Dragons were born tuned to signals others miss, hearing the earth’s low groan like a buried drum before a quake. They also catch the sky’s rumble, the sound of a fireball tearing down like a burning comet.
ROAR—!!
The young ones hadn’t seen such omens; danger thumped from sky and ground, and panic bloomed like weeds after rain. They scattered like chickens and ducks in a barnyard stampede, howled like rabid dogs in a midnight alley, burst away like doves startled from a shrine, and leapt like carp flashing at the surface in jittery arcs.
Chaos foamed over them, and the older dragons’ steady roars sank like stones into a storm-lashed lake. The elders pushed to calm the herd, yet their voices were reeds in a flood, and nothing held.
When calamity really falls, “order and discipline” snap like brittle bamboo in winter. It’s true for people under heaven; it’s true for the Dragonfolk under storm and fire.
Alicia’s spell was a heavy one, the kind that needs a chorus of ten to sing it right, or else mana dries up like a well in drought. Then backlash bites like a snake in tall grass, and you get the tragedy of no spell cast and a life snuffed out like a candle in wind.
Power trades on price, and the scales tip like mountain shadow at dusk. If this spell truly fired, it could tug a quake through a swath of land and call down fireballs hot as a kiln. The sky can’t hide, the ground can’t flee; it’s the kind of “wipe-the-whole-map” blast everyone dreads.
Watching dragons crash into each other in the stampede, Ling’s brow tightened like a drawn bowstring. It felt… a bit much.
“Hey, sis, that’s enough,” she said, voice cool as a spring under rock. “We can’t kill them. Almost every pureblood’s here. If you wipe them, then what?”
To be fair, “slay the dragons” was puffed-up talk; at most this spell would cull the weakest like chaff blown off a threshing floor. Dragons sit closest to gods, and the Dragon King more so, crushing third-rate deities like clay idols. He could lose to a God-King, sure, but he wouldn’t die, not to a mere quake and a few fireballs. That’s like trying to choke yourself to death—hard and foolish, the body balking like a mule.
Still, these jumpy ones here were all young, scales bright and unscarred, hardly anyone with war in their eyes. Peace is a sweet poison, and it dulls the edge like rust on steel.
“Hey, Ling, wanna hear something?” Alicia asked, guilt fluttering like a moth.
“Hm? What’s more important than canceling the spell?” Ling’s tone cut like frost.
Alicia scratched her head, her raised hand held like a banner, her ribbon flashing like a little lighthouse that wouldn’t quit. “I… slacked off. I know how to use it, but I never learned how to cancel. I got mad, and it just slipped out.”
Two dark lines pulsed at Ling’s temple like ink strokes, irritation spreading like rain on paper. “Listen. Those stampeding ones are weak, yeah, but they’re the new generation of the Dragonfolk. If they die here, it’s severing a bloodline, snuffing the incense of a house.”
You don’t cut someone’s lineage and then stroll in smiling, “Let’s ally,” like flowers on a blade. Any sane person—any sane dragon—would breathe fire and scorch you black on sight.
Alicia felt the pit open under her feet, worry fanning like cold wind, but her worry was extra. The Dragon King here wasn’t a hands-off ruler like Ling could be.
ROAR—!!
A bellow rolled from the horizon, its rippling wave visible like rings on water. A far black dot swelled, and a giant dragon’s silhouette sharpened like a blade coming out of oil.
—“Voidfall!”
After the roar, a deep male voice spread through the space, simple as a bell struck once. That plain word clicked like a clock in a quiet hall, and in the next breath the leaping herd froze, the spell shattered like glass under a hammer.
Reverence washed their eyes like dawn light, and the disorder reknit like a loom, dragons settling to earth in orderly rows, each in a marked place, no pushing, no crowding—night and day from a moment ago.
“Ling, feels like something’s about to break,” Alicia murmured, ribbon gone dark like a snuffed ember. Her magic had been canceled by someone else, and that alone rang like a warning bell; whoever can swat her spell aside isn’t small.
Boom.
Ling didn’t need telling; the answer beat like wings in her chest. One flap and a gale rose like knives. He was bigger than the rest, scales hard as riverstone, presence pressing down like a mountain—who else but the Dragon King?
That vast body banked and fell, wings folding with clean geometry, the landing neat as a calligrapher’s final stroke in front of Alicia and Ling. Dragon eyes pinned them like iron nails, and he asked a foolish question with heat steaming from his maw.
“Who—is—trying—to—wipe—out—my—Dragonfolk—!”
He could’ve said it straight, but he drew it long, breath hot as a kiln washing their faces. No foul stink, but someone else’s breath on your skin still crawls like ants; Ling felt a thin thread of disgust prickle.
A beat, and Alicia glared back, her stare flaring like a torch. “Yeah, it was—”
“Hey! Dragon King, right?” Ling cut in, hand out like a gate, meaning clear as a wall.
“I am the Dragon King. Are you the one seeking to cull my new generation?” His voice was stone under thunder.
“Before that, answer me one thing,” Ling said, eyes narrow as knife-slits. “Is your surname [Jiutoulong], given name [Bayi]?”
The Dragon King frowned, confusion drifting like mist. “Nine-Headed Dragon? I’ve only got one head. And ‘Bayi’—what’s that?” He didn’t twist the truth; his nature kept his tongue clean.
“No. I bear no such name.”
Satisfied, the small one patted her flat chest, metal ringing like a plate struck, relief pouring off her like rain sliding from tiles. “Phew, good. Otherwise I might’ve lost it and gone up there to sock you one.”
