contact the ring on Qilin’s leg.”

”Got it, meow!”

After speaking, Lann folded his legs and dropped into a seated position among the circle of Warrior corpses, facing the distant mountains.

Step onto the Path of the Ancient Dragon.

With that thought in mind, he began to regulate the activity of his brainwaves. The Holy Chant Gland granted him a certain degree of control over his own brain.

That made it easier for him to enter a state of Meditation.

And in that hazy in‑between, he saw that You’Er Xia had actually sat down beside him as well; the light gauze of her dress and her doll‑like face made her seem as if she might dissolve into the moonlight at any moment.

Then, in just the blink of a dazed moment, Lann, still half‑adrift, felt that the sensation beneath his backside wasn’t quite right.

The ground that had been cold and hard yet at least flat suddenly became a bit uncomfortable.

Like sitting on a gravel road scattered with pebbles.

A warmth, somewhat unfamiliar yet even more deeply familiar, spread across his face and chest.

When he opened his eyes, even with all the sights he had seen, Lann couldn’t help but widen them.

That warmth was the heat of sunlight.

After going through the ”Bleeding Eclipse,” the ”Complete Darkness,” and the ”Everlasting Snow‑Night,” this fierce, brilliant, and normal sun actually gave Lann a feeling as if he had lived through ages.

What met his gaze was a mountaintop area with little vegetation.

The blazing sunlight poured down; under the blue sky and white clouds, even the yellow sand and bare stone looked pleasing to the eye.

And standing at the edge of the peak and looking down, he saw a boundless sea of clouds. This mountaintop lay above the cloud layer.

If this bright sky, so radiant as to be almost blinding, was produced by the same principle as Ilyushil’s endless snow‑night—born from the influence of the Divine Race upon their environment—

maintained by the presence of that Eldest Son of the Sun,

then he was, without a doubt, worthy of that status and title.

”So this is... the Ancient Dragon Peak.”

Another set of footsteps approached from behind Lann—the sound of bare feet treading on gravel.

You’Er Xia’s white gauze dress billowed backward in the mountaintop wind as she slowly walked to the Demon Hunter’s side.

”You’ve been here before?”

Lann was hoping for a guide, so they could quickly find that legendary Nameless King.

But You’Er Xia gently shook her head.

”I know how to come here, but Brother said before that I am no Warrior, and do not pursue the Path of the Ancient Dragon, so I was forbidden to come.”

”But I suppose... Brother simply did not wish to disturb Bro... our eldest brother, yes?”

When she said ”eldest brother,” You’Er Xia was still a bit unaccustomed; in the education she had received, that role hadn’t existed at all.

By the time she was born, the firstborn son of the King of the Sun had long since been struck from the rolls of the Divine Race.

”Then we’ll just have to look as we go.”

Lann said it straightforwardly and began to walk forward.

As they continued on, they encountered a sort of patrol.

Lann had seen their kind before, in the passages behind Ausloes’s bedchamber—the workers who had built him that wedge‑stone circular doorway: Snake-men.

Lann had thought he would have to cut his way through again.

But when these Snake-men saw You’Er Xia, they halted in the middle of raising their weapons.

Instead they shrank back to the side—if not exactly deferential, at least doing their best to keep the peace.

Lann was certain this wasn’t because of any difference in strength.

After all, just a moment ago this Snake-man had been brandishing his blade, ready to charge at him.

”Snakes are degenerated Dragons.”

It was You’Er Xia, in fact; the education she had received among the Divine Race told her exactly what was going on.

The snake-men’s retreat wasn’t about strength, but about bloodline.

And it wasn’t even the half-Divine blood in You’Er Xia, but that half-dragon blood.

This is Ancient Dragon Peak—just from the name you can tell it’s a place deeply tied to the Dragon Race.

Relying on You’Er Xia’s half-dragon bloodline, the two of them were able to coexist peacefully with these snake-men.

Besides the regular-sized snake-men Lann had seen before, there were also some large ones among them.

Snake-men over four meters tall, hefting double-bladed axes the size of wagon wheels.

One of them was even hidden above the doorway of a ruined tower; if you weren’t paying attention, it would probably jump down on you from above and give anyone passing through the door a ”surprise.”

Ancient Dragon Peak had not only bare rock and blowing sand, but also many magnificent buildings.

It was just that all these structures now looked very ruined and ancient.

To Lann it felt a bit like visiting the Athens ruins in Greece back in his home world.

Only the thick standing pillars and building foundations remained, just enough to let one understand that an unimaginably vast complex had once stood here.

After entering the tower with the large snake-man, Lann noticed several gigantic human-shaped statues standing along this path, each depicting a man holding a sword-spear.

Lann had seen him before; in Rosalie’s memories he had fought side by side with that King of the Sun, Gwyn, brandishing lightning.

If he was not mistaken... this should be the image of the Eldest Son of the Sun.

A huge flying dragon came from the distance and landed on the building’s base.

The width of its long, slender neck alone could accommodate a two-horse carriage driving along it.

Losric’s flying dragons weren’t even half its size.

As always, it first glared fiercely at the Demon Hunter, as if it had flown over here just to pick a fight with him.

But after seeing You’Er Xia’s tail swaying beneath her skirt, it only let a thread of dragonfire seep out between its side fangs, then paid the two of them no further attention.

It merely paced about this ruined building complex with its enormous body, each step thudding heavily, ”thump, thump.”

Seeing that the huge flying dragon had no intention of attacking, Lann and You’Er Xia were able to stride quickly to the far end of this cluster of buildings.

There lay a section that at least still had roofs and was in relatively good condition.

Unexpectedly... inside this building, in this Fire Apocalypse where the flame waned, it actually felt somewhat... lively?

All kinds of things that looked ancient and luxurious—gold and silver jewels, gold plates and silver candlesticks, armor and weapons—were piled up inside, messy and haphazard.

As if these objects here were nothing more than items nobody cared about.

There were snake-men here as well, but of a kind hunched like old crones, leaning on Magic Staffs.

They shook their bells, as if soothing or encouraging someone.

And aside from these snake-men, there were Undead figures here as well.

Even to an outsider like Lann, quite a few of them looked familiar.

The Knight corpse he’d seen in Ausloes’s bedchamber secret room, posed as ”setting foot upon the Path of the Ancient Dragon.”

Here there were Knights wearing the exact same armor as him.

There were Losric Knights too, and a few of them seemed to have been here for quite some time.

They had even followed Losric Knight Order etiquette to spread a red cloth over a small altar here, placing a Losric Knight straight sword upon it.

With the dual meaning of ”fire and Knight,” this could be considered a makeshift prayer altar for the Losric Knight Order.

They could perform Prayer here in ordinary times.

A heavy, grand bell chime suddenly rang out; though it couldn’t compare to the bell of the Fire Transmission Altar, it was still attention-grabbing enough.

After Lann and You’Er Xia walked in, hardly anyone noticed them, instead all looking toward the source of the bell.

Only when that deep bell peal faded did they each draw back their gazes.

”Is it that Prince Rical again? Off to challenge the Nameless King? How many times has he died now?”

A Losric Knight asked the person beside him who wore Dragon Blood Knight Armor.

The Dragon Blood Knight answered uncertainly while sharpening his sword.

”At least... more than two hundred times? That’s not even a high count among us.”

”But the frequency’s a bit much, isn’t it? He’s down to just his underclothes inside that armor now. Oh, and the crown on his head.”

”He’s a newcomer who only arrived recently, after all. Being in the excitement phase is normal enough.”

No one paid any mind to the newly arrived Lann and You’Er Xia; even when the bell-shaking snake-woman crones nodded kindly toward You’Er Xia, it was the same.

Perhaps only if the bell-shaking snake crones showed hostility would these people get up and take action?

By rights, as Knights of Losric, the Country of Fire, they ought to show at least some respect toward You’Er Xia, descendant of the Divine Race.

But on Ancient Dragon Peak, only the very top-tier Warriors could make it up here, and when they came, they did so already resolved to sever themselves from their former society.

Looking at those Knights, Lann felt that their standard-issue armor and the prayer altar they’d set up—these symbolic items—were nothing more than habitual inertia in their daily lives.

Their inner understanding of themselves was no longer divided by such things, and so they no longer cared about the meanings their former identities once represented.

Since they had climbed to Ancient Dragon Peak, then from the scraps of information Lann had gleaned from his conversations with Gwendolin and You’Er Xia,

Lann more or less understood: from the moment they ascended Ancient Dragon Peak to seek the Path of the Ancient Dragon, they had become nothing but the purest Warriors.

Nothing else besides.

But if this process of discarding identity to pursue a goal was something Lann could understand, there was one thing that the Demon Hunter found harder to grasp.

In these Warriors’ words... an Undead Prince seemed to have already died more than two hundred times, and that wasn’t even considered a high number among them.

Yet these Undead were still carrying on lucid, even somewhat witty conversations with each other, instead of becoming wandering souls.