Chapter 320: A Rare Foe

The charred, rotting flesh that had entangled Noelle was obliterated in an instant, reduced to nothing and dispersed through the air as mere refuse. Nearby, the shockwave from the dragon's roar struck a three-story warehouse, collapsing it in a cascade of dust and timber. Debris rained down like shrapnel.

From the still-glimmering rift of the phase gate stepped a figure clad in heavy, jet-black armor, moving with ironclad resolve. Wang Yu, who had just moments ago been handling materials at the Council of the Arcane, had appeared. The armor encasing him had been forged on the spot from alchemical alloys, summoned and shaped with casual ease.

"Was that a form of mutated dragonbreath? Could this be Sieg? No... the thread isn't pointing toward him..."

Hovering in the air, Varma observed the newcomer via her formless undead gaze. The sheer destructive force of Wang Yu's roar had led her to mistake it for the breath of an adult dragon.

"If he's not a true dragon, that complicates things... My luck is worse than expected. If needed, I'll drag both him and the young whelp into the Void Realm.

"I won't be able to capture Sieg as well, but I haven't got a choice. I can't contend with Skyborne City's alchemical legions, and the fighting here will be discovered sooner or later..."

From the phylactery at her heart came a constant flood of necromantic power. Mist formed, thick and cloying, blinding all it touched: the Deathveil. Within its reach lay Noelle, and now Wang Yu too.

The shroud would briefly block detection by Skyborne City's Magiweb. But Wang Yu's earlier roar had already flattened one of Skyborne City's buildings. Within a minute or two, the first wave of mechanical golems would surely arrive.

"You alright?" rumbled Wang Yu from within his armor, voice muffled but resolute. "Avia and your brother are on their way. Just hang back and let me stall them."

He didn't turn. With a pulse of the Chariot, he confirmed that Noelle was unharmed and pushed forward into the mist, searching for the enemy's presence.

What Noelle had used was one of Avia's specialized teleportation devices, which could summon Wang Yu instantly from a limited range.

It was a miracle that anything could make it through Skyborne City's spatial wards, but Wang Yu was a unique case—he could be summoned like an object.

Wang Yu was the only one compatible with this mode of transportation, since there was no risk of tearing his soul loose from his body in transit. All others would need a far more stabilized passage for teleportation.

From his armor, Wang Yu drew several needles of mithril. He flicked them into the haze from between his fingers. They whistled through the mist in flashes of almost invisible silver. Several floating "Magician's Eyes" hidden in the mist burst into fragments.

"He can pierce the Deathveil?" Varma frowned. This knight was more troublesome than anticipated. Her fingers danced faster as a spell model formed rapidly. She needed to finish her preparations—now.

A metallic screech rang out as necromantic power surged. Bones summoned from thin air clattered together, binding, twisting, and taking shape. From the mist rose a massive semicircular cage of fused bone—a bone prison—rising to trap both Wang Yu and Noelle within.

Gray, necrotic power began to seep into the joints of the bone prison. It shivered and splintered. Faint light flickered from between its ribs.

It was more than a cage—it was a bomb. A modified Corpseburst spell, enhanced by the prison's form, designed to explode with devastating effect.

"Let's go!"

Without hesitation, Wang Yu seized Noelle's hand and charged toward the perimeter of the prison. He had no time to spare. The energy density was rising rapidly—he needed to break through before the overload triggered.

Even if smashing through the bone prison would cause a secondary blast, it was far preferable to being struck head-on by a fully primed Corpseburst.

"You're not going anywhere. Stay put—and die, both of you."

A silhouette emerged suddenly from the fog, blocking Wang Yu's path. The dragon-lich Varma had appeared.

Bone spurs erupted through her skin, embedding deep into muscle. The frail researcher's body she was possessing had become a horror, its physical strength vastly amplified.

Her barbed fist collided with Wang Yu's armored elbow. A deafening crunch echoed as spikes shattered and fragments flew, but she had succeeded in halting his charge. Her skeletal limbs anchored into the earth like pillars, locking herself in place. Wang Yu's strike had pulverized her arm—but she didn't collapse.

He twisted, fist lashing out in a roaring arc, the Chariot rippling around him. His punch tore through the haze and smashed toward her skull—only to meet thin air.

Valma had dissolved, her body vanishing into the mist in spiritual form. Even the Chariot couldn't hold her back—her soul prevented its grasp.

"..."

Wang Yu scanned the mist, eyes sharp. The bone prison had moved subtly while he'd been stalled. The Corpseburst energy continued to swell, and the bone prison's walls expanded away from Wang Yu.

Varma was a formidable foe. With her spells, she could briefly match his strength as a grand knight. She had to be a mid-rank mage at the very least, likely a high-rank mage, far beyond his ability to face alone.

Reaching the boundary of the cage in time was now impossible. The Corpseburst would detonate before he could reach it, and he couldn't afford to be intercepted again. He needed a new plan.

"Noelle," he said calmly, "light this for me in a moment."

As he spoke, Wang Yu tapped into his bloodpool. In response, torrents of crimson rain began to fall, saturating the prison.

Raising one hand, he activated both the Chariot and his Blood Tempest secret art. The rain surged inward and formed a massive orb of blood, which then exploded into a forest of twisting, scarlet thorns.

The combination of Blood Tempest and Material Shaping altered the blood's nature. The thorned brambles spread like wildfire, crawling across the floor and up the cage's walls as they completely occupied the prison.

Varma couldn't stop it. Through the haze, she watched helplessly as the bone cage became overgrown with crimson vines, each blooming with eerie blood-red flowers.

Noelle and Wang Yu simultaneously ignited the bloodthorn grove with Cursed Fire. Noelle, a pure-blooded red dragon, could conjure a fierce orange-yellow blaze far hotter than Wang Yu's green flames.

The cursed flames roared to life, devouring the vines' immense life force to feed themselves—burning hotter, brighter, deadlier.

Life essence, transmuted into pure energy by the flames, began to clash with the necromantic power in the bones. Fire consumed bone. The bone prison crumbled, the vines and bones both reduced to ash.

"How troublesome..."

Varma hissed. She'd triggered the Corpseburst the moment she sensed the issue, but what followed was only a weak corrosive blast.

The explosion had been undercut, its fuel consumed by the opposing life force. All that remained was a burst of acidic miasma, lapping harmlessly at the two figures who stood amidst the smoking ruin.

The metallic dome forged by the Chariot to block the Corpseburst spell began to shift and reshape, folding itself back into the heavy armor Wang Yu wore. He made no move to flee. Instead, he gathered every ounce of strength in his body and drove his fist into the ground.

The weight of the alloy, coupled with Wang Yu's own formidable might, sent a thunderous impact through the ground. A gaping crater opened up. The iron plate below buckled and warped, its anchoring bolts bursting apart from sheer force.

Wang Yu had never intended to fight head-on. He had always kept another escape route in mind—the interior of Skyborne City itself. If he could smash through the ground, he could plunge into the depths of the mechanical city.

The sudden ambusher was likely a cultist from the Church of Dragonkind. Let Skyborne City's alchemical legions handle her. Mage or not, even a legend wouldn't leave an encounter with Skyborne City's full might alive.

"Damn it... If not for the suppression of this material plane, I would have slain that wretched creature long ago."

Varma, of course, saw right through him. She instantly understood that Wang Yu was attempting to break through the ground and flee into Skyborne City's lower layers. It was a vile move, yet under the material plane's restrictions, she had few means to stop him.

Her hand hovered over the device that would open the portal to the Void Realm, then hesitated. Not yet. There was only one chance to hunt heretics in this alchemical fortress—she could not squander it. More importantly, she couldn't give up the opportunity to drag the other dragon into the void.

Bone spurs regrew, rapidly protruding from the battered husk of the magician's body. Valma forcibly reinforced its physical frame, determined to intercept Wang Yu one more time. If he made it into the city's inner sanctum, everything would become exponentially more difficult.

Her body turned to mist, then reformed in a blur beside Wang Yu. But she didn't attack him directly. Instead, bristling with jagged bone, her arm lashed out at Noelle, the young dragon whom Wang Yu was shielding behind him.

Varma was certain that this knight, who had so suddenly appeared to protect a fledgling, would never let it come to harm.

As expected, Wang Yu, who had been focused on tearing open the floor, immediately pivoted. He swung his ironclad fist toward Varma as she reached for Noelle.

Steel met bone—and once again, Wang Yu's strength triumphed. His gauntleted punch, wreathed in fighting spirit, smashed Valma's spiked arm aside, bending it at an unnatural angle. She was sent hurtling sideways.

Yet the shattered bone shards she had flung did not fall to the ground. An unseen force seized them as they flew. Within the deathly mist, they drew in necromantic energy, shifted directions in mid-air, and shot toward Noelle with lethal intent.

Varma wasn't bluffing. She was genuinely trying to kill the whelp—not only to hinder Wang Yu, but to make her future operations easier by eliminating the heretic spawn now.

Noelle bared her fangs and released a searing breath of flame, ripping through the necrotic mist and incinerating the incoming spikes.

But Varma had anticipated the counter. Her bone shards dispersed into mist mid-flight, then arced behind the young dragon, aimed now at the back of her neck—a fatal angle.

Wang Yu moved to intercept, but dozens of bone spikes erupted from the magician's broken body and coiled around his arms, impeding him. He was too slow to reach Noelle in time.

But he hadn't yet used his final trump card: the power of the Chariot, saved for just this moment.

A pulse of invisible force rippled from Wang Yu's form, catching Varma off guard. "What is that spell?" she muttered. "When did he...?"

A lens of shimmering mana had formed over Wang Yu's right eye socket, a Perfect Fractal. Avia had arrived. Using Wang Yu as a focus, she had cast a spell from afar: mana disruption.

The undead magic that had hardened the bone spikes unraveled in an instant. The jagged projectiles slammed into Noelle's neck—only to bounce off, unable to pierce her deceptively tough dragon skin.

Wang Yu stomped down with brutal force. His massive weight drove the iron plate further into the crater he'd made, forcing one end of the loosened slab skyward. The other end rocketed up and slammed into Valma, whose movement had slowed under Avia's disruption spell.

Her legs, still unenhanced by bone magic, were pulverized by the rising metal. The magician's corpse, which Valma controlled like a puppet, was lifted into the air. Wang Yu was ready.

Shards of shattered starsteel flew out from the battered ground. Empowered by the Chariot's might, they surged toward the magician's body like a swarm of blades, aiming for every vital point—head, throat, spine, lungs, heart. They tore through flesh and bone, intent on reducing the vessel to ruin.

"!!!"

Varma ignored the rest. Her gaze locked solely on one shard—the one bound for her heart. Within that heart lay her phylactery.

Like lightning, instinct overtook thought. She didn't hesitate. She activated the artifact to open the gateway to the Void Realm.

A black nimbus descended from the heavens.