Silver Chains and the Blood-Red Dragon

The magical legion swept across the wild borderland like a black tsunami devouring heaven and earth, bringing along the sound of violently clashing iron armor that tore apart the dense snowy mist and suppressed the entire space with deadly aura.

The agonizing wails of the group of border bandits together with the trampled remnant troops gradually sank beneath the trails of dark magic burning everything in their path.

The heavy-armored riding beasts slaughtered mercilessly, brushing aside all timid life into scattered piles of minced flesh, turning the land that was originally desolate and barren into a muddy sea of blood reeking with the burnt smell of scorched magic.

Fresh blood mixed into the melting snow, forming small dark streams flowing zig-zaggedly through each crack on the frozen ground, reflecting the residual light of a deadly sunset.

Amidst the gloomy expanse glowing with a thick, blood-like red color, the giant Blood-Red Dragon Gron began to lower its altitude. The echoing growl tore ear-membranes, causing the distant peaks of eternal ice to tremble violently, avalanches pouring down like thousands of white sheets of waterfalls.

The wings covered by a layer of bright red scales hard as refined steel fanned out frantic currents of wind, blowing up the layer of gray snow and rotten ash, sweeping away all fragments of tattered weapons on the ground. Gron drove its pair of sharp, dry-blood-covered fang-claws into the ground, roaring an earth-shaking sound that shook the whole wild piece of land where the girl was standing proudly.

From the back of the ancient beast, Kieran slowly stepped down.

The appearance of the Emperor of Dark Magic carried an overwhelming, ruthless, and haughtily suffocating beauty. His wave-like, shoulder-length jet-black hair flew freely in the snowy wind, embracing each line of his face as sharp as if carved from black marble. The bridge of his nose was high, straight, and arrogant; his thin, tired lips were always waiting for a sinister and cold smile.

Most special was precisely his eyes carrying a deep ash-gray color, spanning across the night curtain like two bottomless black holes ready to swallow all life, blending together with the dense dark magic-aura emanating around his body — a cold current of magic-aura, reeking heavily with the smell of a thousand-year death that made any mortal who approached feel their chest compressed tightly to the point of bursting.

Draped on his person was a silver-plated war armor inlaid with noble royal insignia; each ruthless carved streak on his shoulder-flaps and buttons flared with the supreme authority of the one standing at the apex of the continent, the one who decided the life and death of tens of thousands of living beings with just one twitch of an eyebrow.

To Kieran, this world was divided into only two unique kinds of creatures: those who knelt in submission beneath his feet and those who must become rotting waste-grounds. Women in his eyes were even more worthless — they were merely cheap, beautiful yet hollow amusement toys, carrying envious and weak souls, having extremely short-term usage-lifespans before being boredly discarded by him into a dark deep pit. He had never bowed to anyone, nor had he ever looked at any inferior person with eyes of value or retained even a little bit of curiosity.

Nevertheless, amidst the pile of minced flesh and scorched ash of this wild borderland, his ash-gray eyes were accidentally attracted by a silhouette standing with a straight back.

The nameless girl — the one who could not even remember her own name, the one who had just experienced a fight with three bandits. She did not grovel, did not tremble, nor did she crawl or cry begging for mercy like countless other lowly refugees collapsing around here.

She stood proudly amidst the pile of black ash-dust snow, the foul-smelling animal-pelt coat just yanked from the corpse of the bandit whose throat was cut by her temporarily wrapped around her slender body that nevertheless possessed alluring curves appearing and hiding under strips of tattered cloth. Even though her frame was emaciated due to lacking food for many days and her skin was smudged with mud-dirt and ash, her flawless beauty still manifested clearly. The bridge of her nose was slim, her lips despite being dry-ruined and chapped due to frost were still ripe-red like a blood-juicy fruit.

Her small hand, bleeding due to frost, was tightening around a sharp stone piece carved from frost, drenched with fresh, un-dried blood of the one whose throat was just swiped away by her. The fever of magic-poison biting and tearing her internal organs made her flesh burn like baking, each rapid breath fanning out a white streak of vapor in the cold air, but her deep purple eyes looked straight at Kieran with a cold, brutal, and bitterly fierce smile.

Kieran slowly stepped closer, each heavy footstep carrying suppressing aura sounding with crunchy, cracking noises on the brittle ice layer. He stopped just a few steps away from her, standing from above looking down with arrogant, disdainful eyes, his lips curling up dropping sarcastic, contemptuous words:

"A surviving beggar brat? Looking at you, you are no different from a filthy shrew poking its head out from a pile of trash."

He stood there, arms crossed in front of his chest with the indifferent attitude of a ruling god, waiting for the tragic, loud crying, the begging for mercy, or the trembling, humiliating bow from the little cornered beast.

But the girl did not reply with groveling. She did not hide her fear because originally inside the bottom of her eyes, that concept did not exist. She took a firm step forward, raising the sharp stone piece drenched in fresh blood pointing straight toward his silver-plated-armor-wrapped chest.

Right at that moment, her deep purple eyes suddenly flared up with a ring of brilliantly glowing ancient dragon patterns, her pupils contracting into a dangerous vertical thread, emanating brutal bloodlust alongside a frantic fire defying death:

"Get out of my eyes, you reeking monster. Or I will plunge this stone piece into your neck as I did to that bandit."

"Impudent! A lowly person with guts as big as the sky!"

A close guard standing beside him roared a horrified sound. He felt the Emperor's honor was heavily insulted, immediately drawing out his shining magic sword, intending to rush up to chop off the head of the impudent beggar brat.

"Step back."

Kieran raised one hand to cut across, his cold and low voice sounding to block the sharp blade right in mid-air. He looked straight into the dragon-pattern-burning deep purple eyes of the girl, watching the stubborn, wild, life-defying attitude of the wild beast in front of him. The expectation of a weak mortal was completely broken into fragments.

Kieran was not angry at all because of that obscene threat. On the contrary, the bottom of his ash-gray eyes swirled with a stream of murky dark magic-aura, flaring up with an unprecedented morbid and brutal excitement. He felt a wild madness exploding inside every blood vessel — a crazy desire to break this proud nape, to trample on her arrogance, to lock this wild beast into his own golden cage to witness her gradually wither away.

"Pretty eyes," Kieran whispered, the smile on his lips becoming even more ruthless and deep. "A smudged wild beast that knows how to show its claws and fangs to threaten people. Do you think that dirty stone piece can cut one strand of my hair?"

In the blink of an eye, Kieran moved with a terrifying speed that the naked eye could not keep up with. He swiped away the sharp stone piece in her hand with just a light swing of his hand as if shooing a fly.

Crack!

The stone piece flew dozens of meters away, falling plump into the gray-black ash-snow pile. The girl gritted her teeth, gathering all her remaining strength to punch straight into his face, but Kieran was one step faster. He indifferently pulled out an ancient silver magic chain from his coat pocket. The chain links glowed with a faint, hazy purple light, emanating a heavy pressure stream that could crush the magic power of any creature.

He reached out his coarse hand grabbing tightly onto the girl's neck, decisively wrapping the silver chain tightly around her neck.

Sizzle, sizzle!

The magic chain immediately tightened automatically, emanating frantic magic-heat that scorched the delicate flesh on her neck.

"Ah...!"

The girl roared a heart-wrenching pain sound, her two hands frantically clutching onto the silver chain links, trying with all her strength to yank it forcefully off her neck. She struggled so violently that the flesh on her neck was torn open, fresh blood gushing out continuously searing through her tattered animal-pelt coat. The sensation of magic power inside her body being locked tight by the silver chain made her suffocate, her whole body trembling violently due to severe pain.

"Let... let me go! You brutal monster!"

"Lie still, wild beast."

Kieran did not spend a bit of strength to control her desperate resistance. He lifted up her thin, small, struggling body with one hand, easily like carrying a crippled small cat. He indifferently turned around, stepping onto the back of the Blood-Red Dragon Gron, throwing her hard down onto the surface of dragon scales hard as steel.

The girl collided her chest down onto the rough dragon scale layer, the poison fever alongside the flesh-burning pain from the silver chain making her almost suffocate, her eyes blurring with bitterness.

Roar!

Gron flapped its giant wings, taking off to tear apart the gray-ash-blinded night sky, rushing up into the air with terrifying speed. The cold wind on the high altitude whipped hard against her tattered body, bringing bone-piercing frost, making the wound on her neck even more painfully torn open. She lay glued to the dragon's back, her chest heaving, breathing heavily, her two hands tightening around the dragon scale-claws to maintain balance, but her eyes looking at Kieran were still full of uncompromising hatred.

Kieran slowly approached closer, kneeling on one knee beside her pain-crouching body. He reached out his coarse hand grabbing her chin, squeezing so hard that her jawbone made clicking noises, forcing her to raise her smudged yet beautiful face close to his face. His breath brought the smell of frost, dark magic, and a morbidly frantic possessiveness:

"It seems you still do not know what you are in my hands."

"I... do not belong to you... You monster..." She bit her lips tightly to the point of spurting fresh blood, glaring back at him with ultimate hatred, refusing to bow even one fraction of an inch.

"You will crawl beneath my feet, living like an obedient pet proudly lifting its head waiting for me to bestow favor. Your pride will be the first thing I break."

Kieran got close to her ear, his voice whispering ruthlessly, full of contempt and vulgarity:

"Wench. From now on that trash name is yours. A wild beast thrown away amidst a pile of ash-manure."

He slightly tightened the silver chain making her suffocate, his ash-gray eyes glowing with a morbid madness:

"Remember your position clearly, Wench. From today, this beggar brat is my most precious slave."