Chương 172: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 172 - The Brass Dragon's Submission

The wind howled in his ears. Airflow shoved its way into Rolls-Royce's mouth with zero manners, forcing his dragon maw into one ridiculous shape after another. The meteorite was getting closer. He was out of time to dodge. BOOM! Rolls-Royce slammed into the incoming rock. The meteorite kept going, driving them both into the earth, and rolling thunder rumbled through the curtains of billowing sand. When the dust finally settled, Su Nian arrived at the scene with Anna and the rest of the monsters.

Dragons truly were absurdly hard to kill. Rolls-Royce was still breathing. Badly injured, but breathing. At the very minimum, he'd stopped running his mouth. Su Nian flexed his dragon claws and rolled his joints. He had a clearer sense of where he stood now, among dragonkind. Before this, without anything to compare himself against, he'd assumed the modifications made him only marginally stronger than an average dragon. Now he knew better.

The cumulative improvements meant that even cursed, even relying on nothing but raw muscle and scale density, he could go claw-to-claw with a same-tier dragon. In a magic duel, though? Against another same-tier dragon in his current state? He'd get annihilated. The reason this had gone so cleanly was Anna. She'd snagged the Brass Dragon's attention at exactly the right moment. Dragons were notorious for arrogance, for underestimating everything that wasn't them.

If Anna hadn't held Rolls-Royce's focus, the moment Su Nian moved in close, the dragon would have been ready, and finding an opening would have been a different matter entirely.

"What was your name again?" Su Nian looked down at the Brass Dragon sprawled limp in the meteor crater.

"Something like... Rolls-Royce · Phantom · Formalin?"

"Despicable! You dishonorable Black Dragon, you have no draconic virtue, you ambushed me, and now you're insulting my name—" The Brass Dragon lay on the ground heaving. His entire body felt like it had been run through a millstone, his neck worst of all, like it was one bad angle away from snapping clean off. But a dragon can be killed. A dragon cannot be humiliated. The head may be severed. The blood may flow. The name will not be mispronounced.

"My name is Rolls-Royce · Engus · Turmalin!"

"You got my name wrong! Compensate me with gold coins!"

"Ten thousand!"

"Ten thousand gold coins!" Rolls-Royce hollered this while trying to haul himself upright. His hind legs refused to cooperate. After a few attempts, he gave up and slumped back down onto the sand. Su Nian stared at him. He almost laughed. Almost. Is this idiot's head completely full of gold coins? Or does he genuinely think I won't kill him?

"Rolls-Royce, I'm giving you two choices. One: become my vassal and work for me."

"Two: become raw materials. Tendons stripped, hide flayed, heart carved out, whip extracted — all of it soaked in wine or served over rice." Rolls-Royce roared.

"You want to kill me? I'm a member of the Dragon Protection Alliance! Kill me and every dragon in the Alliance will have your head on a bounty!!"

"Dragon Protection Alliance?" Su Nian blinked. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

"The hell is that?"

"Pfft, " Rolls-Royce blew out a long breath through his nose, a smoke ring drifting up into the dry air. His expression shifted into something complicated.

"Dragons are disappearing."

"The age of magic is fading. Dragon birthrates keep dropping. When I left Dragon Island, there were fewer than a hundred dragons left..."

"Do you understand what that means?" He didn't wait for an answer.

"Over a thousand years ago, Dragon Island had nearly ten thousand dragons."

"At this rate, we go extinct."

"And now, according to the latest figures, a single dragon's heart fetches over a million gold coins in human markets."

"Our growth cycles are too long. We can sleep our way to legendary status, yes, but while we sleep, humans are hunting us. The demand for dragon parts never stops. The supply never keeps up."

"Dragon slayers multiply. Our territory shrinks." Rolls-Royce's voice had dropped, heavy with a grief he didn't bother to hide. His eyes seemed to hold something from another age, the sky above Dragon Island blackened by countless wings, horizon to horizon, the thunder of flight. Then the light in his eyes went out. All of it swallowed by dust.

"I wasn't born here. My mother and father were killed by dragon slayers."

"They bought us time to run. I led my brothers and sisters to Anlius."

"The slayers followed. They hunted us down, one by one."

"The Dragon Protection Alliance found me before they finished the job." Su Nian and Anna listened without a word. Neither had any intention of interrupting. Especially Anna. Her own story wasn't so different. The resonance hit without warning. If she'd known this earlier, she definitely would have thrown one less Fireball.

"The Dragon Protection Alliance was founded by an adult Red Dragon and an adult Silver Dragon," Rolls-Royce continued.

"Its purpose is to protect the dragons that remain. Especially those of us who haven't reached adulthood. Metallic or Chromatic, it doesn't matter. Follow the rules and you can join, and receive protection."

"As of now, there's only one Chromatic Dragon in the Alliance. A Red Dragon named Caesar. No others were willing." He let out a cold snort. The sound rolled low in his throat, a deep mechanical rumble like an engine turning over.

"Those arrogant, brainless Chromatic Dragons will all end up dead at a slayer's hand eventually. They eat, sleep, eat, sleep. They don't care about the world. They don't care about their own kind. Just infighting. Endless, pointless infighting."

"So, Black Dragon." Rolls-Royce raised his eyes. There was no fear in them. None. He looked at Su Nian with complete calm.

"If you kill me, the Dragon Alliance will come for you. In the end, you'll be imprisoned, and you will spend every day eating slugs." Su Nian stared at him.

"... (￢_￢)" The Dragon Protection Alliance existed to shield what few young dragons remained. They weren't going to execute one of their own. But slugs. That was supposed to be his threat? For other dragons, maybe that was a nightmare existence. For Su Nian, who had a System, slugs were high-quality protein. Recalibrate the taste buds, and everything was delicious. Rolls-Royce watched the Black Dragon go silent and felt a private swell of satisfaction. He's rattled.

Slugs every single day, that's worse than eating garbage. Joining the Alliance was the smartest decision I ever made. He was still congratulating himself when Su Nian's enormous foot came down on his head with a heavy THUD and drove it straight into the sand.

"Rolls-Royce. Still two choices." Su Nian kept his head raised, his gaze flat and cold.

"Become my vassal. Work for me. And if you refuse—""I take every last gold coin you own. And I seal your mouth. Permanently."

"O great Black Dragon! Rolls-Royce · Engus · Turmalin is honored to serve!" The color drained from Rolls-Royce's face. He threw himself flat against the ground, head pressed to the earth, the picture of total submission.

"But you must swear on Tiamat, Queen of Chromatic Dragons, and on Bahamut, the Dragon God!"

"That you will NOT take my gold coins!!"

"And you will NOT seal my mouth!!!"

Random drop: Anna x1 Lore Note (skippable) Of all the true dragons, the Brass Dragon is the most sociable. They live for conversation and thrive in hot, sunbaked, bone-dry climates. A Brass Dragon's forehead sweeps outward into a pronounced protective plate that shields the skull. The lower jaw is lined with sharp, elongated spines. A dorsal fin runs from the base of the neck, between the wings, all the way to the tail tip. Wyrmlings start dull, a mottled, muddy brown.

As they age, their scales brighten and eventually settle into a deep, polished warmth, like sunlit metal. The green patches edging their wings and frills darken over the decades. In the oldest Brass Dragons, the eyes fade gradually until they look like spheres of molten metal. [Talkative] A Brass Dragon wants to talk to every kind of creature that has ever existed. They'll hand out lavish treasure just to collect good stories. If someone tries to leave before the conversation is over, the dragon follows.

If that someone tries magic or force to escape, the dragon paralyzes them with its sleep gas. When the creature wakes up, it finds itself pinned under a massive claw or buried neck-deep in sand, with a very eager dragon waiting to continue the discussion. Brass Dragons trust those who seem to genuinely enjoy talking with them, but they're sharp enough to spot when they're being played. When that happens, they play along, weaving traps into the conversation, turning the whole thing into a game they intend to win.

[Precious Treasures] Brass Dragons prize intelligent magic items that can hold a real conversation. A telepathic sentient weapon or a brass lamp with a bound air elemental inside would become the crown jewel of any Brass Dragon's hoard. Their hoards are buried beneath sand dunes or tucked into hidden spots well away from their lair. They never forget where they buried something, so maps are unnecessary.

The chests that occasionally surface in desert oases, or the half-buried treasures found in ruins, odds are, those belong to a Brass Dragon who simply hasn't needed them yet. ➤ Next: Where Did All the Gold Coins Go?