Chapter 238 Three Years
The wind and snow of Anzeta howl every year, covering the earth with a layer of white. The tenacious people living in this "land without spring" have long been accustomed to the cold winter, even though they migrated from the warm south, just to survive.
And in the same way, for the most basic survival, they will gradually get used to the rule of the Burning Kingdom and adapt to this new order.
The ice and snow cover the earth again and again, and melt again and again.
In the blink of an eye, three years have passed.
For the dragon, this is not long, and it can even be regarded as an ordinary deep sleep. After all, there are many dragons who sleep for decades or even hundreds of years.
But this hibernation is of great significance to Cassius, and he will usher in the biggest leap in history.
With a slight snoring, the red dragon's body rises and falls. The energy overflowing from his body has been greedily absorbed by him, and the ancestral dragon blood in his body is still releasing more turbulent and primitive power through the basal blood vessels-that is the original dragon power given by the ancient nine-faced dragon god Io.
During these three years, under the giant egg, the red dragon's form was transformed by this power at a speed visible to the naked eye. When it fully awakens, it will be closer to the ancient ancestral dragon that only exists in myths and epics, rather than the ordinary five-colored dragon that has been weakened and restrained several times in this era.
The dragon power of this red dragon is also increasing day by day. Just an occasional whisper and roar can make birds and beasts several miles away flee in panic.
Even the battle-hardened tiefling guards are often oppressed by this unintentional pressure and even have mental problems, so that they need to take turns to stand guard.
Even the two-legged flying dragons living on the stone pillars often lie on the stone surface trembling, curled up like poor little chickens, and can't see the majesty when facing outsiders. After all, these blood descendants with thin dragon veins feel the most instinctive suppression from the depths of their blood.
When he fell into deep sleep, Cassius often dreamed - that was actually the inheritance from the ancestral dragon bloodline. In his mind, there would often be spectacular scenes of the ancestral dragon fighting those evil gods and ancient beasts. Whenever this happened, he would roll, roar, and roar as if he were personally in the battlefield, and unconsciously release his power.
The influence of the real dragon on the environment is also continuing to play a role.
And unlike last time, with the transformation of the ancestral dragon bloodline, its influence range and destructive power are increasing day by day.
At the beginning, the ground in the palace often gushed out hot magma, and those hard steels were easily melted and turned into red, boiling molten iron. The entire main hall was like a sultry steamer, and even the heavy iron door was red and hot under the high temperature, making the guards stationed at the door miserable.
However, this was only the first year of the red dragon's sleep.
In the second year, the influence of the sleeping King of Burning Ashes on the environment further expanded, and the extreme high temperature gradually enveloped the entire palace. Then, in a winter that should have been cold and windy, hot magma suddenly gushed out from the ground outside the main hall, like a volcanic eruption, the ground turned into dark black lava, and the ashes in the sky almost covered the entire palace.
This accident caused the death of twelve tieflings, some were burned to death, and some suffocated in the ashes.
And this was just the result of the power accidentally leaked by the red dragon.
Since that accident, Medorash gave up the guard mission around the main hall, arranged the tieflings to the outermost periphery of the palace, and regularly sent spellcasters to monitor the magic network around the palace to prevent accidents and unnecessary casualties.
Fortunately, such a tragedy did not happen again, because from the third year, the impact of the red dragon on the environment was no longer in the form of disasters, but was transformed into a deeper impact on the broad climate system.
Under the influence of Cassius, not only the area around the palace, but also the North Wind Castle, which is several miles away, has become warmer, gradually becoming a holy place to deal with the harsh winter of Anzeta, and even called "Neverwinter City" by the people of the North who do not know the truth.
——Many desperate poor people will flock to North Wind Castle in winter. Even if the guards stop them, they will gather outside the city to enjoy the hard-won warmth.
Whether in terms of life level or individual strength, Cassius, who has experienced sleep, has completely surpassed the middle-aged red dragon at the beginning, and it has only been ten years, which is just a nap for ordinary dragons.
And what changes have taken place in the vast territory of the Burning Kingdom in these few years?
It is actually not easy to see on the surface.
After all, in the past few years when the red dragon was sleeping, the Burning Kingdom has changed its past aggressiveness. Although there are still inevitable frictions and conflicts, the kingdom has never had any war with its neighbors. It has developed steadily for several years, and some northern nobles have even begun to write articles on current affairs.
They believed that the red dragon was satisfied with the status quo and would sleep for decades or even hundreds of years, and the North would return to a long-term order and peace, so the countries did not need to worry.
However, Duke Leo sneered at these claims. He did not believe that the greedy dragon would stop. In the past few years, he did not disturb the Burning Kingdom, but had been secretly contacting the countries in the North, hoping to form a closer "anti-red dragon alliance."
However, even though he was cautious enough, his small moves were inevitably discovered by the kingdom's intelligence department. Medrash quickly sent "Nocturne" to counter, sabotage and disrupt it, and this so-called alliance was never formed in a practical sense, and remained only a verbal agreement.
In fact, the dormancy of the Kingdom of Burning Ashes has made many principalities relax. Until the last critical moment, their short-sighted rulers did not want to be tied to Bosk's chariot to provoke this terrifying behemoth.
And inside the kingdom, people's lives have undergone earth-shaking changes.
The promulgation of the "Code of the Kingdom" has made all aspects of people's lives constrained by law, the gap in power has become narrower, and those forces that wander between black and white have lost their place. People don't know whether this is better or worse, but they have to adapt to such a constrained life.
The reform of the land system has made the past serfdom system gone forever. The former northern nobles and landlords have colluded and wanted to take advantage of the opportunity of the red dragon's sleep to rise up and resist-this may be their last chance.
However, they did not wait for the kingdom's compromise, but only waited for the long-planned brutal suppression. Under Doro's command, the lead bullets of the Earth Elite Line soldiers ruthlessly tore apart the private soldiers who had been raised for many years, and the heads of the nobles fell to the ground, leaving only one voice in the kingdom.
This so-called "rebellion" ended quietly, although it was criticized and accused by the northern nobles, setting off a wave of public opinion, and even some scholars claimed that it was a "bloody tragedy" and "cruel massacre".
But in fact, this rebellion did not have much impact on the kingdom. Those so-called resistances were like a joke, and they were instantly extinguished as soon as they showed a spark.