riders destroyed the Towers, centers of the Ancients' technology, and broke the Ancients' hold on the world during the events of Panzer Dragoon Saga. Since then, the Empire has rebuilt itself, breeding dragon-like creatures called "dragonmares" as an aerial army with the help of an Ancient ruin called the Cradle. A girl named Orta, thought by some to be the daughter of Saga protagonists Edge and Azel, is kept prisoner in a tower by a tribe called the Seekers, as they fear she is a harbinger of doom. Orta is freed when the Empire attacks the Seekers' city with their dragonmares in search of Orta, due to her potential heritage, and she escapes by riding on the current incarnation of the Dragon of Destruction. During her escape, Orta encounters Abadd, an Ancient Age android known as a "drone", who is also fleeing the Empire and offers to help her find her origins in exchange for access to Ancient Age technology. She is befriended by a tribe called the Worm Riders, who are taming the land's mutants. After an Imperial fleet attacks the Worm Riders, Abbad leads Orta to a ruin linked to the Ancients' Sestren Network, where Orta receives a posthumous message from Azel asking her to help restore the world. Abadd reveals that he plans to wipe out humanity and hoped to use Orta's DNA to breed a new drone army; when she refuses to cooperate, he attacks her and is fought off. Orta goes to the Empire's capital and destroys the Cradle; Abadd turns the dragonmares against their human controllers, but they are destroyed with the Worm Riders' aid. Orta then defeats Abadd and his dragon born from the Cradle. The Dragon of Destruction succumbs to its wounds, but post-credits scenes reveal that the dragon left a child, with the final scene showing Orta and the newborn dragon traveling through a rejuvenated landscape. A sidestory unlocked during the campaign follows Iva Demilcol, the son of an Imperial soldier who was killed during Orta's escape. Iva is given his father's necklace and learns that his father worked on dragonmare production as a means of crafting medicine to treat Iva's chronic illness. The declining Iva is taken in by Seekers, forming a close bond with one of their number called Emid, who helps him find a final message from his father in the necklace. When the Empire attacks again, Emid