High in the sky, the Velkhanas, who had been on constant guard against the two unused tentacles of Shara Ishvalda, saw this scene and immediately felt the tension they had been holding ease.
They had refrained from joining the battle all this time for two reasons. First, the exchange of attacks between Logan and Shara Ishvalda was simply too vast and too dense, leaving them unable, for a time, to find a suitable opening. Second, of Shara Ishvalda's six wing bones, even while fighting Logan it had only employed two. The remaining two were faintly yet unmistakably angled toward them from afar. Had they not been constantly shifting their positions in the sky, Shara Ishvalda's attacks would likely have reached them long ago.
The opportunity was fleeting. Seizing a narrow gap, the two Velkhanas charged into the battlefield from different directions. Upon reaching the proper distance, the ice breath they had been charging for a long time erupted violently, piercing through the exploding flames and heading straight for Shara Ishvalda's head.
At that moment, Shara Ishvalda, having observed the Velkhanas' movements through its Merciful Eye Carapace, remained completely unhurried. It spread its defensive wing bones, and at the cost of taking several of Logan's Terastal spikes head-on, successfully released a vibration-wave beam to intercept them, blocking the Velkhanas' breath outside its guard.
Logan's Terastal energy was indeed tyrannical. Mixed within it were draconic, fire, and lightning elemental energies, damage that even Shara Ishvalda would not take lightly.
However, compared to its weakness to ice, when avoidance was no longer possible, it decisively chose the side that would result in the lighter injuries.
With its Merciful Eye Carapace, Shara Ishvalda could truly multitask, facing multiple enemies at once, and its powerful, wide-ranging vibration waves could even directly sweep away every nearby opponent that lacked sufficient strength.
But now, when dealing with several foes that could fly—and that could not be dealt with by ordinary vibration waves—this "earthbound dragon," whose flight ability had already completely degenerated, was fighting in a truly stifling way.
Especially since its own pride did not allow it to take evasive actions at this "probing" stage.
In the blink of an eye, it had actually turned into a target!
As Shara Ishvalda increased its vibration output, the Velkhanas' breath was entirely intercepted. At the trailing end of the breath, an enormous ice wall grew up—only for it to explode with a thunderous crash the next second under Shara Ishvalda's attack. Huge chunks of ice flew out, nearly smashing into the Ruiner Nergigante who was currently dodging the vibration-wave beams.
Perhaps because the entire battlefield at this moment was either flame or flying dust, Shara Ishvalda's vibration waves became even more visible.
Even while facing two wing bones at the same time, the Ruiner Nergigante was still able to respond.
With two Velkhanas sharing the burden of the two tentacles Shara Ishvalda was using for defense, the Ruiner Nergigante finally managed to close in for melee combat.
After narrowly avoiding a sweeping pass of a vibration-wave beam, the Ruiner Nergigante successfully arrived at Shara Ishvalda's side. Its gaping, blood-filled maw was brimming with excitement.
As long as it could get in close! It believed that even an elder dragon with Shara Ishvalda's size would not be able to withstand its attacks!
Across the entire New World, there were very few that truly excelled at close-quarters melee combat. The Ruiner Nergigante was the strongest melee fighter among the small- to medium-sized monsters of the New World!
"Roar! Roar!"
Its right forelimb, densely covered in adamantine spikes, slammed violently into Shara Ishvalda's side. The Ruiner Nergigante was already impatient to see the opponent reveal a major opening under this blow, and then be seized and brutally humiliated!
Bang!
The dull impact was so heavy that it even drowned out the sound of the adamantine spikes snapping.
The Ruiner Nergigante's rampant grin froze. It felt, in disbelief, the mountain-heavy force transmitted back through its forelimb.
That punch felt as though it had not struck an elder dragon of flesh and blood at all, but a solid mountain. No matter how it increased its strength, it could not push forward even a single fraction more.
And what had blocked this strike was merely Shara Ishvalda's foreclaw, which it had kept raised in front of its body all along, like the hand of a malevolent demon.
The Ruiner Nergigante's arm muscles flushed and swelled, trembling slightly under the immense exertion.
Yet Shara Ishvalda's foreclaw was as steady as a mountain. No matter how the Ruiner Nergigante strained, it did not move in the slightest.
Do you even understand the sheer value of resisting the pressure of the earth itself?
Even if the strength of Shara Ishvalda's forelimbs was not as exaggerated as that of the wing bones behind it, they were still capable of supporting its body in a rock-bound state, bearing the pressure of tens of thousands of years of tectonic plate movement.
Whether in endurance or in raw strength, Shara Ishvalda stood at the very pinnacle.
Do not think that this withered body means it is not a close-combat elder dragon—its melee capability is not inferior to that of any elder dragon!
Even the most restrained beings have their limits.
Although Shara Ishvalda was not inclined toward anger, the Ruiner Nergigante, this kind of battlefield troublemaker, still managed to provoke it into a mild fury.
For the first time, it made a large-scale movement of its body!
For the first time, it put its own physical strength to use!
Its free left forelimb swung straight toward the Ruiner Nergigante, which was attempting to continue the contest of strength, delivering a direct slap.
The Ruiner Nergigante raised its left arm in time to block in front of itself, but upon contact, the monstrous force still sent it staggering. Before it could regain its footing, vibration waves from two wing bones, oscillating in sync, followed one after another, blasting the Ruiner Nergigante away once more.
At the same time, Logan, who had already probed Shara Ishvalda's attack patterns as well as the attack gaps of its four wing bones, seized the instant when Shara Ishvalda turned sideways to strike the Ruiner Nergigante and began to accelerate.
The speed used to confuse Shara Ishvalda surged again, instantly piercing through the "net" woven by four intersecting vibration waves. The entire dragon turned into a streak of red light, appearing in an instant above and to the side of Shara Ishvalda.
By the time Shara Ishvalda heard the sound and its Merciful Eye Carapace could sense Logan's position, he was already fully prepared.
An enormous Terastal spike—gigantic in size, with a length reaching as much as sixteen meters—had long since finished condensing. Under Logan's supersonic drag, it instantly transformed into a supersonic missile and arrived in front of Shara Ishvalda.
The wing bones that Shara Ishvalda hurriedly retracted simply could not, in such a short time, generate a vibration-wave barrier sufficient to intercept it. The sharp tip of the massive Terastal spike pierced into its chest, and the tremendous impact force knocked it back dozens of meters before the momentum of the Terastal spike was barely dissipated.
But—
how could a Terastal spike that Logan had spent such a vast amount of energy creating possibly deal damage through high-speed impact alone?
Explosion!
That was the real art!
Within the Terastal spike, the multiple elemental energies that had originally been kept in a stable balance were violently shaken by the sudden deceleration. As those energies interwove and collided, they generated immense heat.
And because of the special nature of Terastal energy, that heat began to be continuously compressed and stored.
Until it reached a critical threshold!
In Shara Ishvalda's Merciful Eye Carapace vision, what it was clutching to its chest was no longer some crimson crystal, but a volcano on the verge of eruption!
A solid-state energy mass, pure to an almost absurd degree!
And at that very moment, this solid-state energy mass was about to erupt. The blinding, invisible energy nearly seared Shara Ishvalda's Merciful Eye Carapace blind.
Its tightly shut eyes snapped open, revealing sinister, narrow crimson pupils.
The compassionate, sacred appearance shattered in an instant, exposing the madness forged by Shara Ishvalda through endless ages of obsession!
Boom!!
Air pressure collapsed inward—then detonated violently.
A colossal pillar of fire twisted as it surged skyward, as if it were about to tear the heavens apart!
The expanding mushroom cloud directly triggered a massive tsunami, flattening the isolated island—which had already been reduced to nothing but its outer lotus shell—once again. Under such overwhelming impact, even the hollowed-out voids in the seawater failed to rush back in immediately.
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