The sky was a hard sheet of blue, cold and cloudless. A great flying dragon cut through the wind, its scales flashing like dull metal in the sunlight. On its back sat Dragon Knight Eren, armored in finely crafted plates that spoke of noble rank and long training. Yet the man himself looked nothing like the proud posters or royal tapestries. His hair—usually combed and neat—was a tangle. A week of sleepless travel had left his face rough with stubble and his eyes ringed with shadows.
The dragon rumbled under him, a low sound that vibrated through bone and steel. Eren leaned forward and rubbed the thick muscles at the base of its neck. "Hungry?" he asked softly. "I know. We'll find food soon."
His pouch held enough dry rations to keep a man alive for a month. But a dragon was not a man. A dragon's hunger was a storm. What would last a soldier weeks would barely be a single bite for the beast. Eren had left in a rush—he had not planned, had not asked permission, had not waited. He had one thought and one thought only: find Lusia. And the world could burn if it stood in his way.
The dragon's head tilted. Its eyes narrowed, sensing movement below. Eren glanced down—and his mouth lifted in a small, tired smile.
A river wound through the wilderness like a streak of silver. On its banks a scattered group of people rested, their bodies thin and unsteady. The group was mixed—men, women, a few older children. Their clothes were torn, their steps uncertain. They had the look of people who had walked too far for too long.
"Refugees," Eren said quietly. He could read the signs from the saddle of a moving dragon. "From the Kingdom of Loth… and the Kiswell Kingdom." He didn't need a banner to know it. Word had spread across the lands that towns had fallen, that orcs had broken borders and homes and lives. People fled in every direction, many of them aiming for the Loos Kingdom, where they had heard a strong king—Gavin Ward—was building new cities and offering work for anyone who could lift a brick or hold a trowel.
Down by the river, a thin man with a stripped branch speared at the water. "Got one!" he shouted, joy lighting his face as he lifted a thrashing fish into the air. Others laughed, clapped, and cheered with relief. One fish meant food. Food meant another day.
Eren patted the dragon's neck. His smile sharpened. "There's your meal," he said. "You've been patient. Eat."
The dragon hesitated, rumbling. Even beasts knew lean meat from fat. These people were starving. They would be stringy, bitter. The dragon snorted in clear dislike.
Eren's voice stayed smooth. "You haven't seen cow or sheep for days," he reminded the beast. "You'll eat what there is. That's how we live."
The dragon understood him—the mind-link between knight and dragon made words almost unnecessary. Hunger finally won. With a violent beat of wings, the dragon folded its body, diving toward the river.
A blast of wind struck the bank. Dust leapt up. A young man crouched at the fire pit, trying to coax a flame from damp twigs. He squinted up at the dark shape falling over him like an eclipse.
"Is it… cloudy?" he started to ask.
Then he saw the dragon.
He screamed—a raw, cracking sound. Others looked up, and the world turned into panic.
The dragon hit like a thrown hammer. Its jaws closed on the young man's upper body with a wet, tearing sound. The lower half fell beside the half-built fire, twitching and useless. Blood splashed across the river stones.
"There's a dragon!"
"Run!"
"Gods help us!"
The refugees scattered, stumbling in every direction, tripping over one another in blind terror. But what could feet do against wings? The dragon rose, turned, and swept down again, its shadow clawing across the ground. Another body vanished into its mouth. Another spray of red. Another wail snuffed out in a heartbeat.
Eren lay low over the dragon's shoulders, one hand in the hot scales. He spoke to it in a calm, almost gentle tone—as if soothing a child. "Not full yet? There are more. I know you don't like the taste, but this is what we have. You won't fall ill. You've eaten human before." His lips curved. "Many times."
The dragon learned quickly where the meat made the least mess. Eren chuckled. "Yes. Above the waist is cleaner." He patted its neck with approval.
They hunted the bank back and forth, back and forth. Each dive ended with another human in the dragon's jaws. Each climb shook blood from its teeth like rain. Limbs and torn clothing fell from the sky. The river carried red ribbons downstream, weaving them among stones and reeds.
At last, the dragon slowed. Its flight smoothed. It threw back its head and roared in full, satisfied belly.
For those still alive below, the sound was the voice of a nightmare. A man crouched among the reeds, shaking so hard his teeth clicked. "Is… it leaving?" he whispered.
Eren stroked the dragon's neck again. "Play?" he echoed as the beast's thoughts brushed his own. "What kind of play?" The image formed clearly in his mind: fire falling from the sky, ants—that is, people—running until their legs gave out.
He smiled, hair blown across his brow. "All right. Fire the ants."
The dragon climbed, leveled, and swept low. Sparks gathered in its throat. It exhaled a pillar of flame that burned the grass to a sheet of glowing coal and caught the running people in a wave of fire. Screams rose and crackled, thinner and thinner, until only the sound of burning remained. The fire crawled and spread behind the dragon as it wheeled and circled, drawing black scars across the ground.
Eren watched, elegant as a courtier and cold as winter. "Good," he murmured. "Very good."
They left the riverbank behind—a blackened curve of ash and bodies—and the dragon glided on, belly full, wings easy.
It should be said—and it is important—Eren was not strange among dragon knights. Cruelty was not a flaw in their order; it was a feature. The mind-link with dragons changed men. Dragons were predators built for dominance. They saw the world as food to be taken and enemies to be burned. Tied to such minds for years, most knights slid, slowly and then quickly, toward the same hard joy. They learned to speak softly and kill easily. Eren's polished manners only hid what the link had already carved within him.
They flew onward. Hours passed. The land changed.
Ahead, a city rose from the plain—Tino City. It was new, the lines sharp and clean, with scaffolding everywhere like ribs around a giant's chest. Workers in hard hats moved in streams along the walls and streets, hauling bricks, holding plans, calling to one another. Most were refugees—people who had left everything behind and had been given a chance. They built not just walls; they built lives.
Every so often, a worker would tilt back a helmet, wipe sweat, and look over the neat rows of fresh stone with quiet pride. His Majesty Gavin Ward had set this in motion: work for hands, bread for bellies, roofs for families. In return, the people gave him respect that needed no speeches. Work, food, safety—these were things that made loyalty grow.
A man near the western wall paused with a wheelbarrow heavy with mortar. He squinted at the sky. A small black mark moved there, swelling slowly as it came. He raised a hand to shade his eyes.
"Is that…?" he began, and then the shape opened wings against the sun.
"Dragon!" he shouted, voice breaking. "There's a dragon!"
The cry rippled like lightning through the workers. Tools clattered to the ground. People pointed, shouted, ran to fetch officers, to pull ropes, to get children off the scaffold. A thousand things happened at once, as they do when fear strikes a crowd.
From above, Eren smiled. He rapped his knuckles twice on the dragon's neck. "Look at that," he said. "More toys."
The dragon's pupils thinned with interest. It tilted its wings to descend.
---
A Week of Obsession
Eren had been flying for seven days—over the borderlands of the Tongsley Empire, across valleys and ridges, through sleet and sun. He had ignored orders. He had left his post under the Duke of the Golden Lion without a word. But his reason felt pure as iron: Lusia was missing.
No command could make him forget the last time he saw her. Lusia's eyes had a calm no storm could shake. She was fierce, brilliant, and stubborn in every way that mattered. If she was alive, Eren would find her. If she was dead, he would demand a debt from those who owed him sorrow. In the tight coil of his thoughts, one name kept hardening to a point: the Loos Kingdom.
If anything had happened to Lusia within Loos lands, he would light their fields on fire. That was how he felt. That was what the link with a dragon does—it turns pain into flame.
Now, as Tino City swelled beneath him, his aims tangled: hunger satisfied, cruelty appeased, love sharpened into anger. His dragon wanted play. He wanted an answer.
---
The City Below
From the high outer parapet, a foreman bellowed for calm. "Positions! Get the crews off the west scaffolds! Clear the open ground!" Men and women who had once run from orc blades now ran with purpose, trained by weeks of drills since they had entered Loos territory. Alarm bells rang from a new-built tower, the sound clean and bright.
On the main street, a little boy stopped to stare, a loaf of bread hugged to his chest. His sister grabbed his arm and pulled hard. "Come on!" she cried. "Inside!"
The dragon dropped lower. Heat shimmered from its breath as it tested the air. Fire was a habit now, as easy as blinking.
Eren watched the new walls, the neat grid of streets, the rising stone, and felt a small, dry laugh in his throat. "So this is what Gavin Ward builds," he said. "Cities… order… hope." His eyes were flat. "Let's see how it burns."
The dragon gathered itself.
This was the moment when worlds collide—a hungry beast, a cruel rider, and a young city built by refugees who refused to be victims anymore.
---
What the Dragon Knights Become
There is a reason dragon knights are feared beyond steel and flame. The bond does not end when the saddle is empty. It changes the rider's heart. It trains a man to savor helplessness in others. It rewards dominance, praises cold choices, and whispers that the world is better when it kneels. Eren had been a good man once—or at least a normal one. Years of shared mind had smoothed away the edges that resisted cruelty. Only one thing still warmed him: the thought of Lusia's face. Even that warmth, twisted by dragon-fire, had become a reason to burn.
Now, with Tino City below, the dragon's throat brightened.
Workers braced. Children were pulled into doorways. Anti-air claxons—new, crude, and loud—blared from the gatehouse. Far off, in the inner yard, tarps came off mounted guns, and a team began to swing a heavy weapon toward the sky.
Eren's hand stilled on the dragon's neck. The city's neat order and quick response tugged at him with a thorn of doubt. If Lusia were here—if she stood on that wall—what would she say if she saw him now?
The dragon pressed its will against his. Fire. Now.
Eren's jaw tightened.
"Descend," he said.
The dragon folded its wings and fell.
The city of Tino held its breath.
The dragon opened its jaws.
And the next page of this war began to write itself in fire.
_________________________________
Visit our Patreon for more:
Get membership in patreon to read more chapters♥️💫
Extra chapters available in patreon
patreon.com/Dragonscribe31
----------------------------------------------------
---