The dragon's roar, carrying the sense of a soul breaking free from its shackles, echoed across the battlefield, where Magical Power surged wildly from the clash of Dragon Gods.
Hearing it, the Great Red, which had just pulled some distance away from the rotten dragon, paused for a brief moment. A flicker of human-like surprise passed through its massive eyes as it instinctively searched for the Bone Dragon.
A low, distorted sound rumbled in the air.
The Great Red stopped, but the decaying zombie dragon did not.
Instead, as if stirred by the Bone Dragon's cry of release, a trace of clarity flashed through its hollow eyes, only to fade away almost immediately.
Yet that brief moment of awareness was enough to change everything.
Up until now, it had been fighting purely on instinct and being completely suppressed by the Great Red. But in that fleeting instant, it seized the opening.
Without a sound, it shot forward, crossing the distance in an instant. Its jaws opened wide, tearing through the crimson aura surrounding the Great Red, and clamped down hard onto its flesh.
"Roar…"
Caught off guard by the sudden ambush from the very dragon it had been overpowering, the Great Red let out a pained roar.
Scorching crimson dragon blood splashed from the wound. As the Great Red twisted its massive body, a surge of crimson Magical Power erupted from within. Taking advantage of that violent burst, the rotten dragon tore away a large chunk of flesh.
The wound quickly developed spots of decay. These mold-like patches resonated with the tainted blood the rotten dragon had already left behind on the Great Red, beginning to spread and corrode its body.
In an instant, the tide of battle flipped.
"Roar…"
The rotten dragon let out another roar, like a signal to charge. The Great Red's crimson scales began to darken, and the decay spread rapidly from the wound.
Having done that, the brief spark of intelligence in the rotten dragon faded, and it returned to being a creature that fought purely on instinct.
But that was enough.
Now affected by the corrosion, the Great Red could only watch as the rotten dragon charged at it once more.
At that critical moment, a blue-violet beam of Magical Power slammed into the rotten dragon, blasting it away and triggering another violent spatial shockwave.
"I was worried about hitting the wrong target before, but now I don't have to."
A figure cut through the smoke of the explosion. A sharp impact followed as the rotten dragon was struck again and sent flying, scattering chunks of decayed flesh as it tumbled.
As the dust cleared, Cid stood high above, looking down at the rotten dragon. He flicked his wrist, throwing off a clump of liquefied, rotting flesh mixed with insect corpses, his face full of disgust.
"So gross."
"Roar…"
Driven purely by instinct, the rotten dragon did not react to Cid's words. It simply charged forward again, following its urge to destroy.
This time, however, Cid did not meet it head-on. Having already experienced how disgusting close combat with it was, he sidestepped the attack instead.
In his view, an Eminence in Shadow could come out of a fierce battle with minor injuries, whether from carelessness or holding back. That only served to highlight their strength.
But ending up covered in revolting fluids was completely unacceptable. That would ruin the whole image.
Pitch-black Magical Power surged from his body, gathering behind him into several enormous whips.
"Whoosh!"
The whips lashed down hard onto the charging rotten dragon. The impact sent it flying, chunks of flesh tearing off, only to regrow almost immediately.
Soon, the rotten dragon stabilized itself and charged again.
Cid frowned. The whips struck with even greater force, knocking off even more decayed flesh.
But the result was the same. As it charged, the rotten dragon spat out dark green Magical Power, attacking while advancing.
"This is getting troublesome."
After several exchanges like this, even Cid found it annoying.
Unlike the Bone Dragon, whose skeletal body was both its strongest defense and its greatest weakness, the rotten dragon's body was like sludge. Any attack would be dispersed, and even tearing it apart meant nothing, as it would regenerate almost instantly.
Worse still were the insects and toxins within its flesh. If they invaded the body, the lucky outcome was immediate death. The unlucky outcome was becoming something like the zombie dragon in front of him, a walking nest of poisonous creatures.
In terms of raw offense and defense, the Bone Dragon was stronger.
But when it came to persistence and sheer grotesque resilience, the rotten dragon was far worse.
If given the choice, most people would rather fight the Bone Dragon.
That did not mean the rotten dragon was stronger than the Bone Dragon. If the two ever fought, the winner would definitely be the Bone Dragon. Its eerie nature and swarms of insects meant nothing against bare bone. The rotten dragon was completely countered by it.
And now, Cid had run into exactly that kind of situation.
Using only Magical Power whips did not provide enough precision to deal fatal damage to the rotten dragon. To truly destroy it, he needed close-range combat to wipe it out completely.
But getting close was just too disgusting. He refused.
So…
The whips behind him dissipated. The blue-violet Magical Power shifted into pitch black and gathered in his hand. The burst of power shot through the rotten dragon's body.
But that was all it did. It pierced straight through without stopping its advance.
Without the whips to interfere, the rotten dragon, its abdomen riddled with large holes, still charged straight at Cid.
As its gaping jaws closed in, Cid twisted his body and lightly pushed off with his toes, brushing past the decaying mass at the last possible moment.
His eyes flicked over the black venomous insects and the sickening white fuzz covering its body as it passed by.
He fell silent.
"Alright, no more last-second dodging. Even if I know you can't hit me, seeing you up close like that is just disgusting."
As he spoke, he continued to form black Magical Power in his hand, piercing through the rotten dragon again before dodging its next dive, this time keeping a safer distance.
This exchange repeated several times. The rotten dragon dove at him again, but this time, Cid did not gather black Magical Power in his hand.
Because…
"That's enough."
At some point, hundreds of massive spheres of pitch-black Magical Power had already surrounded the rotten dragon. Violent black energy erupted from them, binding its body in place.
The black Magical Power that had pierced through it earlier had not dispersed. It had remained, blending perfectly into the dark, empty environment of the Dimensional Gap, silently forming a complete encirclement.
If your damage is not enough and your opponent regenerates too fast to kill…
Then you just pour in enough power at once to erase them before they can recover.
If you need close-range precision to guarantee a perfect hit, but do not want to get close…
Then you simply expand your attack to cover everything. If the entire field is within range, there is no need to worry about accuracy.
Now, an attack with precision down to the atomic level, covering every direction without blind spots, was about to descend.
"(I am All-Range Atomic.)"
A pitch-black domain formed around the rotten dragon and erupted within the Dimensional Gap. The overwhelming Magical Power shook the entire space, enough to destroy a world.
From the outside, the domain looked like pure darkness, as if even light had been swallowed. It appeared calm, like the surface of a still sea.
Only the occasional surges of Magical Power bursting outward, along with the rotten dragon's wails, revealed the violent chaos beneath, a depth capable of devouring everything.
After dozens of seconds, the raging Magical Power finally settled.
The rotten dragon, once at the center of that darkness, had vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed at all.
With its disappearance, the corruption on the Great Red lost its source and quickly faded away.
Seeing its target gone, the Great Red prepared to leave. As for the Samael aura lingering around the Underworld venue, it was in a good mood and chose to ignore it.
But just as it spread its wings, it froze.
Blue-violet Magical Power had already surrounded it.
The Great Red slowly turned its massive head toward Cid, who stood there with a gentle smile.
"Battle is a form of communication. I can feel your desire to communicate with me, so let's fight."
So you think you can just dump the trouble on me and walk away?
Cid had not forgotten. Back then, when he came to break up the fight, this very dragon had run off without a word to push the World Battlefield away, leaving him exposed to a sneak attack from the rotten dragon that left him reeling.
Even though he quickly recovered and enjoyed a one-against-two afterward, that hit had hurt.
He had come to mediate, yet somehow ended up fighting instead.
And worse, he had not even had enough fun back then.