A distinguished emperor in the history of the Roland Empire once declared, “The Imperial Code is sacred and inviolable. Within the Empire's borders, everyone is strictly bound by its laws.”

That emperor later created one of the most glorious eras in the Empire’s history, renowned for strict law and stable rule.

Yet that same emperor reportedly added something in private after delivering his famous maxim. Naturally, it appeared in no official record, but the words leaked through enough channels to become widely known.

“Everyone must obey the Imperial Code, with two exceptions. The first is the emperor himself. At times, Imperial authority may stand above the Code. The other exception is... mages.”

Powerful mages possessed abilities far beyond those of ordinary mortals. At the highest extremes, they could move mountains, overturn seas, and alter the fate of nations. Historical records described figures so mighty that ordinary people could scarcely even comprehend them—beings who were, for all practical purposes, gods.

Those mighty beings could flatten mountains and fill seas with a wave of the hand. They could summon storms and blizzards, or scorch fertile plains into barren desert beneath a blazing sun. With a gesture, they could destroy entire armies or create a disaster capable of annihilating a small kingdom.

Secular law could hardly restrain such people. Expecting those capable of devastating the world around them to submit to ordinary authority was simply unrealistic.

Even excluding legendary figures whose power approached that of the gods, a deadly battle between ordinary mages could create a small disaster—one sufficient to destroy a city.

Historical records told that before the continent was unified, during its dark age of war, a duel between two mages could directly destroy an entire city-state.

After the continent was unified into the powerful Roland Empire, large-scale warfare disappeared, and battles between mages gradually decreased. Even so, Imperial history contained records of private mage duels that incidentally destroyed one or two small towns.

Yet the Imperial Code had never prohibited mages from dueling in public. Ordinary people were forbidden from armed fighting in public, but mages were exempt.

Even the Magic Guild merely requested that mages avoid settling private grudges in crowded places whenever possible. It was only a request, not a binding rule.

Under the agreement between the Magic Guild and the Empire, any mage above the intermediate ranks—even one guilty of terrible crimes—could be convicted or punished only by a joint tribunal of the Imperial authorities, the Magic Guild, and the Temple of Light, unless the crime was treason. Otherwise, Imperial officials had no authority to arrest or convict an intermediate- or high-level mage.

Across centuries of Imperial history, no mage above the intermediate ranks had ever been punished by the Empire merely for breaking the law. This unquestionably demonstrated the special status mages held above ordinary people.

Extraordinary power, freedom from ordinary law, and almost no restraint beyond personal inclination—that was how common people understood mages. They spoke of mages with awe, but fear made up the greater part of it.

Almost every resident of Halfhorn City was awakened by the tremendous disturbance that night.

The violent tremors jolted many from their dreams and even threw some from their beds. Lamps swung overhead, wooden doors creaked, and countless people awoke in terror to find that they could barely stand.

Panic-stricken residents poured from their homes. The night should have been black, yet dazzling light pulsed on the horizon. Enormous masses of radiance appeared and vanished, while the roar of some unknown beast rolled in from afar, awakening a primal terror in everyone who heard it.

Wave after wave of tremors rolled in from beyond the walls. The quaking earth, the fire in the sky, and those blood-chilling roars plunged Halfhorn City into panic.

Most frightening of all, after one violent shock, part of the northern city wall collapsed. The crash of falling masonry drove people into a blind stampede through the streets.

In the distance, toward Halfhorn Mountain outside the city, everyone could see two enormous masses of light with the naked eye—one silver, one fiery red. They collided ferociously, more and more frequently, and every impact released enough brilliance to illuminate the night. Even the moon had long since lost its glow.

Deep booms accompanied the violent flashes. Each one made hearts pound, like a heavy hammer striking the chest.

The small number of local-garrison light infantry left in the city were also caught in the chaos. Charged with patrolling the walls, they were powerless to maintain order among the panicked residents. They had too few men, and they were equally afraid.

Then the worst news arrived. People seeking help at the garrison camp outside the city found the dozens of cavalrymen stationed there injured and unconscious. Even the locally respected Knight Span was badly wounded. The camp was wrecked, with fires still burning, as though someone had just attacked it.

Terrified people began crowding toward the city exits, while others climbed to higher ground in panic.

At that moment, a sound like muffled thunder came from Halfhorn Mountain, followed by a series of crashes like thunder during a summer downpour.

“The mountain collapsed! Halfhorn Mountain collapsed!”

Someone on high ground shouted first, and the terrifying news rapidly spread through the crowd.

Halfhorn Mountain truly had collapsed!

Far away, the small mountain once visible from the city wall—Halfhorn Mountain’s famous peak—collapsed before the horrified eyes of the people. The entire summit seemed to have been shaken apart, as if it were not a mountain at all but a pile of sand falling in a single roar.

The fierce light was visible for miles. Those with especially sharp eyes claimed to see two strange, enormous shapes wheeling within it.

For the people of Halfhorn City, this would surely be a night they remembered for the rest of their lives. Under the shadow of unknown terror, they longed desperately for dawn.

Only when the first light of sunrise appeared did the frightening roars and the fierce brilliance that had flashed for half the night finally disappear.

The people waited more than an hour before daring to believe the unknown disaster had truly ended. Only then did the terror gripping the city begin to ease.

Knight Span and the others, rescued after soldiers from the city went to the garrison camp for help in the middle of the night, finally awoke. Robert and his people woke as well.

Before the overwhelming power of the mage, they had been injured and knocked unconscious without any ability to resist. Then the icy beauty’s magic had collapsed the hall. Several people she had felled were injured again beneath the falling structure.

The first to awaken under treatment was the female knight Roline.

Roline had been resting that evening after losing too much blood in the daytime battle. Sorskya had also given her medicine to encourage sleep. As a result, she had not been injured in the night attack and woke first, though she remained weak from blood loss that could not be replaced quickly.

Knight Robert woke next, followed by Knight Span and then the Rowling guards. When they discovered that both their young master and the terrifying female attacker were gone, everyone panicked.

After learning what had happened from those nearby, the injured Robert ignored his scorched wounds. He forced himself up, gathered several lightly injured men, prepared a carriage, and set out for Halfhorn Mountain. When Span learned that the Rowling Family’s young master was missing, he felt as though he had stepped from a towering cliff. His injuries left him unable to move, so he ordered every garrison soldier still capable of action to follow Robert. Residents said the terrifying female attacker had probably gone to Halfhorn Mountain during the night.

At the same time, Span sent riders racing from Halfhorn City to seek aid from the troops conducting spring exercises. He also reported everything that had happened to the governor’s office in Lille Province.

Leaving aside Span’s worries over his career, Robert endured his pain and rode by carriage with his men to Halfhorn Mountain, now reduced to ruins. Roline traveled with them.

The sight before them was enough to leave even the calmest person speechless.

All of them had visited Halfhorn Mountain. Only one day earlier, they had searched here in formation, their footprints covering nearly the whole mountain.

Yesterday, it had been a typical hill in the southern Empire: a ridge stretching roughly two miles, covered in lush forest and shaped like a U. Its highest peak stood in the center, and from there one could overlook the distant outline of Halfhorn City.

But now...

Robert and Roline were helped down from the carriage. Both stared with mouths open and eyes wide, scarcely able to believe what lay before them.

Gods! If this was a nightmare, let it end quickly!

A local garrison soldier traveling with them swore repeatedly that this was Halfhorn Mountain—or rather, the place where Halfhorn Mountain had once stood.

Yet even the soldier making those vows looked bewildered, terror filling his eyes.

Before them...

Halfhorn Mountain...

No—there was no longer any “mountain” here at all!

Before them lay an enormous circular crater, roughly a mile across!

Where was Halfhorn Mountain? Where had the mountain gone?

The question turned through everyone’s mind.

The carriage had stopped at the very edge of the circular crater. Robert felt cold throughout his body as he stared at the shocking, unnatural sight.

The crater looked as though it had been left by a violent explosion. In Robert’s estimation, the entire mountain might have been blasted away. Strange stones of every size lay scattered around its rim. Thick sand covered the ground, and the original soil was nowhere to be seen.

The huge crater was shallower around its edges and grew deeper toward the center.

More terrifying still was the crater’s appearance.

It was as though a god in heaven had taken an invisible pen and divided the enormous crater into two utterly different halves.

To the left of the center lay thick ice. The hard ice coating the ground seemed to have accumulated for ten thousand years. Heavy ice and frost froze everything in that half of the crater into a silver world. Even the stones were coated with crystals.

The right half presented the exact opposite sight.

If the left was a frozen wasteland, the right resembled a desert.

Every drop of moisture seemed to have been burned from the ground. Fine, dry, hard gravel lay everywhere, while uncovered patches of earth were cracked from extreme dryness. Not a trace of water could be found, and even the rocks looked split by heat.

The vast crater contained two opposing worlds divided along its center. Their terror was joined by stunned, involuntary awe.

Strong-willed as a knight, Robert was the first to recover from his shock.

“I believe a fierce battle must have taken place here last night—one at a level people like us cannot imagine. The female mage named Vivian is also missing. She and the attacker must have fought here.” The knight analyzed the scene grimly. “We need not concern ourselves with that. Our problem is where the young master is. He was gone from the camp before we were rescued. The other party must have abducted him, or perhaps...”

Robert did not finish. If a battle between mages could turn a mountain into a crater, making one person disappear would hardly be difficult.

His expression was dreadful, but he remembered his responsibility. He was now the highest-ranking leader among them and could not let his subordinates lose heart. Gritting his teeth, he said, “Perhaps matters are not that bad. The master may have escaped on his own, or a mage may have taken him captive. Whatever happened, our most important task is to find him!”

The knight immediately gave two orders. First, everyone still able to move was to search the area. Second, someone was to carry word at once to the Rowling castle on the Rowling Plain in Cote Province.

The situation had gone beyond anything Robert and his people could control.

Where was their young master now?

Everyone pondered the question.

What, then, was Du Wei doing?

...

Du Wei was doing something he had never dreamed possible.

He was... riding a dragon!

He was flying through the sky on a dragon's back. The wind made it almost impossible to open his eyes, forcing him to wrap a piece of clothing around his head. Both hands clung to raised scales as the enormous creature tore through the clouds above an endless white sea. Excitement surged through Du Wei; he wanted to shout aloud.

“C-could you p-please stop gripping its scales?” Vivian’s pitiful voice came from beside him. The exhausted female mage lay flat against the dragon’s back, her delicate face white as paper. Seeing Du Wei clutch the dragon’s scales so tightly distressed her. “I-it will be unhappy. Dragons are p-proud creatures. M-my Blazing Sun is still a child. It d-does not like people pulling its scales...”

“If I do not hold its scales, what am I supposed to hold?” Du Wei frowned. The moment he opened his mouth, wind rushed in and made him cough. He lowered his head quickly and looked at the female mage. “In wind like this, I need something to hold. What if I fall?”

Du Wei said bitterly, “Fine, I will stop gripping its scales. First escape your terrifying sister. Once we reach somewhere safe and land, I will make it a bridle.”

A bridle?

Almighty gods, please forgive poor Vivian... and forgive this terrifying man too.

A bridle on a dragon? Gods above—did he think a dragon was some common horse?

At that moment, the crimson dragon beneath them suddenly gave a mournful cry.

Du Wei’s heart tightened. “This is bad! Your dragon seems unable to continue!”

Vivian was distressed too. “Blazing Sun is s-still a young dragon. It was j-just injured, and now it must carry two people. It...”

A shocking wound gaped across the crimson dragon’s left wing. The injury kept that wing from beating properly, and as it flew, its body began listing to one side.

“Think of something!” Du Wei shouted. “Otherwise we are both going to fall to our deaths!”

“Y-you extorted all my things! I-I have no way...” Vivian was too frightened to speak properly. Tears swirled in her large eyes, and suddenly she burst into loud sobs. “Wah! The outside world is terrifying! Teacher, please save me! I want Mother! I want Father! Come save poor little Vivian!”

Wait—she stopped stuttering when she cried?

Du Wei nearly fell from the dragon's back in sheer frustration. At a time like this, the foolish girl had started bawling for her parents like a lost child.

He scolded her several times, but then the dragon beneath them finally reached its limit.

It had fought for half the night, consuming nearly all its magical power, and had been badly wounded at the end. After carrying its master away for so long with two people on its back and one ruined wing, it could endure no more.

With a mournful cry, Du Wei felt his body drop sharply. The dragon plunged headfirst from the sky.

“Damn it! Think of something! Your dragon cannot hold on!”

“Wah... Father! Mother! Mother!”

“Stop crying! If you keep crying, we will both fall to our deaths!”

“Wah... Mother... Please come save poor little Vivian...”