Chapter 402: The Sky's The Limit

"Got it."

Noelle's voice came through the Prayer Network, heavy with emotions she could not put into words.

A low hum stirred. On the alchemical flotilla anchored at the coast, the young red dragon raised her palm, gazing at the faint sigil etched there. She closed her eyes, forcing back the wetness that threatened to spill, and fixed all her will upon that mark.

In the ashen deadlands, it had been Noelle alone who had overseen the process of mana creation. Sieg had long since fallen unconscious, unable to take that final step he had so often failed to reach before.

With the knowledge she held, Noel had guided the process through her bond to Sieg's body, using his heart as a furnace to bring magic itself into being.

Yet the moment the mana singularity had manifested in full, Noelle realized a terrible truth. The process was irreversible and unstoppable. Once begun, it would consume everything—the locus of reaction and all matter touching it—burning it all away and transforming it into pure mana.

Sieg himself should have perished in the ashen deadlands, immolated as his own heart-furnace consumed him and transmuted him into raw magic. That he lived to fight Milos upon the Isle of Dragons was all thanks to one final gift: the nameless god of dreams had blessed him with what remained of his power.

To do so, the god had spent his own primal essence, not the fragile vessel of its dream-born body but the root of his being. He had burned away in Sieg's stead, halting the reaction still raging in his heart.

The sigil in Noelle's palm was a token that he had left behind, a trigger that could resume the ignition of the furnace when the time came. It was this hidden trump card that gave Sieg the strength to defy Wang Yu's pleas not to join this war.

𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Sieg had told no one of this—no one save Noelle, who had been there from the beginning. He knew Wang Yu would likely respect his choice even if he knew, but he would not gamble on that. This was his final stratagem against Milos. He wanted the plan to unfold as though no such option were possible until the very last moment.

A furious thunderclap shook the isle, drowning out the monstrous heartbeat of the abomination Milos had birthed in his cocoon of flesh.

If that newborn pulse had had the suffocating weight of a sovereign behind it, the roar from Sieg's chest was the opposite. It was the unshackled power of an engine driven beyond all limits, spewing forth an endless torrent of magic.

The sigil shattered in Noelle's hand. In Sieg's chest, the process that had been forcibly terminated in the deadlands now sparked to life once more. Though dimmer than she remembered, the spark of mana blazed true. Light spread as his chest was transmuted, matter burning away and leaving mana in its place, his body and soul shifting toward pure magical essence.

"I feel more relaxed than I expected. There's no pain... only fire. And my inability to wield magic has been completely healed by the birth of mana..."

Sieg's own thoughts echoed in Sieg's mind. In the deadlands he had been insensate, denied the revelation of what had taken place within his body. Now, with the process rekindled, he could understand what was happening at an intuitive level.

It was strange and wondrous, an exultant fullness, an unmatched surge of strength—at the cost of his body and spirit entire.

The Chronostasis Hourglass spun. Sieg unleashed its last reserves of strength, compressing five minutes of acceleration into a single burst. Twentyfold acceleration caused his body to shimmer as mana erupted into spell after spell at the speed of thought.

No one saw it coming. All they witnessed was a crimson streak ripping into the heavens, boring a cavernous hole through the monstrous cocoon and dragging the half-formed body of Milos into the open sky.

"So this is your resolve... Why are all the people I meet such noble beings?"

Wang Yu, piloting the Dragon King's corpse, turned to watch that crimson flare climb skyward. He understood at once what Sieg intended. Sieg had made the right choice in not telling him anything. Had he known, he would have sought another solution, one Sieg would not permit.

In truth, once Milos unveiled its cocoon, Wang Yu was planning to retreat. None present could hope to break the shell of whatever was gestating within.

Perhaps the Dragon God might have been able to do so, but his body, defiled and hollowed by centuries of Milos's parasitism, no longer had the strength it once did.

"...So the process of mana creation truly cannot be stopped."

Avia, watching from the void beyond, beheld the crimson streak and understood. As a magician, wizard, and researcher, she grasped more deeply than any the cost of Sieg's act. A quiet sorrow spread through her heart.

"Sieg Wilsbach, I know you! What you attempt to do now is meaningless. No magic you bear can pierce the defense of this body. Do you seek only to delay me?!"

In the sky, Sieg's claws closed around Milos's throat. Magic welled in endless torrents, clinging to both dragons as they wrestled. Milos's form bore an uncanny likeness to the Dragon God. Only its color and scale set it apart.

Gravity, earth, storm, flame, space—countless spells piled up on its body.

Magic surged from Sieg's heart-furnace. Guided by instinct, it burst forth as miracles of hypermagic.

Milos writhed, furious. The assault had come too swiftly for him to react. He should have been enthroned above the Isle of Dragons and crushing all opposition by now.

Instead, this red dragon, burning up from within with a magical reaction that was primed to explode at any moment, had torn Milos from its womb and dragged him high into the skies.

Milos had dared to expose the incubation chamber of its new vessel only because the heaving mass of flesh possessed such formidable defenses that even the attacks of the reawakened Dragon King's body could scarcely scratch it. Moreover, the gestation of that perfect shell had already reached its final stage.

And yet, if Milos were not mistaken, if its eyes hadn't deceived it, that red dragon had instantly overlaid six high-tier destructive spells, two eighth-tier Annihilation spells, and numerous other spells that even all its gathered knowledge could not identify over Milos's nascent shell and dragged it skyward.

The spells woven around Milos, now numbering in their thousands, were not meant to wound it but rather to bind it in the fetters of magic. The surplus mana transformed into a propulsion that hurled the two entwined dragons ever higher, ever faster.

"Damn you!" Milos roared in fury. "Even now you can achieve nothing! Do you not see? Your magic cannot even pierce my defenses!"

Gravity magic layered upon gravity magic until every force pressed upon him magnified a thousandfold. The crushing dominion of earth magic immobilized him until even his titanic strength could not move a muscle. That monstrous body, the apex of flesh, was helpless before the tsunami of spells.

And yet, as Milos had bellowed, Sieg's endless cascade of ascended spells, wrought from a body already half transmuted into pure magic, could not break through its shell. Its flesh was too fearsome—perhaps even the very pinnacle of corporeal strength in this world.

It was a body wrought of the Dragon God's secrets, fused with the knowledge stolen by an abyssal being, and forged from the remnants of the dragon corpses strewn across the isle. The vessel itself was a miracle.

An unending storm of spells hammered Milos, never breaching its shell but continuously pressing him back, driving it ever higher toward the firmament.

This perfect vessel wielded magic with equal perfection. Born with flawless magical circuits, it could, by instinct alone, unleash spells of the seventh tier and beyond. Yet in the presence of the red dragon Sieg Wilsbach, brother to the silver dragon, all its might was ignored. It was as if magic itself refused to acknowledge him.

"I know," Sieg said at last, his voice faint but unwavering in the face of Milos's derision. "There isn't time."

The spells he cast were not meant to penetrate Milos's vessel. He knew just how strong it was.

Perhaps he might be able to penetrate Milos's defenses, but he knew he wouldn't be able to kill Milos in time. His time in this state would be agonizingly brief. His soul was already aflame, his mind clouded. All he could do was follow the plan he had forged before and see it through to the end.

"You would hurl me into the Dissociation Layer?" Milos spat out, his voice thick with fury and scorn. "Even that place cannot consume me instantly, not without sufficient time and altitude. And you will unravel before me."

The world fell away. They climbed higher and higher. The clouds parted, leaving only the clear sky and the blazing sun before them. Sieg's grip pressed Milos toward the Dissociation Layer.

Milos howled with rage. Sieg's attempt might not kill it, but would surely damage the vessel it prized.

"I will not unravel before you," Sieg replied simply.

They breached the dissociation layer. In that instant, the unraveling force of dissociation spread across Milos's vessel. At first, the damage was imperceptible—the body was so strong that even the layer could not destroy it at low altitude.

But as they soared higher, as the air thinned and its resistance fell away, as their speed mounted and gravity loosened its grip, they approached the source of the void: the starry sky above.

Milos's vessel began to come apart. The dissociating force chewed inward, dismantling it piece by piece, essence by essence.

"You! Why are you unharmed? Why are you immune to dissociation?!"

Milos trembled with disbelief. Sieg's body showed no dissociation, no anomaly, save for the furnace still blazing in his heart. The dissociation affected only Milos's perfect vessel.

"..."

No answer came. Sieg's awareness was already fading, his soul consumed. Only instinct allowed him to continue clinging to Milos and carry it upward.

For Milos, the truth was beyond its grasp. It could seize memories from the blood of dragons and glean knowledge from their minds, but some things could not be learned except by experience. Such was the relationship between the dissociation layer and magic.

"The origin of magic is the dissociation layer." That was Sieg's revelation as he used his own heart as a furnace in the deadlands. The creation of mana was but the first step to understanding this truth. Without it, one could never perceive the bond between mana and dissociation.

Magic could not be observed in a world steeped in it, for there it could not be born anew—only transmuted. When Sieg developed this key insight, he quickly realized its ramifications.

The dissociation layer, where no magic dwelled, had to be the birthplace of mana.

And while the dissociation layer continued to strip away all matter, Sieg's ceaseless production of mana meant that the dissociation would not affect him. It tore only at Milos's vessel. Before the might of the dissociation layer three thousand kilometers above the earth, even Milos's miracle vessel was powerless.

The vessel crumbled bit by bit in the dissociation layer. The abyssal creature's true form was laid bare.

"Abyssal beings are untouched by the dissociation layer." Sieg had learned this fact in Skyborne City. His aim had never been to slay Milos directly, but to strip away the vessel to expose the abyssal core within.

"Is this the space that Wang Yu spoke of? Is this the true nature of our world? To think I would return to consciousness in such a place..."

Clarity returned to Sieg at the brink of death. He had passed through the dissociation layer and into the "stratosphere" of this world, a height that no intelligent race had reached for milelnnia before him.

Beneath him lay the truth: a sphere, vast and blue, swathed in clouds. He could see the familiar continents cradled by the Endless Sea, though from here the Isle of Dragons was invisible.

A strange lucidity steadied his fading mind. The Chronostasis Hourglass had slipped free and was adrift in the void. His soul had already burnt to ash; what remained was only the echo of magic.

"So the Endless Sea does have a boundary... another continent... and beyond?"

Across the endless sea that spanned the planet, Sieg beheld more than the familiar continent. Far below lay another landmass.

"What a pity," he murmured. "There are so many stars... Are they all worlds like ours? Well, it's enough that I can witness them with my own eyes. I won't grow greedy. There is still something I must do—and I've never liked being half-hearted."

He turned his gaze upward, away from the planet beneath. There stretched the boundless, star-strewn cosmos. Most of it lay in dead and silent darkness, yet scattered brilliance gave that endless void the pulse of life. The nearby moon of magic was pitch-black, almost within reach, while the sun still blazed afar, untouchable and remote.

What mysteries lay hidden among that starry host? As a pioneer in this new realm beyond the dissociation layer, he yearned to explore them all. Yet there would be no chance now. That, perhaps, was Sieg's greatest regret as a scholar.

But as he had said, there remained work to be done. His body was already destroyed; what lingered here was but the echo of magic. And what of the soul? Had it not always been dispensable?

"Sister," Sieg whispered, "these borrowed wings have at last flown beyond the boundary that humans call the sky."

Something endured even as Milos's vessel crumbled away under dissolution, baring its abyssal form. Sieg's steel wings had survived.

Back in the undead plane, they had been crude and unrefined. Now, after many battles, refinements, and upgrades, though they were now battered and torn, they had followed Sieg faithfully to this altitude. And here, with him, they would fulfill their last mission.

Magic surged. Sieg himself scarcely knew what he did. His very being, reduced to pure magic, sank into the wings of steel. The thrusters roared to life, turned downward, and began to accelerate toward the world below.

Milos, no longer shielded by its perfect vessel and now revealed in its abyssal form, was dragged along for the ride.

The steel wings accelerated in the vacuum, faster and faster still. Sieg's echo of consciousness ebbed as he sacrificed all that remained of himself to protect the wings from dissolution.

He accelerated again and again. His last remnants of magic were poured into speed, allowing him to tear past resistance and strain even the force of gravity. All his magic was consumed by the pursuit of surpassing the ultimate threshold. Pure speed, pure force, pure destruction: if he could reach a certain threshold, it might even be enough to slay even an abyssal being.

And Sieg did it.

A blazing star fell from the heavens and struck the heart of the Isle of Dragons. Words could not capture the terror of that impact. A tsunami flung the alchemical fleet dozens of kilometers away. The resulting shockwave vaporized the central mountain. Others further out were hurled whole into the sea. Skyborne City was swept across the firmament by raging winds.

When at last the chaos stilled, half the Isle of Dragons had sunk beneath the sea.