Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1062: Chapter 1061: A Minor Mistake

The weather in the Northern Hemisphere is warming up, and even the land of Talronde in the polar region has gained a hint of warmth in this warming season—when the wind blows from the direction of the endless ocean, the fragmented coastline rises in layers of small waves, glaciers move slowly on the distant sea surface with the current, and the fish schools and some deep-sea creatures returning along the warm current become the most precious resources for the Dragonkin in distress.

On the southeastern edge of the Talronde Continent, Melita Ponia folded her giant wings and landed somewhat precariously on a giant reef protruding from the sea.

Facing the sea breeze, the blue dragon looked up into the distance—she saw the area where the continent and the ocean meet presenting a terrifying fragmented appearance. The once-solid rock layers and steel coastline now seemed to be broken into serrated sections. A heavy high wall, once standing at the continent’s edge to support the Barrier Generator, had collapsed, with numerous jagged steel structures tilting and falling into the sea, extending down to the seabed.

In the sky above this shattered coastline, an unimaginable sight could be seen: large and small boulders and even small islands had lifted from the surface and sea, floating hundreds or even thousands of meters in the air. Some islands floated stably, while smaller rocks gently rolled in the wind. Among these seemingly gravity-lost objects, near-transparent rifts like whirlpools occasionally appeared. In these rifts, extremely rare spiritual bodies and elemental creatures swam out as if moving through water, slowly roaming among the floating rocks and islands before gradually disappearing over time...

"...Gravity storms..." Melita couldn’t help but mutter softly, "and all kinds of space-time rifts..."

The sound of flapping wings came from the side as a large white dragon flew over from afar, landing next to Melita and also looking up at the sky: "I heard from Elder Duke More that the anomalies along this coastline might last for thousands or even tens of thousands of years... This was the main battleground, where the power of the gods has altered the space-time structure and gravity order here. Now, the residual power is still slowly exerting effects on several major floating islands, and they might even create a new ecosystem among these islands... In fact, some of our compatriots have already gone up to check out the situation, and those islands have started to show the presence of weird energy entities and radiation-mutated plants."

"...The residual power of the gods is that strong?" Melita remarked with a hint of awe, "What about after thousands or tens of thousands of years? Will these rocks and islands just fall down?"

"That we don’t know," Noreta shook her head, "maybe they’ll slowly come down? The dispersal of power isn’t something that happens all at once, right..."

Melita did not comment on her friend’s speculation, merely responding with a huff of breath through her nose. Then she looked towards the direction of the nearby sea area—several dragons were circling and flying low over that sea area. They would occasionally drop down suddenly and unleash some sort of magical power over the sea surface, with other dragons standing by to assist, using swift ice-spell or gravity magic to haul things out of the water. It was apparent that they were not successful every time, as there were often times when they ended up empty-handed.

They were fishing—awkwardly, but there was great progress.

After stabilizing the situation at the Agondale Camp and with their injuries mostly healed, Melita and Noreta had voluntarily joined the team expanding towards the coastline and set up a small camp on this fragmented beach, turning the nearby sea into a fishing ground. To be honest, at first, their actions were not smooth, as the environment near the coastline was harsher than expected. The gravity storms created by the gods not only tore apart the land but also left far more "rifts" here than elsewhere. A large number of elemental creatures and darker twisted mutant monsters once surged like a tide, almost pushing Melita and her comrades back inland, but after several successful raids, Melita led the team to seal several major stable elemental rifts, significantly reducing the hostile creatures here and allowing the team to secure a foothold on this dreadful coastline.

After much effort, the advanced camp has now started to function: dispatched search teams have found several warehouses buried in the ruins, and the recovered resources have alleviated the predicament of the main camp at Agondale. The fishery near shore could provide valuable food supply—even if the young dragons raised in the "cradle" aren’t good at hunting, their almost unreasonably strong bodies and magical talents allow them to not return empty-handed before the sea. After several days of adaptation, this camp has started providing a stable food supply, although... in small quantities.

But the food is now enough to make the main camp decide to incubate a few more dragon eggs.

"I never thought one day we’d have to resort to such primitive and savage methods to get food from nature," White Dragon Noreta also looked towards the sea following Melita’s gaze, and after a while, couldn’t help but remark, "What’s more ironic... is that we’re not even doing better than human fishermen."

"The Dragonkin have degenerated in an extremely comfortable environment for too long, but it’s not anyone’s fault," Melita shook her head, "The dragons in the Lower Talronde used to do nothing but eating, sleeping, and immersing themselves in virtual entertainment every day. Even those in the upper echelons with jobs, except those like me who frequently conduct fieldwork, didn’t actually have to consider any survival skills outside the Great Shield. After all... we are a group of ’oversized young dragons’ that even rely on machines to open cans automatically. Now it is already remarkable that everyone can find food for the camp in such a harsh wilderness."

"Young dragons..." White Dragon Noreta muttered softly, then seemed to contemplate for a moment before looking up at her friend, "Actually, I’ve had an idea recently, would you like to hear it?"

Melita was surprised: "Huh? If you have an idea, just say it."

"I plan to apply for a dragon egg," Noreta said seriously, her large and crystal-clear eyes reflecting the glow on the distant horizon, "I asked Chief Heragor, we can have five spots at our camp..."

"You plan to apply for a dragon egg?" Melita was taken aback, staring wide-eyed at her friend, suddenly remembering something, and couldn’t help but remind, "But I recall it’s not allowed to apply individually... at least two dragons have to claim it together, or it’s raised by the camp collectively—this is to prevent labor force impact."

"That’s why I want to discuss it with you," Noreta looked earnestly into Melita’s eyes, "Would you like to apply with me? The two of us ought to have enough spare capacity."

"Huh?!" This time, Melita was even more surprised, so much so that she didn’t react at first. It wasn’t until Noreta repeated her words that Melita confirmed she hadn’t misheard, "You want me to apply with you... but I never considered this before..."

She was speaking while getting lost in hesitation. Just as she was about to give an answer, a sound of flapping wings suddenly came from nearby, followed by a voice from mid-air: "Captain! We’ve discovered some anomalous small water elements near the beach!"

"Anomalous water elements?" Melita was taken aback, then exchanged a look with Noreta, both nodding in agreement.

In the current situation, the safety issues near the camp clearly take priority over any personal affairs.

...

A moment later, Noreta and Melita arrived at the beachside camp area.

Here, some simple shelters were built using materials collected from the ruins, and large areas of ground inside and outside the camp were cleaned and leveled. In the open space at the southeastern corner of the camp, several Dragonkin in human form stood aside, and Melita, who had just landed and also transformed into human form, immediately saw small water elements quickly circling in the open space.

On the open ground, there were runes with a rough style, a Rune Matrix directly constructed by the Dragonkin using claws and the power of language. The effect of these arrays was limited, but enough to trap small, weak water elements—three light blue water elements, only about ten centimeters tall and resembling upside-down drops of water, were running around chaotically within the confinement of the runes, shouting in sharp and tiny voices, too faint to be clearly heard.

Such small water elements... and they have language abilities?

Melita Ponia had never seen anything like this. To her knowledge, lesser elemental creatures had almost no intelligence and could not speak. They operated more like blind, dull-witted lower animals, and any elemental creatures capable of speech usually had a larger body to match—just what were these chattering little "water droplets" about?

Driven by curiosity, she couldn’t help but step forward, lower her head, and lean close to one of the water elements. After listening carefully for a long time, she finally discerned the content from the creature’s tiny, vague shouts—it was repeating the same phrase over and over: "Caught just one sip, caught just one sip..."

Nearby, Noletta also heard it and showed an inexplicable expression: "’Caught just one sip’... what does it mean?"

"I don’t understand. I don’t get elemental creatures’ social customs; I’ve only interacted with them when pursuing debts," Melita shrugged and said, "Besides, it’s strange enough that such small elemental creatures have language abilities..."

The dragons on the scene were all puzzled; Melita’s words echoed their bewilderment. At that moment, another dragon flew in from the direction of the coast, shouting loudly before approaching closely: "Captain! We’ve caught some strange ’fish’ near the sea, and also... and also a..."

"And also what?" Melita was somewhat displeased with the other’s halting speech and couldn’t help but frown. Before the other could answer, she pulled Noletta beside her. "Forget it, let’s go and see."

Many strange things had happened on this beach once ravaged by Divine Power. It was normal for dragons out and about to encounter incomprehensible phenomena. As the person in charge here, Melita felt it better to handle the situation herself.

With this thought, it didn’t take her long to reach a clearing outside the camp, where from afar she could see several of her kin maintaining their Dragon Form gathered by the rocky coast. She identified them as the ones responsible for fishing today, and among them... vaguely, there were figures that should not exist on the land of the Talronde Dukedom.

Melita moved closer, and the surrounding dragons parted to let her through. The figures being encircled came into Melita’s view, and at first glance, she saw roughly a dozen tall, vigilant half-human creatures with distinct deep-sea features. They had yellowish-brown pupils and fine scales covering their bodies. Their deep blue or greenish skin glistened with a watery sheen, their lower bodies stout like sea snakes (or strange fish tails), and their upper bodies humanoid, with webbed fingers.

These strange half-human creatures wielded metal tridents and wore some unrecognizable gear—the dragons of Talronde did not know these beings, as they were a newly emerged race from the deep sea. However, Melita recognized them.

These were Nagas, originally supposed to live in the far deep sea, who had recently established contact with the northern part of the Loren Continent—she had come across sparse information about this race during an external mission of the Cecil Empire.

This is the so-called "strange fish"?

Melita’s eyes widened in confusion over seeing Nagas here. The next second, she noticed another figure among the Nagas: a black-haired sea demon.

In that instant, she understood why the dragon earlier began to stutter: ordinary Dragonkin didn’t recognize Nagas, but they did know sea demons. Though very mysterious, this race rarely interacted with any forces outside the deep sea. The Dragonkin were also restricted by past "taboos" from interacting with these starship-possessing "visitors from outer space." However, they were a long-established race on this planet, and at least information about them could be readily found in the remnants of the Omega network.

So... the fishing team earlier "caught" a group of Nagas and a sea demon?

Melita’s expression turned peculiar. She twitched the corner of her mouth, then walked somewhat stiffly towards these uninvited guests. The sea demon, protected by the Nagas, also noticed the commotion and turned to look over.

It was then that Melita finally observed something seemingly wrapped around the tail of that sea demon, and after a closer look, she discerned it was a struggling water element!

The enigmatic sea demon smiled at Melita, curling her long tail and moving it, bringing the captured water element up to her mouth. It was then that Melita noticed the water element was not only caught but even had a straw inserted into its body...

The next second, the sea demon bit down on the straw and took a hard sip. The water element immediately emitted an indignant, sharp shout: "Caught just one sip! Caught just one sip!"

Melita: "...?"

Amid the rather awkward silence, finally, a Naga broke the silence, looking at the black-haired sea demon beside him: "Lady Cassandra, shouldn’t we be near the Eternal Storm? How did we end up... in such a place?"

"I was contemplating," the black-haired sea demon referred to as Lady Cassandra said, discarding the water element dwindled to just around ten centimeters, pondering as she looked at the bewildered dragons around. "Here..."

The water element, thrown to the ground, wobbled for a moment, then swiftly fled towards the distance while angrily shouting: "Caught just one sip, caught just one sip!!"

"Actually, I didn’t catch just one..." Cassandra shook her head, "Never mind, that’s not important. What’s important is that it seems like we might have swum beyond..."