Defeating the World with the Power of One Dragon!

The night was illuminated as if boundless flames had set the sky alight.

Outside Dragonbreaker Gate, the Aola legions surged like a black tide, pressing toward the walls; within those walls, the Red Emperor, cloaked in smoke and fire, released a suffocating dragon might that seemed to coagulate into substance, shrouding every inch of the ruins.

At this moment, the morale of Theo’s garrison plummeted to its lowest point.

Yet the highest commander on site had no intention of surrendering.

Rodrigue clenched his fists until his nails bit into his palms, his gaze sliding over the drifting smoke to land on the hulking figure half-kneeling on the ground, his eyes rimmed with a web of bloodshot veins.

“Uncle, we still have one chance left. This is our last opportunity!”

He did not address him as General Whitanart as usual, instead using the familial title that carried blood and kinship.

At those words, the legendary called the Unyielding Shield slowly lifted his head.

The flickering flames clearly traced every wound on his face, from temple to jaw; his skin had split into countless fissures, some deep enough to show bone, blood seeping from those cracks and painting his visage crimson.

The grievous damage to Norton Pass was likewise reflected on Whitanart, who had sworn the Oath of Watch.

Two main peaks had cracked, the pass had been pierced, the Dragonbreaker Gate’s walls had crumbled... all those physical destructions mirrored themselves as injuries across his body.

But this legend, whose vow was to guard, seemed unconcerned about his wounds.

“Mm, Little Rodrigue, I know.”

A smile split Whitanart’s face. “None of the men of my Krowen family are cowards. Today, let this land and these mountains bear witness.”

He did not rise; he remained with one knee touching the ground, arms hanging heavy, his fists pressed hard against the earth already soaked with blood.

“My bones are stone, my blood is iron.”

“I vow that where I stand, ten thousand bastions shall not fall; where I lie, ten thousand foes shall retreat.”

The solemn words flowed from his mouth like an ancient litany, starting low then swelling into a grand, resonant proclamation that echoed across the flame-choked, ruin-strewn battlefield.

From the seams of his armor surged not just blood, but torrents of molten-hot breath, within which countless runes of the Oath of Watch flickered and rose.

Life-flow qi and the Oath of Watch.

Two different legendary paths of power blended completely at that moment, indistinguishable from one another.

Radiant streams of light began at his fists, rapidly seeping into every crack in the ground, creeping up the toppled walls and wrapping the two fractured peaks, as if the sinews and bones of the entire Emerald Ridge were being reforged and rejoined.

At the other end, the Red Emperor immediately noticed the abnormal movement.

The dragon’s hind legs flexed, the air about it nearly congealing—the next instant it would strike at Whitanart the one performing the ritual.

But at that precise moment, the ruin-strewn ground to the Red Emperor’s right suddenly bulged, and a squat, sturdy figure burst from the earth, swinging a double-bladed axe nearly as tall as she was. She leaped up from below, the blade driving toward the side of the iron dragon’s knee.

Garoth reacted almost instinctively, raising a claw to kick. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Clang—!

A shrill ring of metal-on-metal exploded, sparks flying.

The dragon’s ankle scales, tougher than hardened steel, were split open by that axe, a deep wound exposing bone beneath.

The small figure was flung backward with even greater force, crashing into a broken wall opposite and gouging a large, character-shaped dent into it.

But the next second she wrestled herself free from the masonry and staggered back to her feet.

“Powerful... but what I love cutting most is the hard stuff.”

The female dwarf spat a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva, and her gaze at the Red Emperor held no fear, only burning combat fervor, a hunter’s thrill.

On the other side, the mage who had been calmly observing the battle raised his staff.

“Healing Spear.”

He mouthed a concise incantation; without long chanting or elaborate gestures, the ambient elements gathered and formed a spear of soft green light that pierced the dwarf’s body, quickly mending the shock damage she had just taken.

After that brief delay, the Unyielding Shield’s vow reached its final stage.

“Today, I bind with life-flow qi as lock, and the Oath of Watch as cage.”

“With this body and this blood, I shall reforged the Unyielding Wall!”

Rock-like natural patterns appeared beneath his skin, and his eyes turned into burning amber orbs as if subterranean fire flowed within.

Light that had started to scatter flowed back into his body, then poured outward with even greater magnitude, feeding the stronghold.

Cracked walls knit together with deep, grumbling roars, and collapsed battlements rebuilt themselves from dust and rubble.

The two peaks that formed the pass’s foundation radiated an indescribable gravity, like sleeping titans slowly stirring awake.

“Norton shall never fall, for I shall become Norton itself!”

As his final vow dropped, Whitanart straightened.

The horrific fissures over his body vanished; his breath surged to a peak, the solidified life-flow qi and the Oath of Watch’s radiance coiling around him like armor forged of light.

Yet on the back of the hand that had gripped the earth, a glaring gray-white patch had appeared.

That gray-white spread upward along his arm at a slow but unstoppable pace.

When it covered him completely, it would mean he had exhausted every scrap of life.

His flesh would fully turn to stone, merging with the Emerald Ridge forever—once the process began, there was no reversal.

“Do everything you must—surround and hunt the Red Emperor. This is our only chance!”

Rodrigue immediately issued a clear order to all legends present, while activating a broadcasting array so his voice could reach every Theo soldier.

“The Red Emperor has walked into our trap, isolated and without backup!”

“Brothers, follow me and slaughter the dragon. For Theo!”

So this had all been the plan from above?

To use the entire Dragonbreaker Gate as a cage, lure the Red Emperor in, then execute the encirclement and kill?

Many Theo soldiers, after a stunned moment, felt new light spark in their eyes.

Their sagging morale surged back; they forcibly suppressed the instinctive terror of that dragon silhouette and, following prior orders and training, returned to their positions.

Aside from regular troops and lower-ranking officers, a number of legends had already taken positions on the remaining battlements.

Their legend tiers weren’t the highest, so they couldn’t inflict decisive damage against the Red Emperor; their task was to hold back the pressing Aola legions and any enemy legends that might appear, cutting off any external aid to the Red Emperor.

Rum—!

On the Aola side, the horns for attack had sounded; the thunder of Theo’s alchemical heavy cannons tore the air, dense salvos beginning to rain down on the foe.

The great battle finally erupted in full.

“Although there were some unexpected bumps in the process, the final outcome will not change.”

Bosival, who had remained hidden in the shadows, curled the corner of his mouth into a faint smile.

He cast a long look at the crimson dragon figure surrounded in the center, then silently stepped back into the dark, his form dissolving like a shadow; no one knew which corner of the battlefield he had slipped into.

At the same time, in the ruins where smoke and flame twined, the Red Iron Dragon slowly turned his massive head.

He glanced upward first, his vertical pupils sweeping over the restored Unyielding Wall, then returned his gaze to coolly take in the four figures encircling him.

To his front-left stood Whitanart, the Unyielding Shield.

He loomed like a mountain, life-flow qi and the Oath’s radiance interlacing across his surface, blazing bright.

This man’s life was now tightly bound to the entire Norton Pass, the columnar pillars, and the permanent cliffs—he was in a state of giving his life to fuel a last, brilliant flash.

Merely standing there, he was an insurmountable sigh of a wall.

Even as that wall moved inexorably toward petrification and an end.

To the front-right stood Esther, the Unbreakable Break.

The dwarf legend hefted the double-bladed axe nearly her height in one hand; the blade buzzed, vibrating from her rising battle-fury.

She grinned, revealing teeth stained dark with blood.

Within that stout, compact frame burned a purer hunger for combat than many giant monsters.

Behind-left and behind-right were two very different legendary casters.

Dirik the Manifold and Hossand the Eye of Ash—one a transmuter, the other a curse mage.

Four legends in total, occupying the four cardinal positions.

Legendary pressure collided and compressed in the air, making the central area’s air viscous as glue, the gravity field distorted and unstable, with small stones and ash drifting up into the air against nature.

And at the center of that encirclement sat the Red Emperor.

His form at this moment was not ordinary.

From tip to tail he exceeded sixty meters; his jagged spine sprouted menacing bony spikes, golden lightning veins and blood-red flames rolled over his body, and the red-lotus-like energy veins interwove with scar-like rune marks from countless battles, making every scale look like a branding iron heated in a forge.

He had shown a similar battle stance in the earlier raid on Theo’s satellite fortress.

So there was no need to hide anymore.

To smash the pass’s defenses in a single blow, the Red Iron Dragon had already adjusted to near-maximum combat state upon breaking in.

But he did not appear intact.

Bearing the impact of meteor-like assaults in sheer flesh was a heavy burden even for Garoth. Many places on his dark crimson, heavy scales had cracked and curled, exposing charred, tough muscle underneath; the root of his left wing bore a deep tear.

Scalding dragon blood seeped from those wounds.

Before it dripped, it turned into flame-gas and burned silently.

The Red Emperor seemed unconcerned with those wounds, as if they were mere scratches.

“You choose not to flee, instead locking yourself with me... are you trying to make me laugh?”

“Humans, I will admit—you succeeded.”

The Red Iron Dragon slowly swayed his thick neck and peeled back his tooth-filled maw into an expression that looked monstrously like a grin.

“Lizards... ha. I used to call you dragon-kind that word.”

“However, you have changed my mind.”

“Great dragons, we acknowledge your might and power, but you are outrageously arrogant, far too dismissive of us.”

The dwarf Esther waved her axe and grunted rough words: “Ramming the wall with your body? Very dramatic. But the real fight hasn’t even started, and you’ve already made yourself look like you volunteered for death.”

At that, Garoth gave her a glance.

Then he ignored her, lifting his massive head and opening his maw as his chest heaved like a bellows.

The four legends around him immediately braced, adjusting for a potential cataclysmic breath.

But the Red Iron Dragon did not exhale flame.

He inhaled deeply.

Life Extraction!

At the same instant he activated this wide-range plunder skill from the Eternal Death path.

An invisible, immaterial wave of consuming force pulsed outward from him.

Within the Dragonbreaker Gate, all the soldiers who had just died and had not been processed were instantly drained of moisture and essence, withered in a blink, and collapsed into puffs of ashen gray dust.

Thin, visible filaments of life-energy streamed like rivulets to a sea.

They converged from all corners of the battlefield, disappearing into the Red Iron Dragon’s gaping maw.

The grotesque wounds across his body began healing at a visibly rapid pace.

Jagged scale edges sprouted fresh tissue that knitted together; charred muscles sloughed away as pink new flesh filled the gaps; even the deep tear at the base of his left wing closed and formed a scab as muscle fibers wound together.

The Red Iron Dragon emitted a low roar of satisfaction.

He advanced a steady step, flexing the newly healed shoulder and neck.

Hum—!

Dragon qi condensed like liquid metal roiled and braided; with that step, the Red Emperor’s form underwent a terrifying metamorphosis into a two-headed, four-armed monstrosity.

Four burning dragon pupils spun in unison, locking onto the first target.

The Red Iron Dragon folded his wings inward with a violent snap, his powerful hind limbs driving into the earth; then the massive membrane wings flung back to provide instantaneous thrust.

Boom!

His body became a streak of crimson lightning tearing through the air, wrapped in a flame domain, aimed at Dirik the Manifold in the rear-left! The colossal frame cleaved a visible, milky shockwave through the air, the ground ripped into two deep furrows, stones swept aside as if by an unseen giant hand.

Against this thunderous charge, Dirik remained calm.

Any legend who had tasted real war was prepared mentally and tactically to be targeted by the enemy’s strongest force with a direct face-attack.

Misplaced Overweight!

Whitanart reacted first.

He did not try to move and intercept; instead he hammered both fists deeper into the ground.

Hum—!

Around the Red Iron Dragon, gravity spiked violently! Invisible layers of gravity stacked and twisted, each layer exerting a different form of overweight, chaotic and constantly shifting. Even Garoth’s high resistance to gravity could not fully withstand it.

The charging momentum visibly stalled—the Red Iron Dragon seemed to barrele into viscous molten metal.

At the same time, Dirik’s amplification spells struck the dwarf.

A cascade of magic lights in varying hues flared across Esther’s sturdy frame and fused together.

“Ha! This is the feeling! Glorious force!”

Feeling the power coursing through her, Esther laughed aloud.

Under the spell her height shot upward, swelling to nearly two meters, shoulders as broad as her height, a giant dwarf.

Almost simultaneous with Whitanart’s move, she enveloped herself with a domain, planted her feet, grinding the ground to dust.

Her figure blinked out and reappeared on the Red Emperor’s flank in his charge path.

The dwarf warrior had no flashy techniques; the great axe rose from below and swept upward, the blade aiming straight at the Red Emperor’s left wing armpit exposed by the wing’s force.

Her weapon was named the Armor-Breaker Axe, with a brutally pure effect.

—Ignores most physical and magical defense, causing true structural destruction.

If that axe landed solidly, it could very well shear off the Red Iron Dragon’s entire left wing at the root.

Caught in multiple layers of overweight, the Red Iron Dragon’s charge stance persisted, but he had to respond.

Against Whitanart’s Dislocation Overweight, his true forearm extended, annihilation runes glimmering on the back of the claw; he suddenly clawed and tore to the sides.

Slash!

Like ripping thick upholstery.

The invisible overweight field was torn open in two.

Facing Esther’s cunning axe strike, the Red Iron Dragon did not dodge; he met it head-on, his dragon-qi-formed giant arm sweeping, sacrificing a large rupture to slam the dwarf away and continuing the pounce toward Dirik.

Dirik remained unflustered; a powerful spell he had been murmuring coalesced.

Bodily Animation!

A ripple passed over the Red Iron Dragon’s body.

In an instant, his tail went berserk.

It shot up and coiled like a living thing toward the dragon’s neck.

Garoth had to stop his charge and wrestle his own tail, clutching the tail root with his claws and using near-all his strength.

But what made the transmuter frown: this spell, which should have lasted minutes, only affected the Red Iron Dragon for three seconds before pacifying.

At the same moment, Dirik relaxed and swung his staff again.

Reverse Fleshflow, Tendon Disarray!

Spell energy rippled across the Red Emperor’s frame; massive muscle bundles spasmed and writhed in reverse, tendons knotting and threatening to snap, his moves once again disrupted.

Evil Gaze! Cataclysmic Black Blade! Deepening Wounds!

Hossand’s support arrived in an instant—three spells struck in rapid sequence.

A malevolent gaze manifested, tangling the dragon qi; black great-blades tore through space and slashed him, leaving deep gashes; an ominous red light rose on his body, doubling all damage taken.

For a moment, the Red Emperor’s offensive was perfectly contained.

His movements inevitably slowed; despite still forcing himself forward through the spells to strike, he was neatly sidestepped by Dirik with a short-range teleport.

Then Whitanart and Esther, bolstered by the casters’ magics, charged—one head-on, one flanking—striking the Red Iron Dragon with blunt force.

The transmuter and the curse mage continuously built layered spells—some amplifying allies, some weakening the enemy, some outright attacking. They didn’t confront him alone, but they created the most trouble for the Red Iron Dragon.

The battle fell into a short stalemate and war of attrition.

The Red Iron Dragon’s flame domain had been broken; now his enormous body alone faced an unending volley of spells and transformations.

His two heads and four arms savagely swung—claw slashes, tail sweeps, breath attacks—driving Whitanart back, adding new fissures to the already-hardened frame, and even the Norton Pass’s two principal peaks cracking slightly.

Esther attempted repeated thrusts and slashes.

But the Red Iron Dragon displayed high vigilance toward the dwarf who could tear through his scales; he always countered her with wing strikes, area claw swipes, or a small breath to drive her back out of striking range.

He would rather endure a few attacks or debuff spells from Dirik and Hossand than give Esther a solid chance to land a decisive hit.

And Whitanart, taking the brunt of Garoth’s assault, bore the heaviest burden.

The gray-white mark symbolizing life ebbing and petrification had already crept past his elbow and was moving toward his shoulder and chest; the spread was slow but unstoppable.

Dirik and Hossand entered a state of intense focus.

One changed spells on the fly, disrupting, slowing, and weakening every possible attack rhythm; the other forsook conjured elements and creatures to concentrate entirely on releasing negative-state magics, attempting to cooperate with Dirik to push the Red Iron Dragon’s condition into a trough.

“Bosival, what are you doing?!”

Rodrigue’s face tightened in anxiety as he called for the missing legend.

Bosival had vanished right at the start of the encirclement. This hunter, who should have had the strongest killing capability and been able to fix Garoth’s attention, had not participated in the encirclement.

If he had, the battle would never have stalled like this.

“Be patient.”

“Can’t you see how tenacious his body is? He keeps taking new wounds, but they don’t matter to him. Besides, he appears to have a continuous recovery trait. Even if I acted now, I couldn’t change this stalemate.”

“The Aola legions’ onslaught never stops; the Unyielding Wall cannot hold much longer.”

“To win, we must do it my way.”

Bosival’s voice condensed to a thread, precisely transmitted into Rodrigue’s ear.

Rodrigue opened his mouth but could not find words to argue; he sighed in resignation.

He understood he could not sway the will of this legendary hunter.

Bosival was not of the royal line, but once married to a royal princess, his interests had long been intertwined with Theo’s crown.

He disliked the Krowen family and resented being ordered by a mortal commander without legendary strength.

All Rodrigue could do was silently pray for Bosival’s plan to succeed; sadly, he could do nothing more.

In this world, power was everything.

A commander like him had limited sway.

Then, after a relatively long stalemate, the battlefield’s shape suddenly shifted.

The Red Iron Dragon lunged at Dirik again, his momentum identical to before.

Whitanart and Esther met him as before—one to block head-on, one to slash from the flank.

Hossand habitually raised his staff to lay down another round of debuffs as Dirik began to channel a potent transformation spell.

Yet this time, things changed unlike any previous moment.

A cold flash passed through the dragon’s vertical pupils. His wings beat hard, and the charging colossus executed an incredible mid-air pivot at high speed—a brutal angle change!

The thick tail followed like a steel whip, sweeping and violently flinging Whitanart aside like a toppled iron tower.

In an instant, the dragon that seemed to aim at Dirik diverted!

Four arms armored with hard scales and burning dragon qi shot out like crimson lightning tearing space.

His real target was the dwarf whose bloodlust boiled.

In sustained, high-pressure legendary siege combat, the dwarf’s style had become progressively more aggressive and unrestrained; her eyes bloomed with veins.

To intercept Garoth’s “assault” on Dirik, she had put herself squarely in range of the dragon’s giant arms.

“Roar—!!!”

Both of the Red Iron Dragon’s heads lifted and issued a deafening, furious roar.

This roar was more than sound; it carried an extraordinary power that ignited rage and strikingly pierced the dwarf’s mind.

In an instant, the veins in the dwarf’s eyes surged like living things.

“Kill!!!”

Facing the approaching, terrifying claws, she did not flee; she roared like a beast, charged forward, and with her compact, powerful frame leapt high, swinging her legendary axe down toward one of the dragon heads.

“Dammit! Her mental state is wrong... as if some force has bewitched and enraged her? The Red Emperor has such a skill?!”

The two casters felt dread, but their battlefield experience forced immediate countermeasures.

Reverse Fleshflow, Tendon Disarray!

Dirik again cast the fast, effective transformation spell.

The more time-consuming Tailoring of Brawn defense could not be prepared in such an instant.

But the spell’s effect exceeded Dirik’s expectations.

The Red Iron Dragon’s muscles twisted and writhed; tendons made faint snapping noises.

However, his motions did not falter!

Moreover, beyond his roiling flames and golden electricity, his surface suddenly glowed with layers of deep, resilient crimson light.

Unyielding Perseverance!

—Wounds and pain do not slow your moves; they instead make your attacks more dangerous, inflicting greater harm on enemies!

Garoth’s three dragon-qi giant arms surged up, viciously reaching from different angles for the enraged dwarf.

Simultaneously, his main right arm shot up, targeting Hossand, who hurriedly chanted the next curse.

Claim Life!

A pulling force born of nothingness reached out to the fragile curse mage.

Hossand’s robe flashed with blinding magical light; preset auto-defense spells triggered, forming layers of protective runes that floated up into solid shields.

Crack! Crackle!

But the harsh sounds of breaking rang out as spiderweb-like fissures raced over those shields, expanding fast until they threatened collapse.

The curse mage’s face changed; he had to forcefully break off his ongoing offensive incantation.

As a learned spellcaster, he recognized the signature of the Eternal Death path’s Claim Life skill.

Given the discrepancy in physicality, if he were pulled in unprotected, his frail body would be instantly drained to a husk.

He tore open protective scroll after scroll, ripping them at speed.

Different-hued, varying protective lights layered around him, resisting the Claim Life pull.

All of this happened in one or two breaths.

At the same time, the Red Iron Dragon’s thick dragon-qi arm came down hard, blasting the dwarf’s axe aside; his body’s left arm, burning with roaring thunderfire, hammered into Esther’s undefended chest and belly from below.

Boom!!!

A visible white sonic shockwave blast radiated from the impact.

“Ugh—!!!”

The dwarf’s armor caved, she spat a fountain of blood and organ fragments, and her stout body flew like a smashed sack, arcing through the air and crashing into a pile of rubble, buried beneath bricks and stone.

One blow.

The legendary dwarf’s breath flickered like a candle in the gale, almost snuffed—the life flame wobbling dangerously.

“The first.”

The Red Emperor’s left head lifted slightly to pronounce judgment. His right head sprayed a scorching stream of breath at a re-advancing Whitanart, forcing the powerful defender to temporarily retreat and preventing timely aid.

“His true target was always Esther! All prior attacks, even the feints against us, were to numb our defenses and create this guaranteed killing chance!”

Dirik realized Garoth’s tactic in an instant, sweat soaking his robe.

He was right.

From the start, Garoth prioritized eliminating the dwarf warrior.

The two casters had depth and many tricks—no ragtag Dragon-Worshipper freebies—they carried numerous protective artifacts and scrolls, making them hard to kill quickly.

But compared to casters, the dwarf’s relatively stout physique was not decisively stronger.

So Garoth feinted against the casters to distract and then struck at the right moment to put one down.

With one legend gone, Whitanart alone could not halt Garoth’s advance; this time he did not feint but genuinely surged at the two casters.

His wings beat and his huge body seemed to rip the distance, appearing before Dirik as if teleported.

A giant claw burning with dark red dragon qi, like an avalanche of mountains, slammed down with crushing oppression!

With no way to avoid the fatal blow, Dirik drew a breath and suppressed his fear.

A veteran legendary caster always keeps a last reserve.

A preset transformation defense suddenly activated at the last instant.

Time Stop!

—Your speed and reactions become preternatural; the flow of time around you nearly freezes, preventing spellcasting in that brief window.

It felt as if an invisible giant hand hit pause on the world.

Around Dirik, everything stiffened.

Drifting dust froze, flung stones halted, soldiers’ stunned faces locked in place.

Even the monstrous Red Iron Dragon stood suspended about a hundred meters from Dirik.

Dirik could clearly see every scale texture, blood on his claws, even the two black vertical pupils turning at an extremely, extremely slow rate... turning?

Wait?!

Dirik’s pupils shrank; horror surged.

He realized the Red Iron Dragon was not entirely still.

The dragon was turning its heads toward him, at an imperceptibly slow but accelerating pace!

Two heads and four eyes were gradually locking onto him!

Then the giant claw began to accelerate from near-stasis, faster and faster, bringing a killing pressure that threatened to stop his heart.

“What... what kind of monster is this?!”

Dirik’s mind churned with panic.

Garoth’s resistance to spells, and the sheer strength of his body and will, had reached unfathomable levels.

Unable to gamble on how long Garoth would remain affected by the spell, Dirik decisively released Time Stop.

The frozen world resumed like pressing play; time’s torrent roared back.

The massive dragon claw fell with overwhelming force!

Boom!!!

The earth trembled; dust billowed; a huge claw-shaped pit appeared where Dirik had stood, spiderweb cracks radiating outward.

Dirik popped up atop another ruin.

The blink-scroll he’d tried to use had turned to ash in his hand.

He breathed shallowly, cold sweat beading his forehead.

Under the Red Iron Dragon’s continuing gaze, Dirik felt like prey locked by a formidable predator. He did not hesitate and clutched the dark red necklace at his throat.

Within that necklace rested a drop of blood from an Abyssal Flame Lord.

As a medium, Dirik could cast a forbidden transmutation that would temporarily turn him into a legendary fire-demon, gaining matching skills to perhaps withstand the Red Iron Dragon in direct combat.

But at that moment Garoth turned his attention away and looked toward the curse mage.

Dirik’s hand froze a fraction.

Transforming into the fire-demon demanded an enormous price—permanently shortening life and followed by long-lasting extreme weakness after the spell ended.

More importantly... Dirik still lacked real close-combat experience.

To face a ferocious Red Iron Dragon directly might mean certain death.

For Theo, for a war not even his country’s—was it worth risking his life and legendary career?

Not worth it.

That thought spread through Dirik’s mind fast. He loosened his grip on the necklace and prepared mentally to flee.

Whitanart roared and charged to intercept the Red Iron Dragon again, but his speed seemed clumsy before Garoth in full fury.

The dragon didn’t even look back; his tail lashed and struck Whitanart’s chest again, sending him smashing into a distant pile of rubble.

Garoth’s main body, like a crimson meteor, dove for the curse mage Hossand.

Under the dragon’s relentless onslaught, Hossand was at the end of his tether.

His magical trinkets, robe protections, and cherished life-scrolls lit up and were broken one after another under dragon claws, breath, and raw force.

His face drained white; his breathing quickened as death closed in.

“This can’t go on...”

His life-safeguard cards were drained at terrifying speed.

Hossand tore open three scrolls at once; somber energy coalesced into manifest forms—a chain of binding, a prison of white bone, and a soul-striking curse torrent—stacked and hurled at the dragon.

Garoth snarled, claws sweeping.

Annihilation runes flared on his claw-backs, ripping apart chains and bone cages with ease.

The mightiest soul-level strikes hardly slowed him; at most, they caused the faintest pause.

Crack!

The final shield, formed by seven spinning star-phantoms, wailed and then shattered under the dragon’s blow.

Garoth’s figure tore through all obstacles, wrapped in lightning, flame, and death, bearing down on the curse mage.

Though two legends remained nearby, Hossand felt unprecedented isolation.

Whitanart had been flung away and Dirik seemed ready to flee.

“Too late to run...”

Hossand saw his last protective spells shatter; despair flickered in his eyes before being replaced by madness.

If he was to die, he would make the enemy pay!

Resolute, he chanted furiously, his mana burning as he poured everything into the next spell.

Just as his incantation reached its end, the Red Iron Dragon’s claw slammed in.

Smack—!

A dull blast.

Legendary curse mage Hossand exploded into a crimson mist of blood.

Yet within that mist, a tiny but profoundly deep point appeared.

Ultimate Destruction Orb!

Without warning, it inflated into an enormous pitch-black sphere that swallowed the Red Iron Dragon’s body.

Its surface was mirror-smooth, reflecting warped battlefield images; inside came the sounds of dragon scales being shredded.

Then Garoth’s deep, thunderous roar echoed within the orb.

The black sphere’s surface writhed and bulged with savage protuberances; thick fissures crazed across it. This final spell, cast with the caster’s life as the cost, was powerful enough to temporarily trap or injure the Red Iron Dragon, but could not hold indefinitely.

Yet that brief restraint was enough for the hunter hiding in shadow!

“Now!”

Bosival, long concealed at the battlefield’s edge with near-vanishing breath, flared with decisive light.

He had been waiting for precisely this moment:

the Red Emperor bound by a powerful spell, significantly affected and forced to respond!

With two legends’ sacrifice as price, the Mountain’s Fang finally had an opening.

He shed his concealment and stepped onto a higher ruined wall, longbow humming like a living thing in his hands.

“By my soul as guide, by my life as string!”

“The mountains lend me backbone; the fallen grant me edge!”

Bosival nocked the arrow, and the bow’s limbs cast rippling vortices; stones around floated into the air.

“Witness now—the end of a life!”

“This arrow shall be the pointed death of the King-Beast!”

Bosival concentrated all his will into the arrow; air compressed before the tip, light twisted by the string, and the battlefield’s clamor dropped into a hush. Only the arrow shivered, issuing a high keening.

The next instant.

The black sphere reached its tolerance. Cracks webbed across its surface, and it shattered like black glass, exploding into nothing.

The Red Emperor’s gigantic form once more stood exposed to the air.

His wounds were grotesque to behold.

Masses of dark crimson scales had been eaten away, revealing raw gore and bone; in many places the destructive energies left smoldering blue smoke; his once-mighty aura had noticeably dimmed, looking fatigued.

Yet even so, he hovered steadily, four arms hanging low, two heads raised in a bleak dignity.

It seemed to him these injuries were trouble, not doom.

As soon as the Red Emperor was revealed, in that lightning-snap gap Bosival loosed.

The arrow left the bow silently.

Because death’s speed exceeded sound.

It split into three, becoming three pure, condensed, glaring beams of golden light so searing they made watchers’ eyes sting. It seemingly ignored spatial distance; in the same instant Bosival released, the three beams pierced the Red Iron Dragon’s heart and both heads.

Fast! Accurate! Lethal!

Beyond reaction, beyond defense, striking the vital points.

Time seemed to freeze for a heartbeat.

Garoth’s vast bulk stiffened, motionless.

For a moment, whether Aola’s legions pressing the wall or Theo’s exhausted garrison, whether Rodrigue or the changing-faced Dirik, or Whitanart whose petrification climbed to his neck...

Everyone’s gaze froze on the crimson colossus slowly toppling.

The invincible, undefeated Red Emperor—was he truly about to fall?!

Bosival stood alone on the ruin, the longbow trembling slightly in his hands, eyes narrowed, watching his handiwork.

When that arrow bearing everything in it flew, the essence seemed drained from him; his hawk-like presence faltered and his face showed an unhealthy pallor.

Yet a bright smile spread across his features.

Because he had done it!

He reversed an impossible outcome!

He had shot down the soaring Red Emperor!

He had steadied a collapsing fortress and turned the tide!

This arrow would be recorded heavily in Theo’s annals and beyond.

From now on, the world would remember Bosival’s name.

The hunter who pierced the Aola Emperor’s heart with a single arrow in a desperate hour, saving Theo’s fate—praise and supreme honor would rain upon him...

The sweet fantasy intoxicated him like the finest wine.

“Huff... huff...”

A low, hoarse breath cut through Bosival’s imagining.

In midair, the Red Iron Dragon that should have collapsed and died instead did the unimaginable—he stabilized his posture.

“You should have tried cutting off my head...”

he thought coldly.

At the same moment, a blinding white light flared across the dragon’s maimed body.

Born from Death!

A terror far more dangerous than his previous prime erupted from within like a waking volcano.

Bosival’s radiant smile froze.

The next second.

The Red Iron Dragon, shining in blazing white light, vanished from his sight.

By the time Bosival registered it, the white-flamed Red Iron Dragon stood before him.

The dragon, burning with white-hot flame, loomed like a god over the broken wall.

Two heads and four arms, rising near-erect, the body leaning forward and casting a shadow that swallowed Bosival whole.

His huge, thick right arm drooped, the hooked talons at the tips projecting like spears, pointing squarely at Bosival’s brow.

“Now, it is my turn.”

A whisper like the death knell sounded in Bosival’s ear.

Under the dragon’s shadow and white blaze, Bosival’s pupils shrank.

He staggered backward, vanishing.

At his level, legends often—though not masters of space—feature skills to cloak via spatial means.

But rip—!

A blazing white claw plunged into the blurred spatial ripple and with irresistible force ripped to the side.

Space tore open.

Bosival, not fully within the dimensional crease, was seized like a fish hauled from water, clutching him tightly and dragging him out!

“No... this cannot be... why won’t you die?! That arrow clearly...”

Bosival’s lips trembled and he screamed incoherently, his face written with collapse.

He instinctively tried to struggle, tried to activate other survival skills to open distance.

But it was too late.

The Red Iron Dragon’s claw gripped his body in its palm.

Garoth had no interest in parley with such a life-taking foe and no intention of taking him alive.

He tightened the grip.

“No—!!!”

Bosival screamed a final, bitter howl, using his last strength to force a domain open.

The response was a series of cracks like jade and glass being crushed.

The legendary domain ruptured.

Then came the muffled sound of human bone, muscle, and organs being pulverized by irresistible power.

Bosival’s small human body, his last struggles and screams, were crushed and subsumed within the Red Iron Dragon’s grip.

Thus ended the Mountain’s Fang—the hunter who had pierced the Red Emperor’s heart with a legendary arrow—dead.

The Red Emperor slowly opened his claw.

In his palm remained nothing but a small smattering of ash mixed with bone dust, drifting away on the battlefield’s hot wind.

And then the brilliant, violent white light around him faded like a tide, dissipating quickly.

That breathless, extreme aura calmed, replaced by a body still scarred but with all fatal wounds gone; his life force surged robustly, nearly restored to his prime.

Despair washed the hearts of every Theo soldier in an icy tide in the instant that handful of embers scattered.

It was so heavy even the surviving legends felt a bone-deep chill.

“So... all of our struggle was in vain...”

Whitanart released a long, heavy sigh full of weariness and surrender.

He no longer fought; his eyes closed gently as the gray-white petrification spread across his last features and form.

A rock statue, etched with natural fissures, now stood among the ruins.

With his complete petrification, the Unyielding Wall—already dim and wavering under Aola’s fierce assault—emitted a faint final hum and utterly dissipated into the air.

“Resurrection... how is this possible?!”

Dirik sucked in a breath as he stared at the Red Emperor whose vitality had returned to its peak.

Revival was not absolutely impossible. As a legendary transmuter he knew methods to raise recently dead, relatively intact mortals or low-tier fighters.

But strict preconditions applied.

Life level and intensity mattered. The stronger the life, the harder revival became exponentially.

Raising a normal mortal was easy; reviving a level-20 strong one demanded significant cost and non-guaranteed success; reviving a legend was near-impossible.

The backlash and drain would scare off any caster.

Yet the Red Emperor—a physically titanic dragon whose heart had been pierced—had recovered and nearly returned to full strength in an instant?!

This defied Dirik’s known rules.

Theo’s legends finally understood what Garoth’s apparent recklessness depended upon.

But it was too late.

“This place is no longer tenable—time to vanish!”

Dirik made his decision without hesitation and drew a scroll from his bosom.

An extremely precious, interference-resistant “ultra-long-range targeted teleport scroll.”

The instant he tore it, a fierce silver-white spatial light wrapped him.

His figure flickered and blurred; the next moment he vanished from the ruins of Dragonbreaker Gate.

The Red Iron Dragon turned his head slightly, watching the direction Dirik had disappeared.

In the True Sight of his eyes, he faintly caught a thread of a spatial trail pointing off into the distance, quickly dissipating.

But he had no intention of pursuit.

This transmuter had used Time Stop and then mostly tread water besides.

More importantly, Garoth had just expended a Dragon Pearl. In the next combat phase, he had to be more cautious.

Chasing a fleeing, concealing, high-tier transmuter with unknown reserves was not worth the risk.

Whoosh!!!

A gale roared.

The Red Iron Dragon beat his wings and soared into the clouds.

He said nothing—simply stretched his wings, displayed his majestic torso, and released a booming, sonorous dragon cry.

That cry, like a final war drum, broke the psychological defenses of Theo’s garrison.

Defeat followed like a collapsing mountain.

Surviving Theo soldiers and officers fell to their knees like waves blown over, one after another.

They trembled, dumbly dropping their weapons; the last flicker of will to fight went out of their eyes.

Encirclement? Defeat of the Red Emperor?

It had become a colossal joke.

They had witnessed their legends hacked through by the Red Emperor alone!

What kind of dragon and emperor could be defeated now? Who would dare oppose them?

Theo had lost hope.

Rodrigue watched the kneeling, surrendering remnants, the Aola forces streaming in with unstoppable momentum, cast one last look at the rock statue merged with the mountain, then looked upward at the crimson colossus surveying the land.

All struggle, every plan and sacrifice, in this moment seemed pale and meaningless.

Further resistance was futile.

New Calendar 344, April 13.

At dawn the light pierced the darkness and illuminated the mountains before them.

The Red Emperor, Garoth Ignas, had surged alone like a falling star from the heavens, smashing Norton Pass with his flesh, breaking the Unyielding Wall, killing Bosival the Mountain’s Fang and Hossand the Eye of Ash, severely wounding Esther the Unbreakable Break, forcing back Dirik the Manifold... with a single dragon’s might he shattered Norton Pass and its defenders, capturing multiple officers and legends including Commander Rodrigue.

The Aola legions then occupied the entire Emerald Ridge defensive line, their advance spearheading straight into Theo’s interior.

(Afterword removed)