Chapter 132: The Ruler of the Northern Skies

The instant the roar died, the air became a heavy, crushing weight that sank straight into the chest.

It wasn’t a mere surge of aura or mana; it was the ancient and undisputed weight of an apex predator pressing down on every living soul along the miles of stone: a fear embedded in the deepest part of their instincts, reserved for the Rulers of the Skies.

Along the upper parapets, the archers who had held their bows drawn in an iron grip began to tremble violently. A young bowman, his knuckles bone-white and his lips blue from the sudden frost, felt his fingers lose all sensation. The drawn bowstring slipped from his frozen grip with a snapping twang, sending the arrow skittering uselessly down the stone. He didn’t even look at it, his eyes firmly locked to the sky.

Behind the front lines, the mages gasped for breath. The flickering mana they had managed to hold onto snuffed out entirely, and the half-formed spell circles floating around their palms dissolved into useless motes of light that scattered into the freezing wind. One of them pressed both hands against his chest, as though he could force his heart to keep beating by holding it in place.

Fingers trembled on weapon hilts all along the wall. Leather grips groaned under desperate, shaking hands as infantrymen tried to force their knees to stop buckling. Soldiers who had stood against an endless sea of beasts for three straight days found that their bodies simply would not answer them. Only the hardened Black Raven Knights and a few dozen of scarred veteran mercenaries managed to remain standing, their bodies trembling beneath the pressure as they gritted their teeth and forced themselves to endure it.

In Ethan’s squad, Stone’s heavy axe rattled against his gauntlets, the vibration echoing softly in the dead quiet. Finch clutched at his throat, his lungs refusing to expand, his eyes wide with terror. Iron Wolf bit down hard on his tongue until he tasted copper, forcing his own stiffening limbs to obey. Beside him, Vera reached out with a trembling hand, grabbed Finch roughly by his leather collar, and yanked him backward against the stone merlon, grounding him with force.

"Breathe," she growled, her own voice barely a rasp. "Breathe, you idiot."

———

Miles behind the battlements, in the Outer District of Northwatch, the fear was no less. Behind locked doors and shuttered windows, citizens froze under the sudden pressure; some collapsed where they stood, foam dripping from their lips.

At the guest house, William felt his heart hammer against his ribs like a trapped bird. On the bed, Elene and both Ashwood sisters were trembling, paralyzed.

"W-what’s h-happening...?" they tried to say, but the words died in their throats.

Elene’s thoughts drifted to Ethan, fighting somewhere on the walls. Even across the enormous distance between the battlefield and the Outer District, the maddened roar had carried through.

Without a word, William rushed to Elene, throwing his arms out to pull her and his daughters close against his chest as he stared up through the windows. His protective will held out against the instinctual fear for a few long seconds, and then, one by one, they drifted into unconsciousness in his arms.

Aisha, who stood in the Outer District’s streets helping the soldiers with her magic, suddenly froze. Her eyes widened in fear.

"E-Ethan... he’s in danger... I-I have to move." She tried, but her legs would not respond. She had been using her mana constantly to kill the aerial beasts that slipped past the Inner Fortress and tried to attack the Outer District, fighting alongside the other soldiers without a moment of rest. Now, with the fear gripping her, her body refused to move an inch.

———

High above the corridor the horde had opened, something moved within the churning blizzard.

It flew high, sweeping along the line of the open road towards the fortress. Even from that altitude, every slow, majestic beat of its wings sent a snowstorm rolling down onto the plain below, flattening the snow in massive, cascading waves.

As it closed the distance, its wings spread wider and wider, stretching until they seemed to block out the entire sky. The last of the dusk light vanished behind them, and a vast shadow swept over the plain, over the wall and the city sheltering behind it.

Its scales were pristine snow-white and majestic, as if the gods of creation had carved it with meticulous care. They glinted like polished diamond under the dying sunlight, catching the pale violet hue of the twilight and scattering it across the icy ground. Twin horns swept back from its skull like spires of ancient glacier ice, and frost streamed from the edges of its wings in long, glittering trails. Around it, the falling snow simply stopped, each flake hanging motionless in the air as though time itself had frozen in its presence.

Through the roaring whiteout of the storm it brought with it, two enormous, pale moons, silver-blue and luminous, came into view. Vast, serene, and cold, they hung in the dusk and gazed down upon the fortress with the weight of a mountain. Even the faintest trace of crimson glow had vanished.

On either side of the open road, the tens of thousands of beasts, Glacier Trolls, Apex Frost Hounds, and massive Beast Lords, pressed themselves flat into the snow. They lowered their heads, trembling against the frozen earth, completely subdued by the presence of the true ruler of the northern skies.

———

In the midst of the suffocating presence crushing the wall, with every instinct screaming at him, Ethan didn’t feel fear. He felt a sudden, violent jolt of shock, as though a sharp blade had pierced straight through his mind.

"Myth—" Ethan’s mouth parted slightly, the name stopping mid-sentence.

Why is she here? His mind raced, his eyes locked onto the snow-white scales approaching the fortress.

The Ice Dragon was one of the very few dragons Ethan had met in his past life. He had found her after Elena’s death, when he went on a rampage through the Mountain Range, killing every beast in his path as he grieved the loss of his mother.

Even among the dragon race, Ice Dragons were known for their wisdom and serenity, and she had been one of the few who indirectly helped the Northern Frontier. She couldn’t involve herself directly in the affairs of humans, but she had cautioned him to be careful.

She had helped him recover from his grief, and over the years they met from time to time. She had even been fascinated by the Mercenary King’s ring, an artifact that had remained beyond her vast knowledge, yet she had still uncovered some of its functions alongside him.

Ethan knew she should have been in deep slumber by now. In his previous life, she had become an Ancient Dragon just before he met her. He had planned to seek her out eventually, but only after her ascension, because he didn’t want her ascension affected because of him.

Now, looking at her radiating killing intent, his heart was tearing apart.

For the last few days, he had been constantly analyzing the root cause of this Tide. He had considered the Eclipse Conclave, the Abyssal Pact, or someone else who could have influenced it, but from the information he had, he couldn’t infer who it was.

A gnawing thought crept into his mind as he looked at his friend.

Is this Tide her doing?

No... There’s no way she would do this. He crushed the thought as soon as it emerged, his grip tightening around the hilt of the Eternal Sovereign Blade until the leather creaked.

———

To the common people, soldiers, and mercenaries, dragons were creatures of myth from the age of legends that belonged to tales and old songs. Now the word passed along the battlements in disbelieving whispers.

"A-a dragon..."

"T-that’s a dragon..."

But Marcus and Evelyn, who sat in the upper echelons of the continent’s power, knew dragons were real, and they knew the nature of the different dragon species.

High on the central parapet, Evelyn’s bloodline, already stirring when the temperature crashed, began to pulse violently beneath her skin. The embers lingering in her lineage reacted to the presence of the creature before them, hot and restless, as though answering a call she could not hear.

Both Marcus and Evelyn were stunned. Ice Dragons were the most serene of dragonkind, protectors of the realm who held to neutrality at all costs. Never once in the records had one turned on a human city, yet this one radiated nothing but hostility.

"Commander..." Evelyn’s voice came out barely above a whisper.

"I know." Marcus’s gaze never wavered. His grip tightened around his spear, knuckles whitening as he stepped forward and placed himself between the approaching dragon and the terrified soldiers behind him.

———

Before anyone on the battlements could recover from the paralyzing weight of the Dragon Fear, the Ice Dragon struck.

Its massive wings folded slightly as it glided into the final stretch, and its throat swelled as a pale, blinding light ignited deep within. The glow shone through its scales from the inside, tracing the outline of its neck in cold blue fire. The ambient temperature dropped so fast that the stone beneath the soldiers’ boots cracked like splitting timber.

The soldiers remained rooted to the ground, their minds overwhelmed as the blinding frost swelled before their eyes. They couldn’t raise their shields nor could they channel their aura. They could only watch as the pale light expanded to swallow the sky.

"Evelyn!" Marcus’s booming voice cut through the silence like thunder.

In a blur of light, Marcus leaped from the central wall, stepping directly into the open air above as he raised his spear.

BOOOOM!