I am a wicked dragon, and you want me to fall into goodness?

Those four short words were like a heavy hammer blow, striking everyone's heart.

The dragon exuded a pure, indifferent pressure, its massive body leaning slightly forward, emitting a teeth-grinding scraping sound.

The stench of dragons, mixed with the blood of goblins and the ozone-laden scent unique to dragons, rushed towards us.

The wind on the grassland suddenly became fierce, whipping up blood foam and a strong stench of blood that hit everyone's faces, sending chills down their spines.

Caleb's face turned deathly pale instantly.

He tried to stand up, but was powerless. His back slammed hard against a piece of gravel, causing him to gasp in pain.

Stefan gritted his teeth, his hand gripping the longsword with bulging veins, but the sword felt like it was made of lead, and he didn't even have the courage to lift it.

The goblins who had nearly surrounded and killed them scattered and fled at the sight of the dragon.

Faced with such a large and dangerous enemy, can they really win?

They were just ordinary geological prospectors, some low-level professionals, not even those low-level professionals skilled in combat.

Arya collapsed to the ground, covering her face with her hands, her shoulders trembling violently, and suppressed sobs leaking from between her fingers.

Linor looked at Puse's claw that was stepping on Garrett's mangled body.

It felt as if the claws would fall at any moment, crushing them into pieces just like Garrett.

A gift?

This is no blessing at all; it is clearly a sword hanging over our heads, a shackle called "living" casually bestowed by a dragon.

This is not some life-saving grace.

On the contrary, it is a dragon, a dragon that can take their lives at any moment.

Having just escaped the wolf's den, they've fallen into the tiger's lair; having just escaped the clutches of goblins, they now face this capricious and wicked dragon.

Linor looked at Captain Caleb, seeking the opinion of the team's leader, an experienced middle-aged warrior.

This middle-aged soldier was more experienced and knew that the current situation was beyond their control.

"Linole, since this person wants to know, then just say it. Anyway, we insignificant people won't have any crucial information."

"Okay!" Linor tried to organize her thoughts, unsure how to begin.

Her gaze swept over the pale faces of the crowd, as if she were trying to steady her own faltering mind.

"We come from... Elijah."

"This is a very chaotic country. How so? Racial issues, regional conflicts, religious confusion, rigid class divisions, poverty and backwardness..."

Linor's Adam's apple bobbed, as if she had swallowed something bitter.

"We are not even a 'nation' in the true sense of the word. We are just a group of losers crushed by the Blood Empire, pitiful creatures being driven westward like livestock."

"These races, who should have been fighting each other, have been forced by the empire into the same quagmire, with no choice but to keep expanding westward..."

After Linor introduced the country, Puse learned that it was located to the east of the lair, downstream of the river bend.

In other words, if Puse had chosen to go downstream and swim for a day or two, he would not have encountered the ocean, but would have encountered humans first.

Linor continued, her voice hoarse, "Take the Long-Eared Tribe and the Levi, for example. The feud between these two tribes predates Elijah's age, and every time they clash, it's difficult to reconcile them..."

Elijah's birth was never a glorious accumulation of sand into a tower, but rather a pile of broken bricks from a collapsed city.

Three hundred years ago, the blood-red empire in the northeast trampled city-states and tribes with its iron hooves.

The agricultural settlements of the Levi, the coniferous forest villages of the Long-eared, the swampy city-states of the Conrad, and those small tribes that didn't even leave behind a name, were as brittle as dried wheat stalks under the shadow of the empire.

The laws of the empire do not contain the word "submission," but only "assimilation" and "exile."

Those groups unwilling to abandon their faith were driven from their ancestral lands and migrated westward generation after generation.

On the run, hatred was etched into their very bones, tyranny continued to grow, and conflicts over resources gradually intensified.

Long-eared arrows once pierced the throats of the Levi, and Levi knights once swallowed up an entire Conrad caravan, selling long-eared children as slaves.

This is the place where Linor has lived since she was a child.

Having a place to live is never the same as having peace and tranquility.

There was no unified leader, only loose tribal alliances.

The Levi people occupied the few remaining arable lands, the Long-eared people cultivated coniferous forests to the west, and the Conrad people continuously created swamps.

There are also those small tribes that are gradually weakening. Between each tribe, there is an invisible blood feud and also a resource barrier on which they depend for survival.

The ownership of farmland can spark a battle that lasts for half a month; the right to hunt in the forest can cause the Long-eared Tribe to rain down arrows on human villages again; the herbs and minerals in the swamp can turn the Conrads against all their neighbors.

They do not share a common faith.

The Levi people's deity is a mother goddess who governs the harvest, the Long-eared people worship a forest god of hunting, and the Conrad people worship a water monster from the swamp.

The priests prayed on their respective altars, hoping that the other's people would be devoured by natural disasters.

The rigidity of class is harder than a city wall, and the people at the bottom, regardless of race, are struggling with hunger and subsistence.

They had to pay 70% of their harvest to the nobles, serve as cannon fodder in tribal feuds, and be wary of the magical beasts that occasionally darted out from the Misty Mountains.

Elijah has no history books, only generations of resentment and suffering.

Children are taught from a young age that the people of the Empire are executioners, the people of other races are plunderers, and Elijah is nothing more than a graveyard for losers, a cage built on a knife's edge.

For three hundred years, the shadow of the Crimson Empire has never dissipated.

Occasionally, imperial scouts would cross the border to spy on the true nature of this land.

Each spying triggered a panic within Elijah.

"Is the Crimson Empire very powerful?" Puse asked doubtfully. To be able to beat so many races so badly, it must be said that it is quite powerful.

Linor murmured softly, "It's a country blessed by the gods."

Before the words were finished, a crack suddenly appeared in the sky at the edge of the grassland.

It wasn't a turbulent tearing apart, but rather a stagnant emergence with an eerie halo.

First, a crimson hue, like crushed blood beads, seeped from the dark clouds, gradually spreading into a red moon hanging over the northeastern mountain ridge.

The color was so intense it seemed to have been pulled from a slaughterhouse, its edges tinged with a dark purple malevolence, and even the moonlight that shone down carried a rusty, fishy odor.

Immediately afterwards, the sky to the southeast also brightened.

It was a completely different silver moon, silently climbing up the clouds.

It lacks the flamboyant ferocity of the Red Moon, but exudes a chilling stillness.

The moonlight falling on the ground was not a gentle, clear glow, but a chilling cold that made one's hair stand on end and cut into one's skin.

Two moons, one red and one silver, faced each other across the vast grassland.