Dragon King: Throne of Demons and Gods-Chapter 182: Act III, Scene IV: Where the Flame Walks and the Thread Snaps
The drakes lifted their heads slowly, their nostrils flaring, thick necks turning with weight behind every movement. Their low growls rumbled through the stone, not loud but deep, like distant thunder.
Each breath they exhaled let off a faint shimmer of heat, and their massive forms shifted as if surveying the street, watching, waiting.
Crest stood frozen. His mouth was slightly open. Airi’s body had tensed again, not in preparation to fight, but in reaction to something she hadn’t fully understood until now. These weren’t just monsters.
"They’re stronger than the demon you fought with the Crimson Bloom," Bel said calmly. "Even if her authority is above what they can currently use. Power and authority aren’t always the same. But I prefer to send something I trust to you."
Crest stared at the beasts, then at Bel. His throat worked before he found words.
"Stronger than her...? Three of them... My god."
He stepped slightly backward, eyes moving over the thick limbs, the scorched armor of their hide, the way they stood without flinching under the weight of the world. Airi hadn’t spoken. Her jaw was clenched. One hand rested on the hilt of her sword, but not to use it.
Crest spoke again, softer.
"These monsters... I’ve read about them. They were said to be able to destroy a country... just one of them. Entire kingdoms were wiped out overnight. It was said it would take a thousand veteran adventurers just to bring one down. And even then, no one ever proved it. Because they vanished. Everyone thought they went extinct when the gods came."
He looked at Bel slowly, the truth sinking into the space between them. As a Demon Lord, he was the peak of their species, their apex.
His lips parted, and the words left almost by themselves.
"You are... a dragon."
Airi looked from Crest to Bel, and something about her expression cracked. She looked at Bel like she’d never seen him before, like she’d only just understood what he was. Not what he could do. What he was. Her voice caught in her throat, and she didn’t speak.
She didn’t need to.
Bel didn’t answer. The silence was confirmation enough.
Bel looked at the drakes, then at the two humans standing in their shadow.
"They’ll fight with you," he said. "If a demon shows up, they’ll be your warning. If they start losing, you run."
He turned his eyes toward Airi. She had been fixated on the creatures, gaze locked, jaw set. But when she felt his attention, she flinched.
Bel’s voice didn’t change.
"Is your blessing still active?"
Airi blinked, caught off-guard by the question.
"Huh? Yeah... I mean, I haven’t gotten the option to choose yet. So yeah, it’s still on."
Bel frowned slightly and looked up at the warped sky above them. The clouds didn’t move right. The light bent in ways that didn’t make sense.
"Strange... but it makes sense."
His tone shifted into thought.
"This whole place... the way our senses are muffled, the lack of aura, it all fits. Your blessing might be warning you. As if... we’re already under attack."
Neither Crest nor Airi answered. They were still staring at the drakes, at Bel. The fact that he was a real dragon was still too big to process.
Crest was the first to blink out of it, his mind catching up.
"That actually makes sense..."
Bel kept watching the sky.
"Be careful. An attack this subtle is only possible for something powerful. It has to be the Slumbering King."
Both of them tensed.
Bel’s gaze dropped back to them.
"I’ll draw attention. My target is the King. If I’m loud enough, his demons should focus on me. You should be free from Morpheus, and if Mammon’s here, he won’t get backup."
He looked at Airi again. She felt it and turned, and something in his stare made her glance away too quickly. Her shoulders were rigid.
"Be careful," he said again. This time softer.
She didn’t answer at first.
Bel, in his thoughts, weighed what he hadn’t spoken aloud. He saw something in her. A force that could grow into something greater. He didn’t just want her to survive. He wanted her beside him, not as an ally, but as a general.
But the part that confused him was this: did he have the right to change someone like that? Could he turn her into what he needed? Did she want that? Could she want that? The answer was obviously a big no.
Still, if there was a chance, he wanted it. He wanted to offer it. Not take it.
Airi finally met his eyes. She didn’t look away this time.
"You’re still the same cold bastard," she said. "But... maybe that’s not all bad."
Crest smiled faintly, stepping closer.
"Good luck, Bel."
Bel nodded.
"To both of you."
They turned. The drakes followed Airi and Crest without command, their steps heavy but controlled.
As they disappeared down the broken path ahead, Bel turned back toward the horizon. Toward the place where sleep twisted the world and the King waited.
The place where it all started.
The Glass Garden.
Meanwhile, somewhere else...
The Coliseum slept beneath the torn sky, but the air cracked. Above the warped arena, the clouds rippled. Below, two forces collided.
Kardrax moved.
His skin was flushed, veins glowing faintly under the surface, lit fuses waiting to burn. From his palms, blood-sting lashed out: needle-thin jets with unnatural sharpness, slicing air with sonic screams.
Across from him, Hypnos glided like a shadow dressed in black armor, wings folded behind him like folded smoke. Each step left no echo. His eyes didn’t blink.
Threads invisible to the eye stretched from his fingers like lines of thought, waiting to sever flesh.
Kardrax opened with a smirk.
"You’ve got the look of a god of death, but act like a clown running a checklist. Where’s the badassery?"
Then the needles flew.
Blood stings tore across the space between them, too fast to trace, but Hypnos shifted just enough, never more. The threads snapped in response, trying to coil around the crimson storm.
But Kardrax moved faster. His blood needles intercepted the threads midair, cutting them with each whip of red.
Hypnos’s eyes narrowed slightly. His favorite technique was useless. Every time he reached, Kardrax’s blood denied him.
"Fascinating," he murmured. "I hoped to make you dance in pain."
Kardrax grinned, tossing a needle upward.
"Sorry, dream boy. You’ll have to earn the encore."
Hypnos’s expression cooled further, his posture relaxed yet dangerously still.
The air around him thickened like syrup, slowing everything to an unnatural crawl. Kardrax felt his movements becoming heavy, his senses dulled as if submerged in water.
Reality itself seemed to twist and blur at the edges.
Kardrax fought back hard, his blood needles flying in every direction. But Hypnos was ready, calmly creating images that confused Kardrax’s mind.
Kardrax saw himself pierced by spears that weren’t there, felt cuts from blades he couldn’t see. People he had never seen appeared and died in front of him, their accusing eyes haunting him.
Each vision was meant to hurt him deeply, to shake his focus and break his rhythm.
He stumbled, gasping as imaginary flames burned his skin. He shook his head, desperately trying to clear the visions, but they wouldn’t fade.
For just a moment, he lost control, giving Hypnos a clear advantage.
Hypnos paused briefly, giving him a short time of respite.
"This is it for you. Humans were foolish from the start," he began calmly. "You believed demons were bound by the same stagnant limits as yourselves, blind to our endless evolution. Today, even your revered Sacreds are outmatched by mere demon generals."
He fixed Kardrax with an icy stare.
"I considered extending our dance, watching you slowly destroy yourself, since your strength is nothing but self-inflicted ruin. But you tortured my soldier. For that, you will suffer."
Hypnos raised his hand slightly, his expression pitiless.
"If you truly can bleed to death, now would be the time. Because I won’t give you the mercy to make it end."
The dream shifted around Kardrax. The air thickened like water. The ground blurred. Sounds twisted.
But then, Kardrax giggled quietly at first, a sound soft and unsettling. Gradually, it grew louder, deeper, swelling into a full, defiant laugh. Hypnos remained immobile, watching with detached curiosity.
"Now that’s what I’m talking about!"
He ripped off his shirt with one hand, revealing a body covered in scars, dozens of puncture wounds, like a man who had died over and over again. His chest was thick with muscle, but the skin was a battlefield.
Hypnos blinked.
"These..."
"Souvenirs," Kardrax said, his voice sharp and shining. "You think I’m scared of dying? I made peace with death the day I started piercing holes in myself."
He raised his finger, and his nails grew long and curved, like a claw. With a grin, he stabbed it straight into his own torso.
Hypnos stepped back.
"This is what I am," Kardrax said, trembling with the rush. "A drill that never stops. A fire that doesn’t wait for permission. I don’t fight to win, I fight so I can keep spinning until I burn out."
The blood began to flow now, slow at first, then fast.
Kardrax’s eyes glowed like furnaces.
"Come on, thread boy. Let’s share one last dance."
