I Regressed With a 10,000x God-Tier Multiplier-Chapter 60: The Dragon Rider.
Lucifer stood on the cracked dais of the ruined Throne Room.
He watched the Aether-Steel Dragoons march in perfect, rigid formation out of the cavern, heading for the long tunnel leading back to the surface.
The heavy infantry and the Star-Kissed Elves had their marching orders.
Lucifer was not walking back.
He turned his eyes toward the center of the cavern.
Isolde stood with her brood. The Winter Sovereign wore a shining ice-crystal dress, and the crystal horns on her head reflected the soft blue light from the glacier walls.
She watched the huge machines leave the dungeon, her face showing both proud confidence and unwilling obedience.
Elara and Sarah stood a few paces away from Lucifer. The Fallen Valkyrie’s golden wings were folded tightly against her silver armor.
The Star-Touched Oracle leaned on her Scepter of Cosmic Alignment, her breath pluming in the freezing air.
"The ground forces are gone," Lucifer said. His voice, boosted by magic, carried easily over the loud screams of the Wyrms.
Isolde turned to face him. She walked up the cracked ice steps of the dais, stopping a few feet away.
"The tunnel is too narrow for my legion, Warlord," Isolde stated coldly. "Five thousand Wyrms cannot march in a single file line. They will tear each other apart in the confined space. They need the open air."
"I know," Lucifer said. He did not look at the tunnel. He looked straight up.
The ceiling of the cavern was composed of solid, ancient glacier ice, stretching miles upward to the jagged peaks of the frozen mountain range.
"We are taking the direct route," Lucifer declared. "We go up."
Isolde followed his gaze. Her white reptilian eyes narrowed.
"The ice above us is three miles thick," Isolde warned, her voice laced with skepticism. "It is infused with the ambient magic of the Absolute Zero curse.
It will require a catastrophic expenditure of draconic mana to burn a vertical shaft through that much density."
"Then expend it," Lucifer commanded smoothly. "Shift into your true form. We are leaving the Sanctum."
Isolde froze. The temperature around her instantly plummeted.
The Winter Sovereign’s pale hands clenched into fists. Her sharp, diamond-hard nails dug into her palms.
The system contract bound her to his absolute authority, preventing her from attacking him, but it did not erase her ancient, primordial pride.
"Shift?" Isolde repeated. Her voice dropped to a dangerously low, vibrating hiss. "You intend to ride me?"
"I do," Lucifer confirmed. He rested his hand casually on the pommel of his longsword.
Isolde bared her teeth. "I am a Sovereign. I am the Matriarch of the Crown-Tier Legion. I ruled the northern skies before the human kingdoms even learned how to forge iron.
I am not a beast of burden for a mortal, no matter how much dark magic sits in your core."
She stood her ground. Her pride rebelled against the humiliation. She would rather exhaust herself burning through the ice on her own than be treated like a simple cavalry horse.
Lucifer did not shout. He did not trigger his Warlord aura to crush her mind.
He took his hand off his sword. He stepped off the raised dais, closing the distance between them.
He walked directly into her personal space, completely ignoring the intense cold radiating from her skin.
He stopped inches away from her face. Lucifer looked down into her furious, burning white eyes.
"You are a Queen," Lucifer said. His voice was a soft, resonant whisper meant only for her.
He raised his iron gauntlet and gestured toward the high, frozen ceiling.
"But a Queen does not walk when she can fly," Lucifer stated. "You have slept in the dark for a thousand years, Isolde.
It is time to break the ice. Take the sky. Show them who rules it."
The words hit her like a physical blow.
It was a validation of her absolute terrifying majesty.
The anger in Isolde’s white eyes vanished completely. A fierce, predatory thrill ignited in her core. A sharp smile broke across her pale lips, revealing her razor-sharp teeth.
"Hold on tightly, Warlord," Isolde hissed.
She took a massive step backward into the center of the cavern.
Isolde threw her arms wide open. She threw her head back and let out a roar that shattered the remaining sapphire pillars in the Throne Room.
The transformation was violent and instantaneous.
[System: Entity Transformation Detected.]
[Target: Isolde, The Winter Sovereign.]
[Form: True Royal Dragon.]
Blinding, pure white light erupted from her body. Her ice-crystal gown shattered outward.
Her pale human skin thickened, stretching and hardening into massive, overlapping plates of indestructible diamond scales.
Isolde’s body rapidly expanded. Her spine elongated. Massive, jagged spikes of solid crystal erupted from her back.
Two huge, bat-like wings burst from her back, spreading wide across the cavern. Her head changed shape, stretching into the long, terrifying skull of a apex predator.
When the white light disappeared, a giant crystal-white dragon stood in the middle of the Silent Kingdom.
She was easily three times the size of the Bone Dragon Lucifer had destroyed in the Scourgelands. She was a mountain of diamond and frost.
Isolde lowered her massive, horned head toward the dais, offering Lucifer her neck.
Lucifer did not hesitate.
He activated the Zephyr’s Grace Emblem. He became a blur of dark motion, leaping fifty feet into the air and landing flawlessly between the massive crystalline spikes at the base of Isolde’s neck.
The diamond scales under his feet were icy cold, but his magic kept him warm. He grabbed two rough, sharp bones sticking out of her back and held on tightly.
"Elara! Sarah!" Lucifer shouted down to the dais. "With me!"
The Fallen Valkyrie and the Star-Touched Oracle did not summon their mounts. Elara grabbed Sarah around the waist.
The Valkyrie’s golden wings snapped open, propelling them high into the air. They landed gracefully right behind Lucifer, securing themselves against the massive crystal spikes.
Lucifer looked down the long, armored neck of the Royal Dragon.
"Break the roof, Sovereign," Lucifer commanded. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂
Isolde roared.
Isolde rose up on her powerful back legs and pointed her jaws at the icy ceiling.
She took a deep breath, pulling in all the air around her. A bright blue glow lit up inside her chest.
The light moved up her long neck, making her crystal scales shine from within.
Isolde unleashed the blast.
A powerful, steady blast of icy fire shot from her mouth and slammed into the frozen ceiling with incredible force.
The thick, ancient ice didn’t just melt, it completely vanished into vapor.
Daylight broke through the ceiling.
Isolde did not stop firing. She crouched low, her massive leg muscles coiling tightly against the cavern floor.
Then, she launched.
The physical force of her takeoff shattered the entire floor of the Silent Kingdom. The bedrock collapsed under the immense impact.
Isolde shot straight up into the vertical tunnel she had just burned.
The G-force slammed into Lucifer. He gritted his teeth, his Warlord strength anchoring him firmly to the diamond scales.
Elara held Sarah tight, her golden wings shielding the Oracle from the rushing debris.
They accelerated up the three-mile shaft at terrifying speed. The walls of smooth, melted ice blurred past them.
CRASH.
Isolde burst out of the mountain peak.
She broke through the last layer of ice, bursting into the open sky in a storm of shattered ice and snow. The massive Royal Dragon flew high into the clear blue sky of the Northern Wastes.
She spread her colossal wings, catching the high-altitude thermals. The freezing wind whipped past Lucifer’s dark armor.
He looked down.
Erupting from the shattered mountain peak right behind them was the Crown-Tier Legion.
Five thousand sub-adult Glacial Wyrms poured out of the vertical shaft like a geyser of white scales and leathery wings.
They soared into the sky, screaming with pure triumph as they followed their Matriarch. They quickly formed a huge swirling mass of flying attackers, blocking out the sun.
Lucifer sat perfectly stable on the neck of the ancient Queen.
He looked down at the sprawling continent spread out miles below him. He could see the jagged mountain ranges, the dark scar of the Scourgelands in the distance, and the faint, winding dirt roads leading back to the human capital.
On the ground, his Aether-Steel Dragoons marched, an unstoppable force of black iron and heavy firepower. He had conquered the earth.
Behind him sat Elara and Sarah. The Fallen Valkyrie of the heavens and the Star-Touched Oracle of the cosmos. He had bent the divine to his will.
And now, he rode a colossal Crystalline White Dragon, leading an armada of five thousand apex predators. He had claimed the sky.
Lucifer tightened his iron gauntlets around the crystal spikes. The Warlord’s eyes locked onto the distant southern horizon, where the corrupt kings and cowardly mages hid behind their white marble walls.
The training was over. The Dragon Rider is born.
