Chapter 278: Burn, the fuse! Blood flows like a river

Chapter 278: Burn, the Fuse! Rivers of Blood (Please vote for me daily)

“I can’t just have attacked you once for nothing.”

Alberto’s expression snapped shut from the earlier thrill and satisfaction, turning utterly solemn.

His golden vertical pupils locked onto Garoth as he continued in a grave tone, “Garoth, there were too many interfering factors in our previous fight.

“Whether it was the dragons you sent to swarm me, or my own distractions that prevented me from fully appreciating you—especially the full extent of the power you wield when lightning coils around your body—

“Right now, please allow me to experience it more directly.”

“Are you certain you want to do that?”

Surprise flickered across Garoth’s dragon pupils as he confirmed in a deep voice.

“Absolutely certain!”

The Gold Dragon’s answer was decisive.

Since his opponent insisted so strongly, the Red Iron Dragon naturally would not spoil his enthusiasm.

Crackle! Crackle!!

A scalp-tingling roar of electricity suddenly tore through the calm above Dragon Valley.

Black-red draconic qi and Alberto’s frenzied golden lightning burst outward from Garoth in an instant, sharply amplifying his momentum and radiating a terrifying pressure.

Alberto didn’t dare be careless; he triggered both Crown Oath and Conquest Oath simultaneously.

A sacred armor, solid as substance, first manifested and adhered to his body, while a shining golden crown further amplified his defenses, bathing him in a dense golden light.

The very next second after these dual holy-oath defenses completed—

A thick dragon claw, bristling with draconic qi and frenzied-state lightning, clenched into a hammer shape and barreled straight in.

Crack—crunch!

The armor split and shattered.

The Red Iron Dragon’s savage blow slammed into Alberto’s chest.

The massive impact jolted the great Gold Dragon’s body violently.

“Ugh—!”

A muffled groan escaped his throat despite his efforts to hold it back.

His once-sturdy, ornate chest scales visibly caved and collapsed under Garoth’s heavy strike.

The force rippled to his back, producing delicate cracking sounds from even those resilient scales.

Alberto’s body involuntarily hunched forward.

“Indeed… very… very strong…”

The Gold Dragon forced himself through the overwhelming pain and shock like a rolling storm inside his body, and very slowly, bit by bit, straightened the bowed frame. His voice carried tightly restrained gasps.

“…However… it truly is… within my tolerance.”

Before the sentence finished, he didn’t linger a moment longer. His enormous golden wings beat fiercely, whipping up powerful gusts. Like an arrow loosed, he shot toward the Ser Wilderness, quickly vanishing into the deepening dusk sky.

Garoth hovered quietly in place, his vast red iron wings fluttering gently in the evening breeze, his face calm as ever.

Yet—

As Alberto’s golden silhouette shrank in the distance and finally disappeared beneath the horizon… the casual serenity on Garoth’s face collapsed.

He bared his teeth and pressed a claw to the mark left on his chest by the Divine Smite.

Perhaps because of his bloodline, or perhaps because his temperament leaned toward wickedness, various effects innate to Divine Smite against evil beings had been imposed on Garoth.

“This kind of slightly unbearable pain… it’s been a long, long time since I felt it.”

Garoth drew several deep breaths of the cold night wind.

It seemed… he ought to seek out a powerful paladin someday—or at least a creature possessing similar holy power—to repeatedly subject himself to such attacks and gradually train his resistance to holy retribution.

Only by doing so could he, when truly facing Divine Smite-level strikes in the future, show the kind of composed ease he had just displayed.

As for his retinue—half-blood centaur Elvy—her attacks also carried holy attributes, but she was not a paladin; the effect fell short. Her blows alone wouldn’t be enough to properly condition his resistance.

At the same time—

Far away on the other side,

Alberto struggled to keep flying, constantly looking back warily until he was certain no prying eyes followed him.

Whoosh! He could no longer hold on; his huge golden body crashed like a meteor onto a remote scree slope.

Pff—!!!

He barely had time to fold his wings before his throat convulsed. A hot gush of dragonblood burst uncontrollably onto the rocks.

“Argh!”

Alberto let out a pained roar. His great body could no longer maintain dignity; he collapsed in disgrace and rolled and flailed across the stony ground.

The pain—so intense it tore at him.

It wasn’t just a feeling; his heart and lungs were genuinely injured.

If this had been an ordinary young White Dragon, this blow might have pierced right through, sending its soul to the afterlife.

Alberto clenched through suffocating agony, trembling as he raised a claw and cast several powerful holy-healings on himself.

After a long while, the raging torment eased a little. His heaving chest steadied enough to breathe, though every inhalation still carried needlelike pangs from deep inside.

He thought of Garoth, barely in the Young Adult stage, already possessing such terrifying power capable of crushing him. Pride-stricken Alberto fell into a brief, stunned silence.

Seconds later his gaze hardened. He would make himself a harsh holy oath to drive himself beyond the Red Iron Dragon.

“I, Alberto Aurelius, hereby swear—by my bloodline, by my honor, by my lifelong pursuit of the Golden Law—this holy oath!”

“Until I have completely surpassed—Red Iron Dragon Garoth Ignas!”

“I will refuse all entertainment and leisure! I will not permit myself any meaningless rest or folly! Day and night, without cease, I will grind my claws! Temper my scales! Forge my will and strength with every ounce of effort!”

“Until I become mightier than him! Indisputably more powerful!”

“If I break this oath, let Alberto Aurelius be reborn and reduced to the rank of a mere White Dragon!”

—As the last syllable of his vow fell, an invisible, oppressively heavy force suddenly descended.

Alberto felt as if an intangible, icy, razor-sharp sword hovered high above his head, its tip aimed straight at his soul and slowly descending.

This was the binding force of the holy oath.

It made clear to Alberto: although he was badly wounded now, his body battered and spirit exhausted… by virtue of the Gold Dragon’s transcendent physique, he was far from a state that permitted full rest and recovery.

Any slacking or laxity would profane this weighty vow.

Alberto shuddered and dared not be negligent.

He ground his dragon teeth, enduring the still-churning pain and deep fatigue, then launched himself into the deep night sky.

“With this oath’s constraint and my Gold Dragon bloodline’s gifts, I’ll surpass Garoth sooner or later.”

“Then I’ll finally take a proper rest.”

Alberto thought optimistically as his form bathed in the afterglow and receded into the distance.

As Alberto departed and night fell completely, darkness, thick as black velvet, slowly draped over another weathered land—the Alva Valley.

This river valley winding between mountains sat precisely on the border between the Duchy of Abbe and the Duchy of Harthale. It was one of the most sensitive, most complicated stretches along the long frontier.

Harthale had always been the most loyal and submissive vassal of the Lothrian Kingdom; its status was almost that of a dependent territory, its every move heavily influenced by its suzerain.

On the other side, the Duchy of Abbe maintained close, friendly ties with another federation powerhouse—the Kingdom of Rybos.

Rybos, a nation of decisive influence within the federation, ranked second only to the mighty Lothrian Kingdom.

But back to the point.

Because of exceedingly complex reasons tied to the two countries’ founding and much older histories, the long border between Harthale and Abbe had never been precisely surveyed together on the ground, nor had the two sides ever jointly signed a mutually and fully recognized formal boundary treaty with supreme legal force.

Their interpretations of historical evidence, understandings of old treaty clauses, and perceptions of traditional jurisdiction differed dramatically.

This led to vast overlapping sovereignty claims across much of their border—both sides asserted undisputed rights to the same stretches of land.

What complicated matters further was Alva Valley’s capricious geography: towering mountains, deep perilous gorges, swift, meandering rivers—terrain that inherently breeds disputes.

Worse, the area frequently experienced natural river course shifts, sudden landslides, and small-scale geological subsidence. These ongoing geographic changes only amplified the difficulty of precisely determining control points.

The result was:

Huge, hard-to-reconcile differences in each side’s claimed border lines.

On the maps each nation drew, the sovereignty lines carved out broad, jagged, mutually unaccepted swathes of contested ground.

Against this backdrop,

scouts, sentries, and patrol units stationed at the border, when they unexpectedly encountered each other within these sensitive disputed zones, were prone to tense, powder-keg confrontations—and even violent clashes.

However, for a long time, because both belonged to the loose but functioning federal framework—and with the mightier Lothrian and Rybos kingdoms exerting coordination and pressure—Abbe and Harthale largely restrained themselves.

Both strictly adhered to an unwritten rule—

to limit conflict to the lowest degree: pushing, shouting, or small-scale hand-to-hand scuffles, carefully avoiding lethal weapons and the escalation to outright war.

Yet… tonight something unusual hung over Alva Valley.

Beneath the calm surface, dark currents surged.

Night was thick like indelible ink. A thin, cold crescent moon shed faint silver light over the river and the steep outlines of the banks.

A border patrol from Harthale was following their designated route, rigorously patrolling what they considered their boundary.

They trod heavily; bronze scale armor flashed a dim green under the cold moonlight.

Unwittingly, they stepped into the area both sides adamantly claimed as their own, an area dense with overlapping sovereignty.

As expected,

almost the moment they entered the sensitive zone, an Abbe patrol on the opposite bank also glided like ghosts from the coniferous shadows.

Their heavy breastplates of black iron swallowed the moonlight, making them look deadly and grave.

Beneath the cold moon, the swift Alva River was sliced into countless glinting silver scales.

The two patrols emerged almost simultaneously from the conifer edges on either side of the valley. Across the narrow waterway, their gazes collided like blades.

The Harthale guard captain was especially hulking, his trademark thick red beard trembling in the cold wind.

One hand gripped the hilt of his longsword at his waist with force; the other was raised to signal the patrol to halt.

“Back off! Abbe scum!”

Captain Thord’s beard shook violently as he shouted, “This is Harthale’s sacred territory, personally sanctioned by the Lothrian Kingdom! Leave at once, or bear the consequences!”

Across the water,

the Abbe patrol leader was a rugged-faced, sharp-eyed one-eyed sergeant.

A jagged scar like a centipede crawled from his temple down to beneath his neck, making him appear especially grim in the moonlight.

Unmoved by Thord’s warning, this one-eyed sergeant, named Barton, snarled back.

“To hell with your bullshit, old Thord!”

Barton’s voice was a coarse rasp like a broken gong. “Take your Harthale pups and crawl back into your southern hollows! Every inch of this valley, every stone, has belonged to Abbe since ancient times! This is our inalienable land!”

He finished and nonchalantly unfastened the scabbard at his waist, letting the heavy steel longsword, with scabbard, clatter onto the gravel with a thud.

Then he stripped off a heavy vambrace; the steel gauntlet slammed onto his mail with a harsh metallic clang.

He cracked his thick neck with a popping sound, and then strode toward the opposite bank and the Harthale formation.

His Abbe soldiers, without further orders, moved in concert. They all discarded their weapons—swords, shields, short axes—heavily flinging them to the ground.

Calloused fists tightened; knuckles cracked with skin-tingling pops.

On the other side, Harthale’s warriors refused to be outdone.

“Strip armor!”

At Thord’s low, powerful command, bronze scale mail, swords, spears—every metallic weapon was likewise cast aside.

Several alchemical golem sentries following quietly fell silent and their engines shut down, entering standby.

Harthale soldiers clenched their fists, bearing the dignity and stubbornness of warriors as they advanced to meet the approaching Abbe men.

Soon,

the repressed atmosphere reached a boil. With some deep, furious roar—like a fuse being lit—combat erupted in an instant!

The two groups of soldiers from different duchies, each shoulder-deep in loyalty, surged at one another under their commanders like two tidal waves, colliding and tangled in a chaotic brawl at the icy bank of the Alva River.

Heavy boot soles crushed thin ice along the river edge with sharp, grating cracks.

Angry, forceful fists slammed into faces, chests, and ribs with dull thuds.

The heavy chainmail on soldiers scraped and collided, producing an unending, teeth-grinding cacophony of metal on metal.

All these sounds—mixed with harsh breathing, furious roars, and agonized groans—echoed and re-echoed through the deep valley.

Thord threw Barton down into the freezing stream in a bear-hug takedown; the red-bearded captain’s beard was frosted with ice. “Surrender and I might let—agh!”

Barton’s knee shot up into Thord’s ribs. The Harthale man curled up in pain like a shrimp, but still slammed his fist into the Abbe man’s nose.

As the brawl wore on, the situation clarified.

Although Abbe’s soldiers fought bravely, they were slightly inferior in numbers and individual build.

Finally, when the last few Abbe guards were toppled by the combined force of Harthale soldiers—moaning and unable to rise—Barton, his nose bloodied and wobbling, managed with difficulty to raise his right hand, stained with mud and blood and trembling.

This was the customary gesture in border skirmishes for one side to concede and signal a halt.

Seeing the sign, Thord gripped tightly onto Barton’s neck with his left arm, though he winced at the pain in his own vital spot, and tried to straighten up.

“Hmph!”

Thord panted, his face swelling with victor’s disdain as he spat a mouthful of blood at Barton. “Get your ass back to Abbe and don’t let me see you in this valley again!”

He presumed tonight’s clash would end as countless previous ones had.

However—

This time, to everyone’s shock, Barton—who had just painfully risen—did not retreat in silence after Thord’s taunt.

On the bloodstained, coarse face of Barton flickered a complex mix of helplessness, ferocity, and a trace of guilt.

At a moment when Thord was off guard, even slightly relaxed,

Barton’s right hand—the same one that had just signaled surrender—struck like a viper to his lower back!

A matte-finished alchemical dagger, which reflected no moonlight at all, was snatched free in a flash!

No hesitation! Pff—!!!

The razor blade sliced with a sound like tearing leather and plunged precisely and mercilessly into Thord’s unprotected throat.

Then the blade was dragged sideways.

A massive, gory wound opened in an instant. Blood sprayed like a fountain from Thord’s neck.

Barton looked at Thord’s eyes—widened in shock and rapidly losing life—and his lips moved as if to speak, but only a faint whisper emerged: “…sorry, Red Beard…”

“Tonight…the orders from above…they want a…more violent clash…there’s nothing I could do…”

Warm, life-laden blood saturated the icy stream beneath Thord, blooming into a shocking scarlet in the moonlight.

Both Harthale and Abbe soldiers were stunned by the sudden, brutal assassination.

After a brief, horrified silence:

“Captain Thord—!!!”

“Barton! You bastard!!!”

Two different languages erupted with extreme anger, mourning, and disbelief, like a powder keg going off.

At the same time—rumble—rumble!!!

The alchemical golems that had been shut down suddenly flared to life; their eyes burned bright red. Massive gears and shafts roared deafeningly as the heavy steel forms were activated.

They began to march with heavy, thunderous steps, stomping onto the battlefield.

Clang! Clang!

Weapons that had been cast aside were snatched up again by countless furious hands.

Cold metal glinted deadly in the moonlight. What had been a strictly controlled fistfight on the border spiraled out of restraint with the alchemical golems’ engine-thunder, the screaming symphony of clashing blades, and soldiers’ cries of blood, tears, and hatred—

In an instant, control was lost.

Thus began a completely unhinged, bloodthirsty, brutal, merciless... vicious battle to the death.