Chapter 401: Myriad Forms

Endless torrents of lightning came crashing down from the heavens. Crimson bolts split the firmament as they rained devastation upon all they struck. The destructive force of these draconic thunderbolts was beyond reason; they could annihilate even the mighty altered dragons. Their corpses smoked as they plummeted lifelessly from the sky.

Yet these bolts had not been aimed at the altered dragons themselves. They were merely collateral, bodies through which the storm passed on its way to earth. Once the lightning struck the ground, it scattered in blinding arcs, only to converge again in a second, even deadlier phase.

From those arcs came serpents of lightning. Slithering with terrifying instinct, they hunted down anything in range deemed an enemy. Lesser mutated dragons were swiftly overtaken, bound fast, and reduced to ash in a single thunderous detonation.

The larger void composites, born of many altered dragons fused together, were met with serpents of far greater size—vast crimson pythons of lightning, their bodies like roiling seas of electric flame.

With jaws gaping wider than the size of their own bodies, the lightning-pythons devoured their prey whole, drowning them in seas of crackling power until all that remained was a charred ruin.

At last, the skies cleared. The serpents returned to the cloud of golden light, their forms resolving once more into the colossal golden body of Wendel Myx, the Dragon King.

"Ten minutes remain," came Wang Yu's voice, resonant through the storm. "Milos is yours and Aurelian's to deal with. This dragon's body is mighty beyond measure, but there are still hidden flaws. I'll handle these mutated dragons."

As the serpents reformed, Wang Yu's message was transmitted to Sieg, who was fighting Milos alongside Aurelian.

The Lady of the Night's shadow brushed the battlefield. As Sieg loosed a devastating dragonbreath, the recoil hurled him backward. From the shadows, the Lady of the Night cast the Chronostasis Hourglass into his grasp.

"Got it."

With that terse response, Sieg blurred into motion, his body accelerating beyond even Milos's expectations. With Sieg's blazing claws and Aurelian's silver greatblade, they descended together upon their foe.

Wang Yu's purpose in this form was clear. He was not here to duel the abyssal creature Milos, who knew the weaknesses of this body full well, but rather to use his overwhelming power to smash aside the swarming mutants that threatened the balance of the battle and the safety of Skyborne City.

Though he looked as if he were moving quickly, the Dragon King's corpse was sluggish compared to its prime. It could only muster perhaps a twentieth—at best a tenth—of its original strength, just as Astartes had estimated.

He had relied solely on this lightning attack not because it was the strongest in the Dragon King's arsenal, but because it was the most compatible with the Dragon King's mana circuits. Through this resonance, Avia could channel its full potential.

As a result, the lightning attack was the ideal weapon of choice with which to scour the skies of the endless void-altered beasts. Milos itself remained far beyond their reach.

The life force from the Banner of Triumph surged like a tide into Wang Yu's broken body. It mingled with the sea of blood that bound him to the Dragon King's frame, alleviating the strain even as it reshaped his ruined flesh. He was learning to endure the crushing weight of this vessel, and already his body was beginning to change.

Skyborne City's Heavenfire cannon roared for the first time. Despite its name, the giant weapon born of hypermagic was a marvel of wind magic. Fire served only as the final spark and trigger.

From its barrel erupted not a blazing orb but a small, black sphere, a compressed mass of raw mana hurled toward the distant horde at an impossible speed. Its darkness was not the absence of matter, as with the void, but rather a byproduct of its density: the essence of magic crushed into a single, unstable seed. Once freed from the chamber's shaping wards, it began to unravel.

Currents of air spun around the orb. A vortex burst into being around its surface, dragging all matter into its heart.

A gale swelled to a storm, and then to a sky-rending tempest, all within ten breaths.

The tempest consumed everything. Dragons were ripped to tatters by shearing winds, their remains pulped by the pressure before they could scream.

Others struggled, but the storm's pull was absolute. Even void-shifting was impossible. Reality itself was being nailed down by stabilizing anchors all across the island.

At last, when the vortex had reached its zenith, the black sphere expended the last of its essence. Fire blossomed.

This wasn't ordinary fire, but rather hypermagic fire, fire that went beyond mere elemental law. The storm itself ignited. The sky-spanning tornado became a pyre, flames climbing in a column that split the heavens and consumed all things within.

In an instant, the whirlwind was transmuted into a firestorm. Though the winds ebbed, the flames continued to revolve around the orb, flaring ever more brightly until they pierced the canopy of stormclouds above the island.

The sky burned red, aflame as if the world itself had been set alight. This was the meaning behind the name Heavenfire.

Sieg's blazing claws tore into Milos's flesh. Fighting spirit surged with alchemical accelerants. The impact shattered even Milos's abyss-forged body, golden dragon-blood spraying as its scales were split apart.

But the flesh he tore loose collapsed instantly, dissolving into rifts that devoured all nearby. Sieg knew these void rifts all too well; the rent armor across his back and the scars along his body bore their mark.

Silver light flared. Aurelian's wings beat once, energy coursing through them. The sigil she had left upon Sieg ignited. In a flash he was torn from the trap and repositioned above her.

Milos, meanwhile, was already upon them. Abyssal power and monstrous vitality surged. Two trails of darkness scarred the sky as its breath burst forth in a cone of annihilation.

Aurelian, just a beat too slow to react after the effort she had expended in saving her brother, could not avoid the attack in time. Her silver wings flared to shield her, intercepting the storm.

The impact sundered her wings in a burst of divine light. Milos struck, its tail like a blade of black lightning lunging for her eyes. She had no defense—

The Chronostasis Hourglass fell and was caught. In accordance with their plan, Sieg and Aurelian triggered a spatial swap at fourfold acceleration. They switched places. Sieg was now braced where Aurelian had once stood, his claws raised to meet Milos's killing blow.

Claws of steel and flame crashed down, seizing Milos's lashing tail. Sieg's power erupted unchecked, his grip unyielding as the two titanic forces ground against one another.

With a bellow, Sieg locked down Milos's tail. Fighting spirit surged through him, thrusters on his wings igniting at full force, channeling their momentum into his arms. With a single heave, he swung the abyssal dragon's massive form downward.

A crisp crack split the air. Milos's tail had been wrenched free and torn asunder. Milos's body itself was a weapon, able to be detached and reforged at will. Milos had chosen to sever its flesh to slip Sieg's hold.

But Sieg gave no quarter. Aurelian, cloaked in high-energy light, dropped from the heavens at fivefold acceleration. Her full might crashed into Milos's bulk, driving it toward the earth with irresistible force.

The Chronostasis Hourglass chimed as Aurelian flung it once more to Sieg, who was waiting above.

Aurelian and Milos slammed into the ground. The earth split apart; silver radiance rippled outward, shattering the terrain.

Aurelian pressed the abyssal behemoth beneath her as torrents of silver dragonfire scoured Milos's skull. The unleashed energies annihilated all that lay nearby.

Yet from the blazing flood came Milos's wrathful bellow. Straining against the inferno, the abyssal dragon heaved its neck upward. Its jaws yawned wide, black voidbreath surging, ready to clash against Aurelian's breath in a cataclysmic counterblast.

But before it could make its move, a claw wreathed in argent light descended from the sky. Untouched by the streaming dragonfire, Sieg's talons crashed upon Milos's skull, forcing its neck back into the ground with strength born from fighting spirit.

Metal locks snapped into place. The weapon Sieg had long prepared but never unleashed at last roared to life.

A colossal piledriver burst from the armor of his warframe. Its payload was a dense core of compressed mana, alchemical propellant, and the heart of a Fire Elemental Lord to be used as fuel. Its warhead was forged of orichalcum, mithril, and a shard of starsteel supplied by Wang Yu himself.

Sieg rammed the piledriver into Milos's gaping maw, right down its throat. His finger squeezed the trigger.

The propellant detonated. A searing lance of light shot skyward. The resulting thunderclap shattered stone for miles around.

The warhead tore down Milos's gullet, compressing its gathering breath and plowing through its innards without pause. Then came the detonation.

The explosion exceeded all limits. The abyssal husk was obliterated. "...As expected. It isn't here."

"It's not over yet, Sister."

Though Milos's shell had been destroyed, neither Sieg nor Aurelian could relax. They knew that Milos's true form had never been within this vessel. That monstrosity had prepared far more than a single body.

From below came its voice, echoing through the island, a growl laced with anger and contempt. "The Dragon King... I know not where you found his corpse, nor the necromancer who reanimated it. But if you believe the two of you, that lifeless husk of a dragon, and your city can end me, you dream far too boldly.

"You have pressed me farther than I wished. I never intended to expend these dragons here. They were meant to endure, to nourish me when I crossed the Endless Sea and reached the continent. But thanks to you... they will be consumed now. As will you."

The island convulsed. The skyfire above guttered out, replaced by the yawning black of the void. Abyssal essence flooded the air; the deep resonance of the Abyss surged unchecked.

From the torn earth below, roots of flesh writhed upward. A mass of pulsating meat forced its way from the ground, rolling, splitting soil and stone. This was Milos's true cradle, his cocoon of blood and sinew. The shell they had fought was nothing but a warden.

Within the fleshy mass writhed countless dragons, still alive, bound in torment. The dead had already been remade as abominations, but the living were Milos's wellspring. He could absorb their strength through their suffering.

The dead were fodder for new bodies. The living were wombs for his true form. The assaults of Skyborne City, of Aurelian, of Sieg, had forced him to unveil this abomination sooner than planned.

The dragons' remaining worth would be wasted—so he would claim recompense from the intruders.

The colossal heart within the mass beat like thunder, each pulse shaking the island. The living dragons thrashed violently as Milos's nascent body accelerated its consumption of their life force. The sound of that heart was the omen of his rebirth.

The battle was about to enter its next phase.

Sieg fixed his gaze on the heart of the abomination. Power gathered within his chest, boiling, searing.

"At last, I've found you. It's time to end this."

His claws pressed against his breastplate. His inner core surged like fire.

"Noelle, light it up."