Chapter 322: Dragon Crash

A jet of pitch-black energy burst forth from behind Wang Yu and drilled into the center of his back. It bypassed the alchemical alloy armor encasing his body entirely, piercing straight through his torso. At such close range, this kind of ray-type spell was nearly impossible to dodge—once triggered, it was essentially guaranteed to hit.

Simultaneously, the invisible corrosion converging from all directions reached him, enveloping Wang Yu completely. His once-sturdy alchemical armor began to melt at an alarming rate, peeling away layer by layer under the corruption of the dragon's breath.

For the first time in a long while, Varma's irritation turned into a hint of satisfaction. The one who had so obstinately obstructed her divine mission to purge the heretic dragon was finally about to fall, obliterated in body and soul. It was a fitting price for denying her ascension into true dragonhood.

"!"

But then, a strange, formless force pulsed outward from Wang Yu, something Valmar could neither recognize nor comprehend. The corrosive vapors closing in from all sides were suddenly repelled, forcibly drawn away from him and pulled toward a single distant point.

The knight, struck clean through by the Finger of Death, turned his head. His current state was bewildering to behold. Black smoke billowed from the crown of his helm like some infernal contraption catching fire.

"You—?!"

Varma gaped in disbelief. Perhaps it would be reasonable if he had survived with grave injuries—but after being hit point-blank by a seventh-tier spell designed to obliterate both body and soul, he was merely... emitting smoke?

No one owed Varma an explanation. Wang Yu turned toward her true form and extended his hand. The corrupted armor, already weakened by decay, suddenly shrank to half its size, its fragmented plates torn from his body. The force of the Chariot seized the dislodged pieces, transforming them into chains of darkened metal.

Those chains snapped into place around Varma's joints with uncanny precision. Momentarily drained of necromantic energy after casting Finger of Death, Varma could not resist. Wang Yu reeled her in with a tug.

The Perfect Fractal lens above his right eye continued to pulse with activity. Both it and the Chariot warned him of her necromantic "skin," a hardened barrier protecting Varma's body. Before it was breached, no blow could truly harm her.

With his own power, it would be difficult to shatter this defense quickly. Only legendary knights could match a mage's raw firepower. But then again, Wang Yu never fought alone.

𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

A spatial rift opened beside Wang Yu's outstretched hand, spitting out a mechanical monstrosity that roared like a wild beast. A massive, circular sawblade spun with blinding speed, crackling with arcs of thunder and electricity.

Transporting tools was always easier than people. Avia had finished neutralizing Varma's Rain of Malice.

Now, taking advantage of the data captured from her own Perfect Fractal lens and her understanding of Wang Yu, she passed him the right tool at just the right time.

The alchemical cutting saw normally stored in the Seed of Eden was a high-grade industrial device from Skyborne City. Wang Yu used it to dismantle enchanted alloys and split rare minerals.

But this advanced model had a unique twist: feed it elemental magic crystals, and the saw would take on the corresponding attribute. It was a feature designed for processing rare materials—but it also made it perfect for another kind of job.

Wang Yu, clad in heavy armor and towering with strength, hefted the saw that normally required a fixed stand. The blade, now filled with thunder-element crystals, shrieked as he brought it down toward the stunned Valmar.

A deafening screech filled the void. The blade, reinforced with orichalcum, tore furiously into Varma's hardened necromantic shell.

Physically, the saw alone couldn't have cracked her resilient hide—but the raging thunder weakened the necrotic magic's regenerative traits.

A sharp, brittle snap echoed like splitting stone. In just two seconds, the barrier fractured. Using an industrial tool meant for ore extraction on a person might seem absurd—but it worked.

Wang Yu didn't hesitate. He forced the saw deeper, driving it toward her exposed body. He didn't care what kind of undead monster Valmar was. Once she was pulp, she'd be easier to deal with.

[Heart,] Avia's voice echoed in his mind. Her Perfect Fractal lens had detected something abnormal in Varma's magical signature.

She had mapped the energy flow across Varma's form and cross-referenced all the fluctuations across her body. Unlike in other regions, the flow of energy to Varma's heart had never wavered. That had to be where her core was.

Wang Yu's eyes narrowed. While pressing the saw down, he summoned his starsteel blade with the force of the Chariot and drove it toward her heart. Whatever lay within, he would tear it open.

Steel flashed. The saw howled. In an instant, the tide of battle shifted. The trap that should have killed Wang Yu had instead turned against its architect.

"Begone!"

A scream of rage tore through the void. Before the blade could pierce her heart, Varma exploded.

The blast carried a stench of rotting corruption. Wang Yu was flung back like a rag doll. The cutting saw, not made to endure such force, turned into worthless scrap.

Varma had self-detonated using Corpse Explosion, a vicious tactic. Her instincts were sharp. No weakling could have become a high-rank mage.

Wang Yu's halved armor was shredded in the blast. Corrosive matter gnawed through flesh and muscle, exposing bone and sinew. He looked like an utter mess.

Even so, he was already prying the fused metal off his body, ripping away rotted flesh along with it. Blood welled from his ruined form, knitting wounds and regrowing tissue. A new armor of blood and steel wrapped itself around him.

As gruesome as it looked, so long as he lived, the rest was mere inconvenience. Still, the black smoke billowing from his helm continued to rise, a testament to the necromantic magic trying and failing to corrupt him.

"Just what is this thing..."

Floating in the air, encircled by deathly mists, Valmar stared at the grotesque figure below. Half-covered in bloodforged armor, Wang Yu smoldered like a demon rising from the abyss. He should have been nothing more than a middling grand knight, barely mid-tier in strength. How was he such a pest?

She was beginning to understand why Finger of Death had failed. The being before him didn't seem like a human at all.

Corpse Explosion not only unleashed corrosive destruction but also flooded the victim with necrotic magic. But most of the death mana that had entered Wang Yu's body was now rising harmlessly as black smoke.

The reason lay in the three potions he'd consumed before battle—one for energy, one for physical enhancement... and one to annihilate all spellcasting abilities and mana conduits.

It was a magic-disruption potion. Magicians who drank it would die on the spot. Even if resuscitated, their mana cores would be forever shattered. Knights, too, would typically be poisoned outright.

But Wang Yu was... different. The Chariot and his knight's secret art, Blood Tempest, allowed him to suppress its toxic spread. With his body saturated in an antimagic agent, he had managed to achieve a kind of conditional magic immunity.

A fireball would still kill him, but magic that tried to penetrate his body, like Finger of Death, simply failed. The spell's soul-rending component had no effect. Its destructive ability had been heavily mitigated.

"A troublesome insect..." Varma muttered, drawing a deep breath. Her earlier conservative strategy, splitting her focus between Wang Yu and Avia, had been a mistake. She should have eliminated one of them immediately.

Now, her physical form had been obliterated. Her phylactery lay exposed. She was at once at her weakest—and her strongest.

She couldn't hesitate now. Wang Yu's assault on her heart had made it clear that the location of her phylactery was no longer a secret—and there was no reason to guard an open secret. The best defense now was an overwhelming offense.

Freed from the "shackles" of flesh, her phylactery resonated fully with the undead energies of this plane. Guided by her will, magic surged like a storm tide.

A tornado of grayish-black mana rose up to the heavens, a whirlwind born of death and the void.

A massive jet-black arm tore through the tornado, crashing down upon Wang Yu with earth-shattering force. The ground trembled and the mountains in the distance quaked. In the wake of that single blow, a massive crater opened where Wang Yu had just stood. It was almost inconceivable that such power could come from a magician.

Varma had made up her mind. Since this man defied understanding in so many ways, there was no point trying to understand him at all. She would use pure, devastating force to crush Wang Yu utterly—to shatter his bones, grind him to dust, and end things once and for all.

Though her strength had diminished since losing her original body, Varma had been a legend. Now a high-rank mage, she unleashed the full reserves of her magic to cast an enhanced sixth-tier necromantic spell: Transcendence of the Epoch.

A headless, jet-black giant with eight arms emerged from the whirlwind of undead magic. One enormous fist came crashing down. The other seven followed in a relentless barrage from above.

Fists fell like a storm, each blow a hurricane of destruction. The necromantic giant, formed entirely of death magic, wielded its eight arms with brute savagery, pounding downward without finesse or precision. It needed none. The sheer scope of its assault, the overwhelming might behind each strike, sufficed to blanket Wang Yu beneath its fury.

Wang Yu charged and dodged intently, expressionless beneath his mask, all thoughts subsumed by survival. He had unleashed the full might of the Chariot, tracking the arcs of each descending fist and weaving away with razor precision.

Each colossal punch missed him by the barest of gaps, shaking the earth with every impact. The shockwaves alone lifted Wang Yu into the air, threatening to throw him into the path of the next strike.

Punch after punch, blow after blow, Varma was closing in on Wang Yu. She was herding him into an ever-smaller range, making it more difficult for him to evade the attacks with every subsequent moment.

At last, Wang Yu slid under a crashing blow, only to find himself surrounded—three gigantic fists descended in unison, leaving him nowhere to escape.

The threefold impact struck Wang Yu squarely as he crossed his arms to shield his chest. The force smashed him into the ground, sending shards of earth and dust skyward, the very land convulsing beneath the weight of the strike.

More fists followed, pummeling the impact zone into a gaping crater. When the dust began to clear, Wang Yu's figure was nowhere to be seen. Had he been obliterated? Nothing remained. There was no corpse, no bones.

But Varma's eyes narrowed. She soon spotted him: a battered figure, armor shattered to fragments, clinging to the first arm that had struck him. Wang Yu had driven his starsteel blade into the limb, anchoring himself to it. The first blow had landed. He had evaded, riding the arm as if it were a pendulum.

That raw destructive force had indeed driven Wang Yu to the brink. Had it not been for his skeleton reinforced by dragon blood, had the first strike not been absorbed by the comparatively soft, yielding ground, he'd already be dead.

And if he took one more direct hit, he would be. So in desperation, Wang Yu had latched onto the titanic arm to avoid further attacks.

"Hmph. Keep dreaming."

Varma sneered. Wang Yu had demonstrated an impressive will to survive—but it was futile. These arms were nothing more than magical constructs. Preventing Wang Yu from clinging to them was child's play.

With a flicker, the arm beneath Wang Yu dissipated into motes of magic. The remaining limbs closed in. Now that Wang Yu had nowhere to grip, nowhere to run, they struck.

One fist landed squarely in mid-air, slamming into Wang Yu. A deafening crash rang out. His bloodforged armor exploded into fragments. Several bones fractured. Skin and muscle tore. Wang Yu's body blurred as he was hurled into the air like a broken doll. The next blow was already coming, ready to pulverize him into red paste.

Suddenly, a spatial rift tore open behind him. Wang Yu vanished into it in the blink of an eye. The subsequent fists crashed into empty air.

Avia had intervened again. She could've acted earlier, back when Wang Yu first took a hit. But if she had, they might have run out of time. Wang Yu had gambled his life to buy every possible second. It had taken everything for her to suppress her urge to intervene—but it was worth it.

Wang Yu burst from the other side of the portal, tumbling across the ground for over ten meters before coming to a stop beside Avia. With a huff of breath and a trembling hand, he gave her a thumbs-up toward her. Mission accomplished.

Avia, heart aching, unleashed her latent ability to heal him. This was the first time Wang Yu had suffered wounds this severe since leaving the capital.

Then she raised her head. Eyes full of killing intent, she gazed at the onrushing eight-armed giant. A massive rift in space had already been carved open before her. With the void's extraordinary computational power and the precious seconds that Wang Yu had bought, she had finished analyzing the Void Realm. She could now cast a Gate of Phases into the demiplane.

A monstrous figure erupted from the rift and rapidly transformed. A vast dragon cloaked in unnatural black matter burst forth, radiating a pressure that made the heavens tremble. Consumed by wrath, it hurled itself at the eight-armed giant—and unleashed the true might of a power beyond legend.