Salenzo’s final expression of shock was burned into his retinas like a brand, and the name that had been replaced by static sent waves of turmoil crashing through his mind.
A horror transcending human cognition was seeping from the rifts in his memory; even a fleeting glimpse made him feel as if his soul were freezing over.
Moreover, the entire space was in a state of extreme peril.
Ominous purple-black cracks began to erupt from the severed ends of the chains, spreading rapidly like a spiderweb.
The “ground” beneath Starlight’s feet also began to soften and collapse, turning into a viscous dark mire.
Countless uncontrolled memory fragments burned in the void, emitting bursts of hair-raising shrieks.
“Must... leave here...”
Starlight struggled to stand, only to find his legs being gradually swallowed by the writhing darkness. The Azure Longsword in his hand let out a death-like wail, its runes extinguishing one by one.
At the very moment his consciousness was about to be completely submerged by the darkness, Starlight thrust the longsword into the void with the last of his strength.
Crack!
The crisp sound of shattering glass echoed through the entire space.
A brilliant blue light, like the first rays of dawn, forcibly tore a rift in Salenzo’s collapsing consciousness world.
Starlight felt a familiar pulling force; it was the physical world calling for his soul to return.
“Salenzo... and that eyeball...”
Carrying these unresolved questions, Starlight’s consciousness plunged into the rift of light.
The moment his body disappeared, the entire consciousness world imploded into a pitch-black singularity before being completely annihilated into nothingness.
...
“Little Star! Little Star! Wake up!” Noah’s familiar voice reached his mind, dragging Starlight back from the abyss of chaos.
“Where am I? I remember... seeing...”
Starlight snapped his eyes open, feeling the metallic tang of blood in his throat. Every inch of his body throbbed with a pain as if his muscles had been crushed and then reassembled.
When he finally took in his surroundings, he jolted in shock, realizing he was still trapped within the corrupted flesh of Desdoraka.
The surging death energy around him was gnawing at his body like a living creature. The barrier of the Power of Destruction he had previously established had long since been worn away, leaving only Noah’s thin layer of soul power to hold on desperately.
“Noah, how are you!?” Starlight hurriedly synthesized the Power of Destruction within his body again, barely managing to block the encroachment of the death energy.
By now, the color of Noah’s soul power had faded until it was nearly invisible.
“I’m fine...” Noah’s voice echoed in his mind, but it was so weak it sounded as if it were coming from a great distance. “It’s just... the consumption was a bit too high... I’ll need to have a good sleep after this...”
“Alright! Once I carve a path out, you can sleep as long as you want!”
Relieved to hear that Noah was mostly alright, Starlight began to carefully assess their environment.
But a few seconds later, the sight before him caused his heart to turn cold.
The prolonged battle of attrition had drained his last drop of mana. He could now hardly cast even the most basic spells.
To make matters worse, the backlash from overusing the Power of Destruction was starting to manifest. His arms were covered in tiny lacerations with dark red beads of blood seeping from beneath the skin, and every breath brought a burning pain to his internal organs.
“This really is... absolutely terrible...” he muttered with a bitter smile.
In his current situation, calling it a “desperate straits” would be a gross understatement.
In that critical moment, a piercing silver light suddenly tore through the thick flesh above his head.
Desdoraka’s corrupted scales and tendons melted away like snow under a blazing sun. Enveloped in the Night God’s power, You appeared at the opening.
“What a pathetic sight.” You landed lightly beside Starlight, speaking as if making a joke. “However, you did well! Next, it’s time for us old-timers to burn through what’s left of our lives.”
“What—?”
Before Starlight could finish his sentence, he was thrown out of the newly opened rift by You.
He realized what the other intended to do and tried to stop him, but he was wrapped tightly in a layer of the Night God’s power, forced to fly further and further away by that immense force.
“Tell Lian for me... not to be sad. To be able to end my journey in this battle, I am satisfied... Also, take good care of her.”
You’s parting words reached his ears—a short sentence that served as both a farewell and a final wish.
“Now! Death Dragon King Desdoraka! Let us journey to the underworld together!”
With that resounding war cry, the entire pitch-black sky lit up.
Upon the back of the black dragon, a bright full moon rose out of nowhere. It was not a true moon, but the ultimate strike condensed from You burning his entire life force.
Silver-white moonlight converged frantically at Desdoraka’s wounds, sweeping away the surrounding darkness wherever it passed.
Starlight had already been carried hundreds of meters away by the Night God’s power, yet he could still clearly see that bright moon blooming on the dragon’s back.
The brilliant silver light first contracted into a single point, then erupted with a roar, dyeing the surrounding miles as bright as day.
Within that pure silver radiance, You’s figure gradually turned into points of starlight, dissipating into the world along with that moon.
Under the illumination of that radiant moonlight, Desdoraka’s massive draconic form shuddered violently.
You’s final strike had pierced accurately into the weak point previously opened by Starlight. The silver moonlight acted like a venomous blade, spreading frantically beneath the pitch-black scales.
Wherever the light reached, the black scales cracked open in large swathes, revealing the deathly white bone beneath.
“ROAARRRR—!”
Desdoraka let out a world-shaking scream of agony as its body began to gradually disintegrate.
But just as its form was about to completely break down, viscous black mist surged from the wounds again, managing to maintain its original shape for the time being.
Though You’s life-sacrificing strike had heavily wounded the monster, it ultimately failed to destroy it completely.
The remnant body of the Dragon God continued to struggle, though its movements had become sluggish and stiff, like a marionette that had been half-disassembled.
The patterns left by the moonlight flickered in and out of brightness, locked in a tug-of-war with the constantly surging black mist, but they were clearly losing ground.
Desdoraka’s broken body writhed violently. Amidst the churning black mist, the dissolved flesh was regenerating at a speed visible to the naked eye.
If given just a moment to catch its breath, this terrifying monster would surely recover its full strength.
However, his opponent would not let this unique opportunity slip away.
A blazing golden light suddenly exploded across the firmament, drawing everyone’s attention.
“KRII LUN AUS DOVAHZIIR, FOD ZIIL GROHIN DOVAH!”
Seranox’s low Dragon Tongue sounded like the blowing of a horn for judgment, each syllable causing space itself to tremble.
His gilded scales had now turned completely brilliant white, like a rising sun tearing through the gloom of the night.
“ZU’U LOS FEN KOS NID, MIR AAK FEN KOS STIN!”
With those words, the crown situated between his dragon horns shattered with a bang, transforming into the purest power and elevating the Gold Flame Dragon King’s aura by another level.
“DII VOTH AHRK VOKUN, NOL DO VAZAH!”
...
When the final word fell from the heavens, Seranox’s entire body transformed into a golden giant sword that spanned across the sky and earth.
In a brief instant, the giant sword slashed down from the high heavens with peerless momentum.
At this moment, the entire world seemed to freeze for a heartbeat.
Before the light of the blade could even arrive, the space around Desdoraka collapsed, revealing patches of void.
The black mist churning around it was like morning dew meeting a blazing sun, emitting a sizzling sound of evaporation under the scorching golden light.
The giant sword finally landed.
Even a Dragon God’s body could not withstand the power contained within this strike.
Desdoraka’s body was instantly crushed, plummeting toward the ground like a meteorite.
BOOM—!!!
The shockwave from the impact spread in a ring, turning even the hardest mountain rock into dust wherever it passed.
Fortunately, the magic formation everyone had prepared in advance took effect quickly, preventing the shockwave from causing further destruction.
Starlight looked down. Even after suffering such a powerful attack, Desdoraka’s body had still not been completely destroyed.
On its chest, the face belonging to Salenzo suddenly snapped its eyes open.
One black and one gold, two Dragon God’s Hearts were contracting violently within its hollow eye sockets.
“Watch out! He’s going to—”
Before Starlight could finish his warning, the two Dragon God’s Hearts, compressed to their limit, exploded.
In the next instant, he saw a pitch-black “flower” suddenly bloom within the massive crater on the ground.
Each black petal had a pure white border; it was beautiful beyond words, yet terrifying to the extreme.
Starlight was all too familiar with this power—it was the Power of Destruction, refined to its absolute peak.
And compared to the half-baked Power of Destruction he could synthesize, the Transcendent Power contained within this flower of destruction was as vast as a boundless ocean.
The petals swayed gently, coming into contact with the giant sword that Seranox had become.
There was no loud crash, no dust, and no impact, for everything was erased into nothingness under the influence of the Power of Destruction.
Spiderweb-like cracks instantly covered the golden giant sword, and the Gold Flame Dragon King was forced back into his original form by the strike.
His left wing had completely disappeared, and only white bone remained of his right front claw, yet the fire in his eyes did not dim in the slightest. Instead, it burned even more fiercely.
“It’s not... over yet!”
Seranox spat out a large mouthful of golden blood. The blood spun once in the air, transforming into a magic formation of extreme complexity.
“VOKUL MAHFAERAK AHRK VULOM!”
“DII VOTH ZIN DO VAHLOKAAN!”
“KRII VED AAK, FEN KOS SAVIIK!”
With every word he uttered, another wound appeared on his body, but the blood spraying from the wounds continued to rise upward.
This burning blood of light intertwined in the void, constructing a massive golden cage around the black flower that was swallowing everything.
At the same time, the ley line energy beneath the entire Dragon Nest was drawn up, breaking through the earth. Golden magma slapped against the black flower like a tsunami.
The Power of Destruction on the black flower was constantly being eroded and neutralized, until finally, the balance was broken a few seconds later.
Crack...
In an eerie silence, a thin crack appeared on the stamen of the flower of destruction.
“No! This is impossible—!” Salenzo’s shriek came from the rift, his voice laced with madness. “I am the true Dragon God! I am Desdor—”
The final syllable was cut short, like a lute string suddenly snapped.
The rift trembled slightly in the void before closing like an eyelid, returning everything to nothingness.
Starlight stared blankly at the spot where the rift had disappeared, Salenzo’s unfinished words seemingly still echoing in his ears.
That once-proud Dragon King had ultimately failed to even finish his full name before dissipating into the rifts of time and space.
Immediately following that, the entire black flower froze before rapidly turning into a shower of ash.
The separated black-grey particles did not fall but hovered and dispersed eerily in the air.
With it as the center, everything within several kilometers was being silently erased.
Soon, this wave of destruction slammed into the barrier the group had set up, shaving away more than half of that indestructible barrier before slowly coming to a halt.
Inside the barrier, Starlight watched as the light around Seranox completely extinguished.
His draconic body began to shrink rapidly, finally returning to human form. He fell from the sky like a puppet with its strings cut, seemingly about to drop into that wave of destruction.
“Oh no!”
Without a second thought, Starlight pushed his nearly dry mana to cast instant movement. In the nick of time, his arm caught the falling Seranox.
The crest of the wave of destruction had already touched the edges of their clothes; it was only that last trace of power You had left on him that bought him a heartbeat of time.
Starlight bit the tip of his tongue, forcing himself to stay alert as he sent both of their bodies into a parallel space.
Rate on N.U.
