Chapter 384: The Strongest Shackles

On the Isle of Dragons, the instant Aurelian's silver blade of radiance cleaved the Dragon God's body in two, every dragon beheld the fall of the deity they had revered. At that very moment, a familiar voice whispered in the silver dragon's ear.

Aurelian's weary eyes shrank in sudden dread, her pupils quivering uncontrollably. Horror welled up, impossible to restrain.

"Ah... at last. The fetters that old fool shackled upon me have been cut away—by you, the one I chose. Tell me, isn't the power of the stars a fine gift? Look at yourself: you stand far greater than these ordinary dragons."

The voice murmured. It seemed to be addressing Aurelian at times, itself at others. Yet as it spoke, its true nature was unveiling itself through a terrible transformation.

"I must admit, there was no intelligent race better suited than dragons to crown their king as an object of faith. Every dragon carries the blood of that rotting carcass, the very flesh that forged my prison. No wonder the shackles of faith binding me were so terribly strong."

The voice went on, careless of what it revealed, indifferent to whether the host of dragons below, their faces stricken with pain and bewilderment, understood anything it said. The heretic dragons, tense and grim, were ignored. The voice cared only for its own jubilation, savoring the freedom won from its cage.

A grinding sound split the air. From the gash that Aurelian's radiant blade had cut through the body of Wendel Myx, King of Dragons, two colossal claws thrust forth. They seized the edges of the wound and tore it wider, ripping apart flesh that ought never to have yielded further.

With a wet sound, something crawled free. As though discarding an outer husk, a blood-red dragon whose entire body was wrought of living gore wrenched itself from within the Dragon King's corpse. It flung Wendel's once-mighty body aside as though it were nothing but refuse. That peerless shell, a vessel of strength unmatched in this world, fell broken and pitiful to the earth below.

To others, Wendel's body was the pinnacle of might. To this being, it had been nothing but a prison.

"Ah, how sweet it feels. All those years shackled to that accursed old creature, fighting him for control of his flesh, never once granted a moment to think in peace..."

Its body writhed, unstable, its form refusing to settle. It twisted its neck at grotesque angles, adapting itself to the stolen flesh, a blood-soaked mockery of dragonkind.

"My poor kin never had the chance to grow into this power of mine. And these chains of faith—how they stifled me, how they strangled me."

"I..."

Aurelian stared, stunned. Everything she had believed in, everything she had upheld with unyielding certainty, collapsed in an instant.

"My chosen little one," the crimson dragon laughed, turning its warped head toward her. "Surprised, are you? Your king did not betray you. Long ago, when I infested his flesh, he could not withstand me by will or power. But without hesitation, he sacrificed himself. He bound me with the bloodline of dragons, shackling me with faith itself."

The mission she thought had been bestowed from birth now seemed to be nothing but the design of this abhorrent creature.

"You... you are an abyssal creature!"

Aurelian's voice trembled with fury and dread. At last she understood what had burst from their king's corpse: a creature of the Abyss.

"Indeed. That is what you call me," it laughed, unashamed. "And you, little silver dragon, slew with your own hand the one who gave himself to protect you all—the great dragon who chained me in his flesh, who invoked divinity to hold me fast. Now he is gone, and all thanks to you."

Aurelian's teeth ground together. At last her thoughts aligned as bitter clarity seared through the chaos.

"Damn it..."

Long ago, dragons had fought against the abyssal spawn. Wendel Myx, strongest of their kind, had led the charge, his power crushing uncounted abominations.

Yet the Abyss had been unimaginably vast, its horrors boundless. The final battle at the pit's depth had consumed gods, kingdoms, and legends by the thousands.

Even Wendel had been grievously wounded, one of the few wounds he had ever sustained.

The explosion of the Morningstar had changed the world, killing the vast majority of abyssal creatures. Yet a certain form of parasitism had allowed them to survive their newly hostile environment: in the form of abyssal magicians, abyssal knights, and other such chimeras of abyssal beings with flesh native to this world.

In that wound that Wendel Myx had sustained, the Abyss had slipped inside. One of its mightiest had lodged itself within him, seeking to steal his flesh.

To prevent annihilation, not only of dragons but of all mortal races, Wendel had turned to the very knowledge he had torn from the Abyss during his struggle.

Realizing that his own strength would be insufficient, he had ascended to divinity, shaping himself as the God of Dragons, the object of every dragon's faith.

This was the lesson that the abyssal creatures had learned themselves. Faith was the strongest of shackles, a chain that could restrain even gods. The Lady of the Night had told Wang Yu this, and the Font of Life Erphine, and the God of Terror and its fragments, had proven this time and time again. Faith was a two-way contract.

When the dragon king forcibly used abyssal power to make himself the object of veneration of all dragons, his own actions were likewise chained. While he maintained his divinity, he could not harm any dragon who believed in him.

Wendel Myx had prepared these shackles for the abyssal creature that had burrowed into his body. He was prepared for his body to remain its prison, and faith the shackles that bound it within forevermore.

Even should Wendel's mind be extinguished and his body possessed in his struggle against the abyss and his body possessed, the abyssal being would still have been forced to act according to the will of dragonkind—forever its protector and guardian.

And once the heaven of dragonkind had been forged, the prison would be sealed for good, immune to any form of interference.

"Pity, isn't it? He was so very close," the abyssal hissed, glee thick in its voice. "Aurelian—yes, that is your name. Thanks to you, he died on the eve of his victory. Thanks to you, the faith of dragons has been shattered, and my shackles broken. I am now free. Tell me, how should I thank you?"

The truth was laid bare. This was why Wendel had become a god, why he had forged the dragons' heaven, why the heretics had arisen, their strength enhanced beyond belief.

False guidance and false beliefs had turned these dragons, who had never placed their faith in the dragon king, into accomplices. They were now godslayers, kingslayers, liberators of the abyssal fiend. Among all this, there was one force that had played a role far too great to overlook.

"Just what was the Church of Dragonkind?!"

Aurelian's voice rang out, her burning wrath igniting once more in furor. Her power boiled over as she glared at the blood-red dragon above, that grotesque being still toying with its stolen flesh.

"The cult?" The abyssal creature gave a low laugh. "I do owe much to them. They deepened the falsehood I wanted etched into your minds until it became the truth."

It spread its claws in mock helplessness, its tone half-casual, half-gloating. "But what if I told you they were nothing more than mortal rabble, drunk on lust for power and dominion, who had found scraps of my cast-off flesh? I never expected them to fashion such a thing. That was their own invention. It was nothing to do with me."

The words chilled Aurelian to her bones. This abyssal being spoke with such ease, such humanlike inflection—who knew where it had learned such mockery of mortal speech?

A spear of fire burst down from the heavens, blazing straight toward the blood-red dragon. The bronze dragon Beolo, unable to restrain his fury a moment longer, struck first. As if it had been a signal flare, in the next breath, a storm of dragonfire cascaded from every direction, all pouring down upon the crimson monstrosity.

"Ahaha... Do you all perhaps misunderstood your own strength?" the abyssal wondered coldly. "After centuries bound within your king's flesh, I know you better than you know yourselves. To me, you are naught but refuse."

He did not evade. He stood unflinching as torrents of dragonfire crashed upon him. And then, his body began to glow, just as the bronze dragon Beolo's had glowed when he devoured the flames that Caesar had passed him.

With a single thunderous detonation, all that power was turned back on its casters. The abyssal dragon absorbed every drop of dragonfire, then unleashed it all in one blinding torrent. The beam struck faster than any of them could react. Beolo was swallowed whole, obliterated in an instant. By the time the light faded, there was nothing left of his body, not even ash.

"I think," the creature mused, as though savoring a private revelation. "I should give myself a name. Milos has a pleasant ring, doesn't it? Now, do not interrupt me again. Your paltry grasp of magic is nothing before me."

Milos muttered to himself as he stretched out one massive claw. Magic surged, wild and violent. A field of Temporal Stasis blossomed—and at once collided with another. The two domains clashed, cancelling one another out. The blue dragon Susumi, who had sought to close in on Milos, found her throat caught in Milos's claws.

There was a sickening crack as bones and flesh alike were crushed to pulp. Susumi's lifeless body fell from the sky.

"Weak," Extalos scoffed. "So pitifully weak. Every drop of blood in your veins flows from me. You cannot even hope to reach my limits. Hah! What a joke. You lean upon your bloodlines, yet your gifts, your talents, every power you hold is but a diluted echo of mine. Do you really think time will save you?"

He laughed, unheeding of the host of dragons converging from every side. His voice pealed like thunder. He was unbound. The cataclysm had come.