Chapter 373: Descent of the Dragon God

"Damn it!"

Wang Yu spat out a curse, brushing aside the weakness gnawing at him from layer upon layer of wounds. Without hesitation, he hauled out the cannon containing the core of the Fire Elemental Lord—the same weapon he had once leveled against Philett.

Avia immediately stepped in behind him. Her mana and mental energy flowed into the alchemical cannon, stirring its destructive engine to life.

The skeletal mantis had only just finished knitting its body back together under Philett's power. Its spectral limbs skimmed the water's surface as a beam of fire, as wide as its entire frame, shot down upon it.

The cannon, which harnessed the compressed, concentrated power of a Fire Elemental Lord, struck with the force of a legend. Though this was insufficient to harm Philett himself, the skeletal mantis that he summoned was seared to ash in an instant from the blinding heat.

A lance of molten fire pierced clean through its body and shot several meters into the sea. The whole battlefield was quickly drowned in a blinding shroud of steam.

The shoulder on which Wang Yu braced the cannon sizzled under the heat spilling from its barrel. His bloodforged armor surged up from his bloodpool, blackening and cracking as it charred away in his stead.

"It's still reviving," Wang Yu growled. "So long as Philett lives, this thing will never die. But with this weapon, we can keep it suppressed. After that, it's up to Noelle. This isn't a fight we can win. We'll have to run."

Even as he spoke, he forced his battered body onward, gulping down fresh draughts of potion to keep himself moving. His eyes stayed fixed on the already-reforming mantis, which appeared to be indestructible so long as Philett himself endured.

"This weapon can't withstand successive barrages. It can launch five, maybe six volleys at most before it melts down. I'm trying to dial back the output and make sure less is wasted."

Avia's voice was steady and firm with concentration even as her mind processed a dozen tasks in parallel. "As for Noelle, trust her. She has an excellent grasp of the Gate of Phases. Once she completes the analysis, the Perfect Fractal lens will carry us out of here. With Aurelian's sigil, we can leap straight across the Tidewall."

On the far side of the field, crimson and black energies clashed. Sieg met Philett's ambush with staggering force.

From Sieg's back, the living dragon armor writhed and warped. Biostructures pierced his flesh at his own command, locking into pre-formed channels that linked to his heart.

His pounding heart pumped blood and fighting spirit alike into the conduits of the armor.

Rays of heat blazed forth from the rents along Sieg's spine, hotter and thinner than dragonfire. Dozens of streams lashed out at random before coalescing into a torrent of crimson fury and clashing with Philett's jet-black breath.

"Oh?"

Philett's brows furrowed. Surprise shaded his tone. This crippled dragon's power exceeded every expectation. Even he, the Archbishop of the Church of Dragonkind, was forced to take him on at full power. A lesser dragon would not have survived a heartbeat before Sieg.

The twin breaths crashed together, compressing each other until the pressure detonated in a violent shockwave. The blast scythed across the sea.

Sieg's steel wings shuddered. Plates sheared loose and fell away. Then, by his will, they detached entirely, slipping free from his body. The void-forged extension of his armor filled the gaps, letting him remain aloft.

The steel wings moved autonomously. Their cores screamed with power, rising to brace against the giant tombstone pressing down upon Sieg. They bore its weight in Sieg's place, freeing his hands and rendering him mobile once more.

"Human toys? When did even true dragons stoop to wielding such trinkets beneath the contempt of even half-breeds?" Philett's mocking voice rang out from the giant tombstone. With it came tar-thick black effluent that seeped downward. Spectral bones writhed and shrieked in its depths.

The tarlike substance clung to Sieg's wings, corroding alchemic alloys once thought impervious. Layer by layer, the wings were slowly being dissolved.

If Sieg hadn't acted, if he hadn't sacrificed his own wings, he would now be under attack by that corrosion.

He had no intention of taking on Philett head-on. Instead, fire raced across his whole frame as his power spiked to a violent peak. He hurled himself like a comet to the edge of the tombstone in an explosion of dragonfire.

Even so, the tombstone seemed to be a cohesive whole. Though Sieg was trying to break off a corner of it as a point of attack, his destructive might was instead scattered across its massive bulk.

A web of fractures marred the vast stone. The impact staggered even Philett, whose eyes narrowed from where he clung to the tombstone from above. How had a crippled dragon come by such force?

It mattered little. No matter how strong Sieg was, he could not break the seal. Death was all that awaited him.

Then, Sieg's body shifted. He transformed back into a man and pressed his hand to the tombstone's barrier. Blue light shimmered in his palm. A delicate, radiant blade like a shard of crystal took form.

Sieg struck with a technique from Skyborne City's most secret archives: the Magnetoflow Rapier.

Sieg was far more familiar with his human form than most dragons ever got, a result of his crippled dragon form, and was commensurately far stronger in combat as a human. His draconic bulk was of no use to him now.

The Magnetoflow Rapier was a special anti-barrier technique that worked by harmonizing the assailant and the barrier. Then, the assailant would target a single precise point of the barrier as an incursion point, "hacking" into it and tricking it into opening itself up. By doing so, he managed to penetrate the barrier that resisted even his draconic strength.

Sieg swiftly cut a seam into the tombstone and slipped through.

Just then, behind him, his corroded metal wings finally melted down from the assault of the tarlike substance. Their cores imploded in a sacrificial blast. The detonation halted Philett for just a moment before he could give chase.

That moment was instrumental. Right beside Sieg appeared a phantom doorway: the Gate of Phases.

This wasn't Avia's working. She and Wang Yu were still locked in battle against the regenerating mantis. Rather, Noelle, hidden safely within the Seed of Eden, had finally made her move.

They had been preparing to retreat since the start of the battle, when they first realized the disparity in power between them and Philett. Fleeing was the best option. Though difficult, it was clearly within their reach.

They simply had to take advantage of Aurelian's sigil in combination with the Gate of Phases. By confirming their spatial location, the spell's cost would be slashed and its reach magnified.

It was more than enough to transport them all to the other side of the Tidewall, re-establish a connection to the Lady of the Night, and cloak themselves from the Church of Dragonkind's awareness.

As they faced an inclement bloodbath, Wang Yu, Avia, and Noelle, who had been receiving magical guidance from Avia throughout their journey, carried out their plan.

One by one, the gate pulled Wang Yu, Avia, Sieg, and Noelle in. Aurelian's sigil blazed with power, imbuing their teleportation with enhanced power and reach.

Philett could only watch on. His bone-spikes attempted to lock down the material plane in the region and prevent any teleportation, but he was outmatched against Aurelian's specialty.

A bell seemed to toll across the void. Time stilled. Just as Wang Yu and the others prepared to escape via the Gate of Phases, a force every soul present knew all too well swept across the sea. Its source was Philett's body. Naked terror glimmered in his eyes.

The instant he felt that power and saw the Gate of Phases collapse in response, Wang Yu spat out a curse. He recognized it for what it was—the power of the Dragon God. It had descended at the very moment he and the others were about to escape, choosing Philett as Its vessel.

"No—!"

Philett had scarcely begun to plead for mercy when his body was ripped apart, torn to shreds in the blink of an eye. The god he served had slaughtered Its own archbishop without the slightest hesitation.

Golden lightning and storm-wracked clouds welled forth from the rift where Fier's body had burst apart. Within them, a colossal golden eye and a dragon's titanic claw pressed down upon the world. The mere overflow of that power was enough to shatter the Gate of Phases despite Aurelian's blessing. It collapsed in an instant.

"Run!"

Wang Yu wasted no time thinking about why the Dragon God had descended, how great Its power truly was, nor how slim their chances of survival might be. So long as he lived, he would struggle for survival with every breath. He shouted to Sieg while scooping Avia into his arms and sprinted across the waves with his waterwalking spell, fleeing from where the god had appeared.

Sieg reacted just as swiftly. The Dragon God's strength was strangely askew. It didn't strike directly at him—or he would have been crushed beyond resistance. With a sweep of his wings he assumed his true form, soaring aloft in a sudden burst of speed. He swept up Wang Yu and Avia, then beat the air furiously, desperate to escape the god's descent.

But the Dragon God did not strike as It once had, crushing and annihilating all in Its presence.

Instead, It lowered one massive golden claw and pressed it gently against the sea. At that touch, a vast resonance thundered through the tides. Something hidden beneath the channel tore open.

And with that single gesture, the Dragon God's strength was spent. The golden claw and blazing eye dissolved back into the stormclouds, leaving only silence.

Where Its claw met the sea, the waters vanished. A chasm yawned open and widened into a bottomless pit. Endless seawater poured into it, yet failed to fill even a fraction of its depth.

The void spread wider and wider, a colossal vortex spiraling outward. What began as a pinprick breach became a vast abyss.

It was like a wound upon the sea itself, a pit that grew ever larger. And when it reached a certain threshold, it birthed an inescapable, absolute pull.

Even as they fled at the fastest speed they could muster, Wang Yu and the others could feel the force of that pull. At first, they could resist it—but soon enough, the abyss was spreading faster than they could flee.

Air, magic, even the energy of the void itself—all were sucked into that maelstrom. The pull grew ever stronger, stripping Sieg of the draconic magic that kept him aloft. His spell collapsed. The dragon and both his riders plummeted toward the void.

As a last resort, the sigil Aurelian had left behind flared to life. Yet even that faltered beneath the abyss's pull. The silver dragon's power unraveled, rendered useless.

Worse still, even Noelle, safely ensconced within the Seed of Eden's pocket realm, was torn out of it and dragged helplessly toward the abyss below.

"Hurry!" Wang Yu kicked at Sieg's scales, urging him away. "Forget about us—protect Noelle!"

But it was already too late. All four of them were caught in the inexorable pull, swallowed whole by the void, plunging into a fall that seemed to have no end. Then, as if satisfied with its feast, the pit closed. The chasm was sealed, the sea turned calm, and the corridor through the Tidewall fell silent once more. No living being remained within it.