Chapter 957 — The Factory
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
A blue dragon and a white dragon swept over the city, the protective barrier glowing faintly in the night, just one more ribbon of light among the countless neon flows of the Tarrande metropolis. Gaoyang stood between Metzen's shoulder blades, gazing at the vast steel structures not far off that supported some kind of hanging garden, and could not help asking, "Where are we going?"
Metzen's low voice came from ahead: "We begin where a dragon's life begins—the central hatchery."
"Hatch..." Gaoyang froze for a moment, feeling as though he had just heard a term he had never imagined. "A hatchery?"
"You could also call it a hatching factory, or a dragon-egg hatchery—those are the more common names," Metzen said casually, already beginning to descend. "See that structure ahead that looks like an enormous pillar? That's the Agondor hatchery. Hold on tight, we're about to land."
Gaoyang instinctively adjusted his stance, his gaze drawn forward despite himself. He could already see the vast "factory"—it did indeed resemble a colossal pillar overall, its cylindrical main body surrounded by countless tank-like auxiliary structures and a great mass of pipes and support beams, with light spilling out slantwise from its midsection to trace a dozen or more guiding light-strips in the air for landing.
Gaoyang also saw a ring of landing platforms around the facility's midsection, many of them crowded with dragons coming and going. Occupied platforms were ringed in red light, while vacant ones were marked out with conspicuous white halos, impossible to miss—Metzen, and Noretta flying escort not far off, were both angling toward one of the vacant platforms.
But just as Metzen was about to descend, a rush of wind came suddenly from another direction, and a black dragon came tearing through the night sky, hurtling toward the very platform Metzen had just chosen. A rumbling, anxious roar carried through the dark: "My deepest apologies! The egg I claimed has hatched early!"
"You thieving—may your hatchling be safe and well!" Metzen, having had her spot stolen, was about to curse furiously, but upon hearing the other's roar she forcibly changed her tune. Then she gave a sharp beat of her wings, adjusting course to search for another platform as she said to Gaoyang with a touch of embarrassment, "Sorry you had to see such an uncivilized side of me... Please understand, getting a hatching permit is no easy thing these days. That was merely an anxious father."
Gaoyang: "..."
By now he seemed numb to all the unexpected things in Tarrande—he could not even be bothered to complain.
After this small mishap, Metzen and Noretta finally found vacant landing platforms. The two dragons settled smoothly onto two adjacent platforms, and before they had even touched down the lights around the platforms had turned red; after landing, each platform was covered by a semi-transparent barrier—until Gaoyang, along with Amber and Virodai, had jumped down from Metzen's and Noretta's backs respectively and the two dragon ladies had shifted to human form and left the platform area. Only then did the platforms' "temporary control" system switch back to vacant status—and all of it appeared to run automatically.
This, presumably, was Tarrande's uniquely characteristic "traffic control system"—a modest eye-opener.
Before a great gate leading into the hatchery's interior, Noretta, in her white dress, brought Amber and Virodai over to Gaoyang and Metzen. Amber instinctively tilted her head back, gazing up in awe at the gate, far grander than any city gate: "Wow..."
Virodai, however, looked past the gate to the deep, long corridor beyond—at the cold steel, the flickering lights, the lifeless polymer windows and conduits. After a long while she murmured, as if to herself, "I never imagined... that dragons are born in a place like this... I thought that if not a nest in a hot spring, then at least it would be at their parents' side..."