Chapter 191: Capture a prince

The wind howled across the stone towers of the frontier citadel. A tense silence gripped the surviving defenders below as they stared upward.

Dust billowed from shattered battlements, carrying the metallic scent of fresh blood and ruined weapons.

For the mortal soldiers, the mere presence of a demigod was enough to stop their hearts in terror. But for the white haired youth hovering above the ruins, this was just another quiet afternoon in the war zone.

Eren did not care about the crumbling stone or the terrified mortals. His absolute focus was fixed entirely on the massive threat looming ahead.

"Eren..." The dark gold dragon narrowed his eyes. He locked onto the young man floating lazily in the sky above. White hair whipped around the youth’s calm face as he gazed down like an observer at a theater.

Ao Lorn’s intelligence report had explicitly stated that no demigods were stationed at the citadel. Still, he was not an idiot. He had marched in prepared to clash with a powerhouse if things went south. He just never expected it to be this demigod.

"Ao Lorn, twenty fifth son of Duke Ao," Eren said, the corner of his lips simply curling up.

Among the vast Divine Beast Mountain, the Dragon Clan bowed to four sovereign lineages. These were Ao, Long, Jiao, and Chi. Each bloodline held territory that spanned continents, boasting cataclysmic power capable of trading blows with the Bastion’s greatest gods.

Duke Ao stood near the very peak of that hierarchy. His children were notorious across the realms for being vicious, prideful, and deeply troublesome to deal with.

"I did not expect the Dawn Faction to post a Youth Leader here. You bastards planned this well," Ao Lorn sneered, baring razor sharp fangs.

"But let me ask: dare you kill me?"

Even if Eren outclassed him in raw realm, slaughtering a direct son of Duke Ao was a different matter entirely. Without an army or an arch god backing him, touching dragon royalty meant lighting a match inside a powder keg.

"Kill you? Honestly, I do not need to," Eren chuckled. He crossed his arms and drifted back.

"Besides, this is not my stage." He gestured toward Ethen, who had already formed a triangle around the dragon using three heavily armored figures. Ao Lorn snapped his head around, his golden pupils shrinking as he took in the three summons locking him.

Ethen remained perfectly calm under the oppressive gaze of the royal dragon. The human summoner did not flinch, nor did his three powerful constructs waver in their defensive formation. The unnamed third summon, cloaked in heavy iron plates, shifted its heavy shield to block the dragon’s direct line of sight.

Ethen knew that a single mistake here meant total annihilation. He rapidly processed the tactical variables, reading the subtle twitches in the dragon’s massive muscles. Every breath, every shift in weight, told him a story. Survival in this brutal world required sharp instincts, and Ethen had honed his skills perfectly.

A dark chuckle rumbled in his chest.

"Mortals? You think these bugs can scratch a true dark gold demigod? Hilarious!"

"Consider it a warm up!" Ao Lorn roared. His massive frame detonated forward in a blur of gold scaled muscle, lunging straight for the largest opponent.

Gilgamesh did not flinch. He raised a massive war hammer with both hands and brought it down like a falling mountain.

The collision shattered the air into a concussive shockwave, tearing trenches through the stone floor. The sheer force hurled Gilgamesh skidding back dozens of paces. Ao Lorn’s powerful charge stopped dead in place.

Before the dragon could recover his balance, a silver flash cut through his blind spot. Arthur lunged. The pale glow of Excalibur hummed with ancient malice. The blade struck scaled flesh, and the legendary Dragon Slayer passive flared to life.

What should have been an impenetrable demigod hide split open like wet paper, spraying dark, smoking blood across the stone.

Even with an entire major cultivation realm separating them, the conceptual advantage tore straight through the dragon’s defense. Immediately, Ethen’s coordinated assault snapped into motion. The three summons moved like gears in a meat grinder, trading blows and drawing aggro.

The sheer coordination of the human’s team was nothing short of miraculous. The armored third summon slammed its shield into the ground, creating a magical barrier that deflected a deadly tail swipe.

Dust choked the battlefield, hiding the exact movements of the small human forces.

Arthur used the blinding cover to weave in and out of the dragon’s defensive perimeter, leaving glowing silver cuts along the massive beast’s flanks.

Gilgamesh recovered from the initial shockwave and charged back into the fray, swinging his hammer at the dragon’s joints. The royal beast roared, completely unable to find a clear open target.

They tore open wounds while Ethen directed the flow from the rear. Watching from above, Eren’s eyes flashed with genuine intrigue.

Fighting a demigod across a realm gap, and a royal dragon, was no small feat. A solitary, sharp eyed woman surfaced in his mind.

If he keeps this pace up, he might actually give her a run for her money, Eren thought. Ethen had the raw potential to contest the Youth Leader seat for the entire Dawn Faction.

The only problem was the terrifying monster currently sitting at the top of that ladder. "Insolent, pathetic insects!" Ao Lorn bellowed.

He was pushed into a corner by mere mortals. Blood poured from his shoulder, his golden scales cracking under the relentless pressure.

"I am a royal dragon! I will devour your souls raw!" A searing golden light ignited deep inside his chest. His aura swelled dangerously, veins pulsing across his scales as his innate bloodline awakened, burning with blinding intensity.

Ethen braced his summons to weather the ultimate attack, but Eren was already moving. A faint hum cut the air. Eren materialized directly behind Ao Lorn, his palm resting lightly against the dragon’s spine. He smiled a cold killer smile.

Thump. A heavy, low frequency shockwave rippled through Ao Lorn’s core, fracturing his energy pathways and shutting down the surging light in an instant. The dragon’s eyes rolled back, and his massive knees hit the dirt with a dull thud.

"He was not trying to blow us up," Eren said, shaking out his wrist. "He was trying to trigger his family distress beacon." Ao Lorn slumped into the dust, completely unconscious as the lingering shockwave suppressed his internal sea of energy.

Dragons were arrogant, but the royal ones were cunning. The dragon realized the true odds were heavily stacked now.

He had pretended to fight to the death just to broadcast his coordinates to his elder brothers. If Eren had not fought this family before, the beacon would have pierced the sky before anyone noticed.

"Ah," Ethen muttered, exhaling slowly and recalling his summons. "Good catch."

Rushing footsteps broke the silence as the local citadel commander from the Dawn Faction finally arrived. His eyes widened at the giant golden body lying motionless on the ground. ℯℯ𝘭.

"Well, I will be damned," the demigod commander let out a hearty laugh. "You two caught a live prince. You should Take him right back to the bastion. I will properly secure the citadel and clean up stragglers."

Bagging the twenty fifth son of Duke Ao was a monumental war merit. The commander knew better than to stick his hand into their credit, and keeping a high value hostage in a frontier fort was asking for a siege.

With brief nods, Ethen and Eren secured the dragon in energy bindings and vanished toward the Bastion’s teleportation gates.

Thousands of miles above, past the clouds and tearing through the boundary of the Nether Realm’s atmosphere, the sky cracked. A colossal dragon head parted the dark void of deep space.

Energy bindings were not simple ropes. They were highly complex arrays woven from pure spiritual essence, designed to forcefully lock down the physical and magical pathways of a captive.

Eren carefully wove the glowing blue chains around the dragon’s massive limbs, ensuring that even if Ao Lorn woke up, he would be completely paralyzed.

Ethen stood guard nearby, keeping his summons fully manifested just in case the beast tried a sudden counterattack.

The sheer size of the dark gold demigod made the task difficult, but the two youths worked with practiced efficiency, silently coordinating their actions without needing any words.

Its horns stretched like jagged mountain ranges across the stars. Two burning crimson eyes locked onto the citadel below, dripping with ancient fury.

"You will pay for this, Karth!" The dragon’s roar shattered the void, sending violent cosmic tremors rolling through the upper atmosphere as the beast turned its burning gaze toward the heart of the mortal continent.

The sheer weight of that gaze pressed down on the world. Down below, the surviving mortals felt an unexplainable chill settle deep into their bones. The heavens seemed to tremble under the oppressive might of a creature that defied natural laws entirely.