novelraw Chapter 359: The Death of the Mad King, The Wild Red Iron Dragon
Chapter 359: The Death of the Mad King, The Wild Red Iron Dragon
Chapter 359: The Mad King’s Death, The Wild Red Iron Dragon
Thick leaden clouds hung low, almost within reach, cold wind and rain falling in relentless sheets.
Pea-sized raindrops hammered against the dragon’s steel-like scales, shattering on impact and, from the high heat, vaporizing into finer steam that rose and spread along the contour of the dragon’s body.
Gorthax was already firmly restrained by the iron-clawed grip of the Lord of Molten Iron.
At first he continued to writhe and struggle wildly, his mouth erupting with roars and snarls full of unwillingness and fury. Yet as all resistance became meaningless, his rage slowly began to subside, and the deep, inextricable bloodlust in his eyes gradually faded.
He stopped his pointless thrashing.
He lifted his huge head and stared straight into the deep dragon pupils of the red iron dragon. There was no dying acceptance or fear in his eyes, only an even more intense hatred. He spat, “Damn mongrel! My blood flows in you! Your strength, your existence, all of it comes from me!”
“And now you turn and try to slay your origin! Ungrateful spawn!”
The red iron dragon only tilted his head slightly and remained silent, his enormous body motionless in the wind and rain, unnervingly calm.
At that moment, Gorthax’s voice abruptly faltered.On that ferocious dragon face, as if by sleight of hand, a sycophantic, flattering smile formed, and his tone became unusually gentle.
“Good son, just now... I was too excited and said some nonsense.”
He went on, “Ungrateful? That’s always been a virtue of our evil dragon kind! You did very well, truly excellent!”
“Since we are after all father and son sharing blood, spare me. We can reconcile, leave each other in peace, what do you say?”
“This wilderness could be ruled by father and son together in the future!”
The red iron dragon remained silent.
Gorthax’s smile froze, then dissolved like ice and snow. His expression darkened so suddenly it seemed to drip water, and his tone turned sharp.
“You little bastard! Do you want to hear me beg you, tail between my legs, sobbing and begging for mercy?”
“Ha! Did my soft words feel good just now? No! That was me in a playful mood, teasing you!” His gaze became murderous again.
“Don’t think you’ve won just because of this!”
“I swear! Even if I fall into the deepest pits of hell, I will crawl back! Father and son, we will meet again!”
“When that day comes, I will not only snap your neck with my own hands, I will listen to your cries of agony and tear you apart piece by piece! I will make you feel endless pain!”
..........
Defeated by his own offspring and left to such a miserable end, Gorthax’s heart swelled with extreme unwillingness and humiliation.
He alternated between groveling pleas, hysterical curses, and venomous threats; his mental state was clearly still in chaotic madness.
Garoth remained silent from beginning to end.
But in truth, he did not deliberately maintain that posture.
At this moment his inner being was being burned and occupied by a surging flame.
It was not a physical fire but a furious, blazing rage that had ignited out of nowhere.
This fury carried with it an indescribable viciousness and madness, tinting the edges of his vision with a lingering blood-red; even the falling rain seemed to have turned into sticky blood.
Deep in his ears, countless small, tempting whispers seemed to persistently sound.
They incited him to kill and to destroy.
They urged him to unleash the most primal rage within, to tear everything before him into pieces.
From the moment of Gorthax’s fury, Garoth had inevitably been affected by that anger. Coupled with the ferocity of the entire fight, he had no time or space to steady his mind and dispel this negative influence.
As time passed, instead of subsiding, the suppressed wrath in his heart grew like fuel continuously being added, becoming more violent and rampant—only temporarily restrained beneath his powerful will and hidden behind a surface of seeming placid calm.
Now, with the battle over, it all erupted.
This deep mind-targeted corruption was far beyond what a Wild Dragon’s normal abilities should cause.
There was no doubt it came from frenzied flame.
In fact, it was precisely because this frenzied flame interfered with the attackers’ minds that the previously tight siege formation lost coordination and each fought separately. Otherwise, with everyone’s combined force, killing Gorthax would have been much easier.
“Why do I feel such uncontrollable anger?”
Garoth forced his remaining reason to concentrate, trying to calm the inner agitation and violence.
He lowered his head to inspect his severely wounded dragon body.
He was stained with abundant blood—some from his own deep, bone-deep wounds, and some belonging to Gorthax. That scalding dragon blood, streaming with the rain, seemed to be partially seeping through his own wounds and merging somehow with his body.
“Frenzied flame... it transferred to me through Gorthax’s blood?”
The red iron dragon had a sense of this.
He vaguely felt that each close contact with Gorthax, especially after being stained by the other’s dragon blood, deepened the frenzied flame’s corrupting influence like a festering malignancy.
At some point, his dragon pupils had already taken on the same blood-red color as Gorthax’s.
The frenzied blaze in his mind was raging hotter and hotter, constantly battering the dam of his reason.
However, unlike Gorthax’s outward mania, though the inner waters were storm-tossed, Garoth’s exterior remained disturbingly calm.
That contrast between inner and outer made him even more dangerous.
“You bastard! What are you hesitating for? Have you really grown that ridiculous hidden compassion, planning to spare me?”
Gorthax continued to sputter.
His resentful and taunting words pierced at the taut nerves of the red iron dragon like needles, stirring an indescribable irritation.
Garoth wanted to end Gorthax immediately and completely, but a faint remnant of clarity warned him that killing Gorthax here and now might let the frenzied flame sink deeper into him.
“I don’t need your charity or pity! I swear, if I have a chance, I will tear you to pieces someday! Kill all those you cherish! Let you taste the ultimate pain...”
Before Gorthax could finish, he was cut off by a low, restrained roar that seemed squeezed from the depths of a throat.
“Shut up!”
The last thread of patience in Garoth’s blood-red eyes finally snapped.
He could no longer suppress the churning irritation and rage inside.
The muscles of the dragon arm that gripped Gorthax’s neck bulged horribly, a tremendous force exploding in an instant. There came the sickening sounds of scales cracking and tough flesh being forcibly torn.
“...I will... come back...!”
Gorthax’s throat suddenly contracted. Using his last breath, he stammered those bitter words. His huge eyes, losing focus, fixed on the red iron dragon at close range, and he did not close them when his breath finally ceased, as if trying to carve the image of his patricide’s face onto his soul.
That unwavering gaze poured fuel onto Garoth’s inner rage, setting it ablaze hotter.
Simply snapping the neck could not vent the violent emotion that threatened to consume him.
Rip!
With a clothing-tearing sound, Garoth’s claws plunged deep into Gorthax’s neck, tearing through scales and flesh.
He let out a long-suppressed low cry and violently tore the red dragon’s head from its neck.
Scalding dragon blood spewed like a fountain, swiftly washed by the cold rain.
With one claw he casually toyed with the severed head that still wore an expression, while looking down from above as the headless dragon body fell to the muddy ground with a dull thud.
Only after all this did a cruel satisfaction cross his blood-red eyes.
Boom!
Just then, a thunderclap split the dim sky and lit the heavens for an instant.
Dragons and gigantic beasts scattered and gravely wounded in different places weakly lifted their heads to the sky.
In their view, the red iron dragon floated in wind and rain, clutching the enemy’s head, his imposing and ferocious silhouette clearly reflected—an instinctive chill climbed from their hearts.
In their memory, the Lord of Molten Iron had always been powerful and majestic, but not a cruel and brutal dragon.
Yet now, suspended in the storm, there was no obvious emotion on his dragon face—an eerie calm—but he radiated an extremely dangerous and evil aura.
This feeling was fundamentally similar to the madness that had consumed Gorthax.
“Garoth, he’s been corrupted by frenzied flame?”
Alberto’s chest heaved violently as he panted, the heavy thought surfacing in his mind.
Garoth had briefly mentioned the frenzied flame to him before, but had never detailed how fearfully it could erode the mind.
Perhaps even Garoth himself had not fully understood before now, and he had now been infected.
At the same time,
The Lord of Molten Iron suddenly folded his massive wings and dove down to alight before the gravely injured Gold Dragon, his vast shadow completely covering Alberto.
“Alberto.”
He stared at the gold dragon for a few seconds, then suddenly asked, “Tell me, why didn’t you use your life-saving spell-inscribed scale until the end?”
“Were you... hoping I and the Mad King would perish together?”
“Were you waiting to swoop in and reap the rewards? Or deep down, did you want to see two evil dragon bloodlines disappear? After all, you once said you wanted to eradicate the Mad King’s calamity.”
Alberto carried a powerful life-preserving spell-inscribed scale. Though against Garoth’s current state it might not be a guaranteed fatal counter, it could at least unleash an effect comparable to a full-power blow from the Mad King or from himself.
At a critical moment it could have reversed the situation or reduced casualties.
Yet from start to finish, the gold dragon had not used that scale.
Garoth’s voice remained as steady and calm as ever.
But beneath that calm, Alberto felt a surging current of danger like an undersea riptide.
For a moment he imagined his familiar ally baring horrifying fangs.
As if a single unsatisfactory answer might provoke a merciless brutal strike the next moment.
Alberto clenched against the pain from his wounds and answered, “When I went to scout the northeastern area, I encountered the Mountain Giant King.”
“After a fierce battle, to escape I depleted the energy stored in the scale.”
Among the Map Kings in the northeast wilderness, the Mountain King was the most formidable—a rising regional king candidate.
Hearing that he had killed another plague dragon Map King, Alberto went to investigate and was forced into a clash, having no choice but to use his trump card.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Or ask me for support?”
Garoth tilted his huge head, a motion that seemed especially unsettling at that moment.
“Alberto, are you doubting me? Doubting my ability to deal with the Mountain King? Or do you think that I, your ally with evil dragon blood flowing through me, am not worthy of your full trust?”
He volleyed question after question, the danger in his tone growing denser.
His blood-red pupils narrowed slightly as he scrutinized Alberto, as if sizing up every tiny reaction of prey.
Alberto drew a deep breath and replied gravely, “Garoth, we are allies bound by pact.”
“But that does not mean I must report every action and detail to you.”
“I have my own way of handling things. The problems I can solve myself, I do not habitually rely on outside aid. This is not about trust.”
Facing the red iron dragon, who was clearly not himself, he did not mince words and continued, “Garoth, wake up!”
“You are under severe influence from frenzied flame!”
“Do not forget the powerful origins that birthed you!”
“Use reason to steer your power—that is the Garoth I know. The true you would never be led by frenzy!”
Upon hearing this, Garoth’s pupils suddenly contracted into dangerous vertical slits; the blood-red light flared.
Violence filled his dragon face in an instant. With his current imposing and savage posture, that expression made him far more dreadful and sinister than Gorthax had been.
“Garoth, calm down!”
Nearby, the iron dragon Sorog summoned his remaining spiritual energy and tried to cast a mental spell to stabilize Garoth’s nearly uncontrollable mind.
However,
As soon as his spiritual energy touched Garoth’s mind, it was like striking an invisible yet blazing flame; the effort was instantly consumed and produced no effect.
“Shut up, all of you! Are you lecturing me on how to act?!”
The red iron dragon let out a deafening roar, took a savage step forward, and raised a claw that could shatter mountains toward the gold dragon’s head!
A vicious claw wind scattered the rain from Alberto’s brow.
But just as the flashing claw was about to strike the gold dragon’s skull, it abruptly froze in midair.
Garoth clamped his eyes shut and began taking deep breaths, one after another, inhaling large quantities of air laced with icy raindrops, and exhaling heavily.
He stood stiff as a statue, chest heaving violently, steam of heated breath puffing from his nostrils.
Only after several minutes did the suffocating pressure slightly abate.
Garoth slowly opened his eyes. The unsettling blood-red pupils had faded, returning to their original deep black.
“Some of the frenzied flame transferred to me,” Garoth said with a hint of fatigue but more solemnity. “Its effect on my mind is very strong. I cannot promise that I will be able to control myself perfectly at every moment.”
By sheer tempered will and rock-solid mental fortitude, he had temporarily suppressed the frenzied flame’s corrosion and regained clarity.
But he could still clearly feel a desire for destruction and slaughter accumulating within.
More precisely, this fire did not burn in his heart but directly erupted in his mental world.
Yet Garoth did not appear overly nervous or panicked.
He knew himself better than anyone else.
He believed that if given enough time, the negative effects of the frenzied flame would be gradually overcome by his adaptive talent, becoming controllable.
Perhaps, he could even tame this dangerous force and turn it into another formidable trump card.
“Garoth...”
Leticia, the iron dragon matriarch, caught her breath and looked at her powerful yet presently worrisome offspring. “I remember clearly—frenzied flame’s influence is insidious and grows over time.”
“I trust your will is far firmer than Gorthax’s. You would not willingly embrace madness.”
“But precisely because of that, you must not be careless! Otherwise it will twist your mind without you noticing and drag you into the abyss.”
Garoth bowed his head slightly.
“I understand the danger and I know what I must do next.”
Then he stood in the wind and rain, his gaze slowly sweeping over the wounded dragons and his own liege lords.
Gorthax’s strength had been undeniable.
If not for the strategy of many against the few, Garoth estimated that with a one-on-one fight he would have had little chance to first force out Gorthax’s enraged and wild states.
Although the attackers’ cooperation had nearly collapsed under the frenzied-induced stupidity, their presence still inflicted sustained wear and accumulating wounds on Gorthax.
Many of Garoth’s effective strikes had been dealt while Gorthax was distracted by others.
In a pure single combat duel, Garoth judged his odds slim.
The best outcome would likely have been to use a Dragon Pearl to restore himself and then retreat strategically.
If, in a fierce fight, he had lost reason under the frenzied flame and chosen a death match with Gorthax... then the one standing at the end might well have been the Mad King, not this Lord of Molten Iron.
Meanwhile,
Other dragons either lay powerless in the mud, or leaned against rocks to gasp for breath, or struggled to stand.
Although their wounds looked horrifying, thanks to dragons’ robust vitality, the Holy Spirit Deer’s costly healing efforts, and Gorthax concentrating his main attacks on Garoth, there had been no instant deaths; their lives had been preserved.
Garoth’s gaze then fell on his non-dragon liege lords.
The Holy Spirit Deer had overexerted itself in healing and had fallen into faintness, its breath faint.
Healing giant dragons and other powerful monstrous lieges had been an enormous burden.
The Amethyst Dragon Lion Enror’s skull had collapsed and deformed, his face frozen with blood, a pitiful sight, yet his chest still rose with a faint breath.
The tenacious dragon blood kept him from truly dying—so long as that breath remained, true death had not come.
The phoenix Ankhia looked to be in the best condition. She had gone through nirvana twice, using self-immolation attacks on Gorthax and died twice, but afterward suffered no consequential harm.
Finally, Garoth’s gaze fixed on Lord Flower Shire.
This talented human, likely to become the Molten Iron Tribe’s first legendary, now lay quietly among rubble with dull, vacant pupils.
A massive through-and-through blood hole marred his chest; many bones were twisted or broken.
He was lifeless.
Without legendary power or a domain, a human body was ultimately too fragile in such massive beast warfare.
Moreover, the Arcane Knight and Boundary Walker paths were not known for exceptional defense or survival.
Shire died on the spot from Gorthax’s wild-state, fatal headbutt.
Garoth fell silent. Bloodshot threads crawled into his eyes.
The grief over a liege lord’s death fed the frenzied flame, and the wrath surged again in his chest, making the red tinge threaten to return to his eyes.
However,
Before other dragons or followers could speak up to warn him, the red iron dragon breathed deeply and slowly, forcing the turbulent rage down once more.
His tempered mind and adaptive talent meant the frenzied flame could shake and test him but could not ultimately master or control him.
“Seraphina, take the phylactery and hurry to the battlefield at top speed.”
Garoth gave the black dragon a clear order.
Though Shire had died, his soul was resilient and strong; it should linger in the corpse for a short time.
Using the phylactery to preserve his soul in time might leave an opportunity for future resurrection.
“Sorog, Samantha.”
Garoth looked to his two kin with a serious, low voice. “My mental state is unstable right now. If externally provoked, I may do irrational things with unpredictable consequences.”
After a moment’s thought he continued, “I will first return to the convergence lands, concentrate all my spirit, and slowly overcome and adapt to the frenzied flame’s negative influence.”
“During this time, the affairs in the wilderness will be temporarily handled by you.”
“If any thorny problems arise that you cannot resolve, notify me immediately.”
After hearing his arrangements, Leticia and Alberto both nodded, saying they would help look after the Molten Iron Tribe.
“What about Gorthax’s remains?” Sorog asked.
“Cut into pieces and store them. They are our spoils.”
A mature dragon carcass was extremely valuable; Garoth’s pragmatic nature would never allow waste.
“I will be back soon.”
After a brief exchange, the red iron dragon left his final words and did not hesitate further.
He suddenly beat his wings, his massive body rocketing upward and turning into a meteor in the storm, quickly vanishing into the vast curtain of rain toward the convergence lands.
Returning to the convergence lands was not only to deal with the frenzied flame’s infection.
This near-death, extreme battle had given Garoth a new grasp of power and death; he had vaguely touched the threshold of the Eternal Death path and needed time to digest and breakthrough.
His ideal outcome would be to successfully cultivate the Eternal Death path in tandem, learn to control the frenzied flame, and then tread the Wild Dragon path.
The Wild path had heavy side effects.
Gorthax’s end was a clear example.
But its strength was undeniable.
After using the Dragon Pearl, Garoth’s second life had actually been weakened because he could not activate Crimson Lotus Form—but if he could learn the Wild State, there was no doubt it would grant another powerful skill.