Chapter 372: A Bitter Battle

Hoisted across Wang Yu's shoulders was a monstrous contraption, a magitech alchemical weapon three or four times as large as he was. It resembled a colossal cannon forged from alchemical alloys and braced with intricate joints. At its heart, visible within a half-transparent chamber, burned a searing crimson stellar core—the heart of a Fire Elemental Lord.

That fearsome beam had been unleashed from this very weapon. Its contained, focused energy had been compressed into a searing ray whose penetrative might far outstripped the wasteful, scattered detonation of an explosion.

This apocalyptic shot heralded the start of the battle between the Church of Dragonkind and Wang Yu's companions.

The incandescent column of fiery annihilation swept forth. But Philett, a half-draconian who had ascended into the realm of legend, showed no trace of fear. His wings—black, vast, feathered, and grotesque—spread wide, then folded across his chest to form a living shield against the oncoming blast.

The ray slammed into his feathers. The heat of the weapon, hot enough to vaporize stone, burned his feathers to ash in an instant. Yet even the smoke did not dissipate. It coiled together, dark and choking, forming a veil that absorbed the brunt of the crimson beam's fury. By the time the attack scorched flesh, it was no real threat.

His eyes were fixed on Wang Yu and Avia. Dark radiance flared from within, the mark of his station as archbishop of the Church of Dragonkind. From his twisted back flickered phantom bones—remnants of countless creatures of draconic blood.

The sea beneath Wang Yu and Avia convulsed. From its depths, countless skeletal arms surged forth, clawing up through the waves to seize them.

Twin detonations rang out as Sieg smashed into Philett in dragon form, in tandem with the second bout of cannonfire. Sieg's armored wings spat out flame like roaring furnaces, propelling him forward at incredible speed.

Meanwhile, Avia hurled a crystalline orb wreathed in lightning toward the skeletal arms. It exploded in a bloom of frost and storm. The sea froze solid for meters below, entombing the clutching limbs in solid ice.

"Wang Yu, be careful! These bones have a legend's power!" Avia cried out, her voice taut with alarm.

Wang Yu fired at once. The Conqueror, in the Star of Mourning mode, loosed a beam of pure white annihilation. It speared through the ice and shattered it to fragments.

Yet the bones endured. As Avia had warned, they were imbued with the force of legend. They burst through the radiant beam and clattered together in midair, fusing into the colossal shape of a mantis wrought entirely of pale bone. Its twin scythes gleamed with a fearsome black luster.

"Damn it... even a portion of his power is still sufficient to reach the realm of a legend?"

Wang Yu clenched his jaw. He could hold his own against grand knights, even three or four at once if need be. But a legend... that was another matter.

The skeletal mantis blurred, vanishing from sight. A moment later, Wang Yu's throat bloomed with pain—a vast gash had nearly severed his head. Only a fragment of starsteel embedded in his spine had kept the strike from beheading him outright.

With the mantis's scythes caught in Wang Yu's flesh, spectral swords manifested around Wang Yu, thirty-two in all, striking downward in a storm—the hypermagic spell Phantom Blades.

The mantis's scythes became streaks of darkness that shredded the phantom blades to fragments. Even in the midst of that frenzy, it had the leisure to draw back and launch another strike at Wang Yu's waist.

Its scythe slid through flesh with no resistance whatsoever, as if it were merely the lightest brush of a fingertip against silk, only to clash against his tempered bones.

For the first time, Wang Yu's battle-hardened, metal-fused skeleton cracked.

The shockwaves from the blow wracked his body with paralyzing pain. His muscles faltered. Even his prized physique was nearly useless against the sheer force of a legend.

The mantis tore its scythe back, rending flesh, preparing to strike again and shatter his weakened frame.

But as it raised its weapon, it faltered. The scythe's blade had snapped off within Wang Yu's body, leaving only the hilt in its claw.

Fortunately, the mantis was no living creature, but rather a construct of summoned bone. Wang Yu could manipulate it with the power of the Chariot. Yet if this summon alone wielded such strength... How much stronger was Philett himself?

Flames roared from Sieg's throat, a torrent of dragonfire engulfing the monstrous half-draconian. His arms braced against Philet's wings, muscles surging, fighting spirit blazing as he tore at the shield of flesh and feather.

"You know, Sieg Wilsbach," Philett said calmly, his voice cutting through the roar, "I have slaughtered more dragons than I can count. True, I am but a half-draconian—but even they could not withstand my might. They serve me still in death, their power filling the void of my form.

"Look at these feathers. They are the mark of my metamorphosis. With my Lord's grace, I shall be reborn a true dragon—the most faithful and mighty of His heavenly brood." [1]

The torrent of dragonfire burned. Though it caused space itself to ripple, not so much as a spark clung to his hide.

A shield of phantom bones, pieced together from those he had slain, encased his body.

As Philett had claimed, those dragons he had slaughtered had become vessels for his power.

For all Sieg's violent strength, he was only attacking the remnants of the dragons Philett commanded. The archbishop remained calm even in the face of his attack.

The Church of Dragonkind had long sought Sieg. His nature made him an enigma. He was a dragon connected to Aurelian but whom the Dragon God could not mark.

Many times, the Dragon God had sensed his presence, only for him to be cloaked by another—by the Lady of the Night, by Aurelian—and barely escape from his clutches.

A few days ago, however, Philett received word from Aleisterran royalty claiming that Sieg and his party were heading northward. He dispatched a group of subordinates to verify the news, only to be taken aback by just how far north they were—beyond the continent entirely, and going as far as the Tidewall. If not for Its divine mandate, he might have missed them outright.

Philett had no idea how the Dragon God had detected Sieg's presence within this hidden corridor in the Tidewall, and why It had chosen not to strike at them Itself.

None of that mattered. This was a divine task; that was enough. Slaying Sieg, who boasted a personal connection to the powerful silver dragon Aurelian, would surely exalt him beyond measure.

Light erupted from Sieg's form, his draconic armor flaring to translucence as the runes carved upon it blazed. Power surged into him as he channeled one of his strongest hypermagic spells, the sixth-tier Dragonblood Thunderblade.

Crimson lightning coiled and layered upon itself, shaping into a colossal blade that shimmered into being within Sieg's draconic claws. He grasped the thunder-forged weapon and brought it down in a devastating arc.

The sheer force radiating from the Dragonblood Thunderblade forced Philett into vigilance. This was no ordinary sixth-tier spell—it was strong enough to wound him. But how? By all accounts, Sieg was a crippled dragon, unable to cast magic, his true name fractured and incomplete. Whence came this power?

The blade fell in a storm of violent currents twisting into solid form. Overloaded with mana, its penetration had been enhanced to terrifying heights. Crimson arcs erupted outward in cascading chains, tearing apart layer after layer of the shields woven from the strength of slain dragons.

Sieg's full might bore down on Philet from every direction. This crippled red dragon's power surpassed Philett's expectations. His body's resilience, his command of magic—both were far beyond that of a common dragon. He was a threat.

Philett unleashed his full strength without hesitation. The feathers that had been vaporized into fog earlier now reappeared above him as manifestations of his destructive essence.

They hardened into black gravestones, etched with indecipherable runes. Wrapped in violet-black streams of power, they rained down upon Sieg.

The countless gravestones were chained together in midair, fusing into a single, colossal monument three or four times Sieg's size as they descended with annihilating weight.

Sieg's metal-forged wings roared, vents blazing at full capacity as he attempted to evade. Yet the unique power of the stone conjured an invisible prison, a boundary that locked him within its descent.

He wasted no time. The runes upon his body flared anew. Above him spun a magic ring of violet lightning imbued with the power of gravity, pushing back against the falling monument.

Every muscle strained. His wings shifted, redirecting their jetting force downward, lending thrust to his ascent. Sieg rammed his own body against the descending gravestone, holding its crushing weight aloft.

The tombstone, heavy beyond reckoning, shuddered to a halt under Sieg's raw might. In the same instant, he turned his head upon Philett, still wreathed in lightning, paralyzed by the thunderblade's strike.

From his throat welled a dragonbreath condensed to a single, piercing point—its power compressed and force refined to shatter Philett's defenses in one strike.

"This will hurt. Why not surrender and die like the rest of the dragons I've slain?"

Philett's voice came from behind him. A dragon tore free from the tombstone and took on Philett's form. Meanwhile, below him, the body Sieg had pinned in lightning dissolved into stone.

Black energy erupted from every seam, lashing at Sieg with merciless power.

Meanwhile, the skeletal mantis struck. Its scythe snapped out faster than sight. Wang Yu twisted aside, but it was useless—the legendary construct's speed surpassed all mortal reflexes. He had barely lifted his starsteel sword before the second blow fell, cleaving again at his already fractured spine.

This time, the bone gave way. The mantis's scythe split him at the waist. His body toppled, torn in half.

The mantis advanced, stepping past its fallen prey to strike at Avia—then faltered. Its joints locked.

During its attack, Wang Yu had seeded his own blood across its carapace, marking the seams of its body. And just as he was cut in two, he had rammed shards of starsteel and vials of alchemical concoctions into its hollow shell. Its strength was legendary—but its mind was not.

The reagents burned, ignited by Cursed Fire, each potion feeding the next in a volatile chain reaction. Flames of every hue erupted across the mantis's body, corroding, weakening, and melting bone.

No single potion would not have sufficed. But when mixed together in a blaze of destruction, their effects were magnified exponentially. The mantis's skeletal resilience was stripped away layer by layer.

For Wang Yu, even being cut in half—at least horizontally—wouldn't kill him. Gritting through the pain, he clenched a fist. The Chariot roared to life. At once, the mantis's joints were wrenched apart, torn free.

Avia had been waiting. She blinked through warped space to appear behind the construct, her hands clasping a sphere of compressed void. It collapsed inward like a miniature black hole, orbited by dense motes of chaotic mana—the sixth-tier hybrid magic Annihilation.

Even a dozen Wang Yus could not hope to rival her destructive might. His task was solely to buy her time and an opening. As ever, she didn't fail him. When she struck, the spell imploded against the mantis's head, destroying it in an instant.

The construct collapsed, its frame crumbling to scattered bone. Wang Yu, bloodied and broken, rammed alchemical pins into his spine, forcing his body back together. It was crude and agonizing, but it would suffice for now.

Yet even as he steadied himself, the bones stirred. They shifted and reassembled. The mantis was but an extension of Philett's power. Unless the archbishop himself fell, it wouldn't truly die.

Had their desperate struggle all been for nothing...?

1. Yikes. ☜