Chapter 1047 - 1046: Victory Day

Chapter 1047: Chapter 1046: Victory Day

The cold wind from the coastline howled and swept over, lifting the freshly cooled dust from the desolate earth, while the radiance of the great sun slanted down to illuminate the scarred land. Even the dragon’s scales were coated with a rippling halo of light. The blue dragon, just awakened from a deep sleep, stood dazed amidst this awe-inspiring wasteland. For the first few minutes, she was in a state of bewilderment, wondering, "Who am I, where am I, who did this to me, and whom did I fight back?"

A strong gust of wind blew through, and Melita instinctively swayed her long neck. A round, black object was blown off a nearby mound of dirt, perhaps due to some coincidence, or maybe it was fate—she realized it was part of the lamp from her bedroom.

"Where is my house... where is my huge house... my Dragon Nest, my balcony... my..."

Her mind, just beginning to function again, could not handle all the overwhelming information. The blue dragon, awakened from slumber, fell into a brief mental chaos, but with time, the dragon’s strong physique began to take effect, and the damage to her nervous system rapidly healed. Those muddled memories, like dreams, gradually became clear, emerging from the absurd and twisted impressions to reveal their true form. Melita’s stunned and bewildered expression was gradually replaced by silence; her gaze became solemn, and when she looked again at the ruins before her, her demeanor seemed to change immensely.

At that moment, the sound of flapping wings came from nearby, pulling Melita out of her reverie.

The blue dragon lady abruptly lifted her head, looking toward the sound. The next second, her eyes filled with delight—a familiar, pure white silhouette was gliding through the air, seemingly searching for something. Melita couldn’t help but roar toward the sky. The white dragon’s shadow finally noticed the figure amid the wreckage and quickly descended in this direction.

A moment later, accompanied by a gust of wind and vibration, the white dragon landed on the edge of the ruins. Melita finally mustered the strength to break free from the pile of rubble, enduring her injuries as she ran toward her friend. Halfway there, she shifted into human form to conserve energy and save strength.

White Dragon Nuoletta remained in her dragon form, lowering her head only when Melita came before her: "Great, you’re still alive after all!"

"...It seems only a small portion of our compatriots survived," Melita immediately discerned the underlying message in her friend’s words. Her eyelids drooped briefly before she quickly lifted her head again. "Anyway, it’s good to see you."

"It’s good to see you too," Nuoletta replied in a low, gentle voice. "It seems you’ve regained your clarity? How much do you remember?"

"I’m not sure; my head is still a bit muddled, but I remember fragments of the ultimate battle breaking out... I remember falling from the sky but fortunately surviving. I also remember a firestorm..." Melita mumbled, pressing a hand to her forehead, almost out of habit. "Now all the voices have disappeared, the gods’, Omega’s... I’ve never felt such quiet in my mind, so quiet that it feels uncomfortable."

"All survivors feel the same; we’ll gradually get used to it," Nuoletta lowered her head and lightly nudged her friend’s hair with her chin. "I woke up a bit earlier than you, so I know this process."

"Survived..." Melita couldn’t help but murmur softly, "How many survived? Has everyone gathered somewhere? What’s the current situation?"

"Not many survived, scattered across the battlefield, but the surviving ancient dragons of the Five Kings Council and the Senate are trying to restore order and gather our kin—I’ve been tasked to search for survivors, and there are a dozen others with injuries less severe like mine patrolling nearby," Nuoletta explained, signaling Melita to climb onto her back by lowering half of her wing. "The situation is complicated now; there’s too much to explain. Climb on, and I’ll take you to our temporary gathering place. We can talk along the way."

Melita looked at the spine of her friend, inclining toward her. Among White Dragon’s elegant, white scales, a hideous wound was starkly visible—even though it had begun to heal, it was still shocking to see.

Melita realized her own injuries were probably more severe, yet she hesitated, shaking her head slightly: "Forget it, you’re not in much better shape than I am..."

"You’ve never been so polite to me before," Nuoletta teased, lowering her wing once again. "Are you getting on or not? I’m telling you, such chances don’t come often; you might miss this, and there won’t be a next time..."

"You said it!" Melita glared at the white dragon, then gritted her teeth and stepped onto her friend’s broad back.

With a tremor, she felt herself leave the ground, embracing the sky once more—the dragon’s automatic flight barrier shielded against the relentless chill, which she only realized when it stopped: "The wind is so cold... it feels like it’s blowing directly from the Ice Ocean..."

"Of course, the Great Shield has waned; the entire continent is now exposed to the polar climate—we’ve also lost almost all of our weather controllers and tide controllers. The climate of Talronde will only worsen," Nuoletta explained.

Melita didn’t respond; she merely took a cautious step forward on the white dragon’s scales, coming to her shoulder blade. Leaning out, she looked downwards, seeing Talronde from a high altitude for the first time, witnessing the true face of this post-battle wasteland—the ruin of Argondale was utterly destroyed. The hills at the city’s edge had collapsed like sandcastles after a storm, and the ancient palaces and temples had become fragments of broken bricks and tiles amid rifts and mountains, with scorched scars omnipresent among the ruins, struck by waves of intense heat. A terrifying crack extended from the city’s center toward the coastline.

And the wreckage of dragons and various war machines were scattered across the desolate land, like ink spots on a doomsday platter.

Melita couldn’t help but press her lips together: "...It’s all gone... even the headquarters of the Five Kings Council is gone, not a single intact rooftop in sight."

"Nothing can face divine wrath and remain unscathed," Nuoletta’s voice came from the front, "We, the survivors, are Talronde’s greatest fortune."

Divine wrath...

Melita couldn’t help but repeat that phrase in her mind, as things deep within her consciousness began to surface, mixing her emotions more complexly. After several minutes of silence, she couldn’t help but ask, "So, we won?"

"It seems that way," Nuoletta replied. "You don’t hear the gods’ voices anymore, do you? Nor are there any indescribable visions... same goes for me. Everyone’s been freed from that omnipresent mental erosion, and that’s proof of victory. Elder Duke More has announced the victory at the gathering place... yes, we won."

"We won... the greatest miracle of all miracles, we actually won..." Melita couldn’t help but murmur softly, unsure whether to feel joy or sorrow.

She didn’t know how to describe her feelings at this moment — the final battle, something that every dragon in their innermost mind always knew would come one day. Even though no dragon ever openly proclaimed it, nor did any dragon admit it would happen, this doomsday battle, which was almost mythological to many Dragonkin, hung over the entire race like a curse. Every member knew it would inevitably come the moment they were implanted with the Resonance Core and began independent thought.

Talronde was maintaining balance in the cradle, but there is no eternal balance in the world; even short-lived humans can realize this, let alone dragons.

It’s just that no one could speak of it before this final battle arrived.

Faced with the final battle that was like a timed curse, some dragons indulged in the happiness brought by hallucinogens and enhancers, some dragons submissively awaited its arrival, and some dragons prepared in clarity, secretly getting ready. However, almost no dragon had truly thought that mortals would become the victors of this battle — yet now, victory had indeed come.

"We won, which theoretically means we should all be gone..." Melita suddenly realized the crux of the problem — as a high-ranking dragon living in Upper Talronde and a member of the Supreme Council, she was privy to more details of this final battle, which led to more questions, "But why have we awakened? Could it be that we actually... lost halfway?"

"No, we indeed won, but the situation has undergone unknown changes," Nuoletta said in a low voice, "Omega didn’t completely erase all primal minds of the nodes, nor did it execute the planned ’self-purification’ command. In fact... it seems to have vanished from Talronde, and before disappearing, it released all nodes, allowing us to awaken."

"Vanished? Omega vanished?" Melita asked in disbelief, her eyes widening, "How did it disappear? Do you mean those servers and computational nodes are gone? Or is it the Omega System itself that’s missing?"

"It seems to be the latter, but I’m not entirely sure. I’m just responsible for going out to search for survivors — Elder Duke More and several mechanics seem to know more, but they are also somewhat unsure of the situation. After all... the Omega System operated autonomously for years and underwent several iterations by itself; it’s become such a complex system that even the original designers couldn’t fully comprehend it. Recently, all technicians could do over tens of thousands of years was embellish some of Omega’s computational nodes with finer shells and replace decorations."

"...I can’t help but recall something Gawain said about Talronde in private, he referred to our situation as ’lost sovereignty’..." Melita muttered, slowly frowning, "Anyway, it’s inconceivable that Omega released our minds... it really doesn’t fit the command logic..."

"Yet it’s a good thing, isn’t it?" Nuoletta tilted her head slightly, "It allows us to ’survive.’ Although now continuing to live seems a bit more troublesome."

Nuoletta’s words seemed to remind Melita, and sitting on the dragon’s back, the blue dragon lady couldn’t help but cast her gaze downward at the ground, which had become a wasteland: "The current situation must be terrible, right? Tell me about the problems we are facing now..."

"Alright, though these things might not sound very uplifting," Nuoletta sighed, "we can start with the extinguishing of the Great Shield, then the environmental suspension bringing forth food and medical issues, and the shutdown of factories following Omega’s disappearance... although we don’t have many usable factories now anyway."

...

Outside the Ruins of Agondale, the vast complex that once served as the headquarters of factories and combine enterprises has also collapsed. The massive steel structures and protective walls were destroyed in erratic gravitational storms and heat waves, contorting into bizarre postures on the surface of the plains. However, in comparison to cities that have turned into complete ruins, this area still retains a greater degree of integrity and stability.

This is due to the high-intensity construction standards of the factory cluster itself — unlike city facilities that emphasized elegance and intricate designs, these crucial foundational factories possessed extremely robust structures and multiple protections. Moreover, they were not the primary battlefield in previous conflicts.

Therefore, although the factory facilities here have shut down, with crucial and delicate control systems completely ruined, some extraordinarily robust workshops and underground cave-based structures have survived. Now, these facilities have become temporary shelters for survivors — in the aftermath of the final battle, weary dragons, burden-heavy with injuries, gathered here, licking their wounds, and awaiting the future.

This is the scene Melita saw after descending from Nuoletta’s back.

Frankly, the desolate sight makes it difficult for her to associate it with "victory."

"I know this place doesn’t seem like a comfortable resting spot, but this is already the most ’livable’ place we can find now," Nuoletta turned back, looking at Melita, who was limping down her wings, with a slight tease in her voice, "Make do with it — pretend these stones are the zero-gravity bed in your nest — after all, you bought that thing from a flea market, and it never worked properly for a few days."

"Instead of mocking my past economic situation, you should find a place to rest, or your wound will split open if you continue flying," Melita glanced back at her friend, "Besides, regarding financial issues, we’re all in the same boat now."

"Good, still optimistic, which is reassuring to hear," Nuoletta folded her wings, the injuries on her back twitching at the corners of her mouth, yet she still shook her head, "I’ll head out again to the southern battle zone, see if there’s any freshly awakened comrades — the temperature is dropping, although dragon constitutions aren’t likely to freeze to death in polar winds, the stamina drain on an injured body is immense, and cold winds can make wounds that could’ve healed become unmanageable."

Saying this, Nuoletta looked at the battered factories and cave facilities in the gathering point, "At least there are rooftops for shelter here, and a few barely working heat pumps."

"What about your injuries, are you okay?" Melita couldn’t help but ask.

"To be truthful, it does hurt a bit, but flying again is definitely no problem," Nuoletta stretched her wings, "The resilience of a White Dragon is strong, I am quite confident in this."

"Alright then, be careful."

"I will be careful — you should find Calador, he’s in charge of order at this camp," Nuoletta said, raising her head, her long neck pointing to the camp center, "Aside from him, there are several Red Dragons there, their healing magic and repair skills can help stabilize your injuries. Now that Omega is gone, we can’t use the medical or auto-repair equipment, so we have to rely on traditional ’skills’... although their skills could use some improvement too."