novelraw Chapter 352: Unifying the Northwest, Targeting the Mad King
Chapter 352: Unifying the Northwest, Targeting the Mad King
The holiness of the holy spirit deer, the sinister perversity of the Beholder... Garoth’s self-light swept across the few most powerful beings on the battlefield below in succession.
Finally.
His gaze fixed on the fire-bird leader soaring above the flock of hawks and eagles, and a pure flash of admiration involuntarily passed through his eyes.
Dragonkind’s ability to transcend species with a broad aesthetic sensibility fully revealed itself to him in this moment, letting him appreciate the phoenix’s beauty completely.
This was a female phoenix.
Without exaggeration, her beauty and splendor surpassed anything Garoth had so far witnessed.
It was not a soft, restrained beauty, but an utterly lavish, dazzling, blinding kind of beauty that seemed to gather all the world’s light into itself.
Each of her burning feathers emitted an unrestrained, deadly allure, radiating charm that was unforgettable.
However, compared to this peerless beauty, Garoth cared more about something else.
He wanted to see with his own eyes the phoenix’s nirvana rebirth recorded in the legacy knowledge.To him, that was far more valuable than simply admiring beauty.
The phoenix on the opposite side likewise immediately noticed the most prominent newcomer among the uninvited guests.
The red iron dragon’s incomparably robust physique, scales like hammered and forged steel, and those horns and rugged, primitive, violent dragon features instantly caught the phoenix’s eye.
Phoenixes did not possess dragons’ peculiar cross-species aesthetic sense.
But judging purely by appearance and the impression of raw power, any creature with eyes could tell that every inch of the red iron dragon epitomized the aesthetics of brute strength.
This direct and intense visual impact earned the phoenix’s instinctive admiration.
However, when the four faced each other in the air and their eyes met.
The phoenix keenly picked up a hidden meaning within Garoth’s gaze.
It was appreciation of beauty, but also like appraising a precious prey, and like scrutinizing an experimental subject with research value.
That look made the phoenix’s heart tighten without reason, a vague unease quietly spreading.
Roar—!
At that moment, a loud, resonant lion’s roar rang out like a war drum, breaking the brief standoff.
Ennus, the Amethyst Dragon Lion, beat his powerful wings and leapt from the dense forest like a streak of purple lightning, landing steadily on a huge rock.
The mighty aura of a former Map King spread outward unabashedly, drawing the attention of the strong beings present.
“The Map Kings of the northwest region, rarely gathering together like this... I didn’t expect that.”
Garoth cracked open his massive maw into a grin.
At first it was only a dispute between the Deer King and the Beholder, but evidently the Lord of Molten Iron and that phoenix received the same idea, each almost simultaneously bringing their forces.
Thus, the four most weighty Map Kings of the northwest appeared on the same battlefield in this way,
which seemed to make the situation unprecedentedly chaotic.
But in Garoth’s eyes, it was precisely the opposite.
He felt matters instantly became much simpler.
No need to seek them out one by one.
“My luck seems to have improved a lot recently.”
Garoth thought with inner pleasure.
At that moment, the freshly arrived Amethyst Dragon Lion suddenly emitted a deep-throated roar,
its bellow laced with powerful psychic energy, like an invisible tide sweeping across the sky.
As a ripple of spiritual energy spread, a blurred figure a short distance away—trying to sneak away in a furtive manner—was forcibly driven out.
And the illusion it had been using to distract everyone shattered and dissipated at the same time.
It was the fleeing Beholder!
Its disguise exposed, the Beholder glared angrily at the meddling Amethyst Dragon Lion, the main eye bloodshot,
then, to create as much chaos as possible and buy itself an escape, it made all its intact eye-stems sway like frenzied tentacles, using its mental imprint to issue final orders to all enslaved creatures under its control.
The next moment.
Those enslaved creatures all uttered warped, unnatural hisses in unison, abandoning defense and formation completely like berserk fiends, launching indiscriminate, suicidal assaults in all directions against every creature nearby.
“Fiends! Don’t think about escaping!”
The holy spirit deer reacted quickly, its clear voice furious, immediately giving chase.
Some loyal guardian monsters and the Beholder’s minions tried to block it, but it was not alone—Garoth’s powerful feral beasts and magical monsters burst forth to intercept those blockers.
“Ennus, their condition has deteriorated.”
“Leave the broken remnants and stragglers to you.”
Garoth’s self-light shifted to the Amethyst Dragon Lion.
[No problem!]
The once-dominant Map King growled low.
It leaped out and directly joined the Deer King in pursuing the Beholder.
Meanwhile, the Molten Iron Legion on the ground also moved, coordinating with the Amethyst Dragon Lion lord to surround the two Map Kings.
The red iron dragon slowly turned his head, his gaze once again locking onto the phoenix hovering in the sky.
Now the aerial battlefield, aside from the unending storm, contained only a few majestic giant dragons and the phoenix, surrounded by thousands of hawks and eagles, hovering on the other side.
“What? Never seen such transcendent beauty before?”
Under Garoth’s severely oppressive stare, the phoenix lifted her long, elegant neck, unfurled those suffocatingly magnificent fiery wings, and displayed her most perfect pose.
The torrential rain pounded down violently, but within a certain range near her the extreme heat instantly evaporated it, forming a cloud of white steam and mist.
This did not conceal her, instead it highlighted her as a god reborn from flames.
Resplendent and gorgeous, unlike anything of the mortal world.
“Indeed, this is the first time I’ve seen one in person, your beauty astonishes me.”
Garoth calmly admitted the phoenix’s beauty, not stingy with his praise.
The compliment came from the heart.
“Good, powerful dragon, I’m beginning to appreciate you a little. Perhaps we could try to coexist harmoniously?”
Receiving sincere praise, the phoenix’s mood visibly brightened, the flames around her quickening a bit.
She gently shook her body and said, “You see, this wilderness is big enough.”
“We keep to our wells and leave each other’s rivers alone, each growing in our own way. How about it?”
The red iron dragon looked formidable just to behold, and she had a decent initial impression of him. She did not want unnecessary conflict with such a powerful neighbor.
“Agreed.”
Garoth’s huge head nodded slightly, approving the proposal.
But then he shifted tone and said, “However, before we confirm harmonious coexistence, I have a small request I hope you will accept.”
The phoenix tilted her beautiful head and asked, “What request? Tell me.”
Rainwater shattered across Garoth’s rigid scales as he cracked his maw into a smile that to the phoenix looked somewhat ferocious, then spoke calmly, “Very simple.”
“I know phoenixes possess the innate nirvana rebirth talent.”
“I am very curious... so I want to witness with my own eyes that legendary phoenix nirvana.”
Hearing this, the phoenix first blinked slightly, as if she had misheard.
Immediately, boundless rage replaced the earlier pleasantness, her flames surging higher and the temperature spiking.
“Rude! Insolent creature!”
Her voice sharpened, “This is not a request at all!”
“This is a naked provocation! A declaration of war against me!”
Nirvana was her greatest talent; she would not use it unless absolutely necessary. Even a common nirvana would cost her part of her memories and knowledge.
“Looks like we have a small problem between us.”
Garoth shook his head regretfully.
All the gentleness and admiration in his eyes vanished in an instant, replaced by a rising, dangerous glare.
Roar! Roar! Roar! Roar!
As if answering their leader’s will, the dragons let out earth-shaking roars.
They beat their wings and charged first toward the phoenix.
The phoenix held her head high and cried out a piercing note.
In no time, the black mass of hawk-like predatory beasts and monsters, as if given orders, released harsh caws and surged forward like a tide to meet the charging dragons, swallowing their silhouettes in a sea of wings and talons.
“King against king, leader against leader.”
Garoth’s voice cut through the noisy battlefield, “Come, beautiful fire-bird, dance for me before I, so I may feel whether your power deserves your beauty.”
As his words fell, brilliant golden lightning suddenly erupted across Garoth’s body,
hissing electrical serpents coiled, and his body visibly swelled, muscles bulging, becoming more brawny and explosive in strength, while the tips of his wings rolled up into a tangible dark-red flame.
Then, with what appeared to be a casual flap of those wings.
Boom!!!
Garoth’s massive form vanished from its original position in an instant, leaving only a slowly expanding sonic-boom silhouette in the air.
He closed the distance to the phoenix at speeds beyond visual capture, and the deafening, sky-rending sonic boom sounded only after he had already moved, shaking the entire battlefield.
Gales carrying cold rain battered the front; the phoenix’s pupils shrank sharply.
She couldn’t afford any sloppiness. With all her might she beat her gorgeous wings, whipping up a towering burning wind that vaporized the surrounding torrential rain into a white steam curtain, obscuring visibility.
The instant the steam curtain formed,
that terrible dragon shadow had already broken the sound barrier and slammed in.
At the last critical moment, the phoenix showed agility matching her lavish appearance, reacting with lightning speed and flapping upward for a rapid climb.
Garoth’s wind-tearing dragon claws skimmed past her tail feathers.
“Arrogant dragon! You will pay for your ignorance!”
The phoenix elegantly spun through the steaming clouds and vapor, narrowly dodging the dragon’s pounce, while claws already ignited with flames that seemed solid.
Flame-Burning Talons!
Her claws slashed fiercely across Garoth’s dorsal scales!
Yet the expected tearing of scales and flesh did not occur.
Under the talons came an extremely harsh resistance; in the end only deep fissure marks remained on those heavy scales, but no flesh exposed beneath.
As for the flames on the talons, capable of melting metal,
for the phoenix’s fire against Garoth—with his extreme fire resistance—they inflicted almost no effective harm.
Clang!
Having missed and taken a counterattack, Garoth instantly spread his wings like giant blades and, using the momentum of his charge, completed a spin-slash surprisingly swift for his massive body.
His agility exceeded the phoenix’s expectations.
The blade-like wings tore through the dense mist and steam, sweeping past the phoenix’s magnificent tail feathers.
Yet again no blood flew.
The tail feathers struck were not shattered.
She seemed to have real, lavish physicality, but her essence was that of a high-tier elemental lifeform, immune to most physical and flame damage.
Physical attacks had limited effect on her.
“Foolish dragon! Your attacks barely affect me!”
The phoenix let out a mocking, clear cry, weaving complex flight arcs in the air and leaving dozens of realistic, indistinguishable fiery afterimages trailing behind her.
At the same time, she snapped her neck upward, her sharp beak as fast as lightning striking Garoth with precise pecks.
Tap-tap-tap-tap!
A rapid series of impacts sounded like raindrops; each peck carried piercing force and actually made small, though not deep, real bleeding pinpricks in Garoth’s supposedly invulnerable scales.
—Arms of the Self!
—Face of the Self!
Garoth emitted a low, furious roar as his dark-red dragon qi boiled over!
In an instant, a faceplate covering his entire head condensed, and two huge dragon arms, completely formed of dragon qi and muscle, unfolded from near his shoulder blades.
Dragon pupils on the faceplate glowed, immediately locking onto the phoenix’s true body among the countless afterimages.
The next instant, Garoth hurled his claws.
Those two dragon-qi giant arms did not attack separately; they merged with his real forelimbs in an instant.
Boom!
The strike moved faster than thought.
Garoth’s massive claws carried surging dragon qi and surging golden lightning, piercing through the phoenix’s elemental body in an instant, causing her entire form to violently twist and fragment; within her body golden lightning and black-red dragon qi crazily writhed, colliding fiercely with the flames that formed her body.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Garoth took no mercy, his monstrous dragon arms hammering continuously at the phoenix.
The phoenix screamed in pain,
beak, talons, fiery wings—all offensive parts of her body—frenziedly counterattacked Garoth!
But as another top-tier fire supernormal creature, her fire damage felt to Garoth like hardly a scratch; only her high-penetration beak strikes posed some threat, and even then very limited, unable to inflict decisive harm.
With ruthless time passing, the phoenix’s body visibly dimmed; her sheen faded.
The golden lightning and black-red dragon qi that had invaded her body could no longer be suppressed, surfacing and visibly flickering across her form.
Her life force rapidly weakened and wilted.
Suddenly, as if making a decision, the phoenix spread her massive wings wide—not to attack but to wrap herself around the dragon’s body.
This was not an affectionate embrace.
Her previously dim body burst into furious flames anew.
Not ordinary fire, but nirvana-flame springing from every feather and inch of flesh, golden-red streams coursing along feather veins! Her body gradually turned translucent as if made of pure energy, while the flames grew even more violent.
“Damn dragon! We’ll perish together!”
The phoenix’s cry suddenly climbed, turning into a shrill wail that pierced the rain.
Her body ballooned like breath blown into it; the light between her feathers shifted from glorious golden-red to destructive, blistering white.
Boom—!!!
The dim sky brightened in that instant, like daylight.
The phoenix’s body nearly became a miniature sun; extreme light and heat exploded at once.
The expanding white-hot sphere centered on her devoured everything around it instantly.
The terrifying shockwave swept outward like a tangible tsunami, even briefly vaporizing a huge rainless, cloudless vacuum in the sky!
Because the distance was so close, Garoth couldn’t fully evade the suicidal detonation in time.
He was swallowed by white light; his Frostburst Scales cracked inch by inch under the dual effects of extreme heat and the destructive shock, then shattered and peeled away.
The heat drawn from his Dragon Pearl also surged to a peak in an instant.
The phoenix’s nirvana flame was indeed extraordinary.
Even Garoth felt again the rare burning pain of being scorched.
It had been a long time since he had felt such agony.
But that was all.
When the white blaze gradually dispersed and the shockwave subsided into aftershocks,
the red iron dragon spread his huge wings and stood proudly amid the dimming flames.
His Frostburst Scales had been stripped away, leaving a layer of dark-red scales etched with battle-hardened patterns, like flowing lava—looking more fierce and robust than before.
“Nirvana flame... truly formidable.”
“But unfortunate for you, you met me.”
Garoth’s gaze looked forward.
The uncontrolled nirvana flames around, not yet fully dissipated, suddenly seemed to gain life, twisting unnaturally and then converging like rivers into the center point, condensing again into the phoenix’s resplendent outline.
And astonishingly, her life force truly restored to its original peak.
Her eyes first showed confusion and daze, as if waking from a deep dream.
But when she saw the dragon figure ahead seemingly unscathed, all her memory rushed back, and her eyes filled with fierce hostility and an unmistakable trace of fear.
Whoosh!
Without hesitation, the newly reborn phoenix vibrated her wings, flames surging, and turned to flee.
She pushed her speed to the extreme.
But Garoth was faster.
Creatures with such immense strength and defense typically lack speed, but he was an exception—speed was his strength.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
With consecutive thunderous sonic booms, he easily caught up to the fleeing phoenix and delivered another merciless barrage.
The phoenix did her utmost to dodge, block, and counterattack, using fire spells and nimble maneuvers.
However, faced with such a huge gap, everything felt futile.
Her body was ultimately forced full of Garoth’s domineering golden lightning and black-red dragon qi.
“Argh!!! I’ll go all out with you!”
The phoenix’s cry rang out.
Boom—!!!
A second miniature sun rose beneath the gloomy sky as she was forced into a second nirvana.
When her body painfully recondensed from the flames again, she saw in despair that across from her the red iron dragon, though his scales were cracked by the great explosions into countless dense fissures, was not grievously injured; his aura had barely dropped and remained as strong as a furnace.
“Probably... I’d have to self-explode into nirvana at least ten consecutive times... only then might I truly severely wound him.”
The phoenix despaired internally.
Ten times?
Once more would exhaust her conventional nirvana uses, forcing her to trigger the final rebirth nirvana and become an ember-egg.
Nirvana teleportation might escape the immediate deadly trouble but would cost her this life’s personality, turning her into a new, unfamiliar self.
Although her essence remained, she resisted it fiercely.
“Let’s continue.”
Garoth seemed tireless; in a blink he beat his wings and closed in again,
he wanted to feel the scorching burn of nirvana flame once more.
“Wa-wait! I surrender!”
The phoenix hurriedly backed up a little to gain distance and begged, “I will give you all my accumulated treasures! As compensation for defeat, for peace.”
She had the habit of collecting glowing magic gems and precious metals, accumulating considerable wealth.
She hoped to use these external possessions to escape her trouble.
Garoth paused slightly, not immediately attacking.
He appraised the magnificent but somewhat disheveled phoenix and said, “The Dragon Legacy tells me phoenixes often hide wealth in their nests.”
“If I thoroughly scatter you, I can personally take everything from your nest.”
“Your treasures are mine for the taking.”
The phoenix’s expression froze.
“Treasure cannot satisfy my appetite.”
Garoth’s gaze swept the phoenix as he continued, “Alternate condition: sign a pact and follow me, pledge loyalty to me for a hundred years.”
A hundred years?
For an immortal species like the phoenix, that was not unacceptable.
Yet the phoenix still showed clear resistance,
“I admit your power far surpasses mine, but—”
She blinked her burning beautiful eyes and found a bizarre reason: “—my beauty surpasses yours! I will not pledge allegiance to a creature... um, less beautiful than me.”
She seemed to try to preserve her last dignity or haggle with that odd tactic.
Garoth: “...”
After a second of silence,
the red iron dragon’s silhouette suddenly vanished again.
The next moment, fierce attacks descended upon the phoenix once more.
After a merciless series of rapid strikes, the phoenix’s body was again filled with raging dragon qi and lightning; her splendid feathers became twisted, messy, and dull from the energy impact, losing their previous dazzling brilliance, turning gray and ragged, looking like a mangy bird.
Garoth halted his assault.
He spoke deliberately, unhurried, “After my personal management, I should be more beautiful than you. Surrender or keep exploding into nirvana, choose yourself.”
The phoenix looked at her no-longer-colorful feathers in anguish, feeling the violent energy within her body about to burst.
In the end, reason conquered pride; she made the pragmatic choice.
She bowed her once-proud, beautiful head, and the flames around her fully reined in, signaling submission.
Garoth turned his attention to the other sector of the battlefield where the commotion was dying down, understanding in his heart.
After this battle, the northwest region would no longer have any force capable of stopping the Molten Iron Tribe’s advance.
As for other rising Map Kings across the wilderness... Garoth did not intend to provoke cross-regional war in the short term.
The Ser Wilderness is vast; merely fully digesting the northwest would require a massive amount of time.
Next came consolidating the existing huge territory, safely reaping and digesting the fruits of victory, not blindly expanding and risking an unstable foundation.
In fact, aside from the most uncontrollable red dragon Gorthax, Garoth did not mind sharing this vast wilderness with other relatively rational Map Kings.
The cake was too large.
Given the Molten Iron Tribe’s current scale and development stage, it couldn’t monopolize the entire wilderness; forcibly seizing everything risked collapse.
After unifying the northwest region,
Garoth could settle down and focus more on how to deal with his biological dragon father. He had a premonition he would soon come into conflict with him.