Thus, he stopped obsessing over forcibly purifying the power within the magic formation and instead began to guide the formation’s own repair mechanism.
It was like a skilled physician who, instead of directly excising a lesion, chose to stimulate the patient's own recovery, allowing the body to fight the disease itself.
This method proved effective as Starlight’s breathing gradually steadied.
Not only did the mental pressure suddenly lighten, but even the most stubborn areas of black contamination began to slowly fade.
If this trend continued, the repair of the entire magic formation would only be a matter of time.
From the outside, centered on the pillar where Starlight stood, a brilliant golden light spread through the air like a living thing.
The light flowed along hidden patterns toward the other giant pillars. Every time one was lit, the top of the pillar would erupt with a radiance as dazzling as the sun.
Soon, the entire space was enveloped in this holy golden light, making even the boiling lava lake below seem dim in comparison.
“It’s going to succeed...” Moen murmured, looking up at the divine light in the air.
However, just as Starlight was about to breathe a sigh of relief, a bone-chilling cold surged back through the mental link. It felt as if someone had driven an ice pick directly into his brain, nearly freezing his soul.
More terrifyingly, this chill contained a strange will—it was not simple death energy, nor was it the backlash of the formation. It was more like... the sign of an ancient existence that had been dormant for a long time suddenly waking up.
Deep within the lava lake, the grey remains of the Dragon God suddenly opened their eyes.
They were greyish-white eyes with no visible pupils, like blocks of glazed glass covered in a layer of frost. The moment those eyes opened, the entire lava lake instantly solidified into pitch-black basalt.
A massive shockwave tore directly through the purification barrier Moen had set up and slammed into Seranox’s pressure.
Under the heavy blow of this power, Seranox suddenly spat out a mouthful of golden blood. His burly frame stumbled back several steps before he could steady himself, and even the Crown of Gold Horn emitted a sound of being overstrained and cracking.
“How is this possible!?”
Seranox didn't even bother to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth. He stepped back to his original position and looked down at the completely solidified lava in horror.
He had never imagined that the divine body, which was supposed to be in eternal silence, would radiate such suffocating pressure.
Moreover, from what just happened, even the two Dragon Race Divine Artifacts were unable to suppress it.
As the current Dragon King, he knew better than anyone what this implied—the only power capable of suppressing two Dragon Race Divine Artifacts simultaneously could only come from...
“Did the Ancestor... wake up?”
This absurd thought was immediately dismissed as soon as it surfaced. Even a god could not suddenly return to life tens of thousands of years after falling.
“Ugh... Ah!”
While everyone was looking at the changes below in shock and uncertainty, a pained groan escaped Starlight’s throat.
At that moment, his consciousness was forcibly dragged into a deeper space. Here, the surroundings were no longer the seven-colored network of the magic formation, but a void-like grey domain.
A figure condensed from death power was slowly taking shape. It was a miniature version of the Dragon God's remains, but its entire body was covered in traces of decay.
Starlight looked up at the sky. The entire grey firmament was covered by a magic formation that blotted out the sun.
He was all too familiar with the form of this magic formation.
Those intersecting blood-colored patterns and the ancient script writhing at the edges were identical to the forbidden array that had appeared in the catacombs of the Violet City-State.
However, the scale of the magic formation before him was more than a hundred times grander than the one Taros had used!
At the nodes of this formation, countless black crystals were slowly pulsing, squeezing a massive torrent of flesh and blood energy into the array lines, much like blood rushing through veins.
Most horrifying of all, a giant greyish-white eyeball floated at the center of the formation, staring fixedly at the rotting dragon phantom below.
“Are you... the Dragon God? Or Taros!?”
Under the pressure of this formation, Starlight felt his soul trembling. Yet, unable to move, he could only grit his teeth and ask.
“Hahahaha, Taros? I didn't expect you to lump me together with that pathetic experiment.” A piercing laugh came from the giant eyeball in the sky. “I thought you would be smarter. As for the Dragon God... Versolion is a thing of the past. And I will soon become the new Dragon God!”
“You won't succeed! I’ve already finished modifying the basic parts of the Dragon Valley formation. Even with divine power...” Starlight shouted, enduring the soul-tearing pain.
But as soon as the words left his mouth, his voice caught, and his face turned as pale as paper.
Because he suddenly realized a terrifying truth—he had always thought he was repairing the formation, but in reality?
“Finally figured it out?”
The eyeball narrowed with pleasure, and the formation patterns around it began to flow faster, kicking up a whirlwind in the air. “What you were repairing just now wasn't a damaged formation at all. You were helping me undo the final seal, you foolish little thing.”
“No... that’s impossible!” Starlight roared.
He looked down at his hands. In that instant, his vision crossed through space again, returning to the foundations of the Dragon Valley core. Only then did he finally see the full picture of the entire magic formation.
The giant magic formation protecting the Dragon Nest and the sacrificial magic formation he had seen before were like two sides of a single sheet of paper—one on the front and one on the back.
As he made modifications on the front, the formation on the back also released its final shackles.
“This twin structure formation is perfect, isn't it!?” The eyeball let out a joyful sound. “The one who started it all is you! Tsk, tsk, tsk... the Elemental Saint Body of this generation.”
“Oh, right! Let me show you some other interesting things.”
The eyeball blinked rapidly twice. The grey space around it began to warp and distort, projecting another scene.
In the image, the lava lake beneath the Dragon Nest had completely dried up. In its place was a massive altar built from countless skeletons.
The Gold Flame Dragon King Seranox was kneeling on one knee, the Crown of Gold Horn on his head completely shattered. Golden dragon blood gurgled from the wound on his forehead.
Little Gold and Starlight’s companions were pinned to the ground by an invisible force, unable to move even a finger. Ink-like death energy was sweeping toward them like a tide, causing even the rocks to decay and crumble wherever it passed.
“Stop it!!!”
Seeing the overwhelming death energy about to swallow his companions, Starlight let out a roar.
He struggled frantically, and his soul power emitted a brilliant white light due to his extreme grief and indignation, actually allowing him to break free from the eyeball’s suppression.
The eyeball in the sky seemed somewhat surprised by Starlight’s outburst, but then it let out an even more frenzied laugh: “Interesting, interesting! Truly worthy of the Elemental Saint Body! But did you think it was over?”
Just as Starlight was preparing to fight back, the giant pupil in the sky suddenly split into countless compound eyes, each showing a different horrific scene.
On the ruins of human city-states, countless rotting undead swarmed the streets like a tide, tearing the last struggling survivors to pieces;
The leaves and branches of the World Tree curled and withered in greyish-white flames. Elves knelt beneath the tree, turning into greyish-white stone statues one by one;
The eternal moonlight of the Night Lotus Valley was swallowed by endless malevolent energy, and the Night Elves were painfully clawing at their own throats in the black mist;
In the abyss of the Dragon Valley, countless dragons drifted in the thick death energy, their scales peeling off one by one to reveal the rotting flesh beneath...
“No... you’re lying! No... this isn't real!”
Looking at these terrifying images, Starlight couldn't stop shaking. The sliver of power he had just gathered vanished instantly.
“This is only the beginning~” All the compound eyes in the sky blinked simultaneously. “When the sacrifice is complete, these images will become reality. And I will become the most perfect being of the new era—”
Just as Starlight’s soul was about to be swallowed by despair, a voice as clear as an ice spring suddenly pierced through the chaos.
Rate on N.U.
