"Am I dreaming?!"
Standing atop the mountain, Garcia watched the black dragon slowly descend from the sky. His legs went weak, and he knelt on the ground, murmuring, "This is a messenger of God!"
Eleanor pressed her hand gently to her chest, her face flushed, and whispered, "What a beautiful creature, this is my dream!"
On the plains behind Lone Rock, Cumberland, riding a warhorse, slowly lifted his mask, pointed his blood-stained lance at the ground, and let the corpses hanging on it fall to the ground.
Watching the figure in the sky spread its dragon wings, and hearing the thunderous roar in his ears, he gaped and muttered to himself, "My God!"
With a flick of its tail, the dragon struck the watchtower of the royal city, splitting the towering structure in two and sending it crashing down towards the imperial army below.
The soldiers, as if waking from a dream, cried out and dropped their weapons, desperately dodging the collapsing buildings, fleeing the royal city in a swarm and running towards the inner city halfway up the mountain.
With a deathly pale face, Ilem drew his musket and shouted at the deserters, "Don't run away! Come back here!"
No one obeyed his orders. Even the most loyal soldiers, faced with the colossal creature before them, could only choose to survive.
The black dragon flapped its wings and flew from the top of the royal city into the air, then swooped down and began to circle endlessly along the edge of the city.
A loud cannon shot rang out.
A solid cannonball suddenly flew into the air, drawing a trajectory across the sky.
The unharmed black dragon looked in the direction the cannonballs were fired, leaned slightly, spread its wings, and flew swiftly toward the cannons.
At an artillery position set up by the Ayyubid Empire outside the inner city walls, an imperial artillery captain who had just fired a cannon trembled violently as he watched the enormous black shadow approaching from the sky. He hurriedly dropped his torch, wanting to turn and run, but found his legs seemed to be rooted to the ground, unable to take a single step.
The black dragon's golden pupils reflected the offender's terrified face.
The dragon's mouth opened, and a beam of blazing white fire, a meter thick, streaked across the sky and struck the artillery position directly.
Human bodies were instantly burned to charcoal in the flames; the piled-up gunpowder, after being scorched, caused a tremendous secondary explosion.
The empire's artillery positions were transformed into a living hell in the blink of an eye. Scattered debris and towering flames brought death to hundreds and thousands of soldiers in the surrounding area. Under the repeated attacks, the towering city walls could no longer support the weight and collapsed completely.
After pausing for a moment, the black dragon turned its gaze to the other enemies in its field of vision.
One after another, pillars of fire spewed from its mouth, striking any enemy soldiers in the city who were armed, and the entire Lone Rock City was instantly turned into a sea of fire.
Under the protection of the royal guards, Saladin, hiding in the ruins, watched as Ilam, covered in dust, stumbled toward him and said with a wry smile, "Take your troops; we're afraid we'll have to abandon this city."
Ilem still seemed unable to believe what he was seeing: "How could there possibly be a dragon here?!"
Saladin, however, appeared much calmer: "On the battlefield, anything is possible. However, no one could have predicted what happened today..."
Ilam nodded bitterly: "Caliph, this is not the place to talk. You should ride away first, but don't go through the city gate, it's already a sea of fire."
"We can't ride the horse anymore." Saladin said with a wry smile, looking at the warhorse lying on the ground not far away, trembling. "We must find another way to retreat."
Watching the giant dragon fly away from overhead, Ilem crouched down, slipped into the shadows of the building, and carefully crawled to the back.
He peered through the gaps in the building into the distance, then climbed back up and said, “There’s a section of collapsed city wall to the southwest. I’ll organize the remaining troops and leave Lone Rock City from there.”
Saladin nodded and replied, "Go, and may God protect us."
Ilem emerged from the ruins, taking one last look at the enormous black shadow soaring freely in the sky. Gritting his teeth, he said hatefully, "One day, one day I will make you fall at my feet!"
The fire in Lonely Rock City burned for a full day and night. When the last flame in the city turned into wisps of white smoke, it marked the official end of the war initiated by the Southern Empire.
In the small, confined area of Lonely Rock City, more than 30,000 people lost their lives in just a few days.
The Ayyubid Empire had an army of over 12,000 men when it set out, but returned with fewer than 2,000.
Of these, the Imperial army that landed on the northern plains numbered four thousand. Having lost their commander and suffered setbacks in their siege, their rear was then suddenly attacked by the Knights of the Twilight, throwing them into chaos. Within an hour of fighting, defeat was assured, and the entire army was annihilated. The Imperial fleet, consisting of thirteen warships of various types, lost six, and the fate of its commander-in-chief, Latib, remains unknown.
Of the troops personally led by Emperor Saladin, only a few hundred soldiers actually died in battle. The direct cause of death for the remaining five thousand soldiers was the fire that burned the city, but the real reason could be said to be the black dragon that suddenly appeared.
On the side of Lone Rock City, there were more than 20,000 casualties.
Of the 3,000 reinforcements stationed on Moon Creek Plain, Saladin's siege and reinforcement tactics resulted in their defeat one by one, with less than one-tenth surviving. The 800 defenders in the city, including the regent Jennings, chose to die in battle against the imperial army, with none surviving. In addition, of the more than 20,000 civilians in the city, only a little over a thousand actually escaped after the war.
On the side of Twilight City, there were two forces that actually participated in the battle: the "Theatre Guard" led by Knight Commander Horn, consisting of twenty knights and one hundred and fifty soldiers; and the main force of the Knights Order led by Grand Master Cumberland, which was responsible for relieving the siege of Lone Rock City, consisting of three hundred alien knights.
The former, facing an enemy force many times their size, held out for two days and two nights on the mountain path behind Lone Rock City. By the end of the war, 17 out of 150 soldiers survived, while only 3 out of 20 knights survived, and Knight Commander Horn was not among them.
The latter account states that nine knights of the main force of the knightly order were killed in the face of the imperial guns and cannons.
In addition to the casualties of the aforementioned forces, there are two other key figures.
One of them was Randall, a bodyguard for the Goldfinch Theatre Company.
Cumberland's knightly order waited for the fire to extinguish and, with the cooperation of the surviving civilians, entered Lone Rock City to search for several days, but still could not find the man's whereabouts. Helpless, they had no choice but to announce to the public that Randall was dead.
As for the other character, it is the mysterious black dragon.
After its sudden appearance and devastating blow to the imperial army, the black dragon circled over the city for half a day before flying into the clouds and disappearing without a trace, leaving behind only endless imagination and various rumors for later generations.
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