Beneath the Red Dragon

Chapter 844: Chapter 145: Kings’ Assembly: Legendary Colors_2

Spending a long stretch of time together, how could he not gradually bring these Giant Dragons to heel? Those Adventurers who formed partnerships with Dragons could do it; there was no reason he, Charal Ciser, could not.

Yet Charal Ciser had not expected these Dragons to be a little too exceptional.

The fall of the former Imperial, in the end, was not truly the fault of these Dragons, but of the Nobility; Charal Ciser understood this truth all too well.

And not only of those Nobility, but of himself as well.

As the Lucky One who, in his youth, had obtained the authority of “Greed,” the favored child of destiny of the Northern Continent, Charal Ciser had, by relying on this unexpectedly gained power, carved out a foundation far surpassing the centuries of accumulation of his original house.

Yet destiny’s gift had long since, in secret, inscribed its price.

All that the living possess transforms and influences one another; Spirit and material flesh continuously act upon each other.

In his use of the authority of “Greed,” Charal Ciser groped forward alone, and when he set his foot upon the wrong path, it granted him power, but also imposed upon him certain prices he could not bear.

For example, his bodily lifespan, and his temperament and conduct.

Lacking the outstanding talent and peerless will of the Ancestral Red Dragon Kalon Gogomola, Charal Cesar suffered deeply from the influence of the authority of “Greed.”

This caused measures he had once believed meticulous to become flaws that could not be ignored; not only did his own Imperial collapse, he also brought death upon many of his own kin.

Later, Charal Ciser relied on the power of the Void Evil God to heal his wounds and flaws, and, by means of his forbearance, stratagems, and strength, succeeded in slaying the consciousness of the Void Evil God amidst agonized wavering, thereby gaining new power and successfully ascending to Legend.

This Emperor rose once more, and gained authority and power greater than ever before, yet in his heart, he still bore a certain resentment toward these Dragons.

However, a heroic ruler would not be fettered by such simple resentment; before the benefits promised by the Emperor of the Golden Empire, these hidden grudges could only sink into deep ravines, mingling with the dust of darkness, unable to shake his resolve that burned like a torch.

Thus Charal Ciser turned his head to look at the Regent Princess of the Hobis Empire, Liya Ciser; Liya Ciser inclined her head slightly, understanding her father’s intention.

Then Liya Ciser smiled and said, “May the honored guest of the Golden Empire linger in the Imperial for a few days. The councils of state must be discussed. Attendants, escort His Majesty the Dragon King of the Golden Empire to my palace; I shall personally receive our honored guest.”

Green Dragon Antajena stepped out of the palace; from behind the tightly closed doors came the sound of courtiers debating.

Meanwhile, the Emperor of the Hobis Empire, Charal Ciser, sat high upon the imperial throne, his gaze deep, allowing the courtiers to present their opinions as they willed.

Yet Charal Ciser’s thoughts had turned to that Dragon Emperor of the Golden Empire.

Karon Gogomola—this utterly unique Red Dragon—was extraordinarily special, and not only because of his power.

In the eyes of an Emperor such as Charal Ciser, the era of the Golden Empire was the age when Dragon civilization was at its most wild and most creative, a time far more astonishing than the ancient epoch when Dragons ruled all the heavens and the earth.

In the Legends of the ancient epoch, Dragons ruled all things, but that was all; by now, it had become no more than a distant tale, leaving the world itself unchanged.

Those Dragon Lords who ruled the world possessed nothing but destruction, devastation, slaughter, and enslavement.

And Karon Gogomola? As Emperor of a realm that was a crucible of Dragon civilization, in the affairs of the Imperial he unified weights and measures, unified the conception of time, and began to unify history, script, and language.

Though many within that realm could not perceive it, Charal Ciser had seen all the changes of the Golden Empire with his own eyes.

The southern Nobility saw only the trade surplus and economic predation of the Golden Empire, but what Charal Ciser saw was the Golden Empire using these myriad acts to extend its own standards over other regional civilizations.

Even the Hobis Empire was deeply affected.

Just like the steel railway lines that had already been laid throughout the Golden Empire—this convenient form of transportation and logistics had been borrowed and imitated by many nobles in their own domains.

Recently, the Hobis Empire had also spent a high price to recruit and hire artisans from the Golden Empire, beginning to build tracks threading across the Imperial.

Yet none of this had precedent; they could only construct them according to the standards of the Golden Empire.

If, one day, the great armies of the Golden Empire pressed upon their borders, would they not be able to make easy use of these very rails within another nation?

Moreover, the manufactured goods of the Golden Empire were driving out the products of other regional civilizations, transforming their own standards into the standards of the masses.

Even the currency of the Golden Empire now held superior value; in the markets, the Gold Coins of the Golden Empire were the most sought after.

One Gold Coin could be exchanged for 1.1 units of currency in the Hobis Empire, and among other small and medium Nobility the rate even reached an astonishing 1 to 1.5.

Charal Ciser did not yet have the conceptual term for it, otherwise the word “industrial standardization” would have been born in his mind.

In his eyes, these changes, along with the incursion of those cultural and ideological currents, were a thing of immense dread.

If this continued for a long time, then, should the realm of Dragons one day cry out the slogan “Unite the mountains; make all seas one,” perhaps they would not even meet much resistance from the lower ranks of the populace.

Among the commoners in the streets of Hobis, many popular blessings had already become “May your child be as strong, wise, and brave as the True Dragons of the Golden Empire!”

Charal Ciser therefore paid particular attention to the changes unfolding in the Golden Empire; some of his own concepts and policies of governance had also become somewhat similar to those of the Golden Empire.

As for the Dragons, Karon Gogomola was even more a cause for concern.

Because Karon Gogomola had inaugurated for Dragons a cultivation path that was almost akin to Rule and Dao.

Dragons were born mighty, for within their blood flowed the power of Rules; Dragon blood was the visible manifestation of fragments of Rule.

Thus Dragons in this world had no need, like mortals and other weaker races, to cultivate in order to gain great strength; through repeated slumbers and metamorphoses they could awaken and bear ever more fragments of Rule.

Therefore, as a race, Dragons were innately more focused on “art”—that is, on excavating from their Dragon inheritance the knowledge of Magic carried in their blood, something only the most exceptional Dragons could accomplish.

This was the reason why Dragons, though mighty, were destined to gradually fade from the stage among the many Cosmic Worlds.

By comparison, the Titans, who stood alongside Dragons at the summit, could grow in ways similar to Dragons, yet lacked the constraints that bound Dragons; in this sense, Dragon’s Blood was in fact stronger than Titan’s Blood.

But that Red Dragon, Karon Gogomola, created a method of cultivation capable of shattering this shackle—a path that every Dragon could attempt, a way to approach another “Dao” unbound by their own bloodline.

It was said that the reason Karon Gogomola suffered the divine punishment of Immortal Queen Tiamat was precisely because this Red Dragon had grasped a power that ought not to exist in the Mortal World.

For even those Dragon Gods could not contrive such a thing; gods were not omnipotent, and the God of Gods was only infinitely close to omnipotence.

Dao and Rule were never singular, but the unity of opposing sides.

Reversal is the movement of the Dao—when all things and all Rules reach their extreme, they must turn toward their opposite.

If even Rules are thus, how much more so the Divine Spirits of Dragons.

Those Dragon Gods were mighty by virtue of their innate power, yet precisely because of the limitations of that innate power, there were things they could not do.

Just as they believed Dragons were meant to be as they were, they could not find a path beyond Dragons; this was their own limitation, and the limitation of the Rules.

Thus, even in the eyes of a true Legend such as Charal Ciser, all that Karon Gogomola had done, and all that he was himself, possessed a sufficiency of legendary brilliance.

Whether as an Emperor, or as a Dragon.

Some Kings ascend the throne by means of absolute power, dominating the Mortal World; some Kings rule the human realm, commanding the Mortal World, and thus become Emperors.

But Charal Ciser believed that Red Dragon possessed both.

Therefore, even if the Emperor of the Golden Empire had not offered conditions that stirred his heart, he would still have gladly gone to keep the appointment.

Charal Ciser lowered his gaze, eyes on his nose, no longer displaying the flamboyant, overbearing aura of one who once controlled all things; instead, he seemed deeper, more unfathomable.

“Let me see, then, Karon Gogomola, what it is that truly resides in your heart. I am most curious—far more curious than when, in my youth, I first lifted the veil of a maiden’s skirt!”