Chapter 362: Taking Over the Royal City

On the screens, outside the eight grand gates of the bustling city, elliptical vortex-like space portals opened one by one. Giant figures with snow-white skin, accompanied by griffins and ferocious wolves, stepped out and entered the city, causing immense panic and disorder.

The noisy hall fell silent in mere moments, the stillness palpable as all the nobles were struck dumb by the scenes displayed on the screens.

"Is this Skalette?" Lydia, unsure, voiced her question as she recognized a few landmark buildings of the royal capital, though she wasn't familiar with it.

"What's with these giants?" A less knowledgeable noble, witnessing the kingdom seemingly being overtaken by giants and feeling the trembling earth, could not suppress his panic and cried out softly.

"Why isn't the city's protective magic activated, and why isn't the military resisting, allowing these giants to enter the city?"

"What fool doesn't recognize cloud giants!" An agitated marquess of soul level, using his qi to quell the noise, scolded the assembly and instantly suppressed all disorder.

"Hasn't anyone read a book? Don't you know that every golden dragon is guarded by cloud giants? There's nothing strange about this. These cloud giants must be accompanying our soon-to-be inaugurated golden dragon ruling Grand Duke. There's no need for panic."

"That may be, but such a number of cloud giants, there must be thousands, right? That's highly unusual," a refined noble spoke incredulously as he watched the cloud giants on the screen taking over city defenses and stationing themselves on every street.

"Heh, it does seem a bit much," another noble chuckled awkwardly, touching his nose as he watched more and more cloud giants continuously emerge from the eight portals. He had never seen so many cloud giants in his life.

"Of course, these are the golden dragon's guards invited by His Majesty to serve as our Lockman Kingdom's ruling Grand Duke. It's normal for them to be somewhat special," some nobles rationalized the appearance of nearly fifteen hundred cloud giants.

"Normal, my foot! There's no way a single golden dragon could command so many," grumbled a noble who had dealings with golden dragons. The dragon he knew had only a dozen or so cloud giants, nowhere near the hundreds shown on the screen.

"Could it be an illusion? No, I need to see this for myself." The astonishing number of cloud giants raised doubts among some suspicious nobles. They left the hall and flew up into the air, gold-level nobles rising to get a better view of Skalette from above.

The scene seen on the magical screens might be doubted; after all, the creativity of mages was astounding, and fakery wasn't out of the question.

But seeing with their own eyes the dignified, twelve-meter-tall cloud giants taking over the city defenses, they had to believe.

These nobles personally witnessed cloud giants entering the city, causing massive panic. Ordinary residents instinctively fled at the sight of the giants, especially upon seeing the menacing wolves at their feet.

However, King Beladian had anticipated this and had already dispatched the military throughout the city to maintain order, preventing panic from spreading.

As the fleeing populace saw the soldiers not clashing with the giants but instead engaging in friendly conversations, their panic gradually subsided.

Anyone with sense could see that these giants bore no malice towards humans and were allies. Aside from their imposing size, cloud giants had an appealing appearance and easily won favor as they caused no bloodshed.

The turmoil soon calmed, and the no-longer-fearful citizens began to gather with their families to watch the majestic cloud giants.

Although the people of the royal capital often saw various humanoid races, giants were very rare, or rather, almost never seen.

Above the royal palace, nobles who had arrived early also left the hall and took to the skies with their families. Watching through magical screens always lacked a sense of reality, but witnessing it firsthand, although not the full picture, felt different.

Thus, the nobles of the Lockman Kingdom watched the cloud giants taking over the city with mixed feelings of excitement, curiosity, and complexity.

Count Dewitt and his family, following the crowd, also flew above the palace. The siblings, lacking the ability to fly themselves, were supported by their father's gold-level qi.

"Father, those griffins by the cloud giants are so big! They're twice the size of the ones we have at home. What's going on?"

"They are indeed much larger than ours. Could it be a different breed?"

"I've heard that powerful dragons can influence the creatures living around them, gradually transforming all the creatures in a certain radius into dragonkin," explained a polite young noble with a smile, overhearing the siblings' questions.

"These griffins, if I'm not mistaken, have been influenced by the aura of the ruling Grand Duke and have become dragonkin. That's why

 they differ from ordinary griffins."

"Your knowledge is truly vast," Lydia praised the young noble, her admiration evident, being of an age prone to infatuation.

"Wow!" The sharp-eyed girl noticed another young noble also hovering in the air, unsupported by anyone else, seemingly floating by his own power.

"You've already reached the gold level. Anderson, look at him and then at yourself," Lydia immediately used the young noble as a model to admonish her brother.

"Hmph, being gold is great, huh? Just wait till I'm his age, I'll break through to gold too," the proud young Anderson retorted sharply.

…Regardless of the thoughts and opinions of the gathered nobles, they could only watch helplessly as two thousand cloud giants took control of their royal city, replaced all the guards, and declared the start of the golden dragon's rule.

"Is this still the royal capital of our human nation or has it become a giant's capital?"

Some nobles felt indignantly as, after taking over the city, three hundred cloud giants under the command of six even larger ones began to take over the palace defenses.

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