"It's an Ancient Dragon!"
"Roar! They've broken the pact! They're attacking Abelar!"
"Idiots, that Ancient Dragon isn't right. She's definitely not one of those Farum Azula lot!"
Lansseax watched the three wyverns flying toward her, the corners of her mouth curling into a slight smirk. She had no intention of speaking; since she had manifested in this form blessed by the Formless Mother's blood, she naturally didn't plan on revealing her original identity.
As for being exposed in front of Abelar... well, Abelar certainly wasn't going to escape. If her identity was revealed to a corpse, it was hardly a major issue.
While the first two wyverns were consumed by rage, the third one—positioned at the rear and only slightly smaller than Lansseax—had already sensed that something was amiss.
"Everyone, be careful! That mutated Ancient Dragon definitely has tricks we don't know about!"
"Graoooh!"
Hearing the warning from their leader, the other two wyverns let out roars of acknowledgement. They immediately flapped their wings, banking left and right to flank Lansseax, leaving the frontal assault to their boss.
"Roar!"
Facing the pincer movement of the three wyverns, Lansseax showed no sign of retreat. With a battle cry that shook the air, the four wings on her back snapped outward, and she lunged directly at the lead wyvern.
Boom!
A second later, the two behemoths collided in mid-air. The massive shockwave echoed across the surroundings.
Below them, a crowd of humans had already gathered to watch. They were waiting—waiting for one side to fall or be wounded. Even if they couldn't kill a defeated dragon, the scales dropped during the struggle were priceless treasures, especially those of an Ancient Dragon.
Gravel Stone. It was a simple, unassuming name, but in the Lands Between, not just any rock could claim it. Only the small, shed scales of an Ancient Dragon were worthy of the title.
Aside from those waiting for Gravel Stones to fall, some harbored even more unrealistic fantasies, desperate to obtain the most precious "Ancient Dragon Scale" of all.
However, the clash between the two titans soon shattered those delusions.
"Graoooh!"
As Lansseax let out a piercing dragon cry, traces of Dragonbolt began to manifest on the ground within a hundred-meter radius. This was the result of Lansseax deliberately compressing the range of her power to maximize its lethality.
Realizing what his opponent was about to do, the lead wyvern's expression shifted. He beat his wings frantically against Lansseax's body while snapping his jaws in a desperate attempt to force her back. It was all in vain.
Crackle—!
As the thunder rolled, crimson Blood Lightning cascaded from the sky. This lightning, distinct from the typical Red Lightning of the Ancient Dragons, inflicted far more horrific damage upon the wyvern.
"Aieeeee!"
If Red Lightning was the pinnacle of electricity used for pure armor penetration, then this Blood Lightning added the effects of internal wounding and erosion on top of that penetration.
The only cost was a slight reduction in the armor-piercing effect—a trade-off perhaps only noticeable to an enemy with the formidable defenses of a true Ancient Dragon.
But for a wyvern, a mere descendant who had lost those stone-hard scales, what kind of nightmare would they face?
Under the bombardment of the Blood Lightning, the wyvern's body was instantly covered in terrifying, web-like crimson scars. The lightning that entered his body seemed alive, coursing through his veins and tearing through his flesh, forcing geysers of blood to spray from his wounds with every pulse.
The wyvern, never having experienced such agony, lost all his usual pride. He plummeted to the earth, wailing and thrashing in the dirt in a futile attempt to soothe the pain ravaging his body.
Lansseax, seeing the devastating power of the Blood Lightning, was not about to let this opportunity slip away. With an excited roar, she raised her right claw, wreathed in crackling crimson bolts, and slammed it down heavily upon the prone wyvern.
BOOM!
"ROAR!!!"
Amidst a roar of fury and pain and the sickening thud of massive weight hitting the ground, a giant dragon wing was torn clean off by Lansseax's strike.
"Grrr! Ancient Dragon, you dare humiliate me so! I will have your life for this!"
The crowd watching from the sidelines felt their scalps go numb with terror. The smarter ones didn't linger, fleeing the area immediately, leaving only the fools and the desperate gamblers behind.
Lansseax remained silent, but her expression of utter contempt spoke louder than words.
"Roar!"
Already driven mad by pain and rage, the lead wyvern snapped at the provocation. He unhinged his jaws, and a raging inferno began to gather in his throat. In the next instant, a torrential blast of Dragonfire erupted from his maw.
Lansseax was not to be outdone. She opened her mouth and spat out a jet of crimson-red dragon flame.
The two fires collided, and the resulting heatwave and outward-spraying embers instantly incinerated the surrounding forest and the humans who had been too slow to hide.
Those slightly further away broke into a cold sweat, and more people began to beat a hasty retreat.
It was only then that the two smaller wyverns finally arrived at the scene.
Truthfully, they had been hovering nearby for a while. However, after witnessing Lansseax's terrifying Blood Lightning assault, they had instinctively pulled back. Their caution proved wise; otherwise, they would have shared the same fate as their leader.
Seeing Lansseax locked in a breath-weapon struggle with their boss, the two wyverns exchanged a glance. Knowing this was their best chance, they flapped their wings and dove toward Lansseax at full speed.
As for helping their leader win the fire-clash...
Even if they could overpower her fire, it might not yield results. It was far more practical to attack her body directly while their leader kept her occupied.
"Hmm?"
Lansseax noticed their movement. Her brow twitched as she suddenly reared up her upper body. With the coordinated power of her four wings and a powerful thrust from her hind legs, she vanished.
With a sonic boom, Lansseax's silhouette shot into the heavens, leaving the two wyverns staring blankly at the empty air where she had been a moment ago.
The wyvern below let out a series of enraged roars, frantically spitting fire in every direction to vent his frustration.
Before the three dragons could react, Lansseax reappeared in the sky. In her hands, she clutched two red tridents formed from pure, terrifying Blood Lightning.
The two wyverns mid-air finally snapped out of their shock, their faces contorting in horror as they tried to flee.
But Lansseax, having prepared her strike, wasn't about to let them go. The two Blood Lightning tridents transformed into streaks of crimson light, tearing through the air toward the wyverns' backs.
"Aieeee!" "ROAR!"
In the blink of an eye, the two wyverns were impaled by the tridents and pinned firmly to the ground. Around their corpses, the crimson lightning and blood-flames radiating from the weapons continued to flicker and burn.
As for the wyvern who had lost a wing... seeing that the situation had turned dire, he tucked his remaining wing in and scrambled away to find a place to hide.
Knowing that the last wyvern would be difficult to track down quickly, Lansseax decided not to waste time. She beat her wings and reached out telepathically to Mohg.
Receiving the message, Mohg was momentarily stunned, but he quickly moved the captured Abelar to make room in the designated area.
Simultaneously, Lansseax felt an incredibly terrifying aura rising from the distance—an aura only a single step below that of her elder brother.
"ROAR!!!"
A horrific dragon roar erupted, echoing through every peak and valley of the mountains. It carried with it a wave of unsettling energy.
Lansseax could clearly feel her body becoming heavy with fatigue; even the energy circulating within her seemed to grow sluggish.
She didn't need to think twice to know who had let out that roar. It was the true master of the Caelid wyvern territories—the Mother of Dragons, Greyoll!
There was no time for hesitation. Lansseax grabbed the larger of the two wyvern corpses and dove into the blood portal Mohg had opened for her.
Barely ten seconds after Lansseax vanished into the blood, a massive shadow that seemed to blot out the entire sky appeared over the land.
With a terrifying wingspan of hundreds of meters covering everything in darkness—this was the Dragonmother!
"Matriarch..."
"Hmph... Kalitza, look at you. How... unsightly!"
Greyoll narrowed her eyes, looking down at the one-winged wyvern with undisguised disgust.
Kalitza didn't dare talk back. He lowered his head submissively, playing the part of a cowed subordinate.
"Enough. Tell me exactly what happened here!"
Kalitza breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly recounted everything that had transpired.
"An Ancient Dragon wielding a strange power? Hmm... the power you describe sounds like the Bloodflame and Cursed Blood belonging to the Formless Mother, the Mother of Truth from the ancient era. But for it to undergo such a transformation when combined with the Red Lightning of the Ancient Dragons... how interesting..."
Greyoll studied Kalitza with interest—not out of concern for his condition, but because of the residual Blood Lightning still flickering in his wounds.
"However, that an Ancient Dragon would join that faction is... unexpected."
"Matriarch, should we..."
"Hmm?"
Greyoll seemed to guess what Kalitza was about to suggest. Her massive dragon eyes locked onto him, and the terrifying pressure she exerted made Kalitza tremble so violently he couldn't finish his sentence.
"That Ancient Dragon is no longer part of the Ancient Dragon faction. We cannot use this as an excuse to start a conflict with them. Moreover..."
Greyoll's eyes narrowed into slits.
"The Ancient Dragons have formed an alliance with the Golden Order."
Kalitza's eyes widened. He naturally understood what the Golden Order represented.
"They won't come looking for trouble with us, and we shouldn't go looking for trouble with them. Guarding our territory is enough. But as for the faction that attacked us... tell the others. Search for them, suppress them, kill them! Let them know the consequences of provoking the majesty of the Dragons!"
"Yes, Matriarch!"
Thud!
Mohg's eyes widened as the massive dragon corpse crashed down before him. He looked blankly at Lansseax as she shifted back into her human form.
"You brought this..."
"I killed a couple of wyverns while I was at it. If the Dragonmother hadn't shown up, I could have brought the other corpse back too. Hmph, that big one ran too fast, otherwise I would have finished him off and brought him back as well. I did manage to tear off one of his wings, though."
Noticing that Lansseax's aura hadn't diminished in the slightest, Mohg was secretly impressed.
While his current strength allowed him to deal with a few wyverns, he certainly couldn't have done it with the ease and nonchalance Lansseax had displayed.
As for Abelar... she was currently shivering in the corner. When she saw the dragon corpse beside her, she recognized it instantly. She also had a good guess as to who the "big one" Lansseax mentioned was.
It was likely Big Brother Kalitza. Kalitza could beat her as easily as playing a game, yet this woman had torn his wing off... too brutal!
"How is she?"
Lansseax gestured with her chin toward Abelar.
"I haven't had the chance to sign the contract with her yet."
"Then do it now. It just so happens I'm here to watch."
"Very well."
Mohg nodded and waved his hand, undoing the restraints on Abelar.
Abelar cautiously lifted her head to look at Mohg.
Mohg flicked his wrist, and a purely one-sided slavery contract appeared in his hand. Of course, there was a benefit—she would receive the power of the Mother of Truth.
"A dragon never—"
"Hmm?"
"...I understand."
Abelar shrank back and silently imprinted her soul mark onto the contract.
A wise dragon knows when to fold. She would find a way to get even later!
"Alright, this side is settled for now. Oh, I should tell you—the combination of the Formless Mother's power and Red Lightning has created a brand-new energy. You should be able to master it as well."
"Truly?"
Mohg's eyes lit up. This time, it was his turn to be excited!
Electricity had always been a power he coveted, but he'd never had the opportunity to master it before. Now that the chance was here, he wasn't about to let it pass.
"Yes, but you'll likely need to learn some Ancient Dragon Incantations first."
"No matter. I can wait."
Mohg nodded in satisfaction, finally turning his attention back to Abelar, who was fidgeting nearby.
"By the way... can she take human form?"
"Hmm? Generally, no. However... after receiving the Blood Blessing, it's possible her Ancient Dragon bloodline has been partially activated. It might be possible."
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Elden Ring: As the Consort, I Reject Miquella (512 Chapters – Full)
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