Chapter 103: A Kingdom in Decline

"Aahhh!!!" A family is crushed beneath the clawed paw of a quadrupedal beast that devours them, tearing off their limbs while they scream in agony, still alive. As the family is consumed inside the monster’s body, extra hands sprout randomly across the creature’s already hand-covered form.

Unlike the "pillars" of the continent — the Theocracy, the Empire, and the Kingdom of Ortyr — all of whom were handling the Raid well, most of the smaller kingdoms and large towns that also had active Raid portals — and not just active, but deliberately overloaded by Nio’s servants — ended up unable to cope.

Since they are smaller kingdoms, they have almost no National Rank adventurers or soldiers anywhere near that level, or none at all when it comes to villages. As a result, these places are either wiped out or suffer immense damage.

"You filthy things..." Chrysaria Chrysos mutters as she attacks the monsters she comes across with magic, destroying their bodies with ease. She is the Queen of the small kingdom of Gollduin and is stressed because her kingdom was attacked by the Empire.

She even had to make agreements with the Emperor just to make the attacks stop, so naturally her defenses were in the worst possible state to deal with the Raid, since she had lost 73% of her army.

Chrysaria is a girl with long blonde hair, deeply red eyes, and a very mature physique with large breasts, fully golden wings, and a long golden tail with equally golden horns.

She is a level 50 humanoid dragon. Being of the [Golden Dragon] race, she is quite a powerful queen, but she is being forced to deal with most of the powerful threats alone.

"If that damn Emperor hadn’t attacked my kingdom, none of this would be happening..." Chrysaria opens her mouth, gathering flames that she spews out as an immense blaze, melting dozens of monsters until nothing but ashes remain.

She flies quickly over her kingdom, trying to protect as many people as possible. However, her current army consists of only 700 soldiers and a handful of adventurers who didn’t flee when the Emperor attacked — a nearly pitiful number after the blow her army took, which was already small to begin with.

’This is so exhausting...’ She spins rapidly in the air, moving her body like a drill as she uses her horns to pierce through monsters and everything in her path, using everything she has to defend the people.

"..." Despite her hard work, the streets are filled with blood and mangled corpses as monsters devour civilians who try desperately to flee. Chrysaria hears the screams and cries of countless people, unable to do anything.

’This is so unfair...’ She begins to cry over the "injustice" she feels. She had hoped that after the Empire’s attack, things might calm down since she made a deal that practically turned her kingdom into a vassal state of the Empire.

"..." She fills her lungs with air, gathering flames in her mouth, and fires an extremely concentrated jet of fire like an immense golden beam. Countless houses and monsters are struck as she splits a level 55 monster in half with the concentrated beam.

Despite being level 50, Chrysaria’s power easily reaches that of a level 70 thanks to a mutation in her race, which made her flames so powerful that she seems to be at a higher level than she actually is.

On top of that, she can concentrate and compress these flames in a controlled manner, which reduces their size and area but makes the attack far more concentrated, lethal, and hot.

With a slight movement of her body, the heat beam carves through the monsters as if they were toys. However, the cost of continuously firing so many flames is high — her body burns through magic like a furnace burning dry straw.

"Queen!!!" A servant approaches at a run as Chrysaria slowly descends to the ground. She wipes her nose with her hand, noticing blood beginning to trickle while her skin turns slightly reddish from overheating.

"What is it?" She keeps her tone proud, her tears having turned to steam, while her clothes barely withstand her own flames and the air distorts from the heat, appearing blurry.

"The Empire refused to help. They s-said they have their own problems and that a-as a vassal state, th-this kingdom would have to deal with this on its own and sh-show results..."

"..." Chrysaria clenches her hand so tightly that drops of blood begin to fall. She has always been a highly skilled queen, with an intellect that rivals Leon’s own — after all, she is 329 years old and has been queen for over 200 years.

But her kingdom was never large, and never had room to grow. Her kingdom exists in a desert environment dependent on underground water channels, and growth would result in famine and misery, which forced her to manage with what she had without ever truly expanding the kingdom’s size much.

This makes her kingdom one of the weakest there is, with a size almost comparable to a large town in some respects. Despite having thousands of inhabitants, most live in very simple conditions without many luxuries.

’That egocentric piece of shit son of a bitch... he attacks my kingdom for no reason, kills my soldiers, and now I have to foot the bill... and he still decides not to help even though he’s the reason our defenses are in shambles!! He’s a monster... because of him we’re having so many deaths.’ Chrysaria quickly flies into the sky, opening her mouth and compressing the flames even further.

The flame beam becomes as thin as a finger in width, but with the movement of her head, the heat beam sweeps through like a powerful thermal blade, cutting down hundreds of monsters.

Chrysaria’s flames are like an extremely adjustable blowtorch, where she can control how much flame is released and its total thickness.

Despite her care to avoid hitting people, which forces her to stop the attack, if she weren’t in her own territory with so many people exposed, she could end the entire Raid with a single concentrated attack of her flames just by moving her head from right to left horizontally.

But in the current situation, if she tried that, every house, person, soldier, and monster in the path would be split in two.

’Even cutting these things in half, they can still merge with the flesh of dead civilians and come back to attack... how infuriating...’ Chrysaria grows frustrated as she begins to sweat heavily from the heat inside her body.

"..." She looks around, starting to despair at seeing that she can’t even protect her kingdom despite all the power she has. Saving lives and killing monsters are two very different things.

’Someone... please help my people...’