CHAPTER 302: EX 302. WHAT IS HAPPENING?

Leon walked back toward the others, his boots crunching softly against the cracked earth. Behind him, the battlefield was quiet again, only drifting motes of violet ash left to tell the story of the massacre.

Racheal and Adrian were already up on their feet, their breathing steady again after their earlier fight. The faint traces of exhaustion had left their faces, replaced with that sharp glint of readiness Leon always expected from them.

"Time to head to the tether," Leon said, his voice calm but carrying that quiet edge of command.

Neither of them wasted a second. They fell in step behind him as Lancelot joined their side, the older man watching Leon with a look that was somewhere between awe and disbelief.

Finding the tether didn’t take long. Leon could sense corruption now the way a wolf sensed blood, instinctively. The moment they reached the pulsating black crystal, Leon stepped forward and laid his hand against it.

A hum filled the air. The tether pulsed once... then shattered into a thousand shards of fading violet light as Leon absorbed every trace of corruption.

"Time to head to the next city," Leon said, turning toward Lancelot.

The lieutenant nodded once, raising his hand. A current of invisible energy lifted all four of them into the air, the world blurring beneath as they sped toward the next destination.

This time, there were no pauses. No need for rest. Lancelot was uninjured, and Leon’s pace was merciless. He intended to clear every cluster as quickly as possible not for the glory or even the reward, but to prove something.

To the emperor.

And to himself.

Of course, Leon didn’t know that the emperor had already seen everything he needed to see, that his trust in Leon was no longer a gamble, but certainty. Even so, Leon would have moved just as quickly. Goals like his didn’t bend for approval alone.

And so, they kept moving.

One cluster after another.

Ten became nine.

Nine became eight.

Eight dwindled to one.

Each battle blurred into the next. Racheal and Adrian handled the mobs, cutting through waves of corrupted beasts, their teamwork tightening with each fight. Leon focused solely on the guardians. Lancelot rarely interfered; more often than not, he watched from the sidelines, amazed and grateful.

What would have been a month-long campaign for most imperial squads had turned into something absurdly efficient, a streak of victories that looked effortless. For Lancelot, it almost felt like a paid vacation.

Now, in the final city, Leon stood atop the bloodied stones, Void Blade humming faintly as he pulled it free from the skull of a griffin-like guardian. The creature dissolved into drifting corruption that was instantly consumed into Leon’s form.

He turned to face the others. "Time to destroy the tether," he said, resting the sword on his shoulder, "then we head back to the capital."

Lancelot smiled broadly, far too cheerful for a battlefield. "Don’t worry. You can take your time," he said with a grin.

Leon gave him a long look, lips twitching slightly. ’So these are your true colors,’ he thought. ’isn’t this a little too happy for someone on duty.’

Still smiling to himself, Leon turned and walked toward the tether.

But even as he did, the world beyond the ruined city was stirring. His campaign, so swift and clean that it felt like fiction, was no longer confined to whispers among imperial soldiers.

News of the boy who was erasing clusters faster than anyone in history had already spread.

Not just through the empire.

But across the whole of Pandora.

****

One cluster vanishing would draw attention no matter where it happened.

After all, clusters weren’t meant to be destroyed.

They were the festering wounds of Pandora, living scars that bled corruption endlessly. Their guardians were immortal, their tethers indestructible. The best anyone could do was seal them away, delay the inevitable. Clusters were ticking time bombs, waiting for the perfect time to unleash their wrath.

So when one suddenly disappeared... the world noticed.

The empire had taken notice after the first, back in Shantel. That alone had been enough, to make the emperor himself move. And that cluster, in truth, had been weak compared to what followed.

But twelve?

Twelve clusters wiped clean in a single day?

That wasn’t coincidence, that was an earthquake.

Every race in Pandora felt it.

The elven queen, whose heartbeats were said to echo with the rhythm of mana itself, had paused mid-communion with the world tree, her face turning pale.

The beast chiefs across the island archipelago stopped their wars for the first time in decades, their shamans whispering omens of an approaching storm.

And in the mountains where the clouds never cleared, the Dragon Lord, the eternal monarch of scales and fire stood in stunned silence.

High above the mortal lands, his palace was carved directly into the side of a mountain so massive it pierced the mist. From his balcony, he could see the horizon stretch endlessly, yet his gaze was fixed on the south, toward the human domains.

Crimson hair, wild like burning silk, shifted in the cold wind. Two curved horns jutted from his head, dark and ancient. Below his eyes, faint glowing dragon marks pulsed like living runes. The air around him shimmered, too heavy for mortals to breathe.

And in a voice that carried through the mountains, deep, commanding, and ancient enough to make the stone tremble, he spoke.

"What is happening in Pandora?"

The words rippled like thunder, shaking the spires of the dragon city below.

For the first time in centuries, the Dragon Lord felt something stir within the balance of the world.

Something unnatural.

Something... human.

****

As the Dragon Lord stared into the mist-laden distance, the mountain winds coiling around him like restless spirits, a sudden tremor of footsteps echoed from behind. The sound was soft at first, almost swallowed by the howl of the high air currents but then came the thud of a knee hitting stone.

The guard bowed deeply on the balcony floor, scales along his forearms clinking against his armor. His breath came out in short, nervous bursts, frost forming around his lips from the altitude.

"My Lord," the guard said, his voice trembling with reverence.

Eragon did not turn to look at him. The Dragon Lord’s gaze remained fixed on the horizon, his crimson hair whispering in the wind, his expression unreadable. When he finally spoke, his tone was sharp, like a blade forged from authority itself.

"Speak."

The guard swallowed hard, his forehead pressed to the cold stone. "It is the Draconian, my Lord... something is happening to her."

For a brief moment, the world seemed to still.

Eragon’s golden pupils flared, narrow slits of molten light widening in shock. The temperature around him rose in an instant, the air trembling with raw, contained fury. His draconic eyes burned bright, ancient power threatening to spill free, before he forced them dim again with sheer will.

The stone beneath his feet cracked.

He didn’t wait for another word. Not an explanation. Not a plea.

In the next breath, the balcony was empty, only a gust of searing wind and the faint echo of dragonfire left behind.

The guard stayed frozen in place, head still bowed, body trembling. The Lord had not granted him leave to rise, and so he did not dare move. Not even as the silence of the mountain pressed down on him like the weight of a god’s gaze.

****

A/N: Top 50 in golden ticket ranking = Mass release... Thanks for reading^^.