manynovel Page 113
Page 113
Chapter 352
"Do you think you're something special?" the warrior laughed wildly.
Antilost remained silent, focusing solely on casting his spell. To ordinary people, in the current state of the chaotic magic network, any spellcasting would be suicidal. But steel dragons were travelers traversing different worlds, long accustomed to casting spells without the magic network. Antilost's understanding of arcane magic far surpassed that of ordinary steel dragons; directly sensing and manipulating the primal magic in his environment was not difficult for him.
"Sizzle!" A bolt of lightning shot out from Antilost's claws, its trajectory a strange zigzag, constantly turning back in mid-air, as if it had its own consciousness, bypassing the warrior's defenses and striking him from the side.
The warrior grunted, but didn't react much: "Is that all you've got? I thought dragon magic was something else!"
He swung his battle axe, and a dark red wave erupted from the blade, slashing towards Antilost. The steel dragon flicked its long tail, nimbly dodging the energy wave, while its right wing traced a complex rune in the air.
"Bang!" The ground suddenly cracked open, and countless pillars of earth and stone rose up, surrounding the warriors. These pillars continued to grow and twist, quickly forming a closed stone cage.
"A mere trick!" the warrior roared, swinging his battle axe to cleave the stone cage in two. But in that brief moment of obstruction, Antilost had already prepared his next spell.
The ground beneath the warrior's feet suddenly turned into a swamp of quicksand, sinking his legs into it. Even more terrifying, the swamp seemed to have a strong suction effect, rapidly draining the warrior's strength from his body.
"Damn it! This isn't ordinary quicksand magic!" Realizing the danger, the warrior roared and swung his battle axe, trying to grab onto the surrounding tree trunks, but everything that touched the swamp was rapidly broken down. He struggled desperately, but the swamp had already swallowed him up to his waist and was still spreading upwards. His battle axe cleaved through the air, creating ripples, but Antilost easily dodged them all.
The warrior finally felt fear. His strength was almost completely drained by the swamp's pull, and his prized physical power was rendered useless by its bindings: "No! You can't do this to me! I'll kill you!"
"You? You have no chance now." Antilost sneered.
A flicker of despair crossed the soldier's eyes, but it was quickly replaced by rage: "Even if I die, I'll drag you down with me!"
He suddenly pulled a black runestone from his chest, bit his tongue, and dripped his blood onto it. The runestone immediately emitted a blinding red light, and a terrifying power surged from it.
"A self-destructing runestone?" Antilost immediately sensed the danger. "You're insane!"
Just as the runestone was about to explode, a silver figure suddenly descended from the sky, accurately caught the runestone, and then quickly flew into the sky.
"Boom!" A deafening explosion erupted high in the sky, forming a sphere of negative energy tens of meters in diameter before slowly dissipating.
"Are you alright?" Quitourit landed from the other side. He was also a steel dragon, but slightly smaller and more silver-gray in color.
“Thanks to your timely rescue.” Antilost nodded, then looked at the swamp. “This swamp can take care of him, but it may take some time.”
The warrior had sunk into the swamp, with only his head above water, his face contorted in pain.
“No need to wait any longer.” A blazing fireball materialized between Quitourit’s claws, striking the warrior squarely in the head and instantly reducing him to ashes. The swamp continued to writhe, completely engulfing the remaining body before gradually solidifying and returning to ordinary land.
Antilost reverted to his human form, lightly brushing the dust off his robes. Quitourit also transformed back into human form, appearing as a distinguished middle-aged man: "According to intelligence, the Flame Fist Mercenary Group should have three legendary warriors among its main force. We must find them as soon as possible."
“No need to rush,” Antilost said, straightening his clothes. “Cassaloz’s loyal dogs will find them.”
The two brothers floated side by side to the treetop. The battlefield below them had gradually calmed down, with only the eerie blue magical light still flickering in the darkness.
Higher in the clouds, Casalos surveyed the battlefield, where shouts of battle rose and fell, each brief and distinct, interspersed with occasional explosions scattered across the western slopes of the Misty Forest. The main force of the Flame Fist Mercenary Group had been lured deep into the forest, trapped in a guerrilla warfare snare set by the half-dragon kobolds. The Antilost brothers, having just successfully slain their first legendary warrior, continued their hunt for other targets.
Everything was proceeding smoothly according to plan, but Casalos was constantly haunted by a sense of unease—the aura of the purest form of death was drawing ever closer.
Sure enough, in the brief moment it was in a daze, a pitch-black shadow suddenly appeared behind it, and as soon as it appeared, it expanded into a huge dragon shape that was no less than the old roar, and pounced on it with the speed of a startled dragon!
"You really came, Cyric!" Casalos tucked his wings and flipped to the side, barely avoiding the attack, and at the same time recognized the attacker: Death Hunter.
"Iron Dragon! You can't escape this time!" Cyric's voice was filled with madness and hatred. Its body was completely shrouded in negative energy, its transparent wing membranes exuded death, and ghostly fire shone from beneath its dragon scales. A ghostly green phosphorescence flickered between the gaps in its scales.
Casalos pulled himself up again with a relative shear rise to Death Hunter, while assessing the lost dragon: "It seems you've become even more deeply assimilated by the Underworld, Cyric."
“This is power! Unprecedented power!” Cyric laughed sharply. “Death is no longer the end, but the beginning of a new life! Look at me, where are my former weaknesses?”
“But you have lost your soul and never truly possessed the essence of a dragon,” Casalos replied. “You are merely a puppet controlled by the power of death.”
A fiercer rage ignited in Cyric's eyes: "A puppet? I am freer than ever! Free from the constraints of the flesh, free from the shackles of morality, free from the fear of life and death!"
"Then why are you still so determined to hunt me down?" Casaroz asked, subtly gathering his elemental power. "If you are truly so free, why not enjoy your 'rebirth'?"
Cyric's laughter grew even more twisted: "Because of you, Iron Dragon, because of you! You killed me, you cast me into the River Styx of death! I will make you taste the same pain!"
“Interesting,” Casalos narrowed his eyes. “The corruption not only devoured your body, but also distorted your memories. You clearly died from your own betrayal, yet you’re blaming me?”
Cyric ignored him: "Shut up! Prepare to die!"
The battle between the two dragons has officially begun.
Meanwhile, in Waterdeep, Isis and Midnight strolled along the waterfront, admiring the magnificent architecture of the city. Despite the recent attack by demons, the waterfront suffered relatively little damage, and most of the exquisite buildings retained their original appearance.
“It’s unbelievable,” Midnight murmured. “Just a few days ago, this city was in chaos, and now it has returned to its former vitality.”
Isis smiled and nodded: "The adaptability of the people of Waterdeep is amazing. However, this is also thanks to the mentor's arrangements. The rescue points distributed among the half-dragons of Dragon Ridge ensure that the residents can receive timely assistance."
The two continued along the cobblestone path and unknowingly arrived outside the Triumph Stadium. Across the Jerza Promenade was the Church of Heroes. A group of citizens had gathered in front of the church, listening to a speech.
"I've heard that the disasters to come will be even more terrible," said a middle-aged man in a simple robe, his voice deep and powerful. "The abdication of the gods is just the beginning; more chaos is about to descend!"
Chapter 353
"
"When will the gods return?" a worried woman asked.
The speaker shook his head: "Who knows? Maybe tomorrow, maybe a year from now, maybe... never."
Upon hearing this, a wave of uneasy murmurs erupted from the crowd.
“These street preachers always love to spread panic.” Isis curled her lip, pulling Midnight along as they prepared to bypass the church.
But she suddenly felt a strange gaze. Turning her head, she saw a short, hunched old man leaning on a cane, standing silently at the edge of the square. He wore a tattered gray robe, and the wrinkles on his face were as deep as if carved by a knife; he looked frail and old.
However, when the old man raised his head, Isis's demonic eyes clearly saw a flash of dark golden light in his eyes, a kind of divine radiance that she had only seen in Mystra and Bane.
"What's wrong?" Midnight noticed the change in Isis's expression and followed her gaze, but the old man had already lowered his head and become the most inconspicuous member of the crowd.
“It’s nothing,” Isis shook her head. “Let’s keep going.”
The two continued on their way, but Isis could clearly sense that the old man was silently following behind them, maintaining a perfect distance that would neither attract the attention of ordinary people nor completely escape her perception.
“Someone is following us,” Isis whispered to Midnight, subtly taking his hand and casting a simple protective spell. “Don’t worry, Uncle Shaved Tooth and the Son of the Paladin are nearby.”
Midnight nodded, his face showing no sign of panic, but the hand holding Isis's hand still unconsciously tightened.
The fish had taken the bait, and as Casalos had predicted, Baal had indeed infiltrated Waterdeep alone.
93. Second Contact
The battlefield above the clouds was vast and boundless. The lack of reference points made the sense of distance blurry and distorted. Only the occasional mountain peaks that pierced through the clouds and the shimmering light in the misty forest below provided sparse contrasts. The vortex of negative energy, representing the ultimate and pure death, was no smaller than the one created by Ansu on the surface of Sword Bay. In fact, it was even greater in terms of mass and density.
That was Shirek's masterpiece.
Casalos and Death Hunter's figures constantly crisscrossed in the sky; if an observer were deep in the battlefield, they would only see afterimages. But from the perspective of Hidden Dragon watching from low altitude, Casalos was mostly the only one flying, while Death Hunter was often just a black shadow constantly "flickering" around.
Every clash between Iron Dragon and the Shadow Gang is accompanied by a piercing metallic clang and a dazzling burst of elemental energy.
"A futile struggle!" Cyric roared, piercing the clouds. "Your tricks no longer work on me!"
Casalos did not respond, focusing solely on its flight. Every movement was precisely calculated, every trajectory perfectly executed, wasting no energy and causing no delay. The Pseudo-Laplace's Demon suspended all other calculations, focusing entirely on analyzing every line of the Death Hunter's "Web of Fate," analyzing its every movement pattern, and predicting the angle, direction, and timing of each attack.
Cyric's shadow emerged from behind the Iron Dragon's right wing. Before the dragon's form even materialized, its claws slashed through the air, leaving a trail of death, and the surrounding air distorted with negative energy. Even if this was just a probing attack, it foreshadowed a deadly threat—anyone touched by those claws would face instant death.
Casalos abruptly broke its wings and plummeted, dodging the fatal blow while simultaneously pulling itself low and flipping over to unleash a breath of energy mixed with the four elements as a counterattack. The Disintegration broke through the shadow of Cyrek's protective shield, the chaotic elemental flow leaving a burn mark on Cyrek's wing membrane, while a blazing flame silently took effect.
"Iron Dragon!" Cyric roared, his eyes burning with even greater madness. "Do you think you can be as lucky as last time? I have completely mastered the power of the Underworld. Look at your allies, they're all hiding far away down there. No one will come to save you this time!"
Its body suddenly became translucent, passing through Casalos's second breath like a ghost, and then instantly materialized, its claws striking Casalos's neck with lightning speed.
Its excellent aerodynamic flight capabilities and skillful tactical maneuvers also lose most of their advantages when faced with such irrational and arbitrary instantaneous displacement.
In that critical moment, Casalos transformed into pure lightning, allowing Cyrek's claws to pass through unimpeded, without causing much real damage. Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Iron Dragon appeared on Cyrek's back in a lightning leap—just like last time, since this position was the only blind spot that Casalos, which was only a third the size of Cyrek, could avoid.
Lightning Jump isn't a random teleportation; it requires a specific target to perform an instantaneous displacement.
Cyric thrashed about, trying to shake off the "parasite" on its back, but Casalos's four claws gripped its back plates firmly. Its wing hooks pierced the gaps in its scales, securing itself while simultaneously piling flames onto the scales with this almost ineffective attack.
"what!"
The blazing flames, powerful enough to kill an ordinary ancient red dragon, caused Cyric to cry out in pain. A strange black mist began to rise from beneath its scales, a phenomenon caused by negative energy rapidly repairing its body.
Before Casalos could unleash its instant dragon breath, it felt its claws go empty as Death Hunter vanished into the shadows, and three restrictive manifestation spells took effect almost simultaneously.
Force fields hindered the dragon's movement, the wind turned into swirling turbulence, and misaligned gravity created a labyrinth.
The fission, which behaved no differently from the Olympic flame, surged with the high-frequency sparks from the small opening, tearing apart the force field, smoothing out the turbulence, and breaking through the gravity labyrinth.
In that brief moment of rage, Cyric, his fury reaching its peak, had already completed some complex psionic ritual not far away. He hovered in the air, his eyes burning with pure hatred and madness, thick, inky negative energy gathered around the Death Hunter by the power of his mind. Ghostly green specks of arcane magic flickered within them, like the blinking eyes of countless souls.
Cyric's voice became hollow and distant, as if it came from the depths of the underworld: "Feel the embrace of death!"
The pseudo-Laplace's demon issued a warning of the limit, a super ninth-circle death spell that was a mixture of manifest magic and arcane magic—under normal circumstances, such a spell could never appear in the prime material world, but with the collapse of the magic network and the chaos of magical order, the restrictions imposed by the second-generation goddess of magic had become ineffective with her fall.
Without hesitation, Casalos immediately surged upwards toward the clouds, attempting to create distance and buy time to find a suitable solution.
The black mist surged and spread in all directions, resembling a mushroom cloud after a nuclear explosion, except one was white and the other a black cloud flashing with green light. The umbrella-shaped cloud that surged into the stratosphere moved at an astonishing speed, close to the sound barrier, creating two oblique shock waves at different angles at its edge. The airflow passing through the first shock wave was compressed and its pressure increased dramatically, then expanded at the second shock wave, exploding with a deafening roar, destroying the heavens and the earth.
The battle in the misty forest briefly ceased, both sides stunned by the apocalyptic scene, gazing up at the dark clouds in the sky, unable to calm down for a long time.
"You can't escape, Iron Dragon!" Cyric laughed maniacally, his voice filled with a morbid joy. "Touch of Death!"
The umbrella-shaped black cloud suddenly contracted into a sphere, then compressed into a void, from which countless slender, illusory tentacles shot towards Casalos. At the tip of each tentacle flickered a ghostly green light, representing the dead. This spell, symbolizing pure death, ignored all material defenses; each tentacle was equivalent to a finger strike of death, capable of delivering instant...
Chapter 354
death.
No conventional dodge can escape such a wide-ranging, targeted soul attack; even the Death Barrier can only negate one of its effects, and the limited Disintegration is powerless to destroy a spell of such scale and intensity.
Just as the tentacles were about to touch it, Casalos uselessly activated the chaotic elementalization of the four basic elements—no, that was just a phenomenon of pseudo-Laplace's demon overclocking. The next moment, its figure suddenly disappeared into the air, not by hiding its form or hiding in a plane, but by completely losing all information about itself, as if it had never existed at all.
Even the super ninth-ring spells that could cross planes to track and lock onto their targets lost their way. The illusory tentacles surged aimlessly into the higher sky, spreading out like snakes, disappearing into the vast firmament, and taking away all the negative energy of the void.
The negative energy tentacles passed through Casaroz's elemental form, but were not entirely ineffective. Casaroz felt a chilling cold seep into the depths of its soul, and its elemental form became unstable, as if it might collapse at any moment.
A moment later, Casalos reappeared in the same spot, maintaining the same climbing posture, speed, and angle, as if his disappearance had been just an illusion.
“It seems you’re more troublesome than I thought,” Cyric said with a hint of surprise. “But this is just the beginning.”
It teleported again directly above Casalos, its claws slamming down in an attempt to take Casalos down in one fell swoop.
Casalos didn't dodge downwards—that was exactly the path Cyrek had anticipated. It slid sideways using a barrel roll, unleashing a cleaving-effect lightning dragon breath that struck Cyrek's left wing membrane between the second and third toes, roughly at the second joint. The cleaving still effectively breached the blasphemous protection, allowing the breath to properly contact the membrane and transform into an electric current that surged into the ganglion there, rapidly spreading along the Death Hunter's neural network.
The damage was extremely limited, but it caused Cyrek's body to twitch noticeably, making it lose its balance during high-speed flight. A series of intricate, unfinished runes suddenly appeared around the Death Hunter's body. This strange runic spell, constructed with psionic energy but using dragon magic arcane techniques, was countered at the neural level, disintegrating into scattered magical turbulence that sent Cyrek tumbling and crashing to the ground.
However, before it had fallen 300 meters, the Death Hunter rolled away and vanished into shadow, reappearing far from Casalos. Its wings and limbs danced in unison, and faint, eerie green trails rapidly wove together a massive magic circle.
Instead of silently casting spells, Cyric began chanting an ancient and evil incantation, unleashing a powerful aura of the underworld.
"Domain of Death!" Cyric roared, and the magic circle radiated outward, forming a barrier that covered an area of several thousand meters, enveloping Casalos within it.
Casalos felt his dragon magic and life force being rapidly drained away, his dragon soul being eroded by the cold of death, and his thoughts becoming slow.
Meanwhile, Cyric began to flash around Casalos continuously, leaping to the next location before even revealing his dragon form. In a short time, it seemed as if dozens of dragon claws were simultaneously slashing down at Casalos. Just as these dozens of claw shadows were about to reach him, Casalos's body became hazy, as if it were a superposition of dozens of afterimages of evasive movements, dodging each of the Death Hunter's attacks, before tilting his head back and exhaling a full-force burst of chaotic elemental dragon breath.
"What kind of trick is this?" Cyric's attack missed, and it was then scalded in the face by the chaotic elemental dragon's breath. The searing pain made it even more incapable of thinking deeply, so it unleashed its three-pronged attack of psychic spikes, torment, and psychic crushing psionic energy simultaneously. Then, it was surprised to find that Casalos seemed to have moved backward to the position it had been in a moment before.
"How can it be......"
Casalos did not waste this opportunity. It was as if it had regressed in time, and its dragon magic power had also returned to the state it had just completed in preparing and charging its breath. It immediately released the full power of the chaotic elemental dragon breath again, which mixed with the previous one and struck Cyric's head directly.
The two disintegrating effects combined to tear apart not only the desecration protection but also the Death Hunter's high-priority damage reduction and other permanent defenses. The double flames joined the still-burning brethren, simultaneously scorching its dragon soul and life.
Cyric cried out in pain and plummeted downwards, the Death Realm showing signs of instability. Chaotic elemental turbulence left radiating, colorful wounds on its head, dimming its eerie blue eye flames.
“You…” Cyric’s voice was filled with disbelief, “How could you predict my movements?”
Casalos remained silent, continuing to execute his tactics. In such a life-or-death battle, any unnecessary communication would be a waste of energy.
Receiving no verbal response, the rage lurking deep within the souls of all true dragons suddenly surged forth, overwhelming Cyric's reason. Abandoning its tactic of consistently and accurately teleporting attacks, it charged straight at Casalos, preparing for a full-blown melee.
Indeed, Casalos can predict the trajectory and landing point of its teleportation, but in terms of pure strength and melee skills, Death Hunter still has an absolute advantage.
However, now that both are in the air, Casalos's conventional flight maneuverability and flexibility are far superior to Shirek's.
Before Cyrek could react, Casalos had already returned to its physical form. With a barrel roll, Casalos over Cyrek's broad wings, flipped onto its back, and unleashed a short, fireball-like breath, spear-like wingtips, slashing forepaws, and grappling hind claws all at once, striking Cyrek's nape.
"Ah!" Cyric let out a shrill howl. The Death Domain collapsed, and negative energy fell like shards of glass below the clouds, then sublimated into a black mist that spread out under the direct sunlight.
Casalos re-entered his lightning elemental form, performing a series of random lightning leaps across each of Deathhunter's sharp protrusions—a lightning leap itself being an elemental attack, unlike random teleportation, each one injecting blazing flames into Cyrek's body.
In just half a second, the number of layers of blazing flames on Cyric's body increased dramatically to more than ten.
The continuous burning true damage accumulated rapidly, quickly exceeding the Lost Dragon's self-repair threshold for negative energy, and began to devour Cyric's life force. Dim but undeniable flames emerged from every wound of the Death Hunter.
“No…” Cyric’s voice weakened as its body began to crumble, and the evil shield formed by its blasphemous power dimmed. “This is impossible…”