Metallic dragons, celestials, and vassals of the Cinder Empire clashed violently with the surging tide of demons.
In an instant, dazzling light, brilliant spells, and mottled dark clouds intertwined. Winged demons plummeted like rain, yet celestials bearing pure white wings fell from the heights as well.
"Roar—"
Behemoths clad in metallic scales beat their wings high above. Gold dragons breathed sweeping swathes of scorching dragonflame, reducing countless demons to ash.
Silver dragons spewed freezing frost that immobilized swarms of demons in place.
Beside the metallic dragons, lesser dragonkin such as wyverns and flame drakes—creatures inherently vile and traditionally enemies of metallic dragons—fought side by side with them. Colossal white dragons even plunged headlong into the demonic horde.
"This is all faction contribution and gold, brothers! Give it everything you've got!"
"For the Cinder Empire!"
"Ohohoho!"
Tens of thousands of elite players either rode wyverns, relied on flight spells, or even catapulted themselves through the air, engaging in desperate combat against the demons across the sky.
Within moments, thousands of demons tumbled from the heavens, yet even more winged fiends spawned from the chaos, hurtling toward the red dragon under Jerlazax's command.
"Kill them!"
"Purge every bastard standing in the way of the great Abyss's revival!"
"For the Abyss!"
The discordant, piercing shrieks of the demons echoed through the heavens.
"Roar—"
Just then, a resounding dragon roar split the sky.
Cassius swept his wings, stirring up scorching gales. A cataclysmic Fire Storm spiraled a hundred meters around him, incinerating tens of thousands of demons in an instant.
"Boom—"
Another twelve massive, blistering pillars of fire erupted and intertwined, sweeping clean the dense, blackened swarm of fiends before the red dragon.
Severed, molten limbs and charred torsos fell from high above as the air reeked of sulfur.
Down in the ruined mountains where magma flowed, Singo, Mantou, and the others crept forward under invisibility, advancing quietly through the devastated valley.
"Holy crap, Sing-dog, are you seriously going to fight that thing? Is that dragon really meant for us to take on? If I keep dishing out damage for half an hour straight, do you think I can even chip off a single scale?"
Mantou lowered his voice, tugging at the corner of Singo's clothes and pointing toward the distant, dark red dragon coiled like a winding mountain range.
"Don't be so ignorant. If a boss spawned there, it's meant to be fought. It definitely has a weakness! Besides... guess how much EXP this guy will give us?"
Singo licked his lips, his voice brimming with unshakeable confidence.
His defeat in the duel tournament had taught him that if he wanted to compete against the monsters funded by the mega-guilds, he had to take unconventional paths!
Tiansheng Zhankuang rubbed his polished bald head and grinned excitedly, exposing a mouth full of yellowed fangs. "Now this is the fun of gaming! Challenging an apparently unbeatable monster, charging at a mountain-sized behemoth—even dying on the spot makes it worth it!"
Beside them, Xiaye Qiuyu gave a slight nod. A faint gleam shimmered in her golden eyes, accompanied by a smile. "Conveniently enough, I've been wanting to test the power of my Dragon Pact spells."
Thinking of material for his next video, Mantou gritted his teeth. "Fine, let's do it! But we need a plan at least. With a dragon of that size, one sneeze could probably wipe our entire party."
"Heh, do you really think I didn't prepare a countermeasure specifically for giant bosses like this?"
Singo mysteriously pulled a metallic sphere from his bag of holding. Intricate, chaotic patterns were engraved across its surface, bearing a red exclamation mark on the outside.
"For super-gigantic bosses like this, you have to rely on this baby."
*Smack!*
Singo slapped the metal sphere, and it instantly flashed with an ominous red light.
Mantou looked curiously at the sphere as a dense block of information popped up on his interface:
Forbidden Magic Bomb
Quality: Rare
Description: The magical effects of this world are manifold and bizarre. When they touch and collide, unexpected consequences often arise, giving birth to numerous magical taboos—such as nesting two bags of holding within each other.
Yet reckless Starfallen care nothing for such things. They fused dozens of extremely destructive spells together to forge a devastating bomb, leaving even its creator uncertain of what terrible consequences it might unleash.
"Art is an explosion! — Carter, Bomb Friar of the Machine Cult."
Reading this, cold sweat broke out across Mantou's forehead. He hastily caught Singo's hand before he could slap it again.
"Holy shit, Sing-dog, take it easy! Don't blow it up right here! I don't want a team wipe from friendly fire before we even touch the boss."
Singo waved him off. "Relax, I know what I'm doing. The plan is simple: in a moment, you, Brother Zhankuang, and Qiuyu will draw the boss's attention and draw the nearby demons' fire. As for me..."
He grinned, his eyes flashing with the thrill of an impending gamble. "I'll ride my wyvern from behind to get close and launch a suicide attack!"
Mantou buried his face in his hands. That truly was a plan dripping with Singo's signature style: blunt, crude, and as unhinged as ever.
He sighed. "Fine. Sing-dog, I might not be a saint, but you're an absolute dog. If you waste the opportunity we risk our lives to create, I swear I'll make a video tearing you to shreds."
"Deal."
Radiating confidence, Singo led the group forward.
Few demons roamed ahead; the vast majority were massed high in the sky. Meanwhile, the party avoided the airspace where the Material Plane's forces and the demons clashed most furiously.
Tiansheng Zhankuang held up a hand and kept his voice low. "Any further and we'll enter that dragon's territory. We don't know how far its perception reaches, so we'd better tread lightly."
Xiaye Qiuyu nodded, leveled her staff toward the group, and let its tip glow with radiant light.
Shimmering auras of magical light enveloped the team, applying Breath Holding, Greater Invisibility, Concealment, and several other utility spells.
Singo gave a subtle hand wave.
"Sneak in quiet, and don't make a sound."
Holding their breath and focusing their minds, the four-person party crept cautiously toward the terrifying Abyssal dragon.
"Hoo..."
The two-hundred-meter-long, dark red dragon coiled amidst the ruined mountains, its massive draconic frame undulating like an entire mountain range. Its emaciated flesh stretched taut beneath dark red scales.
With each breath it took, murky vapors seeped from between the cracks of its scales and from its nostrils and maw, causing even the ground beneath to rise and fall in rhythm.
The Abyssal dragon glared intently at the red dragon high in the sky. Its deep, cavernous eyes gleamed with a chilling luminescence that made all creation tremble—a rancor toward the order of the world, and a fanatical yearning for ultimate chaos.
"Cassius, come... keep slaughtering... You will embrace the Abyss in the end, becoming my nourishment—an indispensable part of the world's destruction."
Jerlazax parted his jaws in a twisted grin and continued, "It is time to end this tedious game. Ah, and these... insolent ants as well."
"Boom—"
Rubble and dust erupted into the air as the ground violently fractured, web-like fissures spidering outward.
Supported on its four limbs, the Abyssal dragon slowly rose from the earth. Its wings, spanning hundreds of meters, unfurled into the sky before beating down with tremendous force.
*Whoosh—*
Howling gales shrieked through the tears in its tattered wings, unleashing a violent hurricane across the earth. Thick, chaotic mist billowed forth from beneath its flanks.
Tens of thousands more Abyssal demons spawned from the mist, their wings beating erratically in the roaring winds as they swarmed around the dragon like dense, stormy clouds.
"What the fuck?!"
Washed over by the torrent of chaos, Mantou, Singo, and the rest were stripped of their stealth. Every spell cast upon them instantly collapsed.
The mere aftershocks of the foul gales Jerlazax raised caused their skin to ulcerate, wracking them with intense pain and dealing heavy damage.
At this point, they were only a few hundred meters from the Abyssal dragon.
Singo leapt up, immediately activating the mount contract array in his hand. "The boss spotted us! This is our last shot!"
"Roar—"
A wyvern tore through space, skimming low before carrying the rider on its back into the high sky. Relying on masterful riding, he wove through the tide of fiends.
"Got it!"
Mantou activated his contract as well, summoning his own wyvern mount, and charged straight toward the Abyssal dragon.
"Roar—"
Down below, Tiansheng Zhankuang transformed into a giant seven or eight meters tall. His eyes crimson, he bellowed and pounded across the earth, sprinting toward the colossal beast.
Flames surged within Xiaye Qiuyu's eyes. Unfurling draconic wings behind her back, she surged forward in flight toward the same target.
What was more, even more high-level players appeared around the Abyssal dragon—more than a hundred in total!
Converging from all directions, almost all of them had crept up in small parties with their sights set on dragon-slaying. Among the tens of thousands of elite players, plenty had shared Singo's ambition.
For a moment, burly six-armed monks scaled cliffs and walls, kicking up sand and stones; towering dragon-blessed paladins advanced with shields raised, steady as fortresses; druids wildshaped into bears thundered across the land, making the ground quake; Arcane Armors spewed dazzling jets of fire from their thrusters, propelling rapidly forward...
"Charge!"
"Taste my wrath, demon dragon!"
"Watch me slay this demon dragon before the wine cools, gentlemen!"
"For the Cinder Empire, charge! Slay this demon dragon and achieve financial freedom!"
These players, having already attained the Extraordinary realm, displayed their miraculous talents. Unleashing their most potent techniques, they converged to siege the Abyssal dragon from every direction.
Yet Jerlazax looked down upon them with sheer contempt. His deep voice boomed over the ruined wasteland:
"Insignificant vermin—"
The Abyssal dragon parted its gaping maw and unleashed an earth-shattering roar that set the world trembling.
Instantly, wyverns plummeted from the sky, electric arcs crackled across the surfaces of Arcane Armors, and even raging barbarians clutched their heads in agonizing screams.
"You creatures of dust have no comprehension—"
Jerlazax reared up on his hind legs. His sun-blotting draconic wings flared wide, casting a massive shadow that blanketed nearly every player present.
"—of the greatness of the being you face!"
*Hum—*
The Abyssal dragon's mountain-like form descended, bearing down with the terrifying weight of half its bulk as its grotesque, titanic claws slammed into the earth.
"Boom!"
The earth groaned, and dust blotted out the sky.
A shockwave rippled out in concentric rings, expanding dozens of kilometers from the dragon at its center. The violent squall knocked giants off balance, and the entire Anstica Mountains shuddered.
*Creeeak, creeeak...*
With sharp, cracking snaps, countless web-like fissures split the earth, vomiting forth plumes of dark-red chaotic fire.
Scalding magma and searing pillars of fire shot skyward from subterranean depths.
"Boom!"
"Holy shit, why is it this aga—"
With a howl of indignant despair, Mantou was engulfed by the blistering chaotic fire before he could finish his sentence.
He and his wyvern mount were reduced to charred embers in an instant, crashing to the ground.
Next, the dense Abyssal mist enveloped Tiansheng Zhankuang as he sprinted across the earth. His skin festered, his legs grew limp, and at last he collapsed with a heavy thud, his flesh decaying until ghastly white bone was exposed.
"Old Mantou got one-shot again!"
"Look over there, even Brother Zhankuang is down! He's a full-on tank!"
"What kind of bullshit damage does this boss have?!"
Chaotic fire raged across the land like a rabid beast, incinerating players to ash. The Abyssal mist churned between the ravines, reaping lives like a heartless grim reaper.
In mere moments, the majority of the several hundred elite players were wiped out by the mere shockwaves of the Abyssal dragon's strike.
"Roar—"
His wyvern snarled, banking violently in the high sky to graze past a skyward fire pillar, leaving only a scorch mark behind.
Clutching the Forbidden Magic Bomb, Singo piloted his wyvern through the swirling Abyssal mist.
Relying on his formidable +17 Riding skill, he dodged the dreadful aftermath while closing the distance to the Abyssal dragon.
"Almost there..."
His expression manic with excitement, Singo stared fixedly at the Abyssal dragon's chest, his breathing turning ragged.
He had observed it for a long time and identified its weakness early on: its chest lacked scales and bore a colossal scar that seemed yet to fully heal.
That meant that if he could fly right up to the boss and detonate the Forbidden Magic Bomb against its chest, he would have a real chance of killing it!
The Redscale Conqueror wove through skies churning with Abyssal turbulence and winged fiends. Adjusting his position and bearing time and again, he finally spotted an unobstructed opening.
"Wyvern, now!"
"Dragon Roar Charge!"
Singo roared.
Without hesitation, he pressed the timer button. The Forbidden Magic Bomb in his arms pulsed with red light, beeping rhythmically as it gathered dreadful, chaotic magical energy.
The wyvern beneath him roared in unison, snapping its wings wide and diving steeply downward.
Charge!
Charge! Charge!
Singo's heart pounded against his ribs. Scenarios flashed through his mind—if he brought down this Abyssal dragon, he would secure an insurmountable lead.
At this moment, he was even more extreme than Don Quixote charging windmills, for the target of his charge was a veritable mountain.
In that instant, time seemed to freeze. The Redscale Conqueror sliced through the heavens, hurtling toward the Abyssal dragon's chest.
"Truly..."
Yet Jerlazax had already noticed him. The Abyssal dragon watched the wyvern knight with a mocking half-smile, as if regarding an ant.
"...overestimating yourself."
A profound, eerie light flared within those murky eyes.
Singo and his wyvern froze in place, expressions of shock still locked on their faces, before dissolving into nothingness the very next instant.
Power Word: Kill.
The Forbidden Magic Bomb detonated in mid-air, opening a terrifying spatial wormhole, yet it had no effect on the distant Abyssal dragon.
At that exact same moment, over a dozen top-tier players charging Jerlazax from various directions were pulverized into dust by this absolute, law-based power.
Chapter 536