In the days that followed, the peaceful rhythm of their daily life remained largely unchanged, though their nighttime activities became noticeably more energetic.
However, as the entourage lingered in the border town waiting for replacement supplies and carriages from the Capital, two significant pieces of intelligence reached Regulus and his wives.
The first notable dispatch concerned the severed dragon head left behind in the canyon.
The trophy had initially been secured by the knight order of a neighboring province, but just two days after being locked inside their reinforced vault, the massive head was stolen in broad daylight.
According to reports, the culprit who infiltrated the vault appeared identical to the local lord's daughter. Yet at the precise time of the heist, the young lady had been hosting a high-society tea party at her family estate, complete with dozens of noble witnesses providing an ironclad alibi.
The knights stationed at the vault insisted with absolute certainty that their eyes hadn't deceived them.
Hearing this peculiar report, a single name immediately flashed into Regulus's mind: Capella Emerada Lugnica, the Sin Archbishop of Lust.
With her Authority of flesh manipulation and shape-shifting, mimicking a lord's daughter to casually walk away with a multi-ton dragon head was child's play for her.
While Regulus made a mental note of Capella's sudden movement, the second piece of news demanded far more immediate attention.
The black dragon—now reduced to two heads and missing its tail—had manifested again. Driven by feral rage, Valgren had descended upon a fortified settlement along Lugnica's western frontier.
The outcome had been a one-sided slaughter.
Barring a few survivors who fled through underground escape tunnels, virtually the entire population had been incinerated in their homes. Calling it an absolute massacre was no exaggeration.
Whether the wounded calamity had attacked out of primal hunger, or whether it was lashing out in blind retaliation against humanity after suffering mutilation, was impossible to say.
Regardless of the beast's underlying motive, Regulus had zero intention of sitting on his hands.
For one, authentic dragon meat had proven to be extraordinarily delicious.
More importantly, seeing the grim dispatches had visibly darkened the moods of Theresia and Carol. Even though both had formally stepped down from their official military duties to stand at his side, their ingrained knightly instincts still made them feel deeply troubled by the wanton slaughter of innocent civilians.
As their husband, Regulus wasn't about to let his beloved wives remain gloomy and anxious all day.
He would hunt down the overgrown lizard himself.
Standing by the manor gates as the household gathered to see him off, Lycoris voiced her lingering concern once more.
"Dear, are you entirely sure you shouldn't bring Anileni along as well?"
"There's really no need," Regulus reassured her, smoothing down her collar. "Sphinx's flight magic and spell tracking are more than sufficient for aerial support."
"Still, facing an apex dragon..."
"I know you are worried about me," Regulus smiled, gently tapping her forehead, "but by that same token, I am equally worried about leaving all of you unguarded. With the strange incident in the neighboring city, Capella is clearly lurking somewhere in the province. With Anileni, Beatrice, and the royal guards stationed here, your safety is guaranteed. So, the matter is settled."
"Understood..." Lycoris yielded softly, leaning into his touch.
"Don't fret. I'll be back before evening," Regulus announced to the gathered brides. "Just make sure the victory banquet is fully prepared when I return."
"Mm!"
"Then I'm off."
Scooping Sphinx into his left arm, Regulus stepped forward and engaged his Authority.
He had no need for dragon carriages or steeds. In this world, nothing surpassed his own two feet when time itself ceased to hold him back.
With Lion's Heart active, his physical state was completely locked. He ignored atmospheric friction, terrain resistance, and physical exhaustion entirely. Rather than following the winding mountain roads, Regulus vaulted across canyons and sprinted in an absolute, razor-straight line toward the coordinates of the burning settlement.
It did not take long to arrive.
Before him lay a ruined, smoking scar on the earth. The border town had been incinerated beyond recognition; collapsed timber, molten cobblestones, and charred remains filled the air with a choking, sulfurous stench.
While the devastation was undeniably tragic, compared to the horrific, blood-soaked trenches of the Demi-Human War, the visual shock was relatively manageable for someone of Regulus's experience.
Even so, taking in the flattened streets, Regulus felt a surge of genuine annoyance.
In this world, the demographic ratio was already heavily skewed toward women—an imbalance widened drastically by the recent civil war. This single draconic wildfire had wiped out thousands of people, the vast majority of whom were young women!
'Who knows if there were lovely, maidenly beauties in this town who might have caught my interest in the future?' Regulus thought, scowling at the ash. 'What an insufferable, destructive pest.'
Tracking down the few surviving guards huddled in the surrounding hills, Regulus bypassed the bureaucratic condolences and demanded Valgren's flight path.
To his surprise, he not only obtained the beast's current coordinates, but also learned of an ongoing suppression operation. The feudal lords of the neighboring domains had rapidly mobilized an emergency coalition, dispatching nearly a hundred elite knights to intercept the wounded dragon.
'Courageous, certainly,' Regulus mused, 'but fundamentally suicidal.'
Wasting no more time, Regulus followed the path of scorched treetops at peak speed.
He soon reached the theater of battle: an isolated, rocky peak rising above the plateau. The surrounding forests had been torched flat, creating a barren ring of charred earth that provided total visibility in every direction.
It appeared he had arrived a step too late for the coalition.
The clash was practically over. Shattered armor, melted shields, and severed limbs littered the smoking rocks. Only a handful of ragged knights were still standing, and their total annihilation was merely a matter of minutes.
Setting Sphinx down on a concealed ridge just outside the perimeter, Regulus closed the distance.
The moment he crested the rocky slope, Valgren—currently crushing a knight's chest beneath its talons—abruptly froze. Its remaining two heads snapped around, the slit pupils locking straight onto the white-haired young man.
Regulus clicked his tongue.
'So it intentionally leveled every single tree around the mountain to prevent an ambush,' he analyzed. 'It remembers my attacks and knows it can't survive a surprise strike.'
SKREEE—!
Without a microsecond of hesitation, the black dragon kicked off the crushed earth, beating its massive, leathery wings to launch itself skyward in an immediate retreat!
Its panicked flight was entirely within Regulus's calculations.
Regulus scooped up handfuls of jagged shale from the mountainside, unleashing a continuous, supersonic barrage of time-frozen stones straight into the sky.
Valgren twisted violently in mid-air, rolling its massive frame to desperately evade the lethal trajectories.
Just as the dragon committed to a sharp banking maneuver, a blinding pillar of concentrated violet light erupted from the distant ridge!
Sphinx had unleashed her high-tier Yin beam.
Caught between two lethal vectors, Valgren's primal survival instincts forced an emergency triage. Choosing to endure pure magical energy over Regulus's conceptually absolute kinetic projectiles, the beast threw its left wing into the path of the beam.
PIERCE!
The dense beam of mana burned straight through the thick leathery membrane, blowing a gaping hole through the joint.
Valgren shrieked in agony, its flight posture staggering violently as it pitched downward.
Just as Regulus prepared to leap upward and deliver the decisive bisection, a sudden, suffocating pressure washed over his senses. An intense, alarm-bell sensation flared in his chest.
Regulus snapped his head toward the distant horizon.
Ripping through the cloud layer at unfathomable speed was a small black speck, hurtling straight toward their battlefield.
Yet what caused Regulus's eyes to widen was the colossal, majestic silhouette pursuing it closely from behind.
Bathed in blinding, iridescent blue light, spreading celestial wings that seemed to cradle the very sky...
'Is that... the Divine Dragon, Volcanica?!'