As the Earth Singing Dragon actively shattered the rocky mantle clinging to its body, that eternally ancient aura of terror began to spread.
The surrounding air, the cliffs on all sides, and even the ocean beyond the solitary island all roared under the force of that tremor.
The two Velkhana were the first to fly upward, distancing themselves from the Shara Ishvalda that had entered this abnormal state. But Ruiner Nergigante—whether because Logan had arrived and it wanted to show off its strength to this former good brother, or because it felt that with Logan backing it up, there was no way this temporary ally of theirs would be allowed to fall into danger—instead of retreating, charged straight toward the Shara Ishvalda.
However, when it slightly turned its head to observe Logan's movements, wanting to see what kind of attack Logan would use to coordinate with it and unleash this round of damage, it discovered that Logan was actually following the Velkhana and flying toward the sky as well!
"Roar??"
In an instant, Ruiner Nergigante's wings forcibly twisted direction amid the crisp clash of spikes, howling loudly—no one could tell whether it was because it had strained its muscles or because it was complaining about Logan and the others refusing to play by common sense.
In any case, it exerted all its strength just to halt its diving momentum, then whipped its massive tail and, without looking back, sprinted toward the sky at full speed.
Even a fool could tell that the suppressed opponent was about to do something terrifying next. Avoiding its edge was the only correct choice!
"Wuu~"
A long, drawn-out sound—like a song—spread outward from beside Shara Ishvalda, yet it was a song that led to destruction.
It was the sound carried through the air under extreme compression and vibration, the most direct manifestation of Shara Ishvalda's power!
Boom!
A huge, heavy slab of rock suddenly broke off and crashed to the ground, kicking up a thick cloud of dust. In that instant, a massive "hollow" appeared in Shara Ishvalda's "bloated" body.
Seeing the size and depth of that hollow, Ruiner Nergigante—having finally caught up to the Velkhana—pulled an ugly face.
So all those strenuous attacks just now had been nothing more than scratching an itch for this thing!
It had originally thought that the shattered rocks they had knocked loose, those heavy clods of soil, should already have dealt some degree of damage to the core within. But now it seemed they had not even broken through half of the outer shell—what kind of ridiculous defense was this?
Of course, what truly made Nergigante's heart clench was that Shara Ishvalda had been fighting them the whole time while carrying all of that. This was the equivalent of the opponent bearing the weight of a mountain and still trading blows with them for so long!
Then just how terrifying would its true body be? How absurd would its defense and endurance be?
Nergigante did not know. It only knew that Shara Ishvalda would likely be a terrifying opponent unlike anything it had ever encountered in its past life!
"It's coming!"
The Terastal membrane silently covered the entire body, preparing defenses for the imminent, all-directional impact.
Above, the Velkhana watched its senior continuously layer coat after coat of supercooled water over its body, condensing an ice battle skirt that was ever sturdier and heavier—so thick that it completely departed from Velkhana aesthetics, becoming not only ungraceful but outright bloated, even to the point of affecting bodily agility.
In the past, Velkhana would certainly have sneered at such behavior. But at this moment, the aura radiating from Shara Ishvalda below was simply too overwhelming. No matter how unwilling it was, it still followed in the footsteps of the Arch-Tempered Velkhana, constantly stacking shields onto itself.
Caught between the Velkhana and Logan, Ruiner Nergigante looked up and then down, only to realize that among all the dragons present, it was the only one without this kind of armor-stacking capability—relying purely on adamantine spikes and regeneration to brute-force its way through.
Although it had long since grown accustomed to fighting like this, didn't that make it seem a bit out of place?
Just as Ruiner Nergigante was thinking this, an exaggerated flash of white light streaked past.
Immediately afterward, the entire dragon felt as though it had been subjected to a horrific, all-encompassing squeeze from a monstrous compression engine. Its ears were filled with nothing but a piercing buzz. Under such overwhelming force, it had absolutely no capacity to resist and could only be hurled higher and higher into the sky by that outrageous impact.
Unlike Ruiner Nergigante's approach of relying on regeneration and simply tanking the blow without resistance, the two Velkhana both withdrew along the force of the impact while continuously thickening the icy battle skirts covering their bodies. Overall, the rate at which the battle skirts shattered was nearly equal to the rate at which they were replenished, with the internal obsidian armor remaining undamaged.
Only Logan—perhaps because he knew he could not afford to lose in terms of momentum, or perhaps because the energy organ within his body, which had already preliminarily completed its internal circulation, gave him sufficient confidence—
relied entirely on the Terastal membrane to forcibly withstand this impact. With Gale Wings at full output, he forcefully generated one wind vortex after another behind himself, supporting Logan in remaining in place and taking the blow head-on.
When all the dust finally settled, Ruiner Nergigante, swaying as it flew back from the horizon, immediately caught sight of the drastically transformed Origin Isle.
If the previous Origin Isle had been a lotus-throne-shaped island—aside from the central lotus core appearing slightly sunken, its peaks were complete, forming a landscape that could still be called uniquely characteristic—then now, aside from the outermost "petals," the entire island had been ground flat by the recent impact, directly turning into an enclosed, ring-shaped dueling arena with no exits.
And at the center of this field, a figure with a distinctly bizarre presence was crouched in place. Its closed eyes caused that slightly eerie face to reveal a trace of serenity.
Evil? Sacred?
Ruiner Nergigante could not tell. Two utterly opposite extremes of perception were somehow appearing simultaneously on a single dragon!
Logan quietly looked down at the figure below, as if it were sleeping.
The massive body appeared extremely gaunt, its surface covered in uneven armor plates displaying interwoven hues of yellow, purple, and white, with black hollows scattered across the entire body.
The cranial armor rose like ascending flames, forming a visage that appeared profoundly uncanny by normal aesthetic standards.
At the hollow area of the forehead was a special organ known as the Merciful Eye Carapace. This organ, like a third eye, possessed an overwhelmingly exaggerated sensory capacity. Without the rocky mantle obscuring it, this organ could fully serve as its third eye—or rather, it was an omnidirectional external sensory organ even more terrifying than an eye!
It was also the symbol of its transcendence beyond the ordinary, a manifestation of its divinity.
Behind it, eight emaciated wing bones, thin as withered wood, resembled dead branches. When spread and crossed at the tips, their posture evoked the stance of multi-armed Hindu deities, fully presenting an aspect reminiscent of a thousand hands.
This was the Origin Dragon modeled after Maheshvara—Shiva, one of the three supreme deities of Hinduism.
Shara Ishvalda!!
Having broken free from all restraints, carrying its understanding of this world, the creation dragon that had returned to the land from the far end of the abyss now appeared completely unguarded, quietly savoring sunlight it had not felt for tens of thousands of years.
Upon this devastated land, it fully indulged in the joy that followed "suffering."
---
I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> patreon.com/TitoVillar
---