The sky over the Southern Port was no longer blue; it was a bruised, swirling vortex of charcoal and violet. Thunder didn't just clap; it growled, a low-frequency vibration that rattled the windows of the coastal villas and sent the seabirds screaming toward the inland forests. Five miles offshore, the Southern Duke's "Invincible Armada" sat like a cluster of wooden fortresses. These were not mere ships; they were "Sky-Galleons," reinforced with Leviathan bone and powered by massive, glowing crystals that hummed with the energy of a thousand captured lightning strikes.
On the flagship, The Crimson Tide, Duke Maros stood on the quarterdeck, his telescope trained on the distant Imperial Palace. He was a man of the sea, his skin tanned to the texture of old leather and his eyes a watery, cynical blue. He didn't believe in ghosts, and he certainly didn't believe in seventeen-year-old boys who claimed to be dragons.
"He hasn't sent a messenger," Maros grunted, his voice barely audible over the rising wind. "The Council said he was a scholar. A boy who hides behind a clerk and a mountain of paperwork. If he were a true Argentine, he would have sent a challenge by now."
"Perhaps he is waiting for the rain, My Lord," his commander suggested, glancing nervously at the clouds. "The weather is turning unnatural. My mages say the mana density in the air is reaching critical levels. It's as if the sky itself is becoming a battery."
Maros spat into the churning sea. "Load the Mana-Cannons. Aim for the palace spires. If the 'Ghost' won't come to us, we'll bring the palace to the ground. Let's see how his 'Nexus' handles a barrage of concentrated solar fire."
Deep within the clouds, unseen by the sailors below, Livius Mortem von Argentine was no longer a boy. He was a silhouette of silver and gold, suspended in the eye of the storm. He had shed his boots and his shirt, his pale skin now shimmering with a layer of fine, iridescent scales that appeared only when he tapped into his mother's Silver Dragon heritage. The air around him was freezing, yet he felt a volcanic heat radiating from his core.
For the first time in his life, Livius wasn't suppressing his power. He wasn't hiding in a library or masking his eyes with a veil. He opened his mouth, and a breath of pure, silver mist escaped his lips, freezing the raindrops into diamonds before they could fall.
"You speak of 'True Argentines,' Duke," Livius whispered, his voice carried by the wind directly into Maros's ear, a spectral echo that made the Duke jump. "But you've never actually seen one. My father was a man of fire and greed. My brothers were men of blood and madness. I am something else entirely."
Livius extended his arms, and the swirling clouds responded. Two massive wings of translucent, white-gold energy erupted from his back, spanning thirty feet. They weren't made of flesh, but of solidified mana—the "Aura of the Sovereign."
With a single, powerful downstroke, Livius plummeted. He didn't fall like a stone; he moved like a bolt of lightning. The sailors on The Crimson Tide had only a split second to see a streak of silver-gold light piercing the clouds before the first Mana-Cannon on the starboard side simply... evaporated. There was no explosion, no fire. The metal and the wood were turned to frost and then shattered into dust by the sheer pressure of Livius's arrival.
Livius landed on the main deck, the impact creating a shockwave that sent fifty armed men flying into the ocean. He stood in the center of the wreckage, his golden eyes burning with a light so bright it made the Duke's mages go blind just by looking at him.
"I am the King of Argentine," Livius said, his voice a draconic roar that silenced the thunder. "And your fleet is trespassing in my ocean."