Commander Thorak, wiping the blood flowing from his forehead, consulted his tactical screens.
- "Our detectors are locating at least twelve heavy artillery batteries concealed within a twenty-kiloter radius. Combined magical and technological camouflage. They’re using illusion spells coupled with concealnt nets."
A fifth explosion, more violent than the previous ones, shook the air to starboard. This ti, one of the escort vessels, the Black Griffon, could not withstand the impact. Its hull cracked with a groan of tallic agony, and it tilted toward the ground in a spiral of smoke and flas. The cries of its crew were lost in the roar of the wind.
- "Enough!" roared Syléane, her eyes blazing with cold, calculated anger. "The human enemy wants to test our resistance? They’re about to discover what it truly ans to defy draconic power!"
She stepped forward to the center of the bridge, ignoring the chaos surrounding her. Her officers, despite their wounds and dismay, turned toward her with respect mixed with anticipation. They knew they were about to witness a demonstration of power that would remain etched in their mory.
Syléane closed her eyes and breathed deeply, drawing from the reserves of magic that flowed through her veins like a river of liquid fire. She felt her draconic heritage awakening, that ancestral power that made her far more than a simple warrior. When she reopened her eyes, her pupils glowed with a scarlet light that seed to co from the depths of her soul.
- "Stand back," she ordered calmly to her officers, who obeyed imdiately.
She slowly extended her hands forward, her fingers spread like claws. Her aura, usually contained and imperceptible, suddenly beca tangible. A reddish glow emanated from her body, intensifying progressively until it beca visible even through the armored viewport. The air around her began to shimr under the effect of the magical heat radiating from her skin.
- "Shield of Absolute Void!" she murmured in a clear voice but charged with an authority that seed to resonate in parallel dinsions.
The incantation, pronounced in the ancient draconic language, triggered an imdiate reaction. An imnse telekinetic sphere materialized around the entire fleet, a bubble of pure force with a diater of ten kiloters. Translucent but shimring with golden runes, it pulsed to the rhythm of Syléane’s heart. The air itself seed to solidify, creating an impenetrable barrier between the armada and the outside world.
The effects were imdiate and spectacular. The winged creatures, who had been struggling against the turbulence caused by the explosions, instantly regained their stability. The damaged vessels stopped pitching. Inside the shield, the air was perfectly calm, as if the draconic fleet was evolving in another dinsion.
A new sonic charge exploded outside, but this ti, the shockwave was imdiately stopped by the shield. The impact created colored ripples on the surface of the sphere, like miniature auroras, before being sent back toward the ground in an explosion of energy that illuminated the landscape for kiloters.
- "Now," murmured Syléane, her eyes still glowing with power, "let’s show these humans what recklessness costs."
From the command vessel Celestial Tyrannosaurus, Varnor Ignivara observed his daughter with a mixture of paternal pride and professional admiration. The patriarch of the house, whose golden scales sparkled in his humanoid form, smiled with satisfaction.
- "Excellent mastery, Syléane," he transmitted through telepathic communication. "Now, prepare to counterattack! It’s ti to remind them why our ancestors conquered three continents."
He turned to his own officers, his voice carrying an authority that brooked no contradiction. "All units, Oga attack formation! Locate those artillery batteries and reduce them to ashes! Show these humans what it ans to defy House Ignivara!"
At the rear of the ranks, mounted on an armored wyvern with scales black as night, Belgaroth Ignivara contemplated the scene with mixed feelings. Syléane’s cousin, whose aristocratic features were hardened by bitterness, had nearly been unseated by the initial attack. Only his draconic reflexes and equestrian mastery had saved him from a mortal fall.
He watched his cousin repel the human attacks with growing irritation. Once again, it was she who shone, she who demonstrated her magical superiority before the entire army. His claws tightened on the braided leather reins, and his wyvern growled upon sensing its rider’s tension.
- "Of course," he thought bitterly, "it’s always the perfect princess who saves the situation. But my ti will co. And when it cos, she’ll be the one looking at with envy."
His burning eyes, heritage of his draconic lineage, fixed on the earth below where the human artillery batteries continued to fire useless salvos against Syléane’s shield. Sowhere in those wooded hills, human soldiers were discovering with terror that their most powerful weapons were ineffective against draconic magic.
- "Miserable humans," he murmured through his teeth, his voice charged with cold hatred. "You dared to humiliate once, during the battle of Kareth. You made look like a coward before my peers. You will not humiliate twice."
His mories brought him back to that fateful day when a human ambush had decimated his squadron. He alone had survived, and his strategic retreat had been interpreted as cowardice by so of his peers. This sha had been gnawing at him for years, feeding his thirst for vengeance.
anwhile, on the bridge of the World Devourer, Syléane maintained her shield with absolute concentration. The magic she was channeling was colossal, sufficient to power an entire city for months. But she controlled it with the precision of a clockmaker, asuring each energy flow to optimize her fleet’s protection.
- "Thorak," she ordered without diverting her attention from her spell, "launch the reconnaissance squadrons. I want the exact position of every enemy battery. And prepare the heavy bombers—we’re going to show them what real artillery is."
- "At your orders, Lady Syléane!" The commander imdiately transmitted the instructions through the magical communication network.
A few minutes later, a hundred combat wyverns launched from the belly of the transport vessels, their riders equipped with enchanted night-vision goggles and location crystal spheres. They dove toward the ground in perfect formations, dodging artillery fire with supernatural agility.
Simultaneously, the armada’s "heavy bombers" positioned themselves for attack: dragons in their original form, each asuring more than fifty ters long. Their maws were already beginning to glow with orange light, a sign that they were preparing their incendiary breath.
Syléane turned toward the eastern horizon, where the first glimrs of dawn were beginning to tint the sky with a rosy color. Soon, the sun would rise on a transford landscape, where the human artillery positions would be nothing more than smoking craters.
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