CHAPTER 179: CHAPTER 179: IN THE HEART OF THE INFERNO

The battlefield stretched like a gaping wound on the Earth’s surface, a smoking scar where ash and blood mingled. Seen from the heights, the spectacle was of apocalyptic beauty: geysers of scarlet flames shot toward a leaden sky, tinting the clouds with an infernal glow that transformed day into permanent twilight. The titanic silhouettes of dragons traced deadly arabesques between columns of black smoke, their membranous wings beating the superheated air with terrible grace, while on the ground, human formations resembled ants facing antediluvian giants.

The announcement of Patriarch Varnor Ignivara’s death had struck the draconic forces like thunder in a clear sky. A deathly silence had fallen over their ranks, heavy with stupefaction and dismay. This was not simply the disappearance of a commander, but the collapse of a fundamental pillar of their universe. Varnor was not just a general: he was the personification of their ancestral pride, the living incarnation of their superiority over inferior races. His death resonated like blasphemy, an impossibility that shook the very foundations of their faith in their invincibility.

In the human trenches, the atmosphere was hardly more cheerful. The dramatic loss of their S-rank hunters had sown the seeds of a muted panic that spread like gangrene through the ranks. Li Jian, their charismatic leader, lay somewhere beneath the smoking rubble, his body shredded by Belgaroth Ignivara’s claws. Of the brilliant squad of six elite hunters, only two survivors remained: Ming Yue, whose left arm hung limply along her body, the flesh blackened by draconic burns, and Zhou Long, who stood upright through sheer force of will, his mana reserves practically exhausted.

General Wei Shun stood in his makeshift command post, a half-collapsed reinforced concrete construction that testified to the violence of previous clashes. His weary eyes scrutinized the surveillance screens with the expression of a man watching his civilization sink into the abyss. The wrinkles on his face seemed to have deepened by ten years in just a few hours. Beside him, Zhao Ling, his faithful aide-de-camp, tried to conceal the trembling of his hands by convulsively gripping his status report.

- "General..." murmured Zhao Ling, his voice hoarse from smoke and emotion. "Our losses are catastrophic. We’ve lost seventy-five percent of our front-line forces. The survivors are exhausted, demoralized. If we don’t attempt something now, in the next few hours, there will be nothing left of our forces."

Wei closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the weight of millions of lives pressing on his shoulders. When he reopened them, fierce resolve shone there.

- "Then we’ll play our last card," he declared in a voice that carried despite his fatigue. "Gather all our remaining forces. Bring out the reserves, the lightly wounded, everyone who can still hold a weapon. Ask Ming Yue and Zhou Long to prepare for one final assault. Tell them that our nation’s fate rests in their hands."

Zhao Ling nodded with the gravity of a man who knows he might be transmitting his general’s final orders.

- "And if... if we fail, General?"

Wei placed a paternal hand on his subordinate’s shoulder.

- "Then we’ll die standing, as soldiers. But we won’t die in vain."

An hour later, a human tide surged from the Chinese positions. This was no longer a disciplined army, but a desperate horde driven by rage and survival instinct. At the head of this ultimate charge, Ming Yue and Zhou Long advanced like two shooting stars, their mana auras blazing with an intensity that testified to their determination to sell their lives dearly.

Aboard the mothership Ignivara, chaos reigned in the command room. Senior officers squabbled, some demanding a tactical retreat, others advocating immediate vengeance. Contradictory orders flew from all directions, creating a cacophony of incompetence that would have made the late patriarch roar with anger.

At the center of this storm, Syléane Ignivara stood motionless, a marble statue in the midst of the tempest. Her golden eyes, heritage of her noble lineage, observed the scene with glacial calm that contrasted violently with the ambient agitation. Slowly, very slowly, she raised her hand.

- "SILENCE!"

Her voice cracked like a whip, imbued with natural authority that instantly froze all present. A deathly silence fell over the room, disturbed only by the humming of machines and the oppressed breathing of officers suddenly conscious of having witnessed the birth of a new power.

- "I understand your distress at my father’s disappearance," she continued in a composed voice charged with underlying menace. "But if you let this loss blind you, you will betray his memory and destroy everything our house has built over millennia."

She stepped forward, and her mere presence seemed to fill the space, psychologically dominating all those around her.

- "From this moment, I am your patriarch. My orders are absolute, my decisions irrevocable. Anyone who opposes them signs their death warrant. Have I made myself sufficiently clear?"

A murmur of assent ran through the assembly. A particularly brave, or particularly unconscious officer dared to speak:

- "Your orders, patriarch?"

A disturbing smile touched Syléane’s lips, revealing slightly pointed canines that testified to her draconic nature.

- "Our human enemies are preparing for their ultimate charge. They believe my father’s death has weakened us, that we are in disarray. We will exploit this error in judgment. Order our front-line forces to open a breach in our central formation. Let it appear accidental, the fruit of our supposed disorganization."

A tactical officer frowned, perplexed:

-"But patriarch, allowing an enemy breakthrough risks..."

Syléane’s gaze settled on him with laser intensity, reducing him to silence.

"Do you doubt my strategy?" she asked in a dangerously soft voice.

- "N-no, patriarch! Forgive me!"

- -"Good. This apparent breach will draw the humans into the Black Dragon valley. That’s where we’ll wait for them. Position Belgaroth, Azalys, and Eryndor in ambush on the heights. Have all our strike forces hide in the rocky crevices. When I give the signal, I want hell itself to pour down on our enemies. Not a single one must survive to testify to their failure."

The officers nodded in perfect unison, suddenly aware of the formidable tactical intelligence of their new leader.

On the Chinese side, the sudden opening in the draconic lines did not go unnoticed. General Wei observed this breach with a mixture of hope and suspicion.

- "This might be our chance," murmured Zhao Ling. "Their disorganization after their patriarch’s death..."

Wei nodded slowly, but his veteran’s instinct whispered that something didn’t add up.

- "Or it’s a trap," he replied. "But we have no choice left. All our forces, through that breach! Let Ming Yue and Zhou Long lead the way!"

The final charge of the Chinese forces was a spectacle both magnificent and tragic. These men and women ran toward probable death with courage that commanded admiration, even from their enemies. Ming Yue, despite her injuries, displayed a mastery of mana that made the air around her tremble, while Zhou Long channeled his last forces into a combat aura that illuminated the valley like an aurora borealis.

But at the precise moment when the first Chinese soldiers crossed the entrance to the Black Dragon valley, Syléane calmly raised her hand in the mothership’s command room.

- "Now."

This simple word triggered the apocalypse. Hundreds of dragons simultaneously emerged from their hiding places, transforming the sky into a kaleidoscope of flames and scales. Belgaroth, Azalys, and Eryndor dove from the heights like living meteors, their roars covering the cries of terror from the trapped humans.

What followed was not a battle, but a methodical massacre. Draconic flames transformed the valley into a giant furnace, the air itself becoming deadly poison for human lungs. Ming Yue desperately tried to retaliate, her mana attacks streaking toward the noble dragons, but she was quickly overwhelmed by her adversaries’ numerical superiority. A breath from Belgaroth hurled her against the rocky wall with violence that cleanly broke her spine.

Zhou Long, witnessing his companion’s death, let out a cry of rage and despair that echoed throughout the valley. He channeled all his life force into one ultimate attack, creating a mana explosion of unprecedented power that managed to mortally wound two minor dragons. But this superhuman effort exhausted his last reserves, and he collapsed, his body smoking, as Eryndor prepared to deliver the killing blow.

At the Chinese command post, General Wei witnessed the destruction of his last forces with the expression of a man watching his reason for living crumble. His trembling hands gripped the console’s edge, his knuckles whitening with effort.

- "We have failed," he murmured, his voice broken by emotion. "May the ancestors forgive us, we have failed."

In the mothership Ignivara, Syléane observed the genocide she had just orchestrated with the cold satisfaction of a chess master having just achieved checkmate in four moves. Around her, her officers contemplated their new patriarch with a mixture of terror and admiration.

- "Let this serve as a lesson to all peoples of this planet," she declared in a voice that carried throughout the room. "No nation, no hero, no human technology can rival the millennial power of House Ignivara."

She turned toward her subordinates, her gaze sweeping their attentive faces.

- "Resume the offensive immediately on all fronts. I want all organized resistance annihilated before sunset. It’s time to demonstrate to this inferior species that the age of their domination over this planet is coming to an end."

As her orders spread through the draconic fleet, Syléane Ignivara moved toward the command room’s glass bays. Her reflection superimposed itself on the landscape of desolation that stretched as far as the eye could see, creating a prophetic image: that of a new era being born in blood and flames.

Her father’s death had been a shock, certainly. But she had known how to transform this tragedy into opportunity, this apparent weakness into a demonstration of absolute strength. The war had just changed face, and this new face was merciless, calculating, of terrible beauty that announced dark times for humanity.

The era of Syléane Ignivara had just begun.