“Targeted Flame Breath!”
Several more short breaths spewed forth, and several Eagle Guards turned into blazing fireballs, falling to the ground.
The remaining Eagle Guards, as Algiers wished, fled in disarray from this place that had caused them heavy casualties, chased by the Evil Dragon, spreading the Red Dragon’s fearsome reputation throughout the Anzeta Great Wilderness.
Letting them leave was partly due to the time wasted in trying to capture Algiers alive, and partly intentional.
One must know that the Lakman family’s “North Wind Eagle Guard” only had a little over three hundred members in total, and this single battle alone resulted in a tenth of their losses. Such a unit was an absolute elite within the entire Northern United Kingdom.
A few days later, news of a “terrifying Red Dragon” on Stormwind Highlands spread in many places, and the bounty board in Northwind Fortress also displayed a drawing of a ferocious Red Dragon, spewing flames from its mouth.
Location: Stormwind Highlands, Ember Nest
Target: Suspected Young Red Dragon, Codename “Flying Flame”
Bounty: 5000 gold coins
When adventurers chatted and boasted in taverns after meals, they also fantasized about becoming legendary Dragon Slayers. They often, after getting drunk, would lie on the table and say, “If that Red Dragon met me, its head would have been chopped off and taken for the reward long ago!”
Of course, these were all later stories.
...
Algiers felt his head was very heavy and his memories were chaotic.
He first dreamt of his carefree and beautiful childhood, his mother smilingly stroking his head, softly reading stories from a book. He ran in the alley, playing and frolicking with newly acquainted companions, everywhere filled with laughter and joy.
However, the scene shifted, and in his dream, he was crying loudly in the street, searching everywhere for his parents’ whereabouts, but only finding two bodies in a dark corner, disemboweled and with strange symbols carved into their skin.
A richly dressed middle-aged man, whose face was unclear, stood in the dark alley, patted his shoulder, and said to him in a solemn tone, “It was devils, the descendants of devils who harmed them.”
Immediately following were raging flames, crying crowds fleeing, blood overflowing into rivers, women holding crying children begging on their knees, and the silver sword in his hand letting out an eagle cry...
“No!”
“Hoo, hoo!”
Algiers woke up from the nightmare, suddenly scrambling up. He instinctively reached to his side, and only after feeling the familiar feathery touch did he let out a sigh of relief.
It was his giant eagle.
He felt all over his body; there were no new scars, but his standard plate armor and the eagle cry silver sword at his waist were all gone.
His hands and feet were still shackled with heavy iron chains.
“Where am I?”
Algiers immediately looked around.
It was dark and damp all around, with only a faint light from the torches on the rock wall.
There were hard rocks everywhere, and thick tree trunk railings surrounded him. At the entrance, a fat Goblin was leaning against the door, sound asleep, its wooden club fallen to the ground. In the passage, Goblins with short spears patrolled back and forth.
“This is a monster lair’s dungeon.”
Algiers immediately made a judgment.
He must have been hypnotized by that Red Dragon’s magic and then thrown into the dungeon. Now his only goal was to find a way to escape, gather as much information as possible, and then report the situation here to the Duke.
But he had no weapons, and the cell was tightly locked with a sturdy iron lock, making escape difficult.
“Hey, Goblin, wake up.”
Algiers waved, trying to attract the attention of the dozing Goblin, seizing the opportunity to gather information and find a chance to escape.
The Goblin at the entrance suddenly woke up and, seeing Algiers awake, immediately started shouting loudly.
“Go quickly and inform Dolo, this human is awake!”
Algiers lowered his voice and said to the Goblin guard:
“Do you want gold?”
“Give me the key, I have...”
“Pah!”
The Goblin spat at him.
It picked up the wooden club from the ground, turned around mercilessly, and muttered, “You humans, you always think you’re so smart, do you really think we’re fools?”
“We’ve already stripped everything off you, you have nothing, you’re a pauper.”
“Someone! Someone!”
“This human is awake!”
With the Goblin’s booming shout, the Goblins ran around, spreading the news quickly beyond the dungeon.
“Damn it!”
“Let me out!”
Algiers grabbed the bars and shook them hard, the heavy iron chains on his shackles clanging, making a “clank, clank” sound. However, this cell door could not be easily smashed open even by an Ogre, let alone shaken open by a weak human; it was merely a futile waste of energy.
After trying for a long time, the thick wooden bars remained motionless. Algiers finally gave up on forcibly breaking the cell door.
He regained his composure, slumped down, and carefully thought about a countermeasure.
“This Red Dragon left me alive, it must have its use.”
“It will interrogate me.”
“This cunning Evil Dragon most likely wants to harm the Duke, to complete its evil plan, perhaps to plunder treasures, perhaps to occupy a city, perhaps to overthrow the government.”
“But no matter what it asks, or what it demands of me, I must never answer.”
“It’s just a pity that everything on me was taken away, otherwise I could have had Evil Dragon poison to prepare for suicide at any time.”
Algiers gritted his teeth, his heart already prepared to face cruel torture.
Indeed, three strong Goblins walked from the end of the passage.
They laboriously opened the iron lock with a crude key, unfastened the heavy chains wrapped around the cell door, and slowly opened the door.
The doorway was blocked by the Goblin’s thick body, leaving no gap for escape.
“Follow me, human, the master wants to see you.”
The Goblin hunched its body and walked into the cell, approaching Algiers.
“Don’t touch me.”
Algiers said fiercely.
But the Goblin acted as if it hadn’t heard, stepped forward, grabbed his shackles, wrapped the chain a few times around its hand, and then escorted Algiers out of the cell.
The other Goblins around also surrounded him, lifting his entire body to ensure he had no chance of escaping.
“I’m telling you, this human even tried to bribe me.”
“But I don’t fall for that, haha!”
“He was so mighty before, but now that he’s caught, he’s just like this.”
“Yeah, those Evil Dragons are really useless, they can’t even beat such a human, they ate so much meat for nothing.”
“Right, they should just give it all to us.”
The Goblins worked busily while chatting and joking with their colleagues.
And the weakened Giant Eagle Knight was powerless to struggle.
If he were soaring in the sky on his giant eagle, Algiers would have been fully confident in taking down these ugly monsters alone, even toying with his opponents at leisure.
But now, being in the dungeon, weak all over, with his hands and feet bound, this proud Giant Eagle Knight could only let these Goblins, who possessed only brute strength, do as they pleased with him, without any room for resistance.