That strike caught Belial's interest, so he ignored the tiny figure hacking at him for the moment. "It all feels like scratching anyway, so why bother?" He did not want to be an evil dragon, but since a brave warrior had come to fight him, playing around was fine as long as his life was not threatened.
So Belial occasionally waved a claw or flicked his tail. None of it hurt, but giving the other side some experience seemed fair. Meanwhile, Lyles Edward, his greatsword almost fused to his hand, forgot his original purpose and turned into a whirlwind of slashes across the Great Dragon's body.
The eye on the sword twitched as he failed to deal even the slightest damage, and the blade chipped in several places. Dodging the claws and tail alone was already exhausting. The speed was far beyond expectations, and the power meant death on contact and injury on a graze.
Final conclusion: this was pointless. The absurd reality cleared his head a little, and he wondered why he was fighting this far instead of fleeing. Then his body froze.
The eye on the fused greatsword closed, but along his arm a tumor-like bulge formed, pushing upward. Lyles Edward did not notice that another blood-red dragon eye had opened beside his own through Rend, nor that his skin was peeling away to reveal a more twisted dragon body beneath.
The greatsword split open along a blood-red Rift with Rend, forming a huge mouth that roared like a dragon. Fanged claws covered the blade, drool dripping with hunger. His physical strength rose again, reaching a level where raw stats alone could crush countless knights, as if half his body had been taken over.
"Hm?" The sudden change finally caught Belial's attention. An attack that had posed no threat before now carried something different.
A thin white line appeared on the claw-covered blade, and spiderweb-like Crack cracked through the air as it moved. This was a strike that shook the concept of space itself, one that in theory could ignore all physical defense by cutting apart molecular bonds.
Lyles Edward's face was now hardly human, and the third eye showed mockery and naked greed. Without realizing it, he spoke aloud, "Never seen… a dragon…?" The next moment, he froze.
The confident strike with Rend landed cleanly on Belial's scales and left a scratch. That alone was real progress. In theory, spatial attacks could ignore his absurd physical defense.
But that only applied to the physical. After fusing with Wraith Constitution, Belial did not need to follow physical rules anymore. Body and soul were one, each with its own defense, and breaking one still left another.
Still, the strike was impressive. It was several times stronger than before and enough to make Belial feel he was truly being attacked. He laughed lightly and said, "Characters who can burst like this really cannot be underestimated. You almost made me bleed."
"But you are still a bit short," he added. Out of respect, he turned his head and threw a punch at a speed that did not match his size. "Little god of the mortal world, you did your best."
What could no longer be called Lyles Edward narrowed its eyes and used the body's remaining martial skill to deflect and evade as much as possible. The punch only grazed him, but even that leaked power shattered bones across his body, spraying blood everywhere. The contacted part was erased outright by sheer force.
Though regeneration kicked in at full speed, the pain made his eyes twitch wildly. That punch had not even used much strength, maybe around fifty thousand tons. The fact that it did not kill him surprised Belial slightly.
Crashing to the ground, the creature panted as strange sounds came from within its body. Those were the noises of Shard bones being forcibly reassembled by newly grown flesh through Rend. With blood-red eyes, it stared up at the mountain-like Black Dragon.
"You are rusted iron… impossible." "You are bronze… not yet." "You are Silver… nonexistent." "Then Gold? No, that never existed." Squeezing every drop of power from its body, greed and madness filled its eyes as it leapt up again, dragon wings spreading from its back.
"You still want to fight?" Belial watched the small dragon-man charge straight at his face again. This time, no sword swing came. Instead, mysterious Dragon Tongue sounds poured from its mouth.
It was not an offensive Magic, but a spell all Great Dragon dragonkind could use. Altered through its own changes, it was designed specifically for dragon-blooded beings. Pointing at the Black Dragon, it twisted its face into a vicious grin and spoke clearly.
"Draconic Magic: Forbidden Curse." "Dragon Blood Enslavement!"
Dragon bloodlines were a strange thing. To ordinary creatures they were highly invasive, able to blur breeding barriers, and their special nature even let scholars classify a separate Wyvern species. As the source of all dragon blood, a True Dragon was born with natural suppression over dragon-blooded beings, including Wyvern and even mindless draconic beasts that only carried the blood.
When that trait was amplified, it became the forbidden spell Dragon Blood Enslavement. It did not look as direct or violent as claws or flame, but the reason it was listed as a taboo was simple. Its condition for activation depended only on how much dragon blood the target possessed, and that range was far too wide, since creatures with a trace of dragon blood were not rare at all.
Because of this, even Great Dragon could use the spell to raise a terrifying Dragon Blood Legion. For that reason, any Great Dragon confirmed to have mastered this spell would be closely watched. The threat it posed was never small.
Although Belial looked a little different from native dragons, slightly larger and sturdier, with some internal differences as well, his identity still counted as a dragon. The local records would still mark him as such. The difference was like a common human barely over a meter tall compared to a giant glowing human as tall as two buildings, both were still human.
When the spell was cast, his thoughts suddenly accelerated until it felt close to time stopping. At the same time, a mad and greedy will passed through Lyles Edward's body, sending a trace of its mark toward the large black winged dragon beast in front of him. There was no resistance at all, and the spell took effect smoothly.
He wanted to laugh out loud. Just as he was about to put a collar on the target, he froze for a moment. Instinctively, he raised his head and looked upward.
Above him, countless shattered Shard floated, each etched with fire, death, decay, and despair. Among those crimson fragments, two towering figures could vaguely be seen, so immense that they could not be measured. They were too distant, and the concepts there were too abstract to make out clearly.
It was a boundless starry sky. It was countless struggling wraiths. It was gold, or something like it. Then a scream tore out of him as fear finally caught up.
Authority of Decay triggered on instinct. The spell withered instantly, crumbling into dust, destroyed before it could relay any information back. On Lyles Edward's face, the extra Crimson Dragon Eye cracked open into a Rift, spraying blood, and the grotesque Dragon-Shaped Greatsword in his hand seemed to wail as the sliver of will sent through it was erased outright.
It ignored bloodlines, ignored mental corruption, like crushing a cockroach that crawled into the house. The death was absolute, with no suspense, and a force symbolizing decay spread along with it. His eyes widened as the scales on the greatsword multiplied rapidly, then aged at once, releasing huge amounts of energy and setting half his body ablaze.
There was no chance to use this vessel's original the Lord to block the blow. Amid the chaos, the target was found with precision, and the decaying force almost followed the faint connection back to the main body itself. A miserable howl burst out of him.
Clone was not a guarantee of safety. As long as a connection existed, there was a relationship, and seeing went both ways. For that mistake, he paid a terrible price.
"…Why did this guy suddenly drop dead?" Belial truly could not make sense of what he was seeing. The small dragon-man had rushed in full of momentum, then froze, burst into flames on one side, and started screaming. His scalp itched with confusion, and he wondered what on earth had just happened.
Were people in Otherworld all fond of this kind of staged collapse? Belial watched as the man rolled on the ground for a long time, the fire never going out. By the end, half his body was nearly charcoal, and he lay there smoking without moving.
"…You are not dead, right?" First, Belial had to establish that he was not the killer. He had not done anything just now, and the earlier messing around had no cause-and-effect relationship with this sudden death. This man had combusted on his own, and it had nothing to do with him.
He lowered his head slightly and leaned closer, his huge dragon eye staring at the half-charred lump on the ground. Suddenly, that cockroach, no, that piece of charcoal, lifted its head and erupted in a blinding flash. As expected, it really was trying something shady.