Chapter 31: The Equilibrium between Man and Dragon

"My lord, we've managed to gather 1,232 cavalrymen."

"Excellent." Ardarian stretched out his hand. "Bring me my sword!"

Schwing—

Ardarian pulled out his sword.

The hum of steel was long but delicate.

He closed his eyes as if he was appreciating a musical instrument.

Even though the days of war were long gone, every time he heard the sound of a sword being unsheathed, the hair on his back would stand up.

At first glance, the longsword looked like a work of art. It was forged out of bright-colored steel and it had a golden hilt.

Back in the years of war, he had relied on this longsword to slaughter and bathe in the blood his countless enemies.

However, now that they were at peace, his longsword had instead become a symbol of his authority. It was an insignia of his position as the ruler of Longsong Alley.

His territory, Longsong Alley, was the northernmost city of the kingdom.

It was an industrious region, and its main economic activity was the mining of copper ores. Upon processing, they would export their copper in exchange for wheat and cloth from the south. Life was considered to be pretty good there.

If one were to continue heading north from Longsong Alley, they would encounter several small villages, followed by a vast desert that contained enough sand to bury the kingdom several times over. Should they survive their arduous trek across the perilous desert, they would then come face-to-face with a seemingly endless plain of snow.

Since there were no enemy regions in the north, no troops were stationed in Longsong Alley.

That was, until a dragon descended upon them one day.

In less than a year of its initial arrival to the desert region, it had managed to hunt down all the creatures living there.

Once the creatures of the desert had been hunted to extinction, it then attacked the camels within the villages.

Once they villages had run out of camels, it began to hunt the villagers.

The appetite of the dragon constantly grew.

Sooner or later, the villages would be annihilated by the dragon, and once that happened, the dragon would undoubtedly set its sights on Longsong Alley.

In order to prepare for the upcoming threat, Ardarian rapidly developed the military industry. Within the span of a few years, he had managed to churn out his first batch of troops.

At the price of sacrificing the villages, Ardarian had managed to muster a force to resist the dragon.

Currently, there were over two thousand foot soldiers garrisoned in Longsong Alley. They were considered to be the first line of defense, as well as cannon fodder. Should the dragon lay siege to the city, the foot soldiers would thrust their pikes in an attempt to pierce the dragon's reverse scales.

The reverse scales were the only weakness of a dragon.

They were unlike the other impervious scales that covered a dragon's body.

Everyone knew that the adult dragon's body was covered with tough scales. As for the composition of the scales, no one had yet to research it.

The reason was simple. Dragon scales were expensive and rare. They were usually used to make armor strips that protected vital organs. On top of that, very few humans had actually possessed the strength to crack open the dragon scales.

As such, research on this matter could hardly proceed.

Nevertheless, based on the experience of veteran soldiers, ordinary swords and sabers were completely ineffective against dragons. Rather than injure them, attacking with those weapons only infuriate the dragons, and it would escalate a situation that could be solved via diplomacy into a life-and-death situation.

As for bows and arrows, even if they were equipped with the heaviest armor-piercing bullets, they were still incapable of penetrating the tough scales of the dragons.

Using magic to defeat dragons was an even laughable proposition.

Almost every shade of chromatic dragons possessed an element that they exceled in manipulating. For those particular elements, no ordinary human mage would ever dare to compete against them. Before the magic of the dragons, the magic of humans was akin to drilling wood to start flames.

All that was left was to use light cavalry.

In fact, throughout the centuries-long conflict between dragons and humans, light cavalry had been humanity's greatest weapon in fighting the dragons.

Imagine a dragon that was a few meters tall and a few tons in weight. Other than the reverse scales on its neck, it had no other weakness.

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When it flew, it would easily exceed the range of bow and arrows.

When it opened its mouth, it was capable of releasing dragon breaths that could raze entire cities to the ground.

With a simple chant of its obscure dragon tongue, it could unleash magic that far surpassed that of humans.

It was impossible to beat such an enemy via a frontal assault.

Thus, the humans were motivated to discover a second weakness of the dragons aside from their reverse scales — treasure.

Compared to the greed of humans, the dragons' love for treasures far exceeded them. mountain-like treasury. Gold, gems, weapons — nothing was excluded from the desire of dragons. 

Dragons would hoard all their treasures in their lairs, and at times, they would even bury themselves in treasures to sleep.

In the eyes of dragons, the treasures were worth even more than their own lives.

As a result, the humans formed the light cavalry tactic to take advantage of the dragons' love for treasure. 

The first step of their tactic was to locate a dragon's lair.

Then, they would have a few groups of light cavalrymen lie in ambush nearby all year round.

Once the dragon had left its lair, the light cavalrymen would need to be on their guard.

Should they spot a human settlement with smoke rising from it, it meant that the dragon was currently invading the settlement.

Immediately after noticing this, the light cavalrymen would then use their mobility to their advantage.

They would enter the dragon lair, plunder the dragon's treasure, slaughter their young, and commit arson.

Usually, their rule was only to take away half of the treasure.

Then, they would kill all the young dragons and arrange them in the cave in the cruelest configuration possible.

Then, the light cavalrymen would split up, with each person taking a portion of the treasures, and run in different directions.

The final result would be mutually assured harm.

An ordinary settlement would not have the strength to withstand the dragon's attack. At worst, the settlement would be razed to the ground, and as a result, many would die or be left homeless.

However, the dragon would suffer pain of equal proportion as well. Upon its return to its lair, it would realize that half of the treasures that it had painstakingly collected were gone.

Worse still, all of their Dragon Hatchlings were tortured and killed in the lair.

The humans would leave the corpses of the Dragon Hatchlings in the cave, even though they were very valuable. This was done on purpose, as it would serve to provoke the dragon, and at the same time, allow the dragon to experience the loss of family.

At this point, depending on the personality of the dragon, some dragons would choose to commit suicide on the spot.

After all, with their treasures gone, they no longer had a reason to live.

On the other hand, some dragons would lose their rationality and fly to the next settlement to take revenge.

However, if the dragon were to do so, the light cavalrymen would rush back into the dragon's lair and take away yet another portion of the dragon's treasures. Depending on the situation, they would even take away the corpses of the Dragon Hatchlings,

Naturally, most dragons' first reaction would be to chase after the light cavalry.

However, no matter how fast the dragon flew, they could not catch all of the light cavalry that had spread out in different directions.

Those light cavalry were not afraid of death at all. Once they discovered that they were being chased by the giant dragons, they would commit suicide on their horses to prevent the dragons from finding out the whereabouts of their other teammates.

There were even some light cavalrymen who would leave one of their arms in the cave and deliberately lure the dragon to them with the smell of blood. If they were to employ this tactic, the cavalrymen who sacrificed themselves would not be carrying any treasure, and would instead leave it with the rest of their teammates.

This process would be rinsed and repeated until the dragon realized that attacking human cities was highly uneconomical for it.

Thus, the weak humans had finally found a bargaining chip that was capable of threatening the dragons at the cost of their own lives.

Such is the subtle equilibrium between man and dragon, who both resided on the same continent.

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