"...You've been enduring a lot of hardship all this time, haven't you?"
"...You don't need to be patient anymore, because I will absolutely not let Leah die."
"Come, devour me, and then, rule the world..."
"Oh, right, about what you said to me before, my response is... I love you too, Leah."
The crimson-clad king awoke with a start from her throne.
Beneath his chest, his heart, long since turned into a blazing furnace, pounded violently.
The warm, rusty touch seemed to linger on her lips; hundreds of years had not erased even the slightest detail of that nightmare.
Ophelia opened her eyes, and before her, a dark red, lava-like glow flowed slowly between the massive pillars and dome, illuminating her solitary figure.
She slightly curled her fingertips, her sharp nails digging deep into the fossilized skull of an unknown behemoth on the armrest of the throne.
But this fleeting vulnerability, like a snowflake thrown into a raging fire, vanishes in an instant.
When she stood up and stepped barefoot onto the cold ground, that trace of weakness that belonged to "Ophelia" was completely sealed away.
With each step, an invisible pressure spread out, causing the air to freeze and the flames to bow down
As she pushed open the colossal gate inscribed with ancient dragon language and epic war tales, the moment the sunlight poured in, she was already the crimson empress reigning over the land, causing all things to tremble.
The pure-blooded dragon guards standing outside the door felt that overwhelming aura, and lowered their heads even further, not daring to look directly at the figure that seemed to be constructed of pure power and majesty.
Ophelia didn't even glance at them, her gaze fixed on the distant territory belonging to Elena, the Blue Dragon King and her sister.
The last time we met... was it decades ago? Going back further, it's a century.
For the immortal dragon race, time is both a blessing and a torment.
The recent rumors have an ominous connotation.
Elena, her sister who was obsessed with the mysteries of the soul, actually created the "Undead"—a monster that desecrates the cycle of life—decades ago.
She knew what she was chasing, an unrealistic dream that had lasted for centuries.
Perhaps it's time to awaken her from that hopeless obsession...
With her mind made up, Ophelia was enveloped in a flash of red light, transforming into a blazing streak of fire that tore through the sky, disappearing into the clouds in an instant, leaving only a lingering, scorching aftershock in the air.
The Dragon Clan Grand Library is a temple of knowledge, but also a tomb where time has settled.
When Ophelia found Elena, she was surrounded by countless enormous, floating tomes and ancient scrolls
Unlike Ophelia's fiery beauty, which seemed to ignite the world, Elena's beauty was as serene and translucent as an extreme icy abyss.
Her long, silvery-white hair flowed like glaciers under the moonlight, her icy-blue eyes were deeper and colder than the purest gemstones, and her skin was so white it was almost transparent, as if it had been sculpted from millennia-old ice.
She simply stood there quietly, flipping through the ancient parchment scrolls, and a chilling aura naturally emanated from her, making even the air seem to condense into tiny ice crystals.
Elena's eyelashes didn't even flutter at her sister's arrival, as if Ophelia were nothing more than an insignificant wisp of air.
Ophelia broke the silence, her voice ringing out clearly and coldly in the empty corridors of the Great Archives: "Have you found a way?"
Elena's fingers, which had been turning the pages of the book, never stopped, and her indifferent reply was like ice beads falling onto a jade plate: "No."
"Since there has been no result after hundreds of years, then Elena, give up." Ophelia said calmly, "It's time to wake up from the dream. He has been dead for seven hundred and sixty years."
"...Oh--"
An uncontrollable sneer escaped from Elena's perfect lips.
She finally raised her head, and in her icy blue eyes, there was no longer the unyielding ice of antiquity, but a raging fire and resentment powerful enough to incinerate everything.
Her beautiful face was tinged with a breathtakingly vibrant color by this extreme emotional fluctuation, like a frozen volcano suddenly erupting.
"You woke me from my dream?" Elena retorted with a laugh. "And what about yourself, Ophelia, my dear sister!"
She stood up, and frost spread beneath her feet with her movement.
"Yes, that's right. You have everything! You've got everything! His love, his body, everything he has! You've devoured him completely! Of course you can wake up satisfied, sit on your throne, and be your Fiery Dragon King!"
Each word was like a poisoned ice spike, piercing Ophelia fiercely.
"If you came to see me just to say these disgusting things..." Elena raised her hand, pointing directly at the entrance to the Great Archives, her eyes icy cold: "Then get out! Don't let me see you again, and don't interfere with my experiments!"
"boom--!"
A terrifying, scorching dragon's might, like a tangible tsunami, erupted from Ophelia's body.
The air distorted under the intense heat, and several rows of bookshelves near her even spontaneously combusted, their pages turning to ashes.
Her bloodshot vertical pupils narrowed as she stared intently at her younger sister, the rage within them enough to burn down cities and destroy nations.
Elena did not back down. Her body surged with cold energy, and her icy blue dragon might transformed into a roaring polar storm that collided violently with the scorching tsunami.
Two destructive forces clashed fiercely in the Great Archives, blurring the lines between ice and fire and emitting terrifying hissing sounds.
The temperature fluctuated wildly between extreme cold and extreme heat, and the space itself seemed to groan under the strain.
The dragon guards protecting the Great Archives were already prostrate on the ground, trembling, and praying fervently that the two emperors would exercise restraint.
If a full-scale conflict were to break out here, the treasures of knowledge accumulated by the dragon race over millions of years would surely be destroyed!
The stalemate was suffocating.
In the end, it was Ophelia who, with a complex emotion flashing in her lava-like eyes, perhaps out of a sense of responsibility as an older sister, or perhaps out of a final respect for this sacred place of knowledge, was the first to restrain her world-destroying aura.
The intense heat subsided, leaving behind only a scene of devastation and the lingering smell of burning.
Ophelia gave Elena a deep look, her eyes filled with unspeakable emotions: pain, disappointment, and perhaps a touch of pity.
She said nothing more, turned and left, her figure transforming into a streak of light and instantly disappearing from the entrance of the Great Library.
Elena stood there, her cold eyes fixed on the direction where her sister had disappeared, for a long, long time.
She slowly sat back down only after the surrounding chill subsided.
The Great Archives fell silent once more, with only the lingering echoes of the clash between ice and fire silently telling the story of the unbridgeable rift between the two dragon queens, a rift that had persisted for seven hundred and sixty years.