Stonehenge, the tomb where dragons lay sealed.

The hunting force gathered there tended to their weapons as they waited. The sun had long since set, and the night grew ever deeper. As darkness settled over them, the knights fired light cannons into the sky.

A flash.

Orbs of light shot high overhead, illuminating the darkness. With the light sources launched by the cannons above and mineral lamps below, the area around Stonehenge was as bright as day despite the late hour.

How much time passed like that?

RUMBLE...

Deep in the night, the moment midnight passed, the earth trembled. The stone pillars lining the hill began to shake, and the shaking grew stronger with time. The hunting force gathered at Stonehenge knew instinctively. The time had finally come.

“Ten seconds left,” Merlin whispered to Najin.

As she began counting with “Nine,” cracks appeared in the stone pillars that formed the sealing formula.

“Eight.”

The cracks spread. They spread and spread until one pillar collapsed. The hunting force frowned at the sight.

This was not something they had anticipated.

There had been times throughout history when Stonehenge’s seal weakened, but never had a pillar collapsed outright as it had now. Tension spread among the knights as they sensed the anomaly. Something was different. They knew it instinctively.

“Seven.”

The pillars collapsed one after another.

As they fell with heavy crashes and rumbles, fissures raced across the earth as well. Dust rose, and the ground began to split.

“Six, five, four...”

Nearly half the pillars had collapsed. Something pulsed beneath the ground as it shook ever more violently, as though gathering speed. It was different from the tremors shaking the earth. The sound of life stirring echoed through Stonehenge.

“Three.”

Something burst out from beneath the trembling earth. A skeletal claw tore through the tomb and thrust upward. Yet the instant it touched the air, red blood and flesh filled its stark white bones.

It all happened in an instant.

Before even a second had passed, the bones filled with blood and flesh, then became covered in scales. Rather than regeneration, it was closer to turning back time. The dragon’s claw, restored by rewinding a full thousand years, slammed into the ground.

“Two.”

BOOOOM!

The earth shook. Every remaining pillar collapsed, shattering the sealing formula. The fissured ground caved in, throwing up clouds of dust.

And then, piercing the rising dust...

“One.”

Two dragons shot into the sky.

The instant the two dragons spread their wings after soaring straight upward, a gale swept over the ground. The onrushing wind cleared the dust in a single sweep. The knights faltered and stepped back. Shielding their faces against the wind, they looked up.

A red dragon covered in crimson scales.

A white dragon adorned with pure white scales.

The two dragons looked down upon the earth from high in the sky. The hunting force instinctively knew this was different from when they had emerged through a gap in the sealing formula several hundred years ago. The injuries that should have remained, according to the records, were nowhere to be seen.

There were no scars on their wings. No patches of missing scales. Neither had an eye gouged out, nor did the sword wound that had cut halfway through a neck remain. It could mean only one thing.

A full resurrection. A complete return to life.

Reaching back across a thousand years, monsters from the age of myth had appeared. As if to proclaim that fact, the two dragons opened their jaws wide and unleashed monstrous cries.

ROOOOOOAR!

Their cries reverberated through the air. The roars of the beasts of the sky shook the atmosphere. The humans standing upon the earth instinctively shrank back and retreated. Yet there were always those who refused to step back.

“Ha, fuck.”

Red-Eyed Roselin Ascalo.

“Those things are no joke. Are they really weakened?”

“It doesn’t look that way. Not with the sealing formula completely shattered.”

“I agree.”

“That’s how it looks to me, too.”

The other three White Horn adventurers answered her grumbling. They, too, were caught off guard. This was not what they had been told. The presence emanating from the fully resurrected dragons was anything but ordinary.

“Hey, rookie. What do you...”

Only one had not answered.

The boy known as Nova. The White Horn adventurers turned toward where he should have been standing. But Najin was not there.

TAP.

He had already kicked off the ground and begun running.

While everyone else was crushed beneath the dragons’ presence, Najin alone moved a step ahead of the others. Seeing him sprint, Roselin burst out laughing.

“Ha, look at him go.”

Adjusting her grip on her twin swords, Roselin began running as well.

She was a White Horn, after all.

The White Horns stood at the pinnacle of Cambria, the City of Opportunity. And Cambria’s maxim told the city’s adventurers:

Seek adventure. Chase gold. Seize opportunity.

For success always lay amid danger.

With Najin in the lead, the White Horn adventurers began to run. To bring down the dragons flying overhead. To brave the danger and accomplish a great feat.

2.

Since ancient times, dragons had been distant, unreachable beings.

Records from bygone ages showed that humans had regarded dragons as little more than distant beings of the sky. They had considered them a kind of natural phenomenon, like the rising and setting of the sun. The reason was simple.

They could not reach them.

How could anyone approach a dragon flying high in the sky? How could anyone wound its body? How could those who lived upon the earth defeat beings of the heavens?

And so humanity feared dragons.

They saw them only as mysterious, terrifying beings.

But time passed. Countless suns rose and set, and many ages vanished into the forgotten reaches of history. The primordial flames died out. The first age, which had begun with dragons and giants, was buried in the abyss, and Arthur brought the age of myth to its close.

What followed was the age of humanity.

In the human age King Arthur had ushered in, civilization advanced without end, until humanity finally discovered a way to hunt the beings of the sky. A way to hunt dragons without being an exceptional human or a superhuman. The imperial knights arrayed at Stonehenge were demonstrating that method.

CREEEAK...

The imperial knights worked in teams of five to draw the strings of enormous bows.

Since ancient times, it had been giants who hunted dragons.

Modeled after the weapons those giants had used, the great bows were loaded with harpoons measuring three meters in length. They were far too large to call arrows, but piercing a dragon’s scales required at least that much.

“Fire!”

The knights released the bowstrings the instant the command came. With a deep twang, five harpoons shot toward the sky. A dragon hunt always began by bringing the quarry lower.

WHOOOOOSH!

The arrows sliced through the air.

And the dragons began to move. Dragons were arrogant by nature. As though flying high and endlessly evading attacks did not suit their temperament, both dragons dove toward the ground.

One arrow scratched the white dragon’s scales, but it charged heedlessly onward. The weight of its enormous body made a charge that crushed its foes beneath that mass truly threatening, but...

BOOM!

Not necessarily to Sword Seekers.

Facing the charging white dragon, the former knight commander and White Horn adventurer Richard Paulsen slammed his greatshield into the earth. The instant mana enveloped the shield, the white dragon collided with it.

The greatshield, planted deep in the ground, tore through the earth as it was pushed backward, but Richard stopped the white dragon’s charge nonetheless. As though voicing its displeasure, the white dragon opened its jaws wide and was about to spew fire.

CRACK!

White Horn adventurer Grizel Paramelt darted out from the white dragon’s flank and swung a halberd into its jaw. The dragon’s jaws snapped shut, aborting its breath attack. Realizing this was no foe to face alone, the White Horn adventurers worked together. The same was true on the red dragon’s side.

“Let’s have some fun, one red bastard to another.”

Red-Eyed Roselin Ascalo.

Former inquisitor Bashen Corte.

The two teamed up to handle the red dragon, with the imperial knights supporting them. Arrows flew. Weapons flashed, wreathed in mana... Yet none of them packed enough force. They merely bounced harmlessly off the dragon’s scales.

Anything less than a proper attack would not work. Without a blow backed by sufficient gathered strength, they could not wound a dragon. And so, while each of them drew the dragons’ attention and calculated the moment to land such a blow, the white dragon flapped its wings.

Seeing it prepare to soar into the air again, the hunting force clicked their tongues and braced for the impact. Just then, something rattled around the dragon’s talons.

‘A chain?’

The hunting force had barely a moment to wonder before the white dragon shot into the air. But this time, it was not the only thing to rise. The chain wrapped around its talons rattled and swung violently...

TAP!

Someone kicked off the ground and leaped. Twisting in midair, he used the chain’s recoil to launch himself skyward. It looked almost like an acrobatic performance. Yet the result of that feat was nothing to scoff at.

The boy holding the chain, Najin, landed on the dragon’s talons. He had mounted a dragon that had flown out of reach into the sky. Nor did he stop there. Stepping on its scales, Najin began climbing the white dragon.

Relying on a chain and a single sword, Najin climbed over the body of the dragon as it flew at high speed. The instincts he had developed hunting wyverns helped him now. Reaching the white dragon’s back in an instant, he steadied his breathing.

Then, with a flash, he raised his sword high overhead. Sword aura resembling constellations coiled around Najin’s blade and flashed white. He swung downward with the sword he had raised as though to pierce the sky.

SLAAASH!

And then, for the first time since the battle began, dragon blood spurted into the air.

3.

There were indeed gaps between a dragon’s scales.

The white dragon’s were particularly large. Just as Merlin had said. At a glance, its scales appeared tightly packed, but when Najin opened his eyes wide, he could see the gaps.

He forced his blade into one.

Blood sprayed out. The bleeding was slight compared with the dragon’s enormous body, but blood had unmistakably spilled. A smile spread across Najin’s lips. It worked. His sword could penetrate. That meant he could cut it.

Tightening his grip on his sword, Najin began running along the dragon’s back. His blade raced through the gaps between its scales. They were tiny, but his swinging sword tip slipped precisely into them and cut the dragon’s flesh.

SLAAAAASH!

Blood sprayed into the air. Perhaps this wound was too much for even the white dragon to ignore. Realizing someone was riding on its back, it twisted in midair. It shrieked and beat its wings wildly.

But Najin drove his sword deep into the dragon’s back and used it as an anchor to endure its thrashing. No matter how the white dragon twisted, he did not fall.

Once you get on, never fall off.

There is nowhere safer than a dragon’s back.

That was Merlin’s lesson, and Najin followed it faithfully. He moved while planting his blade among the white dragon’s scales. His eyes were fixed on the wings extending from its back.

‘Arthur tore the dragons’ wings to bring them down.’

Then he would...

‘I’ll have to cut the dragon’s wings off entirely.’

So it could never fly again.

Hacking up its back would not end a dragon’s life. A dragon could only be killed by severing its neck or piercing its heart. To do that, he first needed to bring it down to the ground.

‘That’s when it truly begins.’

Planting his blade as he went, Najin moved toward the white dragon’s wing joint. Now he had to strip away the scales, tear through the flesh, and sever the bone. It was an exceedingly difficult task even for a Sword Seeker.

Dragons were highly resistant to mana, and ordinary attacks could not so much as scratch their bones. Even cuts through their flesh regenerated in moments.

But Najin had a method of his own. Balancing atop the rampaging white dragon’s back, he raised his sword. He steadied his breathing and opened his eyes wide. His heart pounded, his blood raced, and his sword aura flickered.

THUNK!

The first strike. He drove his sword into a gap between the scales. Immediately, he twisted his wrist and levered the embedded blade upward. The white dragon’s stripped scales scattered through the air.

Then came the second strike.

With a slicing sound, Najin’s blade cut through the white dragon’s flesh. Blood sprayed as a straight line was carved into it. Staring directly at that line, Najin drew a breath. And he never let that breath out.

K-K-K-K-K-K-K-KRACK!

Najin swung his blade, scattering afterimages. His sword struck several times each second. Just as when he had deflected the thousands of flaming arrows unleashed by the witch, he swung without even remembering to breathe.

Scales scattered.

Blood sprayed.

Flesh tore away.

And beneath it lay the bone leading into the dragon’s wing joint. Najin hacked his sword down onto it as though swinging a pickaxe. It was the “bone-severing sword strike” he had learned from the chain unit. Hunting wyverns had taught him that this method was more effective for cutting through bone.

Najin’s sword was faster than the flesh could fill in, faster than the dragon could regenerate. In the time a handspan of flesh grew back, his blade cut through ten.

ROOOOOOAR!

The white dragon shrieked and thrashed madly, rolling over in midair, but Najin’s strikes never ceased. He merely swung his body all the way around the sword embedded in its wing joint and regained his balance.

At last, one of the white dragon’s wings stiffened. Its wingbeats lost their balance, and it began losing altitude rapidly. As Najin gradually fell toward the earth atop the white dragon, he suddenly glanced toward the red dragon.

Something was strange.

According to the plan he had discussed with Merlin, according to the course of battle he had pictured in his mind, the red dragon should have interfered by now. Yet it had not. Why?

The moment he looked toward the red dragon, their eyes met.

The red dragon was watching Najin, too. Even as it fought Roselin and the White Horn adventurers, its gaze remained fixed squarely on him. The instant he met the beast’s eyes, Najin’s instincts sounded an alarm.

Something.

Something was wrong.

An unease he could not explain swept over him.

Before Najin could consider its cause, the red dragon roared. With a roar that shook heaven and earth, it soared into the sky.