Global Calendar: the 548th year of the 70th millenium After the Battle of the Gods

  Year 7,329 of the Drakon Empire

  For seventy thousand years and more, the world had counted time from a war no living soul remembered.

  The Battle of the Gods had sundered continents, poisoned seas, and torn open the veil between realms. From its ashes rose dragons, demons, and the fragile dominion of men. Empires had been born and buried since that cataclysm—but only one had endured nearly without interruption.

  The Drakon Empire.

  For seven thousand years, the banners of the Drakon Empire had burned against the sky.

  They had burned over forests turned to cities, over mountains carved into fortresses, over oceans where dragon-winged shadows darkened the waves. They had burned through ages of sword and spell, through the rise of steam-forges and arcane engines, through centuries where demons clawed at the edges of the world and rival human nations learned to fear the roar of Drakon fire.

  Thirty generations had sat the Dragon Throne.

  And now the thirtieth tried very hard not to yawn.

  Prince Kael Drakon leaned back in his seat of black ironwood and gold, fingers drumming idly against the armrest shaped like a dragon’s talon. The Grand Council Chamber stretched high above him in a dome of glass and steel, enchanted lanterns humming softly as they cast pale light across polished marble floors. Beyond the transparent ceiling, faint silhouettes of patrol-dragons drifted across the afternoon sky like slow-moving constellations.

  Below, the ministers spoke.

  “…the western provinces report increased flooding along the River Ardent,” one droned. “The proposed dam expansions will require an additional allocation of steel and rune-bound concrete-”

  “-and the southern districts request further funding for homeless shelters following the factory collapse”

  “-grain storage capacity must be expanded if we are to prevent shortages in the coming winter–”

  Kael’s gaze drifted.

  Dams.

  Shelters.

  Grain.

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  His eyes moved to the massive war-map etched into the far wall: a living projection of borders glowing in red and gold. Tiny mechanical markers, miniature airships, dragon icons, infantry sigils- shifted subtly as reports updated in real time. That map breathed. That map mattered.

  Not this.

  “…public works are essential to maintaining stability within the capital,” another minister insisted, adjusting his spectacles. “A strong empire is built not only on conquest but on infrastructure.”

  Infrastructure.

  Kael suppressed a sigh and instead tilted his head back slightly, staring at the dragons carved into the vaulted ceiling. Each carving represented a generation of Drakon rulers. Twenty-nine before him. Warriors. Conquerors. Flame-bringers.

  His father’s dragon was the largest among them, wings spread in triumphant stone. His grandfather’s dragon bore a cracked fang, he had died on campaign against the northern confederacy. Further back, the carvings grew older, rougher, more ancient, until they blurred into myth.

  Seven thousand years.

  Seven millennia of dominion.

  The Drakon Empire had risen from a warlord’s pact with the first great dragon and had never truly known submission since. It had survived plagues, rebellions, demon incursions, and civil wars. It had adapted, from blade to rifle, from spell-circles to magic cannons, from horseback to dragonback and armored skyships.

  It endured.

  And yet—

  “…if we divert additional funds to the eastern dam, Your Highness, we can prevent future displacement of nearly five thousand citizens-”

  Kael blinked, dragged back to the present.

  Five thousand citizens.

  He glanced at the minister speaking, a thin, grey-haired man clutching scrolls to his chest like sacred relics. The prince’s attention wandered again, this time to the tall windows lining the chamber walls. Beyond them, he could see the spires of Drakoria’s capital: steel towers laced with glowing arcane conduits, smokestacks breathing slow plumes into the air, dragon roosts built into fortress-walls.

  Power.

  That was what made an empire.

  Not shelters.

  Not dams.

  Power.

  He shifted forward in his seat, boredom coiling like a restless serpent in his chest. At twenty-three years of age, Kael was the thirtieth generation of the Drakon royal line, heir to a dynasty older than most nations. The weight of seven thousand years rested on his shoulders.

  And it felt suffocatingly still.

  “…Your Highness?” a minister prompted carefully.

  Kael realized the chamber had gone quiet.

  He straightened, smoothing the dark military coat he wore instead of ceremonial robes. The gold dragon sigil on his chest caught the lantern light.

  “Yes,” he said evenly. “Build the dam.”

  Relief rippled across several faces.

  “And the shelters,” he added, though his tone carried little interest. “Ensure efficiency. Waste no resources.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  The ministers resumed scribbling notes, murmuring approval.

  Kael’s gaze drifted once more to the war-map.

  Beyond Drakoria’s glowing borders lay rival human nations, powerful, fractured, ambitious, wary. Beyond them, darker territories where reports of demonic movement had grown more frequent in recent months. The map shimmered faintly, as if waiting.

  Waiting for expansion.

  Waiting for fire.

  The empire had stood for seven thousand years. Thirty generations had defended it, strengthened it, expanded it.

  What was the point of inheriting something so vast if one did not make it greater?

  Another minister began speaking about irrigation systems.

  Kael’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

  Then-

  A roar.

  Low. Ancient. Vast.

  The sound rolled across the capital like distant thunder, vibrating through stone and steel alike. The glass dome above trembled faintly as shadows passed overhead.

  It was the guardian of the imperial city, its ancient protector—stirring from its slumber atop the highest citadel spire. Each dawn, it rose. Each dawn, it roared. A reminder that the empire did not merely claim dominion.

  It possessed it.

  Several ministers paused instinctively, some bowing their heads in quiet reverence before resuming their discussions.

  Kael did not bow.

  Instead, for the first time since the session began, he allowed himself a small smile.

  Let them debate water and brick.

  There were other matters that would define his reign.

  Him, just like his countless ancestors before him, we're not the ones to sit idly by and maintain what others have built.

  No. Not him no, he will conquer. And he will accomplish what generations of drakon emperors have always failed to do-

  And boredom, he knew, was far more dangerous than war.