Ashen Dragon-Chapter 242 - 168 Three Years

Chapter 242: Chapter 168 Three Years

The snowstorm in Anzeta would howl every year, laying a white blanket over the land. The resilient people living in this “Land of Eternal Winter,” having long moved from the warm South, had grown accustomed to the harsh winters for the sake of survival.

Similarly, for the sake of the most basic survival, they gradually adapted to the rule of the Ashen Kingdom and adjusted to this new order.

Time and again, ice and snow covered the ground, and then melted away.

In the blink of an eye, three years had passed just like that.

For the giant dragons, this was not a long time; it was merely an ordinary deep sleep, for it was not uncommon for them to sleep for decades or even a hundred years.

But this hibernation was of great significance to Cassius. He was about to undergo the greatest leap in his history.

...

With faint snores, the Red Dragon’s body rose and fell. The energy that overflowed from his surface had already been greedily absorbed, while the Ancestral Dragon Blood within him continued to release a more powerful and primal strength through basal blood vessels. This was the primeval power bestowed upon the first giant dragons by the Nine-Faced Dragon God Ao.

During these three years, wrapped in that giant egg, the form of the Red Dragon was being transformed by this strength at a pace visible to the naked eye. When he fully awakened, he would be much closer to the Ancestral Dragon, which existed only in mythic epics, rather than an ordinary five-colored dragon of this era, weakened and shackled multiple times.

The Dragon’s Might of the Red Dragon also grew day by day. Even an occasional low rumble was enough to send birds and beasts fleeing in a panic from several miles away.

Even the well-seasoned Tiefling Guards often found themselves struggling to breathe under the unintentional oppressive force, to the point that they developed mental issues and had to take turns standing guard.

Even the Bipedal Wyverns perched on stone pillars often lay trembling on the stone surface, curling up like pitiful little chicks, devoid of the imposing might they showed when facing outsiders. After all, these descendants with diluted Dragon Veins felt the most primal suppression from deep within their bloodlines.

In his slumber, Cassius often dreamed—these were actually the heritage from the Ancestral Dragon Blood. Spectacular scenes of Ancestral Dragons battling God Scourges and ancient giant beasts frequently appeared in his mind. Every time this happened, he would roll, growl, and roar as if he were part of the battlefield, releasing his strength uncontrollably.

The True Dragon’s influence on the environment continued to manifest.

This time, however, as the Ancestral Dragon Blood transformed him, the range and destructiveness of his influence increased day by day.

At first, the ground within the palace often oozed scorching lava, melting the hard steel into red-hot, molten iron with ease. The entire main hall became a suffocating sauna, even the heavy iron doors turning red-hot under the high temperatures, making it unbearable for the guards stationed at the entrance.

And that was just the first year of the Red Dragon’s slumber.

In the second year, the hibernating King of Ashen’s influence on the environment expanded further. The extreme heat gradually enveloped the entire palace. Then, one winter that should have been marked by bitterly cold winds, molten lava suddenly erupted from the ground outside the main hall like a volcanic eruption. The ground turned into dark black magma, and the sky was almost covered by pervasive ashes.

The incident resulted in the deaths of twelve Tieflings, some burned to death, others suffocated in the ashes.

And this was merely the result of the Red Dragon’s unintentionally leaked power.

After that incident, Mezulash abandoned the guarding duties around the main hall, relocating the Tieflings to the outermost perimeter of the palace and periodically dispatching Spellcasters to monitor the Magic Web surrounding the palace to prevent further incidents and unnecessary casualties.

Fortunately, such a tragic event did not recur because, from the third year onward, the Red Dragon’s influence on the environment was no longer destructive but transformed into a deeper impact on the broader climate system.

Under Cassius’s influence, not just the area surrounding the palace, even Northwind Castle, several miles away, became warmer, gradually becoming a sanctuary against Anzeta’s harsh winters and even being referred to as “Neverwinter City” by the uninformed Northerners.

R𝑒ad latest chapt𝒆rs at freewebnovёl.ƈom Only.

——Many destitute people would flock to Northwind Castle in winter, even if the guards blocked them, they would gather outside the city to bask in this scarce warmth.

From the perspective of life, as well as individual strength, Cassius, after his hibernation, had surpassed the prime of his youth, and this had happened in just ten years, which was merely a nap for an ordinary giant dragon.

And during these years, what changes had occurred in the vast territory of the Ashen Kingdom?

On the surface, not much was apparent.

After all, in the years while the Red Dragon slept, the Ashen Kingdom had ceased its former aggressive stance. Although there were still unavoidable frictions and conflicts, the kingdom did not engage in any wars with neighboring countries, developing steadily for several years. Some Northern Nobility had even begun to write political essays.

They believed that this Red Dragon was content with the current situation and would sleep for decades or even centuries, allowing the North to return to long-term order and peace, and that the various countries could rest assured.

But Duke Leo sneered at these claims. He would never believe that this greedy dragon would stop. Over the past few years, he quietly contacted the Northern Countries, hoping to form a closer “Anti-Red Dragon Alliance.”

However, despite his caution, his small actions were still inevitably discovered by the kingdom’s intelligence agency. Mezulash quickly dispatched “Nocturne” to counteract, sabotage, and disrupt these efforts, ensuring that the so-called alliance never materialized, remaining only a verbal agreement.

In reality, the Ashen Kingdom’s dormancy had already made many duchies complacent. Not until the final emergency would their short-sighted rulers want to be tied to Boske’s war chariot, provoking this fearsome behemoth.

Within the kingdom, people’s lives had undergone tremendous changes.

The promulgation of the “Kingdom Code” meant that every aspect of life was governed by law. The gaps in power became increasingly narrow, and those forces that hovered between black and white lost their foothold. People did not know whether this was better or worse, but they had no choice but to adapt to such a constrained life.

The reform of the land system brought an end to the old serfdom. The collusion of the Northern Nobility and large landlords, attempting to rise against the Red Dragon during his slumber, saw this as their last chance.

However, they met not with the kingdom’s compromise, but with a premeditated and brutal suppression. Under Dolores’s command, the lead bullets of the Great Goblin infantry tore apart the private soldiers nurtured for years, and the nobles’ heads rolled, leaving the kingdom with only one voice.

This so-called “rebellion” ended quietly. Though it was widely criticized and condemned by the Northern Nobility, sparking a media frenzy with scholars calling it a “bloody massacre” and a “cruel slaughter,”

It actually had little impact within the kingdom. That so-called resistance, laughably, was extinguished the moment it sparked.