CHAPTER 180: CHAPTER 180: THE ASHES OF AN EMPIRE

The silence of death now hung over what had once been the Middle Kingdom. In the weeks following the massacre at Black Dragon Valley, the last pockets of human resistance were methodically crushed under the iron heel of draconic rule. Ignivara’s armies, galvanized by Syléane Ignivara’s imperious assumption of command, swept across Chinese territory with the relentless precision of a perfectly oiled war machine.

The new Patriarch had inherited her late father’s tactical genius, but had added to it a cold, calculated cruelty that surpassed even Varnor’s. Where her predecessor sometimes sought to spare non-combatants out of pragmatism, Syléane made no distinction. For her, every human represented a potential threat, a seed of rebellion that had to be uprooted before it could germinate.

Shanghai, the pearl of the modern Orient, was the first major city to fall after Beijing. Once a brilliant symbol of Chinese economic power, it was now nothing more than a heap of smoking ruins stretching as far as the eye could see. Its iconic towers, those spires of steel and glass that had once challenged the heavens, now lay gutted, their metal structures twisted like broken bones. Draconic flames had left indelible black scars on their facades, silent witnesses to the fury that had descended upon the city.

In the final hours of resistance, local hunters had fought with the energy of desperation. Led by Chen Wei-Ming, a graying veteran who had survived three decades of dragon hunts, they had organized a fierce defense from the skyscrapers of Lujiazui financial district. Armed with their last enchanted weapons and intimate knowledge of the urban terrain, they had held out for seventy-two hours, inflicting surprising losses on the draconic vanguards.

But their bravery, admirable though it was, could do nothing against the raw, coordinated power of the Ignivara legions. When Syléane herself appeared above the city, riding her ancestral dragon with scales the color of molten bronze, Shanghai’s fate was sealed. With a single breath, the Patriarch set an entire district ablaze, transforming the defenders’ last refuges into deadly furnaces.

Chen Wei-Ming died standing, his blade still smoking with draconic blood, refusing to bend the knee even in the face of certain death. His last act had been to hurl a challenge at Syléane in ancient Mandarin: "Our ancestors watch us! We will never yield this land to you!" The Patriarch had responded with an icy laugh before reducing him to ashes with a negligent gesture.

Guangzhou followed quickly, its defenses broken in less than a week. The port city, once a commercial gateway to the West, burned for three days and three nights. The columns of black smoke rose so high they were visible from Hong Kong, spreading terror among the civilian populations still free.

Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, attempted a more organized resistance. Local authorities had managed to evacuate part of the civilian population to the surrounding mountains and establish defensive lines in the hills. But dragons knew no terrain obstacles. They swooped from the sky like vengeful meteors, their flames transforming forests into blazes that drove refugees from their hiding places.

One by one, China’s great metropolises collapsed in systematic and inevitable chaos. Xi’an, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Wuhan... Each name that disappeared from the map represented millions of broken lives, millennia of culture and history reduced to dust.

The human survivors, those unfortunate enough not to die in battle, quickly discovered that their fate was hardly more enviable. Syléane Ignivara had instituted a ruthless classification system: humans were sorted according to their potential usefulness to the nascent draconic Empire.

Specialized craftsmen, engineers, doctors, and all those possessing rare technical skills were branded with red-hot iron and assigned to forced labor. Chained in makeshift labor camps in the ruins of former factories, they toiled relentlessly on the construction of draconic infrastructure. Their days began before dawn and ended long after sunset, under the constant surveillance of merciless wyverns who did not hesitate to strike down any offender.

The weakest, the sick, children and the elderly were considered a useless burden. Their fate was sealed in an expeditious and brutal manner. Mass graves were dug on the outskirts of each conquered city, silent testimonies to draconic administrative efficiency.

As for those who dared to resist, even passively, they served as public examples. Syléane had ordered their executions to take place in the main squares of former cities, their bodies displayed for weeks as a warning to anyone who might still harbor rebellious inclinations.

In the paved alleys of old Beijing, where once echoed the laughter of children playing xiangqi and the animated discussions of merchants touting their wares, now remained only the silence of a mausoleum. The traditional dwellings with red tile roofs, those siheyuan that had survived dynasties, now sheltered only ghosts and memories.

The characteristic sound of the capital had changed. The incessant honking of traffic, the cries of street vendors, and the permanent hubbub of twenty million inhabitants had been replaced by the metallic echoes of draconic boots hammering ancient pavements and the rhythmic beating of immense wings in the sky perpetually veiled with smoke.

Patrols of dragon-soldiers walked the main arteries, their black and gold armor reflecting the last glimmers of fires still smoldering in certain districts. Their crested helmets, adorned with the symbols of House Ignivara, gave them the appearance of ancient demons emerged from the darkest legends.

At the heart of this organized desolation, Syléane Ignivara herself stood upon the still-smoking ruins of what had been the Forbidden City. The former imperial residence, architectural jewel of humanity, was now nothing more than a heap of charred beams and blackened stones. But it was precisely upon these symbolic ruins that the new Patriarch had chosen to establish her temporary throne.

Her imposing silhouette, clad in ceremonial armor black as night and adorned with gold ornaments bearing complex draconic motifs, embodied the absolute power of the new masters. The armor itself was a work of military art, forged from the scales of the first dragon Syléane had killed with her own hands during her initiation. Each plate bore the scars of ancient battles, and the ensemble emanated a palpable aura of threat that instinctively made even the bravest of her subordinates step back.

Around her, the war banners of House Ignivara snapped in the wind with hypnotic regularity. These purple and gold flags, adorned with the two-headed dragon breathing flames, now marked every strategic point of the conquered capital. They flew from transmission towers, ruined government buildings, and main crossroads, silently but effectively proclaiming the establishment of a new and definitive order.

It was on a gray morning, under a sky heavy with ashes, that Syléane Ignivara gathered her troops for a ceremony that History would remember as the official birth certificate of the Eastern Draconic Empire.

Before the Gate of Heavenly Peace, where countless Chinese emperors had proclaimed their edicts, thousands of dragon soldiers aligned in perfect formations. True dragons in their humanoid form, elite wyverns in gleaming armor, and even some specimens of minor draconic species - all had converged on Beijing to witness this historic moment.

Syléane’s voice, amplified by draconic magic, carried to the confines of Tiananmen Square:

- "Warriors of House Ignivara! Soldiers of the Empire! Look around you and engrave this moment in your memories for eternity. What you see is not merely the conquest of territory - it is the definitive and irreversible affirmation of the absolute superiority of our race on this earth!"

A roar of approval rose from the tight ranks, making the broken windows of surrounding buildings tremble.

She paused, sweeping the assembly with her steel gaze.

- "This territory now belongs to us, entirely and definitively. Every grain of sand, every drop of water, every breath of air in this former Chinese nation now bears the indelible imprint of our domination. And let every creature in this world or others understand this well: no force, no alliance, no magic will ever be able to dislodge us from what we have conquered by iron and fire!"

The silence that greeted these words was more eloquent than any applause. In the eyes of each soldier gleamed a spark of fanatical pride and absolute certainty. China was theirs, but more than that - it was the first step toward a domination that would soon extend to the entire planet.

At the other end of the globe, in the sumptuous draconic palace erected on the ashes of Paris, King Maelor contemplated a three-dimensional holographic projection that occupied half of his throne room. This world map, updated in real time by draconic communication networks, displayed the inexorable progression of their conquests with military precision.

Each fallen territory lit up with blood-red light, each conquered city pulsed like a heart beating to the rhythm of the growing Empire. Western Europe already bathed in this scarlet glow, and now a vast portion of East Asia joined it, creating a red stain that stretched from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Elystria stood at his side, straight and silent as a marble statue. But beneath her apparent impassivity, her mind boiled with questions and concerns she dared not express. Each new red light on the map represented in her eyes not a victory to celebrate, but one more human tragedy to bear on her already heavy conscience.

She carefully observed every detail of the projection, memorizing the position of the last zones still free, mentally calculating the forces needed to defend them, evaluating the possibilities of resistance that still remained. For despite appearances and despite her position at the heart of draconic power, Elystria had never ceased hoping that one day, somehow, balance could be restored.

The contemplative atmosphere of the throne room was brutally interrupted by the irruption of a draconic messenger. The individual, dressed in the black travel uniform marked with the golden emblems of House Ignivara, still bore on his clothes the dust of roads and the smell of powder from recent battles.

He practically collapsed at the foot of the throne, short of breath but eyes bright with barely contained excitement. His wings, partially deployed in his haste, still trembled from the effort of a transcontinental flight performed at record speed.

Bowing so deeply that his forehead almost touched the polished marble floor, he remained thus for long seconds, time to regain enough breath to deliver his message. When he finally straightened, his voice resonated in the hall with perfect clarity despite his evident fatigue:

- "Your Majesty Maelor, Princess Elystria! I come directly from the eastern theater of operations, by express order of Patriarch Syléane Ignivara herself. I have the distinguished honor of announcing that the total conquest of the former People’s Republic of China is now an accomplished fact!"

He paused, visibly savoring the historic importance of his words.

- "The last pockets of organized human resistance have been systematically eliminated. The last cores of rebel hunters have been routed and destroyed. The entirety of continental Chinese territory, from Manchuria to Tibet, from Inner Mongolia to the Pearl River Delta, is now under absolute and uncontested draconic control!"

A profound, almost religious silence settled in the great hall. Even the magical flames that illuminated the place seemed to flicker, as if they too felt the historic weight of the moment.

King Maelor, imposing figure on his throne of obsidian and gold, showed no emotion for long seconds. His golden eyes, heritage of his millennial royal lineage, fixed on an invisible point beyond the palace walls, as if contemplating the implications of this victory on the global geopolitical chessboard.

Then, with the calculated slowness of a sovereign who weighs each of his gestures, a glacial smile began to stretch his lips. This was not the expression of spontaneous joy of a general learning of a tactical victory, but rather the satisfied rictus of a genius strategist seeing his most ambitious plans materialize exactly as planned.

- "So China has fallen," he murmured, his voice carrying in the silence with natural authority that instinctively made heads bow around him. "Thus, our supremacy now extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, unifying Eurasia under our draconic banner."

He turned to Elystria, who had maintained her statuesque pose but whose eyes betrayed a growing inner storm. A slight shiver had run through her slender body at the announcement of the total fall of the Middle Kingdom - not from cold, for dragons knew not this weakness, but from deep concern about the implications of this territorial expansion.

- "My dear Elystria," Maelor resumed in a tone that mixed paternal affection and royal authority, "have my warmest official congratulations sent to Syléane Ignivara. Her assumption of command following her father’s regrettable loss has proven not only remarkable, but probably superior to what Varnor himself could have accomplished."

He rose from his throne, his tall stature dominating the assembly even more, and continued in a voice that resonated like a royal decree:

- "Make sure her name is engraved in the marble of our annals as that of the Great Conqueror of the Orient. Let her receive the honors due to one who has offered the Empire a territory representing more than a billion broken and subjugated human souls."

Elystria respectfully inclined her head, but in her violet eyes shone a troubled gleam that only a very attentive observer could have detected. Behind her mask of perfect filial obedience hid a conscience tortured by the implications of each draconic victory.

- "Yes, Majesty," she replied simply, her voice betraying nothing of her inner reservations. "It shall be done according to your will."

The messenger, having accomplished his historic mission, bowed one last time with perfect military precision then left the hall walking backward, according to draconic royal protocol. His steps echoed on the marble until the heavy doors closed behind him with a dull echo.

Alone before his monumental holographic map, King Maelor let his gaze wander over the territories now marked with the draconic imprint. The red light pulsing above Beijing, once the beating heart of one of humanity’s most ancient civilizations, seemed to hypnotize the dragon sovereign.

His thoughts sailed toward the near future. With China under total control, strategic possibilities opened like the petals of a deadly flower. India, with its billions of inhabitants and considerable resources, represented the next logical step. Then would come the turn of the rest of Southeast Asia, before attacking the last bastions of resistance in America and Africa.

- "The Ignivara have not only accomplished their mission with excellence," he murmured to himself, his voice lost in the immensity of the hall, "but they have proven that the death of a leader, even one as capable as Varnor, cannot hinder the inexorable march of our destiny."

He closed his eyes for a moment, mentally visualizing the world map in its entirety, imagining each continent bathed in this same victorious red glow.

- "The path to absolute world hegemony is now not only open, but marked by the victories of our armies. Soon, very soon, there will not remain a single territory on this planet that does not bear the imprint of draconic domination."

In the silent shadow of a palace alcove, Elystria observed this entire scene with an increasingly heavy heart. Each word of triumph pronounced by her adoptive father resonated within her like the death knell of a dying humanity. She had learned, over the years spent in the royal entourage, to perfectly conceal her emotions behind a mask of perfect impassivity, but internally, each draconic victory was for her a personal defeat.

For if the domination of her race seemed today invincible and definitive, Elystria possessed intimate knowledge of draconic politics that revealed to her the hidden flaws behind each apparent success. She knew that the most brilliant victories often carried within them the seeds of their own destruction, that the pride and hubris that accompanied each conquest blinded her fellow dragons to the real dangers that threatened them.

In her tormented mind, she constantly revisited the image that had haunted her for months: that of a man with dark hair and eyes blazing with a supernatural orange color, standing amid flames and chaos, a blade black as the abyss clutched in his fist, ready to defy all the empires of the world without exception.

This vision, which she had glimpsed in her most troubling prophetic dreams, represented for her much more than a simple fantasy born from her guilty subconscious. She sensed in it the incarnation of a force that could, perhaps, one day, call into question the apparently immutable order that her people were imposing on the world.

She breathed deeply, temporarily chasing this vision from her conscious mind, but without ever being able to completely erase it from her memory. For in the depths of her being, with a certainty that defied all rational logic, she knew that the future was not as definitively sealed as the victorious dragons might hope.

The most powerful empires in History had all ended up collapsing, often at the very moment when they seemed to have reached the pinnacle of their power. And somewhere, in the shadows of the ruined world, she sensed that forces were organizing, that resistances were structuring, that human hope refused to die completely.

Perhaps this was her personal curse or her blessing to see beyond the triumphant appearances of the present to glimpse the infinite possibilities of a future still unwritten. In the silence of her nocturnal meditations, she continued to hope that somewhere, someone was preparing the counterattack that could, one day, restore the lost balance to this world.

For if China had fallen, if Europe was conquered, if dragons now reigned as masters over a considerable portion of the planet, History had taught her that no domination, even the most apparently absolute, was truly eternal.