Dragon Eater: The Last Ancient Bloodline

The Dragon Covenant Plaza at the heart of Broken Iron Town was paved with blue-grey flagstones, every crevice packed with years of accumulated rust dust and dried, blackened bloodstains. The noon sun blazed with venomous ferocity, warping the heat shimmering above the stone surface into writhing mirages. When Lin Ye stepped onto it, the soles of his shoes issued a sticky, sizzling sound, like flesh peeling from scorched hide. The third attempt—and the last. The surrounding terraces were packed with spectators; the stench of sweat mingled with rust assailed his nostrils. Countless gazes pricked against Lin Ye’s back like red-hot needles, while the murmur of whispers swelled into a tidal drone that bored relentlessly into his eardrums. “Him again? That waste bloodline from the Lin family.”“Sixteen and still can’t sense a whisper of dragon breath—a disgrace to the testing stone.”“If I were him, I’d have crawled into a hole by now. Only he’s thick-skinned enough to show his face.” Their words were naked, vicious, utterly undisguised. Lin Ye did not lift his head. His eyes remained fixed on the obsidian testing pillar, ten feet tall, standing before him. Its surface was laced with spiderweb cracks, like the desiccated bones of some behemoth, exuding a bone-chilling cold. He drew a breath, and his lungs felt as if they had been filled with iron filings, scraping raw against his ribs. In a corner of the stands, Su Wanqing stood in the gaps between bodies. Her coarse linen dress, faded from countless washings, was dark with sweat. Her fingers curled white around the wooden railing before her, nails nearly gouging into the grain. She made no sound; she merely straightened her spine, her gaze piercing through the bobbing crowd to lock onto that slightly gaunt back. When Lin Ye swept a look over his shoulder, she met his eyes and gave the faintest nod of her chin. Then she released one hand, drew from her sleeve a neatly folded square of white cloth, and pressed it into her palm—a silent pledge. Lin Ye withdrew his gaze, his throat bobbing. From his bosom he took a faded cloth bundle, his fingers lingering on its rough texture for a moment as if weighing the heavy memories inside. Unwrapping it layer by layer revealed a metal token the size of a palm. Its surface was encrusted with thick, reddish-brown rust; the edges gnawed ragged by time. Only in the center could a faint dragon-shaped groove still be discerned. This was the sole object his parents had left behind before their disappearance—for years, it had lain at the bottom of a chest, dismissed as scrap iron. He bit his fingertip. The instant blood welled forth, the rust-eaten token gave a faint, subtle tremor. The drop of blood that fell upon the groove was not absorbed; instead, it hovered eerily above the rust layer. Silence reigned for three heartbeats. Then a low rumble issued from beneath the rust—like some deep-slumbering leviathan turning over in the bowels of the earth. The token’s temperature spiked, scorching the skin of his palm with the smell of burnt flesh, yet Lin Ye only tightened his fingers. The blood suddenly came alive, racing along the rust patterns; wherever it passed, the crust fell away, and the dull metal surface split into countless fine fissures from which molten gold-red light erupted like lava. The wind over the plaza died. The clear sky above darkened in an instant. Clouds were churned by an invisible hand into a crimson vortex that spanned half the heavens. A blinding pillar of light shot up from the token, and the moment it pierced the clouds, the whole of Broken Iron Town was steeped in a bloody glow. The mockery from the stands ceased as if cut with a knife. Someone knocked over a cup; the shatter of pottery rang out harsh and jarring. At the heart of the pillar, the air twisted and boiled, and a tiny dragon no larger than a human palm slowly materialized. Its entire body was clad in scales of fiery gold, each one etched with ancient flame runes. Though diminutive, when its molten-gold vertical pupils opened, a primeval majesty crashed down like a hammer of living weight upon every living heart. This was no common elemental dragon—nor any breed recorded in the annals. Lin Ye’s arm felt as heavy as if it were weighted with ingots of iron; when he made a fist, the bones of his fingers cracked under the strain. The small dragon coiled around his shoulder. It did not roar—it only gazed with those cold, vertical eyes. That gaze pierced flesh, striking straight into the bloodline origin buried deep in his marrow. “What… what manner of creature is this?” The elder presiding over the ceremony stammered, his record brush slipping from his fingers. No one answered. The townsfolk had gone pale. Several of the youths who had jeered loudest now cowered in corners, their teeth chattering audibly. The dragon’s majesty was impartial, crushing every chest with suffocating pressure. Lin Ye raised a trembling hand, and the small dragon climbed onto his fingertip. At the moment of contact, a searing flood rushed up his arm into his meridians; lava seemed to course through his veins. He clenched his fist, knuckles cracking. The newborn power howled in his blood, resonating in strange harmony with the dragon on his shoulder. Lifting his eyes, he met Su Wanqing’s gaze. The shock in her eyes had already hardened into something as steadfast as stone. Lin Ye gave a small, downward tilt of his chin—time to go. Time to leave this place of rust and prejudice. Broken Iron Town could no longer hold them.