To create dissolved buffers (single geometries) in PostGIS I use ST_Dump and ST_Union:
SELECT
row_number() over() AS gid,
sbqry.*
FROM (
SELECT
(ST_Dump(ST_Union(ST_Buffer(input_layer.geom, 100)))).geom::geometry(Polygon, 31256) AS geom
FROM input_layer
) AS sbqry;
As far as I know QGIS virtual layers are based on SpatiaLite. So at least ST_Dump isn't supported. Is there a SpatiaLite equivalent to the query posted above?