Chapter 1149 — Tarrond Through Dragonkin Eyes
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
The arrival of the Dragonkin would in time reshape Tarrond, the Holy Dragon Principality, and the future of the entire draconic race—but at this moment, for those who stood at the heart of the event, what drew their attention first was clearly not some "long-range historical significance," but the shocking, brutal reality laid out before their eyes.
A land torn into pieces, gravity twisted and warped, spatial rifts and surging flows of energy everywhere, and, roaming across this wasteland, maleficent elementals and spirit creatures.
Had this land not been home to giant dragons, it would long since have become a forbidden zone unfit for survival for most mortal species.
Accompanied by Kradore the Red Dragon, Ashalena climbed the tallest watchtower beside Coastal Haven. From there she could look straight down over the whole of Coastal Haven and the vast, desolate wilderness surrounding the town. The sight before her plunged the Dragonmark Witch into a long silence—neither in the memories of her past dragon life, nor in the worst imaginings of Tarrond she had carried with her before setting out, had she ever conceived that a land could be ruined to this degree. The present state of this wasteland far exceeded her expectations.
Only then did she truly realize that the "live footage" Meitzen Ponia had brought to Meeting Room 112 had never been exaggerated to beg for aid—set against the reality, that footage seemed almost gentle. Clearly, after a long blockade and centuries of social stagnation, the dragons of Tarrond had no experience at all in "public relations."
What astonished the Dragonmark Witch even more was that, upon such a wasteland, the great dragons of Tarrond still intended to heal and rebuild their homeland and go on living upon this soil.
"Frankly, this land seems to me utterly unfit for survival," Ashalena said after a soft breath, addressing the old red dragon beside her with a measured gravity. "The price of healing this land would be staggering. For you, the more cost-effective choice would be to leave, and start over somewhere fit for living."
"From a rational standpoint, you are quite right," Kradore said with a laugh and a shake of his head. "But we cannot simply walk away... This land has been our home for over a million years, everything we are lies buried deep in its soil, and no 'fresh start' can sever that. Besides... we still have debts of responsibility unpaid. Whether it is the monsters roaming here or that great tower in the northwest, these are burdens the dragon race must bear."
"Responsibility?" Ashalena said softly, her gaze falling on a tower outside the town, a structure caught in a half-molten state. It had perhaps once been part of some great factory, but now the components and piping that had clung to it had fused into slabs congealed upon the ground, leaving only a warped, battered tower body standing in the cold wind like some jagged skeleton. "...Before I came here, I had guessed at what Tarrond might look like, and in earlier years I, like other Dragonkin, held many fancies about this 'ancestral land of dragons'... But once I arrived, I realized every one of those imaginings was wrong."
Kradore was silent a while, then at last asked the question he had long wanted to ask: "How do the Dragonkin... see Tarrond?"
"If you mean this land, then Tarrond is to us a true yet distant 'story.' We know it exists, but no one knows what it looks like. Our only tie to it is the legends passed down from ancient times—in that legend, we have a homeland, and it lies somewhere we can never reach.
"And if you mean 'pure-blooded dragons of Tarrond' like yourself, then I can only say that many Dragonkin, before learning the truth, loathed you and yearned for you at once; and after learning it, they were moved and resistant in equal measure.