Chapter 192: The Last Stand of the Divine Black Dragon Empire

The Last Stand of the Divine Black Dragon Empire

Not ants.

Not livestock.

Not disposable tools.

Human beings.

For generations, these people had lived in ignorance.

Their parents had been poor.

Their grandparents had been poor.

Their children had been destined for the same miserable lives.

Then Dominic had changed everything.

He had given them food.

He had given them schools.

He had given their children a path toward cultivation.

He had given ordinary people something they had never possessed before.

Dignity.

Once someone tasted what it meant to be treated like a human being, they could never willingly return to being a dog.

The people of the Divine Black Dragon Empire were willing to live with their Emperor.

They were willing to die with their Emperor.

They were willing to be buried with the Divine Black Dragon Empire.

Despair spread through the nation.

Helplessness weighed upon every heart.

Yet no one retreated.

Not the people.

Not the cavalry.

Not their Emperor.

"Patriarch... I have failed your expectations..."

Dominic’s breath was heavy.

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

The combined attacks of the rulers had torn through parts of his armor, and several wounds stretched across his body.

He looked down.

Of the original army that had entered the battlefield, barely one soldier in ten remained.

And those survivors were still fighting.

Still killing.

Still refusing to fall.

Dominic’s fingers tightened around his weapon.

His heart ached.

Not for himself.

For them.

He mourned his people.

But he had given them the dignity of being human.

He mourned his soldiers.

But he had given them the courage and opportunity to rise.

Since founding the nation, he had wronged no one.

He had done everything he could.

Yet now, on the verge of destruction—

For the first time, Dominic felt something deeper than fear.

Guilt.

He felt as though he had betrayed the one person who had believed in him from the beginning.

The Patriarch.

The man who had allowed him to walk his own path.

The man who had never demanded that Dominic become his puppet.

"Patriarch... was my path wrong after all..."

Dominic whispered.

His voice was almost swallowed by the chaos around him.

One in ten of the Divine Black Dragon Empire’s iron cavalry remained.

Yet even those battered survivors continued to hold the enemy back.

Their bodies were covered in wounds.

Their weapons were chipped.

Their horses were exhausted.

But their backs remained straight.

They knew they were going to die.

They simply refused to die running.

"Today, Divine Black Dragon Empire falls!!"

The Stellar Sovereign ruler roared.

The allied armies surged forward once again.

The massive imperial formation began moving.

Millions of soldiers advanced like a dark tide.

It seemed everything had already been decided.

The Divine Black Dragon Empire would fall.

Dominic would die.

And the surviving soldiers would be buried beneath the ruins of the nation they had fought to protect.

But then—

At that very moment—

BOOM—RUMBLE!!

BOOM—CRASH!!

The ground began to tremble.

Not slightly.

Not gradually.

The earth shook as though something enormous had awakened beneath it.

Weapons rattled.

Armor clattered.

The battlefield suddenly fell strangely quiet.

Then—

A figure emerged.

An invisible pressure erupted across the battlefield.

Every warhorse froze.

Every battle beast trembled.

Then, as though an ancient instinct had seized their bodies, they collapsed to their knees.

Some of the weaker mounts fainted outright.

Their bodies struck the earth.

Dominic slowly raised his head.

His eyes narrowed.

He turned toward the horizon.

Beneath the blood-red sunset, a knight in white armor appeared.

He stood upon the horizon like a lone figure carved from snow.

He rode a snow-white steed.

But this was no ordinary horse.

Its body was enormous.

Its muscles shifted beneath its pale hide with every breath.

Its mouth opened slightly.

Rows of sharp fangs filled its jaws.

Its eyes gleamed with a savage bloodlust that made even veteran soldiers instinctively shiver.

The enemy rulers stared.

For a moment, confusion crossed their faces.

Was there some new development?

Had the Divine Black Dragon Empire hidden another trump card?

But then they sensed the knight’s cultivation.

Their expressions relaxed.

"Heh! We thought Divine Black Dragon Empire had some hidden card—but it’s merely an Astral Manifestation cultivator!"

One ruler laughed.

Another sneered.

"Divine Black Dragon Empire falls today—without a doubt!!"

A third ruler looked toward the lone knight and burst into laughter.

"HAHAHA! One man, one horse—making such a grand entrance? Does he think he is a Lunar Sovereign expert who can turn the tide alone?"

The rulers laughed.

Their soldiers laughed with them.

Then—

One ruler’s smile suddenly froze.

His eyes widened.

"Haha... wait—WHAT IS THAT?!"

The laughter vanished.

"NO!! This... this is impossible!!"

Their mockery died in their throats.

Their faces turned pale.

What happened next was something none of them could understand.

The world seemed to spin.

The battlefield seemed to lose its shape.

Nothing before their eyes felt real.

The lone white-armored soldier lowered his body.

His horse pawed the ground.

Then—

He charged.

Straight toward the rear of the imperial alliance.

One man.

One horse.

Moving against ten million soldiers.

He looked like a drop of white water thrown into an endless pool of ink.

Yet that single drop was enough to make the entire black ocean tremble.

The ten million imperial soldiers began falling backward involuntarily.

Not because they had received an order.

Not because their commanders had told them to retreat.

Their bodies simply reacted.

Their instincts screamed at them to flee.

Because—

BOOM—RUMBLE!!

BOOM—CRASH!!

Behind the leading knight, a white flood surged over the horizon.

The setting sun painted the clouds crimson.

That blood-red light reflected across countless white helmets and armor plates.

The army seemed to have been forged from snow and death.

A hundred thousand strong.

Moving as one.

No disorder.

No hesitation.

No wasted movement.

Wherever they passed, nothing remained.

The so-called imperial alliance was like a field of wheat before a harvesting blade.

They were cut down.

Crushed.

Erased.

Silence descended.

Absolute silence.