Chapter 204: Siege of Qiezhuran 3

"So, what is your decision?"

Damien waited with the other Dragons, but his gaze kept returning to Cleenah.

The girl still hadn’t given an answer, while Mercer stood calmly before them, surrounded by so many Dragons who had already made ready to besiege the whole of the Qiezhuran.

Submit to the Drazhuel?

Hadn’t that always been the most reasonable choice? Damien had known for a long time that the Qiezhuran’s relations with other Clans were getting worse.

Their influence kept weakening, yet Cleenah had still refused the chance to join the Drazhuel back when the offer was made in a friendly manner.

Even if they would have had to take part in invading other worlds, so what?

If submitting to the Drazhuel could save the Qiezhuran, Damien saw no reason to refuse.

The Dragon World was heading toward change, and the rules the Drazhuel would bring might continue to apply for generations to come.

Rather than keep resisting something they couldn’t stop, wouldn’t it be better to stand on the side that would set those rules?

’...What exactly do you want to protect, Lady Cleenah?’

Damien glanced at the girl once more. He had wanted to ask that for a long time, but now was not the time to question his leader’s decisions in front of the enemy.

Besides, the chance the Drazhuel had once offered had passed long ago.

Now they weren’t being invited to cooperate.

They were being besieged at midnight, while the elders of the Qiezhuran themselves stood on Mercer’s side.

Whether they submitted or not, things could never go back to how they were.

’...Damn it.’

Damien ground his teeth. All of this could have been avoided, at least before relations between the Clans had worsened this far.

And that was exactly why he had always wanted to be the next leader of the Qiezhuran.

People might think him arrogant, overconfident, or merely after Cleenah’s position.

Let them.

Damien did want to be the leader, but not because he was so mad for power.

He simply couldn’t bear to watch the Qiezhuran keep losing its influence while those in authority were unable to stop it.

If he had gotten that chance sooner, he would have done anything to repair relations with the other Clans.

He could have swallowed his own pride as long as the Qiezhuran gained something in return.

Becoming a leader didn’t mean he had to keep opposing the Drazhuel just to preserve his pride.

But look at the situation now.

Damien turned his gaze to the Qiezhuran members standing guard over Cleenah.

Some looked nervous, and a few were still confused to find their elders among the besiegers’ ranks. They stayed here only because they had no choice but to protect their own Clan Leader.

Then what could Damien do to help them? With his Rank-C strength, even facing Mercer was a joke. He wasn’t even sure he could fight the Dragons behind that man.

’...If only I were stronger.’

But thinking about his own strength reminded Damien of someone again.

Julian Clair.

That damned human had come from another world, brought a Voidborn, then acted as though he held a higher station than the Dragons.

Even when Damien himself had come to introduce himself, Julian had simply shut the door in his face.

Remembering that incident still irritated him. But compared with that insult, the trouble that human had caused was far harder to forgive.

The Voidborn he had brought had given other Clans a new reason to be hostile to the Qiezhuran.

True, relations between the Clans had been bad even before Julian came. Damien wasn’t stupid enough to forget that.

But why did that wretched human have to show up carrying something so many Dragons wanted, right when their situation was already bad enough?

’...I should have killed him back then.’

Damien truly regretted it. If he had known it would end like this, he wouldn’t have bothered teaching that human manners.

He would have found a way to get rid of him, even by the filthiest means.

What was the use of preserving his pride in front of a human if, in the end, the whole Qiezhuran had to bear the consequences?

But that regret had come too late. Julian wasn’t here, and the chaos now unfolding wouldn’t disappear just because Damien kept thinking of ways to kill him.

Damien drew a breath, then lifted his gaze again to the besiegers.

The elders who always spoke as if they were thinking of the Qiezhuran’s future now stood without a trace of awkwardness at Mercer’s side.

Did they not even feel the need to hide their betrayal anymore?

And not only the elders.

Among those ranks, Damien found faces he knew. Some had always been friendly to him, and a few he had even considered friends.

Now they stood alongside the Dragons besieging their own homeland.

’...You too?’

For a while, Damien kept staring at them, hoping that perhaps he was seeing wrong.

But those faces stayed right there.

There was no misunderstanding at all; they had chosen their side, and that side was not the Qiezhuran.

His chest began to feel tight. Hadn’t they all been enjoying the Primordial Legacy Festival just yesterday?

Now the members of the Qiezhuran even had to gather to protect Cleenah from the very people who were supposed to be their guests.

Did they truly not care about the Qiezhuran? What did their own home mean to those people?

Damien lowered his head, clenching both hands, which had begun to tremble. He had never minded if the Qiezhuran had accepted the Drazhuel’s offer back then and helped shape its future together with that Clan.

But what was happening now wasn’t cooperation. It was the betrayal of people who didn’t even understand what was taking place.

It was all too late. The path they could once have taken was gone, and no matter what Cleenah decided tonight, the people the Qiezhuran had trusted all this time had already shown their true faces.

’...Bastards.’

Damien lifted his head again. His eyes began to redden, while his jaw tightened as he looked at the Dragons he had once known.

He wanted to drag them out one by one and demand an explanation, but even from where he stood, he knew how absurd that would be.

The Qiezhuran was where he had grown up. The place he wanted to save, even if doing so meant bowing to a stronger Clan.

And now, those people had come to trample it underfoot.

The flow of Mana in Damien’s body began to stir. At first only slightly, then, as time passed, clearly enough that a few Dragons nearby began to turn to him.

Damien didn’t notice them. His hands were still clenched tight, and all his attention was fixed on the line of traitors before him.

’...You are all truly bastards.’