()22：10。

The Imperial Study.

There are fewer and fewer chess pieces on the chessboard, but the battle situation is becoming more and more intense, and the black and white sides are fighting to the death in order to compete for the control of a row of straight lines, a line of diagonal lines, and even a grid. If this were a real battlefield, there would be rivers of blood and corpses all over the field.

However, no matter how bloody and tragic the war on the chessboard is, it is just a virtual game, and the two kings who are directing the two sides behind the scenes are talking and laughing as if nothing happened.

"You say that the boy named 'Thunder' has the 'power of a dragon', but his dragon partner is not around?" After taking the next step, the vampire prince felt a slurp, and he picked up the wine glass that was placed next to him, and drank all the remaining half of the human blood.

"Probably not surprising. Duris placed the "castle" in his hand on a strategically important grid on the chessboard, "just like the dragon knight more than 200 years ago, which has not been recorded by history." ”

"No, if you are familiar with history, you should know that the number of dragon knights is extremely rare, and as a dragon knight, you have not left a name in history, which is what should make you feel strange. ”

"Oh? ”

"Because more than 200 years ago, Calivin Snowton was not a real dragon knight. ”

22：11。

Surrounded by raging flames, the golden flames were like golden flowers blooming in a sea of blood, and its burning stood out from the crowd, and the ordinary flames around it paled in comparison to it.

However, what is beautiful only lasts for a short time before it becomes eternal. The golden flames lasted only a few seconds before dissipating into nothingness.

"Califin, congratulations, you have finally become a true dragon knight. Melissa didn't know whether to tease or congratulate from the bottom of her heart, "Although the contract token has been damaged and cannot be used in the body, it is undoubtedly the power that only dragon knights have-'dragon power'." ”

"I'm not Gali, and I don't understand what you're talking about. I only know I'm going to knock you down now!" Lei clenched the body and head of the Blood Pact Dragon Lance with both hands, and the stronger his fighting spirit became, he had been at a disadvantage of being passively beaten at the place where the battle began, and it had passed until just now, and now was the time to fight back!

Melissa smiled again with resentment: "You bastard, you will be against me in your past life and in this life. ”

"Yo!" Lei didn't bother to talk nonsense, he shouted, kicked his right foot, and the long-suppressed battle intent was instantly released, turning into a tiger that pounced on its prey.

22：12。

"Your Royal Highness, how do you define a true dragon knight?" Duris immediately gave up the strategically important lattice that he had so hard to get his hands on.

"Dragons, to make a contract with humans or other races, they must use the blood of the dragon knight and a part of the body of the dragon who made the contract to make a contract token, and conclude the contract during the ceremony. Not only do dragon knights and contract dragons share their hearts, but they also share their strength. The Dragon's Power is the ultimate power rivaled by dragons, and the most powerful force a true dragon knight possesses. "The prince is honest, and he has made that grid his sphere of influence," but Califin was unable to use the 'power of the dragon', even though he had the contract token. ”

"If you can't use the 'power of the dragon', aren't you a real dragon knight?"

"That's right. There is also an indispensable condition for the dragon guardian contract, in addition to the consent of both the human and dragon parties who made the contract, it must also be approved by the leader of the dragon clan of the contracting party before the contract can be valid. Obviously, the leader of the Golden Dragon Clan, the Golden Dragon Empress Isabel, did not agree, so the contract between Calivan and the Golden Dragon was not reached at all. ”

"Why doesn't the Golden Dragon Empress agree?"

"It must have something to do with breaking the taboo of the dragon clan. ”

"Taboo?"

"Yes. The love between humans and dragons has happened in history, and this is the most taboo thing for dragons. When Calivan returned home, he brought back not only the dragon that intimidated all things, but also a piece of news that shocked everyone in the Duchy of Braden. He publicly announced that he would cancel his engagement to Princess Monica and marry his mount Dragon instead. ”

"I should be able to guess what you just said about dying for a man. ”

"Of course, this is something that most people find incredible. For Princess Monica, who has waited for Calivan for 5 years and has always believed that he is still alive, it is even more difficult to accept. However, when the golden dragon was transformed into a human maiden in public, no one held any other meaning, because the blonde girl had a stunning beauty that captivated the country, including Princess Monica, and all the women in the Duchy of Braden would be paled in comparison to her. Her beauty conquered all the men and women of the principality, and there were no more doubts, only words of blessing. Even if Monica is unwilling, she has to accept the reality. Then, in the next four years, the Duchy of Brayden, which already had a strong national power, was even more invincible under the protection of a giant dragon, and the Duchy was also upgraded to a kingdom at this time, and Monica's father was crowned king by the Grand Duke, and the unification of the land in the middle of the glorious continent was just around the corner. ”

"How did the kingdom of Brayden suddenly collapse overnight?" asked Duris. In the history books collected in the royal palace of the Fayale Empire, there are very few descriptions of other principalities before the unification, and many of them are only mentioned in passing, and Durris understands that this is a taboo for the Faylele royal family, but this is exactly what piqued his interest.

"The so-called 'tree big wind'. At that time, in the land in the center of the continent, in addition to the Kingdom of Braden, there was another country that had the strength to unify this land, and it was the feud with Braden's old enemy - the Principality of Manacor. In the face of the aggressiveness of the Braden Kingdom, the Duchy of Manacor entangled 3 or 4 principalities to form an alliance against Braden. This alliance fought many wars with the kingdom of Brayden, but never succeeded. In the case of a head-to-head confrontation that didn't work, the Grand Duke of Manacor came up with a poisonous plan. ”

"Assassination. "Duris immediately reacted, "It is recorded in the history books that the anti-Braden alliance proposed peace negotiations to the Braden Kingdom on the grounds of surrendering and being a vassal, and the king of Braden believed it and led his crown prince to the banquet in person, but at the banquet, the assassins of the Duchy of Manacor assassinated the king and crown prince of Braden. After the death of the king and prince, the kingdom of Brayden plummeted, and in less than a year it was destroyed by the coalition forces of the anti-Brayden League. ”

The prince shook his finger with a smile: "That assassination is true, but it is not the main reason for the fall of the Brayden Kingdom. Although the king and prince were killed, the kingdom still had a strong army. The Principality of Manacor planned this assassination to clear the way for Monica's ascension to the throne. ”

Indeed, when the king and the crown prince were killed at the same time, Princess Monica became the sole heir to the throne. ”

"At that time, the Kingdom of Braden was full of spies from the Anti-Braden Alliance, and some of them had even infiltrated the palace. Before that assassination, the female officers around Princess Monica had been bribed by spies. After the princess ascended the throne as the empress, the bribed female officials continued to slander Monica's ears, they knew the relationship between Monica and Calivan well, and they also knew that Monica was unwilling to repentance and betrayal of Califin, so these female officials had to constantly provoke discord in front of Monica......"

"So the empress, who has no experience in the world, was deceived in this way, and the fire of jealousy in her heart was ignited?"

"Yes, you guessed that, too. Listening to slander day and night, Monica's mentality has been distorted, Calivan and the golden dragon are in pairs day and night, like glue, she sees it in her eyes, her spirit is confused, and she actually made a crazy move: secretly mobilized a large number of troops, secretly transported a large number of poisons into the city, and set a trap to poison the golden dragon. thought that as long as the golden dragon died, she would be able to regain her lost fiancé. ”

"Stupid!" Although the ending was already known, Duris couldn't help but make a negative assessment of the wayward empress more than 200 years ago.

"That's right. Monica overestimated her own means and underestimated the dragon's physique. Instead of being poisoned, the golden dragon was killed. The golden dragon's excessive grief, coupled with the effect of the poison, caused her to lose her mind, and she turned into a mad dragon, destroying and killing everywhere in Braidon City, the capital of the Brayden Kingdom. The dragon's flames vaporized people in an instant, burning houses to molten rock, and Brayden's army resisted desperately, and the two sides fought fiercely for a night. Eventually, the mad dragon fled with his wounds and Califin's corpse, leaving behind a completely destroyed royal capital. At that time, the troubled empress and her close ministers escaped hiding in the palace dungeon, and the tragic ending made Monica feel at a loss and gradually realized. But her awakening came too late, and the iron hooves of the anti-Braden League army followed. With almost all of Braden's elite troops destroyed in the catastrophe, and the destruction of the kingdom and the disgrace of the people, the once-glorious kingdom was unable to put up any decent resistance and was defeated by the coalition forces. The coalition forces, which had suffered the humiliation of defeat before, in order to vent the hatred and ** in their hearts, carried out a crazy revenge on the land of Brayden they conquered, slaughtering the city, **, plundering ......"

Duris took the dead White "queen" in his hand and played with it, and sighed: "If you make a mistake, you will lose the whole game." Statecraft is the same as playing chess. ”

The Prince squinted at the "queen" in Duris's hand, and he understood that this was an unobtrusive indication of the opponent, because a white "infantryman" on the board was already one step away from Black's bottom line, and Black could not stop it, and if the piece was successfully promoted to "queen", Black's advantage so far would be lost. But the prince didn't seem to care, he aimed at White's "castle" with the "bishop", and if White's "infantry" dared to rise, one "castle" would have to be sacrificed.

"This is the truth about the fall of the Kingdom of Brayden, and it is your business whether or not to write it down in history. But I say the story isn't over yet. The coalition ransacked Braden's land, drove all the way in, Monica's army was scattered, and in the ruins of the burning capital, the dignified Empress Monica was captured alive by the Manacor Princess. To humiliate her, the commander of the Manacol army did not kill her, but took her back to his capital and imprisoned her in a dark dungeon. There, the former Empress was turned into a tool for the low-ranking soldiers to have fun and vent their desires, and Monica was raped, beaten, and abused every day...... It wasn't until three years later, when the troops of your ancestor, the Duchy of Heather, broke through the capital of the Duchy of Manacor and all the prisoners in the dungeon were released, and Monica was able to see the light of day. But the long period of detention without seeing the light of day has left her blind. ”

"Fate always plays the same joke, from the Kingdom of Braden to the Duchy of Manacor to the current Fayele Empire, I am afraid it will be difficult to get out of this cycle. Duris shook his head and sighed.

"For more than a thousand years, I have not been sleeping in the Blood Mountains, and I have occasionally woken up. More than 200 years ago, I woke up once in a while. I passed by the breached capital of the Duchy of Manacor and found Monica among the dilapidated houses where beggars gathered, and though she had been ruined to the point of not being human, she was still alive. Her intense grief moved me, and she told me her story. She said that the reason why she had to live was to wait for a chance to atone for her sins. I sued her that I could give her a chance to redeem herself. ”

"This is how Empress Monica became a member of the Bloodline?"

"Hmm. It was in that dilapidated house that I had a 'first hug' ceremony with her. Since then, Monica Braden, a human, has completely disappeared from the world, and has been replaced by a vampire named Melissa. ”

"So, what about her bats?"

The 800,000 bats around her are none other than King Braden, who died in that catastrophe more than 200 years ago. The breath of the golden dragon was originally the 'Flame of Punishment', but the Golden Dragon, which was driven mad by hatred, anger, and sorrow, spit out a 'cursed flame' full of resentment, cursing the entire country. Even if the victim dies, his soul is still cursed, and he can never be reincarnated and reborn, nor can he return to the gods he believes in, but can only turn into evil spirits, wandering around and suffering in the place where he died. I spent a lot of time searching for and collecting these ghosts, fixing them on the more than 800,000 Blood Night bats that grow in the Blood Mountains. For more than 200 years, the bats have been passed down from generation to generation, and the souls of the deceased have been passed down among the bats' descendants. As long as their curse is not lifted, they will never be able to rest in peace. ”

"It's really heart-wrenching. This love-hate relationship, which has lasted for more than 200 years, should come to an end. Or maybe tonight is that day. A meaningful smile curled into the corners of Duris's mouth.

Finally, he dialed the "infantryman" who was about to go to the bottom line. But to the surprise of the vampire prince, this chess piece was not promoted to a "queen", but a far less powerful "knight".