The Elven Cultivator

Kresol Dragon City, at the entrance to the inner keep.

Aurion and the six administrators stood to one side of the entrance, their gazes periodically drifting to the distant horizon.

They had been waiting here for over an hour.

”With the City Lord making a move himself, wiping out an Elf Clan shouldn’t take long. By my calculations, he should be back any time now, right?”

One of the administrators couldn’t help but speak up.

Walt shot him a glance and said in a relaxed tone, ”What’s the rush? Are the City Lord’s actions something we are qualified to question?”

The administrator chuckled. ”I’m just eager to dispatch the troops to clean up the battlefield.”

”I just hope the City Lord isn’t too heavy-handed. The Silver Moon Clan’s Eternal Tree and Spring of Life are valuable treasures. It would be a real shame if they were destroyed.”

The other administrators nodded in agreement.

With the City Lord taking action personally, victory was a certainty.

It was just that the old man often tended to be too heavy-handed.

The Stone Fist Tribe, Grayfin Fishing Town, and Windmill Valley had all been reduced to ruins, and Dragon City had gained almost no spoils afterward. It was such a waste.

As the administrators chattered amongst themselves, the focus of their discussion shifted from the annihilation of the Silver Moon Clan to how they could maximize their plunder.

Aurion didn’t join the discussion, but the slight upturn of his lips betrayed his current mood.

’The destruction of the Silver Moon Clan is only the beginning. Next, two other factions will follow in their footsteps.’

After this, the other powers on the Eldron Plain would surely understand the miserable fate that awaited anyone who dared to offend the might of Dragon City.

’It’s a pity the Fallen Dragon Association has gone into hiding, and we haven’t been able to find Canglan. Otherwise, killing Canglan would have a much stronger deterrent effect on those Vassal Races.’

Just as Aurion was lost in these thoughts, his expression suddenly changed.

At the same time, the other administrators also sensed a familiar aura approaching rapidly.

Their spirits lifted, and they all looked up in unison.

On the distant horizon, a massive, dark-red figure was flying toward Dragon City at high speed.

The familiar silhouette and scorching aura belonged to none other than the City Lord they had been waiting for.

”The City Lord is back!”

”Looks like it’s over.”

”We can send out the army to clean up the battlefield soon.”

The administrators subconsciously took a few steps forward, their faces plastered with welcoming smiles, ready to rush forward the moment the City Lord landed and offer their carefully prepared words of praise.

However, as the figure drew closer and came into focus, the smiles on their faces froze solid.

The scene that met their eyes was completely different from the triumphant return they had imagined.

The City Lord looked utterly wretched. Large patches of dried blood caked his body, and his dark-red scale armor, which once covered him completely, was now missing chunks and riddled with cracks.

The most shocking sight was the area over his heart.

A large section of his scales had been completely stripped away, revealing withered, ashen flesh underneath. The edges were charred and curled, as if some power had drained all life from within him.

Upon closer inspection, one could also see that his right eye was a murky, grayish-white—vacant and lifeless... as if he had been blinded.

How could this be the same majestic and imperious Radiant Ash Dragon?

This was clearly a stray dog that had been beaten half to death!

”City Lord?!”

Aurion cried out in alarm, the color draining from his face in an instant.

The other administrators were also rooted to the spot, staring wide-eyed at the approaching figure, their minds blank, unable to believe what they were seeing.

BOOM!

Isaac’s colossal dragon body crashed heavily onto the plaza in front of the inner keep. The hard Basalt flagstones shattered on impact, and spiderweb-like cracks spread out from his four limbs.

His body swayed violently, but he managed to steady himself. His breathing sounded like a worn-out bellows, each exhalation carrying dark-red sparks and a faint mist of blood.

”My Lord, what happened to you? The Silver Moon Clan...”

An administrator took two steps forward in disbelief, the shocked cry escaping his lips.

He was so horrified that his voice cracked, becoming sharp and almost ear-piercing, sounding especially jarring in the empty plaza.

Those words were like a spark landing in a barrel of oil.

Isaac snapped his head up. In the vertical pupil of his remaining left eye, crimson flames blazed with extreme intensity. Brutality, humiliation, hatred... countless emotions erupted in that single moment.

He didn’t even give the administrator time to react. A draconic claw shot out like lightning, seizing the administrator’s body and then clenching fiercely!

CRACK.

The Extraordinary Level armor on the administrator shattered like paper-mâché. The scale armor beneath it rapidly lost its luster, cracked, peeled away, and drifted off as a fine, grayish-white powder. His flesh withered and collapsed, curling and crumbling like a dry leaf.

In a single breath, a living Golden Peak high-blood member of the Dragon Race was reduced to a puff of grayish-white ash before everyone’s horrified eyes, scattering on the wind without a single trace of flesh or blood left behind.

The plaza fell deathly silent.

The administrators, including Aurion, stood stiff as statues, subconsciously holding their breath.

”A bunch of useless trash!”

Isaac’s roar was like a clap of thunder, shaking the walls of the inner keep so hard that dust rained down.

His draconic might poured out with physical substance, forcing Aurion and the others to stumble back several steps, their faces pale as if they had been struck in the chest by an invisible sledgehammer.

”You couldn’t even investigate the Silver Moon Clan’s situation properly! I almost lost my life there because of you!”

”You can’t even handle a simple intelligence job! What good are you to me?”

With each roar from Isaac, his draconic might grew heavier.

The administrators’ knees grew weak under the pressure. Cold sweat beaded on their foreheads, trickling down into the crevices of their scales.

But they were too stunned to care. They stood frozen in place, their minds buzzing as if something had just exploded inside their heads.

’From what the City Lord is saying, his current state... was actually caused by the Silver Moon Clan?’

’Not only did he fail to destroy the Silver Moon Clan, but he suffered a major defeat at their hands and almost died?’

’But how is that possible?’

’The City Lord is a dragon of the Legendary Tier!’

’What in the Silver Moon Forest could possibly threaten him?’

The administrators were filled with horrified confusion, unable to make any sense of it.

At that moment, Isaac snapped out of his uncontrolled rage, realizing he had said too much.

He shut his mouth, his vertical pupil coldly sweeping over his subordinates.

For a fleeting moment, he was tempted to tear all of this useless trash to shreds.

But what remained of his reason stopped him.

Kresol Dragon City was a vast enterprise, and its administrators were a finite resource. He had already lost six; if he killed more, Dragon City would be reduced to an empty shell.

Isaac took a deep breath, suppressing the violent rage churning in his chest.

”Listen to me.”

His voice was low and icy, like a frigid wind blowing from the depths of the underworld.

”Mobilize all troops and attack the Silver Moon Forest immediately! Raze it to the ground for me!”

In Isaac’s view, he had suffered a loss entirely because of the array.

Without that strange array, a mere nobody like Canglan could never have put him in this state.

At most, it would have taken some effort, but he definitely could have dealt with that damned Elf.

That being the case, he would deal with the array first.

No matter how powerful an array was, it still needed energy to operate.

If there was one thing Kresol Dragon City had in abundance, it was cannon fodder.

He would use his army to drain the array’s energy—ideally breaking it directly. Then, he would strike again to take his revenge and kill Canglan.

He would raze the Silver Moon Forest to the ground, turn all those damned Elves into charcoal, and hang Canglan’s head on the walls of Dragon City to vent his hatred!

Having given his orders, Isaac paid the others no more mind and turned to enter the inner keep.

He urgently needed to tend to his wounds.

RUMBLE!

The heavy stone door slowly closed shut.

On the plaza, a deathly silence lingered for a long time.

The administrators stood stunned, not yet recovered from their shock.

They were only startled back to their senses by the sound of hurried footsteps approaching from an archway at the other end of the plaza.

A Dragon Race soldier rushed into the plaza, his face a mask of shock and panic. He stumbled as he reached the foot of the steps and dropped to one knee, panting as he reported:

”My... My lords! From the Silver Moon Forest... there’s an urgent report...”

Before he could finish, Aurion cut him off sharply.

”Give it to me.”

Aurion was filled with confusion and desperately needed to know what had happened.

The Dragon Race soldier quickly handed over a roll of sheepskin paper.

Aurion snatched the sheepskin paper, quickly unrolled it, and scanned the densely packed text.

An expression of utter shock appeared on his face, which then quickly turned ashen, finally settling into a tempest of shock, humiliation, and disbelief.

Walt and the other administrators could no longer hold back. Forgetting their etiquette, they crowded around.

One of the more impatient administrators simply snatched the sheepskin paper and unrolled it for the others to read along.

A moment later, several sharp intakes of breath could be heard across the plaza.

”Canglan... is an Elf?!”

”He’s been hiding in the Silver Moon Forest all this time?”

”It was Canglan who seriously wounded the City Lord? And forced the City Lord to...”

His words stopped abruptly. The speaking administrator snapped his mouth shut and shot a terrified glance at the closed stone door, not daring to continue for fear of following in the footsteps of his unlucky colleague.

But the look of utter disbelief and horror on his face remained.

The expressions of the other administrators weren’t much different.

They never would have imagined that it was Canglan who had grievously wounded the City Lord and forced him to flee in defeat.

Before today, if anyone had told them that a Golden Tier could beat a Legendary Giant Dragon into a desperate retreat, they would have scoffed and dismissed it as the most ridiculous joke in the world.

But they had just witnessed the City Lord’s miserable state with their own eyes.

The ironclad truth was right before them, leaving no room for disbelief.

To think Canglan was that powerful!

The looks on the administrators’ faces were utterly grim.

Not long ago, they had been laughing and joking in the council hall, spiritedly discussing which three factions to annihilate next.

They never expected that, in the blink of an eye, they would be hit with the most resounding slap in the face.

Even the City Lord had returned in defeat, and at the hands of Canglan, no less.

They could already foresee what a devastating blow Dragon City’s prestige would suffer once news of this battle spread.

The silence in the plaza was like a solid block of lead, weighing heavily on everyone’s heart.

After a long while, one administrator finally spoke, his voice strained. ”What... what do we do now?”

All eyes immediately turned to Aurion.

The lead administrator’s face was ashen. He remained silent for a moment before saying through gritted teeth, ”Follow the City Lord’s orders. Mobilize the troops and attack the Silver Moon Forest immediately.”

At this point, only by annihilating the Silver Moon Clan could they hope to salvage Dragon City’s precarious prestige.

There was no other way.