Leviathan of the Covenant

Old Manhattan Island was the concession territory ruled by dragon king Hannibal.

Despite the name of "island," strictly speaking, Old Manhattan Island was a vast sandbank on the mouth of the Hudson River. Following the river downstream, one would pa.s.s Old Manhattan Island before reaching the Atlantic Ocean.

Further downstream of Manhattan Island was Liberty Island whose biggest and only selling point was the Statue of Liberty.

The giant statue of a G.o.ddess bearing a torch was the symbol of the United States of America. Including the pedestal, the Statue of Liberty reached almost a height of 100m.

Hal and his team were on standby, watched over by the Statue of Liberty, a world heritage site.

Governors Island was also located on the Hudson River. With an area more than ten times of Liberty Island, it was easily large enough to contain a large theme park. In actual fact, the island had facilities including gra.s.sland, parks and merry-go-rounds for citizens to use for recreation.

Hal"s team was on a gra.s.sland in the center of Governors Island.

"Hmm. Simply waiting is making me impatient."

"In terms of common sense from the human world, you need to sound even more impatient when saying that," replied Hal to the muttering of Hannibal who was in human form.

The red dragon king was reclining openly in a chair prepared by the humans, delivering his comment with eyes partially closed in a seemingly good mood. He looked a little restless and quite jubilant. The impression Hal gathered was like that of a child who could not wait for an amus.e.m.e.nt park to open.

The two of them were seated with a conference room table between them.

Five meters behind Hal, three other humans were present. Important people in New York State—the governor, his aide and Christine, respectively. Same people as last time.

It was currently August 16th, just past 11pm.

Together with Hannibal, they were waiting for the outcome of the referendum.

Seeing as they were in a dragon king"s company, having armed units on standby to protect the governor would be pointless. On the human side, the only other people present were two pilots in charge of operating the transport helicopter.

—The referendum had lasted from 8am to 5pm.

—Residents could cast their ballot at temporary voting stations all over New York State. More than five hours had pa.s.sed since the end of the referendum.

At this moment, the governor"s cellphone began to ring.

A call. The handsome governor took out his cellphone from the pocket of his expensive summer suit and lowered his voice to take the call. After roughly thirty seconds, he ended the call, wrote a note on a piece of paper and handed it to his aide.

The aide walked over to Hal uncomfortably and handed him the note in question.

His expression was stiff, his fingers were trembling, presumably unable to conceal his nervousness towards the imminent major event. Feeling deeply sympathetic, Hal accepted the note, took a glance then said, "Do you approve of the dragon king, a certain Mr. Hannibal, to run for governor? The outcome of this referendum is as follows: 12% support, 84% against, 4% invalid... Looks like the motion has been rejected by the majority."

"How regrettable. Sure enough, I failed to win the people"s trust within a short time," said Hannibal quietly with a nod.

This referendum had been managed and counted by the New York State government completely. Hannibal had not verified the ballots himself, which meant that the government had the chance to tamper with vote counts arbitrarily. That being said, everyone probably believed there was no need to do that.

Hannibal simply grinned and said, "The first chapter of my attempt to seize power has concluded with failure. Now that the situation has unfolded to this point, I have no choice left but to take a ma.s.sive gamble in the second chapter to mount a comeback. Look forward to my immediate rebound."

"I have many ripostes for you, such as you are taking this far too well," Hal retorted rather tactfully.

"But let"s put them aside for now. I"ve got a question. What will your aforementioned comeback be like?"

"Hmm. I suppose I have to rule all of New York State before holding an election. Neglecting this step resulted in such pain. I have learned not to hold back."

"I believe that forcing people to vote at gunpoint wouldn"t be a democratic election. Absolutely not."

"Really? Do you humans not engage frequently in the same kind of election tactics too?"

"That"s quite a painful jab, but at a time like this, you should keep quiet and let me apply the principles of democracy. I hereby represent all residents of New York State to express absolute disapproval of using physical force to interfere in politics."

"Then no helping it. I will thn rely on this to proceed."

Hannibal patted his right arm and smiled. Hal looked up at the blue sky.

"Don"t you start getting violent straight away. At least enjoy the election game for a bit."

"No rush for that. There is the presidential election later on. At the present moment, I will focus on consolidating my foundation before transforming myself into a politician who values democracy above all else."

Going with the flow was precisely Hannibal"s life philosophy.

But no matter how laid back he seemed, in truth, he was always subconsciously pondering the question of "what should I do to win?" before putting ideas into practice without reservation. Judging from this aspect, he truly lived up to his name as one who had ascended to become a dragon king.

Despite his exasperation, Hal still felt impressed and said, "What civilized people like us lack must be that kind of unfounded valor and confidence like yours, definitely... In a contest of the wildness index, I think you have even Asya beaten."

"I do not understand what you are talking about. However, I do not mind if you loudly proclaim my greatness."

After making jokes, both sides began to take action on their won.

Reclining in the chair, Hannibal extended his open right hand towards Hal. Hal summoned his gun of a magic wand to his right hand and aimed the steel-colored muzzle at Hannibal.

A pictograph of Ruruk Soun appeared on the red dragon king"s palm.

A symbol consisting of a sharp rhombus connected to the end of a straight line, this was the Rune of the Spear. Hannibal was planning to use his dragonslaying rune!

"O northern star of the s.h.i.+ning spear, grant me the dragonslaying spear!"

"That seal whose name I"ve forgotten, the second part of whatever he said!"

Just as Hannibal got up and recited an incantation, Hal stood up as well.

In the next instant, a two-meter-long black spear with a metallic shaft appeared in the red dragon king"s right hand. The spear tip was the dull color of steel.

When the black spear appeared, the table between the two of them collapsed like a sand sculpture, pulverized. Clearly, Hannibal had yet to grip the spear properly. All he had done was a light swing with his right hand to the side.

Hal activated magical sight.

High-density magical power surrounded Hannibal"s humanoid body and the dragonslaying spear.

"Firing a gun at someone who looks human really isn"t my cup of tea...!"

Muttering to himself, Hal still pulled the magic gun"s trigger.

The fired bullets of red light struck the high-density magical power surrounding Hannibal—They disappeared, meeting the same fate as the table, collapsing like sand.

"Come on, aren"t my bullets dragonslaying weapons at least?"

"Hohohoho. My spear is impregnable... and incomparably powerful too!"

Hannibal cackled at the sight of Hal"s expression of surprise.

His smile was filled with childishness, making him seem more like a mischievous child than a dragon king.

Meanwhile, the helicopter pilots on standby had started up the propellers. The governor, his aide and Christine, the three of them had boarded. Hal took a glance at them and nodded. The close-range exchange just now was meant to buy time for them to escape.

Thus the helicopter took off, returning to Brooklyn.

Hannibal did not even bother to look, apparently uninterested in the governor and the others.

The governor and company had left but a great army arrived instead. A meteor shower was falling from the distant sky—Several hundred trails of light were descending upon New York City.

Needless to say, the truth of this sudden meteorological show was the red dragon king"s summoning of minions.

Each falling meteor was a lesser dragon—the dragon king"s small fry.

"Raptors huh...!"

"Well, they are still useful in large numbers despite their incompetence. O human, fight me this evening!"

Keeping the gun aimed at the dragon king, Hal slowly backed away.

The dragonslaying spear was full of mysteries. Staying vigilant, Hal decided to get himself as far away from the spear tip as possible.

By the time Hal backed away, the meteor shower had already ceased.

The meteor shower had lasted less than a minute. During this brief duration, almost a thousand Raptors had already blotted out the sky over their location, the Hudson River, flying in all directions.

—Naturally, other interception units were on standby apart from Hal.

Surface-to-air missiles were fired successively from Brooklyn in New York City.

Ground forces were stationed all over town, prepared to resist the army of Raptors. Their weapons included self-propelled howitzers and rack-mounted halftrack Stinger missile launchers.

The thickness of Raptor skin was enough to withstand machine gunfire.

Although Raptors were referred to as "lizards" by elites, they were still members of dragonkind after all.

Even so, they inevitably collapsed after taking damage from a few consecutive missile hits. Furthermore, dozens of armed helicopters were flying in to support the ground forces.

On the other hand, New York City"s population was roughly a couple million.

80% of them had taken the previous few days of preparation time before the referendum to evacuate out of the city temporarily. No voting stations had been set up in New York City today. All venues were outside New York City.

New York City had turned into a rather empty wasteland.

Apart from the National Guard, the American army, air force and navy were also deployed at various locations.

However, helicopters and ground forces alone were not enough to fight dragons flying in the air. The important responsibility of ensuring air superiority fell upon the leviathans—the witches.

At present, a blue figure was gliding in New York airs.p.a.ce to accomplish this mission.

It was Rushalka in crimson armor. Dragon-like in her Queen Form, the wyvern also had bodyguard knights accompanying her.

These were the four fierce feline leviathans—The "serpents" of the WotC.