Chapter 1563: Loki, Prince Of the Metallic Dragons
Arad stood and looked up, seeing the sky above him shift and twist. The Flying Fortress had arrived.
The Metallic Dragons’ Flying Steel Fortress was a massive flying continent of steel, armored plates, and cannons the size of volcanoes. Millions of massive artillery cannons and balistas all moving and aiming at anything the fortress flies by.
Just one of those countless cannons could blast a whole city into outer space with a single shot. It was terrifying to think that Arad himself saw this fortress as far more threatening than Sylph’s heaven.
From what Arad could sense, the fortress was massive, almost four thousand kilometers in diameter, hexagonal in shape, and surrounded by a haze of illusion magic for camouflage.
Even to Arad, the fortress’s ability to perfectly camouflage itself and blend into the sky was utterly incomprehensible.
From what Arad knows, Mary is the name of the Metallic Queen. She is Steel Drakaina and the mother of time dragons, the daughter of Bahamut, the only Platinum dragon, and the God of Metallic dragons.
He had met her several times and could remember her harrowing power, especially that time she went to the past to threaten him and Tina. It didn’t matter how powerful he is now, she can always go to the past and kill him right after he was born.
And if her time powers weren’t enough, this entire Steel Fortress was made from her draconic magic and lifted into the clouds with her Gravity Magic. She is the one moving this entire thing like it’s nothing, making it clear she is nothing short of a monster that Arad didn’t want to fight.
Arad only had to wait for a few seconds after the fortress showed up before a dragon approached him. This time, it was a great wyrm steel dragon, looking like a young twenty-five-year-old man with no beard, silky short auburn hair, and radiant green eyes.
"Oh my, you’re huge, aren’t you?" The dragon landed a few meters in front of Arad, staring at him with a gentle, carefree stare.
Arad stood and stored his chair away. He glanced at the dragon for a moment and then looked at the fortress. "I expected Kinryuu to come. But you smell like the Queen."
The dragon tilted his head slightly and smiled, his green eyes reflecting the world behind Arad. "Of course I do. She is my mother."
"Mother said I have to go pick you up. I didn’t know what to expect from a human emperor that is also a dragon with your unusual track record."
The dragon’s silver armor shifted and moved, turning into a flowing noble coat. He was mimicking the attire of Ruris Kingdom generals, albeit it looked a bit different from what the generals wore today.
"I served in the army of Ruris three hundred years ago, died to an arrow to the neck." He giggled, his clothes shifting once more, this time into rags, "I was also a beggar there for a couple of years. Ah, I remember that gentle, noble lady. She picked me off the streets, fed me well, then at night tortured me to death and threw my corpse into a ditch for the rats to eat."
He smiled, "Guess how she died."
Arad glared at him, "You killed her?"
"I came back as a noble, married her, then abused her for two decades before throwing her into the sewers to get eaten by the rats. She never got another poor soul tortured since the day I got my hands on her."
Arad frowned, "Could’ve just tipped the guards."
"What could they do? She had over fifty victims before me, and no one did anything." He took a few steps forward, "Someone had to make her cry."
Arad looked up, sighed, and then glared at the dragon, "So? What’s your name? Why are we talking about this?"
The dragon smiled, "Loki, and to let you know, I rarely stay at the fortress. Guess where I was last?"
Arad looked at Loki for a while, "I can’t quite figure it out. I believe we never met."
"Of course, we didn’t. I was living my life as a humble slave to one beautiful vampire lady in Vlad’s kingdom. She was tall, beautiful, and quite gentle, unlike the other vampires." He frowned, "Until someone dropped a sun on our heads."
"Oh, so you were living in Vlad’s kingdom... Sorry, at the time, I wasn’t in control of that [Ho-white Nova]." Arad scratched the back of his head.
"I know, I know. Mother told me." Loki sighed, "But, what a waste of a beautiful lady. I was even considering taking her with me after my little playtime ended."
"Care to describe her for me? Vampires rarely die, and Vlad took many of them with him." Arad looked inside his stomach, where Vlad’s entire army was.
Loki’s eyes flashed, "Yeah! She was tall, a bit taller than me now. Her eyes and hair are black, she has a mole beneath her lip on the right side, a large chest, a powerful build, and a twisted personality. Lady Ferloin."
Arad closed his eyes, sending a message to Zia.
"Zia, I’m here with a dragon looking for a vampire woman called Ferloin, tall, with black hair and eyes, a mole beneath her lip, and well built." Arad sent the message and waited for a few seconds before he got a reply.
"I got her, but she is locked away. She did prey on humans without notifying the church. So, basically, they attacked and drank the blood of potentially innocent people."
Arad nodded, heard Zia’s full report, and then turned back to Loki. "I got her, but right now she is a criminal. I have rules set for who the vampires can feed on."
"Can’t give her to me?" Loki looked a bit sad, and Arad shook his head, "I can give her to you, that won’t be a problem. I believe you will make sure she doesn’t cause any more trouble, right?"
"Of course, who do you think I am? I’m Loki, a prince of the Metallic Dragons!" He puffed his chest with a proud smile.
"Yeah, I’ve seen good Chromatic dragons, so I’d assume there are enough evil Metallic dragons out there as well." Arad looked at him. "And from my experience, nobles and royalty are the most evil."
Arad then waved his hand and Ferloin appeared in front of him, wearing a white gown and with both her arms and feet shackled; she even had a metallic gag so she won’t bite anything.
She looked around and Loki patted her on the head, "Don’t worry, it’s me, Little Garry. We’ll talk later." He immediately teleported her away and turned toward Arad.
"Thank you for handing her to me. I hope this will be the first amongst many fruitful relationships." He waved his hands and started flying, "Would mine follow me? The fortress’s gates are wide open."
The two flew up, floating into the sky without wings, carried away by the mystical waves of the Queen’s gravity magic.
The closer they got to the fortress, the more worried Arad got, because the place looked more and more hostile.
A massive storm surrounded the massive fortress, shrouding it in heavy rain, lightning, and violet winds. From his spot, Arad could spot massive lightning rods that dwarfed the mountains on land, all of them drawing the lightning and directing it back to the fortress to be used as energy.
This was how the fortress recharged its energy reserves.
As they got closer, all of the cannons suddenly shifted and pointed at them, then they moved and aimed elsewhere. Arad knew that if he were alone, they would’ve fired at him.
Some of the cannon barrels were over a kilometer wide, making even Arad’s draconic form seem like a fly staring down the barrel of a gun. To think such a structure is operated by a single drakaina, and to think it drifted across the sky without a single human noticing its existence.