Chapter 626 — Battle Plan, March on Red Maple

Meitzen Pernia walked into the barracks serving as the command post. Paying no heed to anyone else, she headed straight for Gao Yang—but after two steps, she suddenly sensed an aura that commanded her attention. Following it with her gaze, she saw at a glance the black-haired maid standing not far from Gao Yang's side.

The latter was looking over with a complex expression, in which nervousness and constraint were mingled, along with a faint trace of wariness.

The Mithril Vault agent's eyebrows rose slightly in spite of herself. "A genetic defective?"

Then she gave Maggie a slight nod and said coolly: "Hello."

In that instant, Maggie seemed to have countless things she wanted to say. She opened her mouth, her eyes unreadable, but in the end she only nodded slowly. "Hello."

Gao Yang took all of this in.

He was immensely curious—curious to know how dragon society actually functioned, what was the matter with a dragon bearing a deformity like Maggie, how a healthy dragon like Meitzen regarded Maggie, why a dragon would live in human society at all. But he knew this was not the time for such questions.

He waved away the uninvolved personnel present, leaving only himself and the two dragons.

Gao Yang gestured to Maggie standing beside him. "She's a dragon too. She should be able to hear what we discuss here, shouldn't she?"

"She may," Meitzen said, glancing at the black-haired maid. "Every dragon knows the secret behind the Mithril Vault—including... ones like her."

"Then let's speak plainly," Gao Yang said with a breath. "There's something I'd like to ask your help with."

"Let me guess..." Metzain's pale violet eyes glimmered faintly. "You want to borrow my strength—or the strength of the Mithril Vault—to deal with those mutated 'monsters'?"

"...More or less. Though I hadn't really thought of borrowing the Vault's power directly—that's probably impossible. I wanted to ask you..."

"Unfortunately, I can't either," Metzain cut him off before Gao Dai could finish. "Dragons may not take part in the wars of the continent. That is our law."

Gao Yang fixed his eyes on Metzain's. "But our war with the Crystal Legion is no ordinary war. It has already drawn in the power of the gods—it may even draw in the Magic Tide."

"That is indeed a debatable point," Metzain said candidly, "but only debatable. From the perspective of dragonkind as a whole, the crystal monsters you speak of can also be regarded as a new form of intelligent life. You may not accept their birth, may not accept their conduct, may not even accept that they have a social structure—but to dragonkind as a whole... this war is no different in essence from any dynasty's rise and fall on the continent."

Gao Yang had expected this young blue dragon would not agree so easily, but he had not expected her stance to be so firm, her reasoning so hard to refute. After a brief moment's thought, however, he seized on the crux of her words: "You said, from the perspective of dragonkind as a whole..."

"...Yes, from the perspective of dragonkind as a whole," Metzain was silent for two seconds, then let out a faint breath. "But as an individual, I—and no small number of dragons—would surely recognize that the birth and spread of those crystal-infected is a disaster, a disaster that ought to be stopped in time. It is only that... as members of the collective, we cannot take action so easily. You understand what I mean."

Gao Yang looked quietly into Metzain's eyes for a few seconds, understanding the deeper meaning in her words.

Give me a way out, so I can go back and report to my superiors.jpg.

Gao Yang began to think, and it did not take him long to hit on an idea.

"How about this—let's change direction," he shifted his posture in the chair and regarded Metzain at his leisure. "As far as I know, the Mithril Vault also runs a transport business."

"That we do."

"Then I'd like to commission you to deliver some goods to the Crystal commanders in Red Maple City..."

"What goods?"

"...Three tons of crystal bombs. By air. Cash on delivery."

Metzain stared at Gao Yang with wide eyes and said nothing for a long while: "..."

Gao Yang grew a little worried. "Is there a problem?"

"...My upbringing prevents me from swearing in a situation like this, so please forgive me—but I must admit, this is the finest loophole-exploitation I have ever witnessed."

Gao Yang let out a breath. "Then there's no problem."

"No, there is one more problem," Metzain cut in at once. "I don't believe... the target clients will actually pay after receiving the goods. This problem is very important."

Gao Yang blinked, but he could see not the slightest hint of jest on Metzain's face, so he had no choice but to think it over seriously and try: "Remember that 'god-metal'? If you're still interested, I can give you a fragment larger than the last one—we excavated it not long ago."

He meant the "Zenith relics" found in the Defiance Fortress. As far as he knew, dragons had long been collecting such things; those fragments of ancient devices were, to dragonkind, harder currency than gold, silver, or gems.

And in his hands, half a warehouse of them was piled up.

Metzain's breathing quickened despite herself. She wanted to demur a little longer, for after all this matter skirted the edge of the Supreme Council's rulings and stood a good chance of bringing her discipline, but...

"Deal."

But the price Cecil offered was too high.

Once the bargain was struck, Gao Yang finally breathed easy, and remarked offhandedly: "Your raid... I mean, your delivery will be a covert operation. I'll have the 'goods' ready in advance on the hill west of camp—you can go fetch them yourself."

"I understand," Metzain nodded, but her expression turned grave at once. "Only let me warn you: this is likely the one time in this whole war that I can lift a hand to help, and even this is stretching the rules through a loophole. You chose your moment well—any earlier, and I might not have judged those crystal-infected such a threat; any later... and the Council would have fixed its attention on this continent. They would not permit me to slip through loopholes under their very noses."

The Council... sounded like the ruling body of dragonkind?

Gao Yang silently filed away this information, which might prove very useful in the future. Before Metzain left, he asked a question out of curiosity: "You said just now that dragons may not take part in the wars of the continent—is that right?"

Metzain nodded. "That is what I said."

Gao Yang pointed at Maggie beside him. "Then what about her?"

Metzain glanced at Maggie with a somewhat complicated expression, then looked into Gao Song's eyes: "She and her people are the exception.

"She comes from the Holy Dragon Duchy. She is a descendant of the Exiles."

Having said that, the young blue dragon seemed unwilling to linger, and turned and left the room directly.

"What does 'descendant of the Exiles' mean? If the question offends you, you needn't answer."

Only after Metzain had gone did Gao Yang raise his head and look at the black-haired maid standing silently beside him.

Maggie's mood had calmed by now. She drew a soft breath and spoke in a tone that seemed to carry no ripple at all: "It's no offense—the world knows that the people of the Holy Dragon Duchy have always called themselves Dragonkin, but few know that this name has a reason.

"The rulers of the Holy Dragon Duchy and some of its noble houses truly are dragons—dragons exiled from Tar'rond, the homeland of dragonkind, for genetic degradation and for some transgression committed by an ancestor no one can quite name."

Then she smiled, shook her head, and her tone turned self-mocking: "So no matter how the years change, no matter how the nations rise and fall, this pack of poor wretches will never leave those bitter, freezing mountains, and will forever call themselves a 'Duchy' rather than a kingdom or an empire..."