novelraw Chapter 515: Life and Death, the Truly Undying Dragon!
Chapter 515: Life and Death, the Truly Undying Dragon!
Twilight Plains, the central battlefield.
Beneath the thick, fathomless night, two torrents of will-burning hatred converged without a sound.
The air reeked of rust, earth, and a faint metallic tang of blood — the scent of a great battle about to erupt. The plain’s wind seemed to hang frozen.
On one side stood the Lothrian host.
Layers of magical light overlapped, runes flowed across shields, armor, and war machines. The mages’ chants combined in the air into thunder.
On the other side was Aola.
Their battle fervor roared wildly, a savage tide crushing across the plain.
The distance between the two forces resonated with the tremor of the earth. When the vanguards finally entered visual range, it was like two floodgates, swollen and full, bursting at once with a thunderous crash.
“For Lothrian and King Raymond!”
His shout cut through everything.At his cry, points of light trembled into being.
“For the great Emperor Ignas! With the enemy’s blood, we consecrate Aola’s dragon banner!”
Lothrian’s response was a mountain-moving roar.
The high, piercing yips of gnolls, the low, guttural roars of ogres, the deep war-cries of centaurs — these voices merged into a furious wave that crashed back toward Lothrian’s ranks.
Above Aola’s formations, a phenomenon also formed.
Soldiers’ high-spirited battle-morale, boiling bloodlust, even the craving for combat itself, were pulled together by invisible links in the formation.
A dark red energy, viscous as crude oil, steamed up from the ranks, rolling and interweaving in the sky until it built into a towering, mountain-like apparition — Aola’s war-soul.
Its shape shifted constantly, but it hovered above the host, exuding a heavy, violent pressure.
The war-soul’s presence made the bloodthirsty red glint in every Aola soldier’s eyes flare brighter.
The gap between the two armies closed to zero at a dizzying pace.
The silence before contact was first shattered by a roar from Lothrian’s rear.
Heavy arcane cannons spat streaks of searing white flame meters long.
Shells burning with magical light tore through the night, dragging hundreds if not thousands of blazing trails like backwards meteor showers, and slammed into the charging Aola tide.
Almost simultaneously, the ballistae positions screamed with denser whines.
Massive quarrels the thickness of arms, their tips engraved with armor-piercing runes, launched. Their targets were the largest, most hit-prone beasts and heavy constructs among Aola’s ranks.
Flames and wind ripped across battlefield sky and ground.
Aola’s army was not weak — in scale and ferocity they rivaled Lothrian — but in both scale and precision they fell short of Lothrian.
Yet they answered with the most direct means available. Gnolls and war-saurians darted through gaps at high speed; ogres and giant ogres raised heavy shields, battering through as they closed.
Following behind the war-golems came heavily-armored troops in full plate, carrying tower shields nearly as tall as themselves and armor-piercing spears over three meters long.
They clustered tightly around the war-golems, every one an elite.
Shields locked into a wall, spears stood like a forest.
The Oath of Ten Thousand Armies’ light flowed among the human soldiers, binding them into an indomitable formation.
Further back were assault infantry with double-edged halberds and mid-weight armor.
They waited for the golems and heavy infantry to make or force a breach, standing ready to rush in and widen any gap.
On the wings, Lothrian’s light cavalry and nimble constructs had formed battle lines, wary of Aola’s own cavalry.
Aola’s frontal charge presented a completely different picture.
At the very front surged the heavy shock cavalry of the Starbreaker Maul warhost.
These riders were mostly burly ogres and giant-ogre warriors, clad in layered forged plate and wielding war hammers and massive axes.
Their mounts were armored rhinos.
Back when Aola was the Clan of Molten Iron, they began domesticating armored rhinos; after founding the kingdom they scaled the program into a mature system. Over years this became a perfected assault unit, absorbed into the Starbreaker Maul warhost as the spearhead.
The giant rhinos wore riveted heavy steel plate. Their frontal horns had been specially reinforced and inscribed with crude runes to enhance impact and durability.
Now, the rhinos lowered their heads and aimed at Lothrian’s golem line, beginning their final sprint.
Boom! Boom! Crash!
Deafening sounds of metal torquing and tearing, bone-crushing, bestial roars, and overloaded golem engine explosions erupted almost at once.
Some armored rhinos smashed golem internal mechanisms into scrap, their internal machinery torn apart; some golems had outer plates cleaved by axes, hot blood and oil spouting.
At the collision points, sparks flew and the ground was ripped open.
At nearly the same instant, Lothrian’s heavy infantry responded; spears thrust, shields braced, and the front lines shattered and reformed in a brutal, instantaneous dance.
The battlefield transformed in a heartbeat.
It wasn’t only ground fighting.
Lothrian’s great-eagle knights, flying constructs, aerial war-golems tangled with Aola’s air force of eagles, lion beasts, and bipedal wyverns.
Those advanced aerial golems squared off against young, heavily-armored dragonkin on Aola’s side.
They chased and struck at each other.
Dragon breath and artillery fire rose and fell; explosions periodically lit the night.
The most soul-stirring clashes, however, were between the colossal behemoths.
In Lothrian’s lines, towering war-golems—over twenty meters shoulder-high, like walking fortresses—strided into the field.
Forged from enchanted metal throughout, runes winked at their joints.
Huge furnaces roared in their chests, fueled by black oil crystals or similarly-tiered matter, while their arms were often modified into multi-barreled alchemical cannons, giant chainsword blades, or siege hammers.
They had a clear objective.
The massive ferocious beasts in Aola’s ranks.
A colossal lion-beast, armored with thick plate and rocklike musculature, thundered across Lothrian’s soldiers.
A heavy golem’s shell-bursting shell struck the lion’s flank, shattering outer armor and ripping flesh and muscle to leave a multi-meter-wide crater of gore.
The lion roared, spun, and fixed its gaze on the golem that hurt it.
Abandoning the soldiers before it, it charged the war-golem with mountain-toppling momentum.
The golem adjusted.
Boom!
Metal twisted, plates dented, then the golem’s giant chainsword arm began to bite.
Screeching grinding sounds rang out.
The chainsaw’s teeth stained red across the golem’s arm and the ground below.
The lion’s body, badly mangled, tried to tear at the golem’s mouth with its fangs.
Pfft! Boom!
Explosions erupted as the golem’s mouth and armor were shredded.
Elsewhere, Lothrian’s magical golems, advanced war machines, and elite soldiers — though the fighting was brutal — steadily held the advantage.
On the northern line — a grinding of steel against flesh — a small elite contingent of Lothrian soldiers locked teeth with Aola’s ogres.
Lothrian fighters advanced in slick five-man formations: shield warders interlocked, spearmen thrust, and crossbowmen took precise shots in perfect coordination. Ogres’ teamwork was a bit weaker, but each ogre possessed strength far beyond ordinary humans.
An ogre sergeant swung a door-sized war-axe. Every sweep could cleave through shields and the men behind them. Though his body was studded with arrows and broken spear tips, he seemed unbothered, growing more bloodthirsty with each kill, laughing as he smashed a Lothrian soldier and his armor into paste.
At that moment, a cavalry captain charged in.
Riding a warhorse, he plunged his lance through the arm the ogre raised to block; momentum carried the spear through the ogre’s chest.
The ogre’s laugh stopped mid-sound.
He looked down at the blood-soaked spear tip in his chest, staggered, and then collapsed into dust.
A faint, dim spirit — barely noticeable to ordinary eyes — rose from the ogre’s corpse and was sucked upward into the sky.
His death did little to dampen the fighting spirit around him; the other Aola soldiers kept fighting, growing more frenzied at the richer, stronger scent of blood.
The cavalry captain did not pause. With a flick of his lance he unseated another centaur warrior, opening a brief gap for the infantry behind him. He and his riders swept on like a whirlwind, searching relentlessly for the next valuable target.
Elsewhere, the Amethyst Dragon Lion was opening the gateway of star-magic.
A meteor was summoned and hurled down, gouging a massive pit.
At the pit’s base the Amethyst Dragon Lion shuddered and, in the incandescent firelight, its wounds visibly knit and regenerate.
The legendary creatures of Aola possessed vitality far beyond human legendary types.
Across the battlefield, the phoenix streaked like a blazing comet, darting through the sky and shedding scalding feathers of molten-hot fire quite capable of melting metal.
Suddenly, the phoenix sensed the clamor of battle blur and recede.
It glanced around warily and found a deep shadow creeping over it.
Swish!
A blotted black silhouette peeled out of the darkness and appeared directly overhead.
A dagger, void of shine as if it drank all light, silently struck the phoenix’s skull.
This shadow was Lothrian’s legendary assassin, Serenity’s Blade.
A master of stealth and one-hit kills, he was Lothrian’s hidden sword. His dagger, “Kiss of Silence,” was legendary, carrying the horrifying life-severing effect that could corrode the very source of vitality.
Thrust.
At the impact point, black filaments of death spread quickly across the phoenix’s resplendent flaming body.
Where they traveled, the blazing fire seemed polluted, frozen, and dulled into lifeless black patches.
“How ugly! How ugly! I am angry!”
The phoenix felt the violation of its life-force and the spreading, ugly black splotches across its gorgeous wings. It recoiled in extreme disgust.
Boom!
Self-destruct! Legendary creatures sometimes carried countermeasures.
But the glare was blinding at the blast’s edge. Items on the assassin’s person were reduced to powder in the flash.
“Close...”
Serenity’s Blade breathed a quiet relief. The item he prized most had saved him; if not for it, he would have been obliterated.
Elsewhere, Iron Dragons streaked, Red Dragons roared, White Dragons dodged. Three legendary dragons, wounded and slashed by higher-level and more numerous Lothrian legendaries, bore increasing scars yet pressed on, relying on immense bodies and indomitable will to stand against the Lothrian legends.
Aola’s Fang and Aola’s Edge fared similarly.
The human legendaries from Theo and other duchies supporting Lothrian, faced with Lothrian’s heavier legendary presence, showed signs of strain.
They mostly adopted defensive stances, barely holding under Lothrian’s furious onslaught.
On the legendary battlefield as a whole, Lothrian indisputably held the upper hand.
They had greater legendary numbers, higher average levels, and generally superior equipment.
Yet to instantly slay any single Aola legendary within a short time was nearly impossible.
Aola’s legendaries — dragons, dragon-lions, phoenixes, even dragon-blooded beings like Aola’s Fang — possessed a bodily foundation, vitality, and regenerative capacity far beyond same-tier human legendaries.
Even when outclassed by a large margin, they were extremely difficult to kill quickly.
Meanwhile, King Raymond of Lothrian fought in the thick of things.
Dawnlight was already drawn, its blade stained with blood, and it cut down many Aola soldiers.
Now he led several legendaries in a fierce assault on the Aola war-soul.
Though not a true living being, the war-soul — the concentration of the whole Aola host’s morale and will — operated at a power level far beyond ordinary high-tier legendaries.
Despite the king and allied legendaries’ combined assaults, the war-soul’s resilience remained extraordinary.
But Raymond’s mind was clear.
From start to finish, his gaze always returned to the Red Emperor.
Garoth had not personally stepped onto this battlefield.
Raymond’s eyes flicked over the Red Emperor’s direction more than once.
Why...
Raymond’s chest swelled with a thought: he had resolved earlier to expend extreme measures to force Garoth to act, even risking the king’s own life.
If Garoth personally landed on the field, prearranged setups around him could immediately make him fall into an extremely unfavorable situation.
It was an obvious trap.
Yet in past wars, the Red Emperor often appeared at key moments and with incomparable presence turned the tide. He clearly relished being the center of attention, dominating the battlefield.
In the midst of a million soldiers, capturing or beheading Lothrian’s king...
That glory should be enough for the giant dragon to risk some danger.
At that instant, the war-soul’s massive claw slammed down.
Raymond seemed distracted for half a beat and had to block hurriedly.
The giant claw struck Dawnlight, and Raymond grunted, sent tumbling backward and losing contact with his guards.
The opening was fleeting.
But the legends all sensed it.
One by one, Aola’s legendaries turned their heads and focused on the king, hoping to seize the honor of capturing Lothrian’s monarch. Unfortunately, most were suppressed by Lothrian’s legendaries and could not act.
Only the Red Emperor could seize that chance.
Yet the hovering dragon silhouette merely tilted his head slightly, dismissing the clumsy human king’s ambition, and once more withdrew his gaze to survey the entire battlefield.
Garoth lowered his gaze and watched calmly.
He wasn’t eager to personally intervene.
On one hand, patience; on the other, a sober understanding of the real gap between old powers like Lothrian and Aola’s host.
Now, in this most decisive battlefield, Garoth had never pinned the hope of winning the war on his host.
He never intended the host to replace him in decisive fights.
They existed to control vast lands, to gather resources and wealth for the emperor, and to sustain the system that fed his growth — and to handle plain conflicts Garoth didn’t want to attend to in person.
Battles deciding the kingdom’s fate, crushing great enemies — those have always been, and should always be,
“Battles that belong only to me.”
The Red Iron Dragon’s voice was low and grave.
Down below the fight was already clear.
Lothrian’s advantage widened, Aola’s defense buckled under pressure.
Waiting further made no sense.
“The Lothrian king seems desperate for me to strike him… fine, as he wishes. But he is not the target.”
Garoth’s eyes blazed and his aura shifted from calm to dangerous.
His wings unfurled in a sudden, sweeping motion; Dragon Qi surged and extended along them left and right until his wingspan became many times his body length.
But Garoth still did not look at the human king.
His gaze locked instead on the cluster where Lothrian’s legendaries had gathered.
Serenity’s Blade’s attack on the phoenix had been paused mid-action, but before he could do anything else, a shadow passed overhead.
Boom!
Silence shattered as the Red Iron Dragon’s right paw appeared over the assassin’s head.
Though Serenity’s Blade was an advanced legendary, he showed no desire to counterattack. A scroll-shaped phantom flickered at his side, causing spatial tremors, but as Garoth’s claw closed the space instantly hardened.
Serenity’s Blade’s face went pale with fear, then crumpled into a shadow with no substance.
Still, it was to no avail.
Garoth’s talon struck like catching a startled insect, freezing the phantom as if it were solid, then crushing it.
Crack!
The shadow was solidified and crushed.
A master assassin, specialized in stealth, killing, and escape, had been casually snatched from existence by the Red Emperor.
As Garoth slew the assassin, other Lothrian crown-levels moved to block the Red Emperor’s diving path — they could not let him kill their legends without consequence.
Tension spiked.
The phoenix’s movements slowed as if the air had turned viscous and solidified. Fortunately, the Holy Spirit responded.
Hum!
Garoth’s flame field flared. He tried to open his own domain to counter the Mandate domain’s suppression.
But his flame field, as soon as it unfurled, seemed to meet a natural enemy; cracks spread along it and then it collapsed, unable to form.
Low clouds hung in the sky.
Gale winds swept the battlefield, carrying scents of rust and scorched earth.
Garoth hovered, wings beating slow gusts of heat. His gaze fixed on the luminous silhouette before him.
The Holy Spirit.
Mandate domain — those four words weighed heavily in Garoth’s mind.
According to Reebos’ intelligence, this was one of the Holy Spirit’s skills: within its domain it suppressed any domain power below Mandate level while greatly enhancing allied legendaries’ effects.
When the Holy Spirit first appeared against Lothrian’s coalition at Valdo, this ability had already manifested.
“Luckily it’s just a partial Mandate — only the Mandate domain remains. Otherwise, against a true Mandate legendary, I’d have to withdraw.”
He bared white fangs.
Garoth scanned the four figures encircling him.
The Holy Spirit hovered before him, its humanoid silhouette blurred within the glow; to the left floated the Crowned Time Warden Sodrian, boy-faced yet oddly composed; to the right stood Grant, the Glory Paladin crown-level, armor gleaming; at the rear were the Four-Aspect crown-levels, ancient guardians of Lothrian.
“Holy Spirit, Crowned Time Warden, Glory crown-level, and the Four-Aspect crown-level.”
Garoth smiled broadly.
“You gather four against one, using your weight to press the weak. Such arrogance.”
Sodrian moved first.
The light-formed chains of the Mandate domain unfurled like heavenly bonds.
These chains were not merely physical.
Every movement cost Garoth extra energy, like wading through deep water — a domain’s suppressive effect.
“Roar!”
Almost simultaneously Garoth unleashed four surges of power from within.
Frenzied State!
Bloodburst State!
Crimson Lotus Form!
Wild State!
Against the crown-levels, Garoth hesitated not a second, activating all four battle states at once. Colossus Stance triggered as well.
The Red Emperor’s already-imposing body underwent violent metamorphosis.
Scales went molten-hot like branding iron; golden lightning and red-lotus patterns shimmered. Battle-hardened markings gleamed. His body visibly swelled, rows of spikes bristled from neck to tail, claws lengthened and sharpened, and a pair of horns rapidly extended while smaller horns jutted and interwove into a crown.
Dragon Qi rolled and condensed at neck and shoulders into a formed head and giant arm.
Four arms! Two heads!
He looked like a mythic sovereign whose majesty compelled awe.
“Come!”
Both pairs of Garoth’s eyes poured burning intent.
The left Dragon Qi head roared and lunged; one of the Dragon Qi arms flashed silver-gray.
Snap!
A piercing shattering crack rang out.
Domain-force constructs shattered.
At that moment, the Four-Aspect crown-levels moved.
The ancient martial monk closed within a hundred meters of the dragon, almost within striking distance. The colored halo behind his head rotated slowly and stopped on the yellow sector representing earth.
Mountain-Crushing Strike!
Simple, direct and utterly unadorned, the monk’s right fist packed with heavy earth-element light slammed into Garoth’s chest and abdomen.
Air compressed into visible ripples where his fist passed. The punch’s force was refined into a single focused point — no waste.
A Dragon Qi arm swept horizontally to block.
At the same time the left Dragon Qi head redirected its breath toward the Holy Spirit approaching from another vector.
Boom!!!
When the fist and arm collided, the sound was like clashing metal.
The Dragon Qi arm visibly buckled, spiderweb cracks fanning its surface; the monk’s fist tore through the Dragon Qi and hollowed a cavity within.
But the monk’s domain also trembled.
Recoil spat fine cracks along his domain’s surface.
He used momentum to withdraw and dodged Garoth’s following left-claw swing. The halo flickered; blue water streamed across his domain with ripples, absorbing the aftershock.
Behind them, Grant reacted abruptly.
His armor flashed as he called forth Glory Slash!
A massive sword formed into a brilliant arc.
Garoth felt it press against a thinner seam in his scales — a place where heavy vessels and major bloodlines lay close — yet did not turn his head.
A Dragon tail lashed through the rain with the speed to carve vacuum channels.
Clang! Snap!
Sword and tail scale met.
The Tenured Sword — a legendary blade — under the power of sacred oaths tore through Garoth’s tail scales, leaving a bone-deep gash.
Blood not yet spilled transmuted into burning blood-flame.
Red Emperor’s blood could turn into blood-flame. The crown-levels knew this well.
Grant had prepared; with a flip of his hand a shield bearing a roaring lion’s face sprang up.
Lionheart Guard!
The legendary shield bloomed light and a ghost-lion erupted from its face with a roar.
Soundwaves mixed with holy radiance repelled much of the oncoming blood-flame; the rest landed on the shield and sizzled, unable to penetrate the golden light.
But the true blow had arrived.
Garoth did not retract his tail. Momentum carried it to slam into Lionheart Guard’s surface with bone-shaking force.
Boom!!!!
The crash echoed across the field.
Grant felt his arm go numb; the shield nearly tore from his hand.
Though Lionheart absorbed most of the impact, the leftover force still hurled him like a stone from a catapult, spinning and tumbling out of control.
Seizing that opening, Garoth’s main head whipped around.
From deep in its throat a red light flared.
Destruction Breath!
At first it was but a beam.
That breath surged toward its target.
At the same time the Holy Spirit’s suppression peaked.
Heavenly Chains coiled layer upon layer, binding Garoth’s limbs and wings. Dozens of light-swords rained like needles, scoring his scales and hindering his movement.
The Four-Aspect monk seized the advantage.
The halo behind him flashed in rapid sequence — yellow, blue, cyan, red — each flash altering his attack’s attribute.
Earth’s weight, Water’s lingering drag, Wind’s swiftness, Fire’s explosive force — fists became afterimages striking Garoth’s body from multiple angles.
Under combined pressure from three crown-levels, Garoth’s motion severely slowed.
The returned breath was now dangerously close.
Whoosh!!!
Scorching flames licked the Red Emperor’s face.
Scales charred and cracked; pain stretched across his muzzle, but Garoth did not scream — he roared, even more feral.
Wounded dragons were often the most dangerous.
Unyielding Perseverance!
This passive ability allowed him to fight through wounds and convert injury into enhanced damage.
His claws clenched, tearing through wrapped space.
The Time Warden Sodrian focused his gaze on a particular target and adjusted his posture — sidestep, lean, posture.
Time flowed odd in his presence.
Sodrian didn’t aim for the head or heart; the distance was awkward and his time was limited. So his attention fell on the dragon’s arm.
Garoth felt a sudden blurring of motion in Sodrian’s figure after the latter avoided an attack.
Then excruciating pain ripped through Garoth’s right arm.
Rip! Rip! Rip!
Sodrian’s presence flashed seven times around the right arm.
Each flash delivered a sword strike.
The blades did not try to sever the limb outright — that would be wasteful — but cut tendons, ligaments at joint connections, and critical nodes of energy flow.
Seven swords, seven ring-shaped scars.
Deep to the bone; blood-flames spouted.
Thunder rumbled in the sky.
The clash between a crown-level and the colossal dragon had thrown elemental balance into chaos: clouds boiled and lightning ran like silver serpents.
A second later, a torrential rain hammered down, pea-sized droplets striking scale with loud ticks.
Garoth lowed.
Burning blood-flame flowed back and his regeneration surged.
This spectacle told the crown-levels a stark truth: Garoth’s regenerative capacity far exceeded previous intelligence.
They also knew the intelligence lacked this detail.
“You cannot give him time,” the Four-Aspect monk shouted.
The Holy Spirit answered him.
Countless points of light formed in the sky.
These light-swords were not solid. They were an elemental field — entering it subjected one continuously to four-elemental corrosion.
Earth’s weight would slow motion; Water’s viscosity would clog energy flow; Wind’s edge would slice defenses; Fire’s heat would char flesh.
Sodrian and Grant struck simultaneously.
The Time Warden’s blade gleamed silver; this time he aimed at the dragon-wing root. The Glory Paladin charged from another vector, shield in front, greatsword behind, ready for the long-awaited mighty cleave.
All four crown-levels unleashed everything.
Their goal: in this volley, to wound the Red Emperor so severely he could not regenerate quickly.
Garoth felt true pressure for the first time.
His four arms swung and claw shadows flew.
One Dragon Qi head breathed, another roared energy. Wings sliced the rain into vacuums; tail smashes produced sonic booms.
His combat technique reached its peak.
Each claw strike tore through parts of the elemental ribbons, and his tail shattered portions of the Holy Spirit’s defenses.
But the crown-levels pressed on.
The Holy Spirit maintained suppression; Sodrian darted to harass, every sword finding a place; Grant sought to crack thin spots; the monk restrained and intercepted.
Gradually, Garoth began to falter — his regeneration rate dulled by the multiple sustained assaults.
Then the opportunity arrived.
After a combined full-strength attack — four arms swinging, dual breath unleashed — Garoth displayed a brief attack gap. It lasted less than half a second, but in crown-level combat, that was long enough.
Holy Spirit and the monk absorbed that assault.
Now!
Sodrian poured his spirit to the limit.
Time around him bent; a halo of illusionary light manifested — a materialization of time’s force, flowing calm yet harboring the power to alter all things.
Garoth sensed real danger.
His choice: ignore it.
He chose not to attack, denying Sodrian a chance to reverse his offense or strike a counterattack. He instead braced to deal with Holy Spirit and the monk’s follow-ups.
But this time Sodrian gave him no choice.
No wind-up, no prelude.
In Sodrian’s sight the world fell utterly silent.
The wind vanished; raindrops froze mid-fall, holding their shapes. Soldiers’ shouts froze on faces; the Holy Spirit’s domain light stopped flowing; the Four-Aspect monk’s fists hung in the air; Grant’s charging pose became a statue.
Even the Red Emperor... became motionless.
The murderous light in Garoth’s eyes froze; his four arms remained in stance, wings half spread, tail curled.
The entire world became a still painting.
This was Sodrian’s power.
Time had stopped.
Sodrian stepped forward.
Each footfall heavy.
Wrinkles crawled across his skin like ancient marks.
But finally he reached the dragon’s neck.
He slowly raised his blade. Its silver glint cut through the frozen tableau.
First slash — grazing a shoulder.
Second slash — across a limb.
Third slash — right shoulder.
Fourth — left shoulder joint.
Fifth — right hip.
Sixth — left hip.
Seventh — the third vertebral of the spine.
Eighth — tail vertebra connection.
Ninth — the heart.
Tenth — the left chest, the location of the dragon’s energy organ.
Ten strikes.
Ten vital points.
When the final blade fell, Sodrian had aged into a white-haired old man; furrows carved his face and his hand trembled. Yet he had finished.
Time resumed.
Garoth’s claws continued their swing, but motion suddenly stiffened.
Expressions froze into carved masks; the light in his eyes dimmed swiftly.
Ten silver lights flared across neck, four limbs, spine, heart, and dragon-pearl. The dragon’s body began to come apart, cleaved precisely.
Head separated from neck.
Right arm snapped at the shoulder.
The once-mighty colossus appeared to be utterly sundered.
“Now!”
The paladin cried out.
He threw a scroll into the air.
A sealing formation unfolded as a dome, a barrier forbidding resurrection.
The battlefield stilled under the dome; rain still fell, but space inside changed.
Lothrian’s soldiers watched with tight faces.
Everyone knew the significance.
But the Red Emperor’s parts, cut into scores of pieces —
“Is it... over?”
King Raymond’s voice was hoarse.
The paladin panted, hands white from gripping his sword. Sodrian hung midair, body shaky as if about to fall. The Four-Aspect monk knelt on one knee, coughing blood mixed with entrails. The Holy Spirit’s glow dulled nearly transparent.
Yet none relaxed their guard.
Then, the anomaly.
One of the Red Emperor’s remnants — his main head — suddenly reopened its eyes; the pupils burned a deep, bloody red.
The falling severed limbs and heads stalled mid-descent.
Then, at a speed beyond physical expectation, they converged toward the center!
Dark crimson, nearly black light surged from every piece, forming countless threads. The threads linked and tugged, forcibly yanking the separated flesh back together.
Heads reattached to necks.
Arms returned to shoulders.
Torsos joined.
Broken tails regrew.
The whole process was incredibly fast.
But he was no longer merely whole as before.
His skin was seamed with intersecting scars; beneath lay fresh muscle and gleaming red tissue.
He lived.
And his breath was deeper, more robust.
He was not merely healed — he was something beyond the strongest he had been.
Undying Life!
At that state, three abilities activated simultaneously.
“Die!”
Garoth roared.
His gaze locked first on Sodrian.
Kill him.
That thought burned with absolute intensity.
The Red Iron Dragon lunged as a whole. Paired dragon claws and the newly reconstituted Dragon Qi giant arms created space-tearing mirages that covered all of Sodrian’s escape channels.
Sodrian’s pupils shrank.
He raised his round shield; the tide of time flowed across its face.
Clang!
First claw met the shield.
Clang!
Second claw.
Clang!
Third claw.
Three perfect parries. Each recoil made the seams along Garoth’s repaired flesh shudder and leak bright blood. Sodrian was pushed backward; each block made the lines on his face dig deeper.
Fourth claw descended.
This time Garoth’s speed rose by a minor margin.
Not much — perhaps a tenth — but enough.
Crack! Crack!
Armor on Sodrian’s arm shattered.
Dust rose.
Fields fractured.
Finally the Dragon Claw sank home with a snap.
Sodrian spat a shocking line of blood, shrieked the name “Sodrian!”
The Four-Aspect monk roared in anger.
The colored halo behind his head fractured.
Blood-flame erupted.
The monk threw himself before Garoth.
Grant’s Glory Slash struck the dragon’s back.
Boom!!!
The Four-Aspect domain collapsed completely.
The monk’s body fell like a meteor, gouging a huge pit. Dust rose in a great mushroom; bone-crunching sounds came from the pit’s bottom. When he struggled to rise his chest caved inward and his left arm hung at an unnatural angle; his breath was almost gone.
The paladin’s roar carried as he charged.
Lionheart Guard gave its last brilliance; the lion-face wraith on the shield bared a final defiant roar. The shield itself began to crumble as Grant poured his oath-empowered strength into the Glory Slash.
The blade’s golden light gleamed blindingly, as if to cleave the sky.
The Holy Spirit made its final stand, compressing domain light into a spear aimed at the dragon-heart.
The crown-level strikes landed together.
Garoth responded in kind; blood-flame burst from every wound and seam, coloring him as a blood-drenched behemoth.
He surged forward.
Boom!!!!!
Light swallowed everything.
Shockwave expanded as a sphere.
Legendary combatants had to unfurl domains to stand.
When the light faded,
the paladin knelt, Lionheart shattered, and the Holy Spirit’s glory dimmed to near nothing.
And the Red Emperor...
He had not rejoiced.
He slowly spread six arms and folded his wings, lifting his three heads to the sky as if embracing the world and reveling in victory.
The magical satellites in orbit recorded the scene.
Whatever observers behind the cameras thought now, they were left in silence.
New Calendar 417, twelfth month.
Aola’s sovereign, Garoth Ignas — the Red Emperor — with a single dragon’s might stood against Lothrian’s three crown-levels and the Holy Spirit. He died thrice and rose thrice, and in the end, in an undying form, achieved victory — slaying all enemies arrayed against him and shocking all nations.