Ascension of the last Celestial

The roar of the cosmic dragon tore through the silence of the Voidwoods like a physical shockwave. For kilometers around his clearing, the ancient, twisted trees groaned and bent from the sheer pressure of his voice. In Valerian’s five-kilometer spatial perception, everything went completely chaotic. Hundreds of void beasts that had been lurking in the shadows completely froze in terror, while the smarter ones instantly turned around, trampling over each other in a desperate attempt to run away from the new apex predator.

Valerian looked down at his huge, pitch-black talons and let out a heavy breath, a wave of cosmic smoke escaping his nostrils. The raw, unfiltered power running through his massive, two-story frame was abnormal. He didn’t want to just stand on the ground and wait; he wanted to see what this body could really do.

With a sudden burst of mana, he unfurled his six massive, starlit wings. He flexed the powerful muscles along his spine and slammed the wings down against the air.

The pressure was immense. A miniature hurricane blasted outward from the clearing, ripping up bushes, shattering rocks, and snapping smaller trees like twigs. The ground beneath him cracked as his massive body lifted into the air.

It was surprising how intuitive it felt. Even with six wings and a long body, he didn’t feel clumsy at all. Gravity itself seemed to bend around him, making his massive weight feel as light as a feather. He beat his wings a second time, launching himself straight up past the dark canopy of the forest. Within seconds, he was soaring high above the endless, black sea of the Voidwoods, the freezing wind howling against his pitch-black scales while cosmic-purple lightning crackled along his back.

From up here, looking down at the dangerous forest with his glowing purple eyes, he felt like an absolute god.

His speed accelerated to an insane degree; he was so fast that a loud explosion of the sound barrier breaking was heard above the forest. There was no air resistance holding him down—it was like his wings cut through the fabric of space to make way for him.

’This is amazing!’

As Valerian reveled in the feeling of his new dragon body, he saw in the distance a massive figure towering above the trees.

It was easily 60 meters tall and walked on two backward-facing legs. Its whole body looked like it was made from vines and trees. It had two large horns that curved downward around its visage from its forehead, looking like they were made from hardened wood. It had a powerful jaw with rows of sharp teeth that were made out of some green material.

The beast’s orange, burning eyes locked with Valerian’s cosmic purple ones, and Valerian could immediately feel the presence of the monster.

’S+ Rank... should be doable.’

Normally, going up against an opponent that was two sub-ranks above oneself should be extremely dangerous and nerve-wracking. But Valerian knew his strength; he knew that he at S- was stronger than he should be. His body was stronger, more durable, and healed at ridiculous speeds, while his mana was purer and denser than the laws of the universe allowed it to be. So Valerian was confident that he could beat this S+ rank beast.

His speed increased even more as he raced toward the monster, eager to test out his dragon body. As he got closer, the beast opened its powerful jaw and its green teeth began to glow; green mana began to collect as a sphere in its jaw. When the sphere got to the size of an adult human, it snapped its jaws shut, and from its locked teeth, the green light shone out.

When Valerian was almost on the monster, it opened its maw again and a beam made out of pure, destructive energy burst forth.

’Fuck!’

Not expecting the monster to release a beam after biting on the orb, dread began to fill Valerian. In a desperation to dodge the fast-approaching beam, he channeled his mana through his space affinity, and the space around his massive form folded, making him appear 200 meters to the right. As the beam reached the place he was a moment ago, a 1 km long trench was ripped up from the ground.

Trees were uprooted and thrown to the side; whatever being existed in the area died in an instant, completely eviscerated by the destructive attack.

Valerian didn’t think much of the teleport, as he just wanted to evade the beam, but a realization made anger boil up inside him.

’Why did I run? Why didn’t I attack when it was firing the beam? I’m so stupid.’

That was where Valerian’s inexperience in real lethal combat showed; instead of exploiting the opening created by the monster’s own attack, panic took over and he retreated instead of closing the gap.

’Okay, fuck this. I think I need something to vent my anger.’

Looking at the monster, who seemed to be recovering from unleashing the attack, Valerian called upon his new affinity that he hadn’t gotten an opportunity to use yet.

Black and purple lightning began to dance around his dragon body. Small arcs of the lightning hit the trees below, completely erasing them.

Valerian channeled his mana, but instead of making the attack come from his body, he called upon the sky. Without warning, a large bolt of void lightning crashed down on the tree monster. There was no sound, no thunder; it just appeared and crashed down on it.

But the monster wasn’t S+ for nothing; just before the lightning hit it, it created a barrier made from the same green mana it used for the beam. While the barrier did manage to block most of the lightning, some still broke through and erased one of its arms.

It didn’t wail in pain or even bleed; the vines that made up its body simply wriggled and extended, forming a new arm in seconds.

’Well, that’s annoying, but I want to test out my lightning more... Maybe the dragon form isn’t the best for this fight.’

With a thought, he reached back inside and released his dragon form; the same purple-black hole appeared and swallowed his body.

From the black hole, Valerian’s humanoid body emerged as he flew upward, but instead of changing back fully, he kept two of his six wings. His draconic wings looked like mirrors into the night sky.

Now hovering in the air and looking at the monster before him, the large scale of the beast hit him. Before, he was looking at the giant as a large dragon, but now, hovering in front of it as a small human, it really hit him.

Without wasting a word on a beast that couldn’t talk, void lightning began to crackle around his body. With a thought, Twilight answered and formed into a large greatsword. It was made out of pitch-black steel with a 1.8 m long heavy blade; his void lightning was dancing along the weapon, and every time it moved, constellation-like dots and lines followed.

’I probably need something heavier than a longsword for this guy.’

Valerian raised his greatsword with one hand. In his grasp, Twilight would always feel weightless since he imbued it with his mana, but if anyone else were to try and lift the sword, they would feel the weapon weighed as much as a star.

The void lightning running along the blade of the weapon crackled in anticipation. With a thought, space folded and Valerian appeared above the left shoulder of the titan, bringing down the lightning-imbued sword.

As the blade connected with the monster, the lightning that was clinging to Twilight unloaded all at once in a massive, widespread explosion of black and purple lightning.

This time, instead of just an arm getting erased, a jagged cut completely cleaved its body in half. The cut didn’t look like it came from a sword; it had lines extending from it like veins made from void lightning, and everywhere these veins touched ceased to exist.

Deep within the monster, Valerian could see a green, shining orb; it was the monster’s mana core.

’It will keep regenerating as long as it has its core.’

Realizing the way the beast functioned, Valerian didn’t waste any more time and directly teleported into the already closing wound.

As Valerian was standing in front of the orb that was the size of his head, the vines that made up the body of the monster began to wriggle once again and began to close around him.

He raised his greatsword once again and channeled his void lightning into the blade. Valerian swung his sword forward; when the blade covered in lightning met the orb, the green mana inside it tried to fight against the erasing nature of Valerian’s lightning. But standing in front of his lightning affinity that was enhanced by his bloodline, there was no way it could resist an attack so close.

The greatsword breached the green barrier and cut the core in half with one smooth motion.

The vines around Valerian stopped wriggling, decided to behave like normal vines again, and began to fall. Not wanting to be buried in a pile of vines, Valerian activated another teleport and appeared above the battlefield.

Looking down at the crater that was created by his lightning overload, a feeling of satisfaction came over him.

’That was an S+ Rank monster and I didn’t even use 10% of my mana. Maybe this forest isn’t that dangerous.’

Little did Valerian know, in a few weeks he would regret ever thinking that, as the true horrors of the forest were still sleeping in the depths.