Chương 231: Reborn as the Dragon — Chapter 231 - Dragon Knight Skills

The document was thick. Exactly how long Oda Tanefeed had been preparing it, no one could say. But one thing was beyond doubt: he was ready. And he believed the time was now. Every Sakura Player in Anlius had been consolidated into Sakura Island No. 10 Starter Town. Excluding those still waiting to respawn, their numbers had already surpassed ten thousand. With a higher-level upgrade token, they had enough to establish Sakura Island No. 10 Fortress. The meeting room was dead silent.

The Sakura Players scanned the documents on the table. Their expressions shifted — calm to grave to something harder, something hungry. Breathing quickened. A flicker of fighting spirit lit up behind their eyes. A few of them had gone pale. Oda Tanefeed watched all of it. He said nothing, just drank his tea. An hour later, everyone set the documents down with a collective exhale. This was a comprehensive invasion plan. Targeting Anlius. Oda Tanefeed wasn't like the other players.

He hadn't wasted time chasing monsters. From the very beginning, he'd fixed his sights on something bigger: the nations of this world. Anlius and Erylan, both sitting conveniently close to No. 10 Starter Town. Invading a nation meant resources. It meant enslaved natives. It meant a real army. They had come into this world as invaders. Not to play house with monsters. And if they were invaders, then these nations were the targets. The enemies.

"Any questions?" Oda Tanefeed looked down at his tea. That familiar taste from home. Sometimes it made him forget, just for a moment, that he wasn't still back in his original world. The players in the room exchanged glances. No one spoke. Some were Oda Tanefeed's die-hards, they'd back him without hesitation. Others looked like they'd been hit by a truck. In the real world, they'd been office workers. Students. Ordinary people.

Now they were being asked to serve as the core force of an invasion, to carry out the inhuman "Three Alls" policy. The whiplash had left them blank-faced and stunned.

"Since there are no objections, relay the plan to your squad members. Anlius is a small country. The Royal Capital's armored knights number fewer than five thousand. Move fast enough, and we take it quickly." Oda Tanefeed closed the meeting. The Sakura Players filed out, some buzzing with excitement, others wearing the hollow look of people still trying to catch up to what they'd just agreed to.

"Akatsuki Akase." Akatsuki Akase stopped at the sound of his name and turned.

"You called for me, sir?"

"I heard your father was captured by a monster. And that the same monster went out of its way to slaughter your starter village." Oda Tanefeed turned his fingers over idly, as though he were discussing the weather. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Yes, sir." Akatsuki Akase's voice was flat.

"My father hasn't come back. I can't reach him, can't receive any distress signal from him. All I know is that he's being held by the black dragon. Tanegoshi Shishi has seen it too — that same black dragon was the one that killed the Storm Worm King." Hatred moved through his eyes. He wanted to kill that dragon right now. Flay it. Pull out its sinews.

"So the black dragon might be carrying a higher-level town upgrade token."

"That's right. It got the platinum treasure chest. And given its strength, killing it would definitely drop one." Akatsuki Akase's tone left no room for doubt. There was something else underneath it too, a nudge, a push. He wanted Oda Tanefeed's help. Revenge, or at the very least, his father back. Every time someone looked at him, he knew what they were thinking. That he was the one with a father taken captive by a monster. It was humiliating in a way that sat in his chest and wouldn't leave.

He could barely hold his head up around the other core Sakura Players. He thought about washing that shame away constantly.

"Calm down, Akatsuki Akase." Oda Tanefeed looked up. His eyes were cold.

"This is not the time to avenge your father. First we take Anlius. Then we build our forces. When we have enough strength, we'll have all the time in the world to deal with that black dragon." He paused.

"And we will deal with it. The black dragon is carrying a higher-level construction token. That token belongs to us."

"Yes, sir. I was too impatient." Akatsuki Akase clenched his fist, said nothing more, and made no further demands. He didn't dare.

"You'll lead the vanguard again this time. Perform well. Things will get better." Akatsuki Akase left. Oda Tanefeed sat alone in the meeting hall for a long time. He stared at the tea on the table, eyes unfocused, lost somewhere far away. That afternoon, every player in Sakura Island No. 10 Starter Town assembled. They began a forced march toward the Anlius Royal Capital.

In the Dark Sovereign Hall, Su Nian and Anna were going over her new class together. Anna was no longer just a mage. She was also a Dragon Knight now. The two classes didn't conflict. She could run both at once. Dragon Knight skills were acquired through sleep, so Anna had asked Rolls-Royce to breathe a sleep-inducing breath on her. She went under, woke up, and found two exclusive Dragon Knight skills waiting for her. [Dragon Spirit Shield] Applies a shield equal to 10% of max HP to the dragon and oneself.

While the shield holds, damage received by the dragon and the Dragon Knight can be selectively shared between them. [Annihilating Strike] Applies a one-time buff to the dragon, doubling the damage of its next melee attack. Also applies a continuous buff to oneself, reducing damage taken by 20%. The Dragon Knight class wasn't built for raw combat. It had almost no offensive skills. Nearly everything it did was designed to amplify the dragon, and in doing so, feed some of that power back to the rider as protection.

No magic required to activate the skills, either. Instead, they ran on a completely different energy. Dragon Aura. Su Nian checked Anna's status panel. At her current level, with the Dragon Heart bonus stacked on top, the Dragon Aura inside her had already hit ten thousand units. Dragon Spirit Shield cost fifty units to cast. Annihilating Strike cost a hundred. Which meant, cooldowns aside, Anna could buff him almost without stopping. Su Nian felt the shape of this settle in his mind.

He and Anna were already bound together in every way that mattered, and now the system had formalized it. Even Rolls-Royce could receive her buffs. A Dragon Knight's amplification wasn't locked to a single dragon. With enough recognition from the dragons themselves, she could theoretically buff a hundred at once. Not that it had ever come to that. Dragons were proud creatures. Getting even one dragon to acknowledge you was rare enough to be remarkable.

During the era when Dragon Knights were active, dragons had known perfectly well what those riders could do for them. They hadn't cared. In the draconic worldview, the only strength worth having was your own. Relying on an external source, especially a human, wasn't a tactical choice. It was a disgrace. An insult to the dignity of dragonkind. The result was predictable: any dragon seen fighting alongside a Dragon Knight was scorned by its peers. Looked down on. In some cases, stripped of mating rights entirely.

Which produced a strange pattern over time. Dragons bonded to female Dragon Knights were almost always male. Dragons bonded to male Dragon Knights were almost always female. The Dragon Knight and their dragon would eventually become mates. And from that bond came something new — a powerful race of their own. The Dragonborn. ➤ Next: A Long Night's Talk