The next moment, a muffled, thunderous roar echoed across the sky like a bolt from the blue, and a violent shockwave once again rippled outward with ferocity.
*Boom!*
Cassius's blazing draconic form slammed directly into the Abyssal dragon's chest, setting off flying sparks, ferocious detonations, and thick, acrid smoke.
Two hundred-meter-class colossal beasts tangled together, brawling midair in a clash that set the firmament shuddering and made space itself tremble.
At nearly three hundred meters, Jerlazax was vastly larger than the hundred-meter-long red dragon, possessing an advantage that should have allowed him to crush his opponent through sheer raw power.
Yet compared to the Abyssal dragon's gaunt, decrepit frame, Cassius possessed a far sturdier and more robust physique, packed with knots of muscle as dense and defined as iron spheres, with the power of world laws coiling around him.
In virtually an instant, riding the momentum of his dive, the red dragon seized the upper hand once more, pinning his talons against the Abyssal dragon's chest and bearing down with relentless force.
“*Roaaar—*
“Devour... I will devour you!”
Jerlazax shrieked frantically, lashing out with his claws, wildly thrashing his tattered wings, twisting his head to snap blindly, and spraying foul, reeking saliva.
“Tsk, tsk...
A beast thrashing in its death throes!”
Watching for an opening, Cassius nimbly dodged the massive claws and razor-sharp teeth in the high heavens. With a few swift bounds across the creature's bulk, he leaped onto the Abyssal dragon's back and clamped his jaws down viciously onto the wing bone.
A crisp snap resounded. The Abyssal dragon's wing bone shattered on the spot, and the vast wing—stretching hundreds of meters and blotting out the sky—dangled limply downward.
“*Awooo!*”
Wracked with agony, Jerlazax craned his neck, howling toward the heavens. His eyes turned crimson, and he clawed about in sheer madness, leaving bleeding, weeping gouges across his own flesh.
The Abyssal dragon thrashed incessantly, battered and broken, as purplish-black blood and dark red scales splattered through the sky.
Yet Cassius was completely unfazed. Standing atop the Abyssal dragon's spine, he tucked in his wings, sank his talons mercilessly into the fiend's flesh, and bore down with all his might to keep him pinned.
A savage grin spread across his jaws as he hissed in a low voice, “Now... Jerlazax, I have you!”
“*Roooaaar—*”
The red dragon let out a ringing roar. Veins bulged across his entire body as the power of laws coiled around him. The surrounding gravity abruptly spiked tenfold and more, as though an entire mountain had crashed atop Jerlazax.
The power of Imperial Domain: Severance snuffed out the raging chaos winds, leaving them unable to hold the Abyssal dragon aloft.
With one wing broken, Jerlazax flapped his sole remaining wing with all his might, yet he could not hope to maintain the balance of his colossal frame—much less withstand the force of the red dragon driving him down.
*Crack—*
The next instant, accompanied by the piercing shriek of tearing air, the two entangled behemoths plummeted from the upper atmosphere like a gargantuan falling meteor.
The two dragons, together weighing nearly a million tons, slammed headlong into the mountainside of Thierry Peak!
*Boom!*
Amidst the tremors of the mountain and the explosive shattering of rock, a billowing plume of dust and smoke vaulted into the sky. Carrying shattered stone and grit, it swept across all four directions, blanketing the sky and the ground for dozens of li around.
A massive crater hundreds of meters in diameter and dozens of meters deep was blasted into the mountainside of Thierry Peak, as if a monstrous beast had taken a colossal bite out of it.
Far beyond Thierry Peak and the Anstica Mountains, the entire Great Anzetta Waste trembled and shook!
The earth-shattering commotion of the two dragons' duel sent waves of trembling, terror, and awe through onlookers dozens of li away.
“What terrifying power!”
“By the gods, this is an apocalyptic catastrophe...”
“Bahamut above... A duel between dragons like this hasn't been seen in tens of thousands of years.”
“Look! Look at Thierry Peak! How... how is this possible?!”
The fracturing crackle of stone grew louder and louder. Around the crater, deep fissures spread along the towering, thousands-of-meters-high mass of Thierry Peak, and scalding magma began gushing from the cracks.
Under the dragons' devastation, the rock strata deep within the mountain had long since reached their breaking point. The mountain fractured and gave way.
*Rumble—*
It was the earth's drawn-out wail, the mountain's final elegy.
Countless boulders tumbled down. Like a falling giant, the peak tilted backward powerlessly. The dust kicked up by its collapse swept across the land once more, billowing in surging, churning waves.
Thierry Peak—the highest mountain in the Northlands that had stood for countless millennia, revered by the Scanians for thousands of years as the King of the Snow Mountains—collapsed in an earthshaking roar.
Yet within the ruins of the mountain, amidst the grit and dust shrouding the earth, two colossal dark silhouettes remained locked in a brutal struggle.
“*Roaaar—*”
Their furious roars kept the dust churning, while the ruined ground continued to shake beneath them.
By now, however, the Abyssal dragon was covered in wounds from head to tail. Half of his body was buried in earth and rubble, his left wing hanging limp and useless, with none of his earlier menacing swagger remaining.
Yet even in this state, Jerlazax could still easily crush countless mortals and obliterate a human city.
Unfortunately, his opponent was Cassius—and it was Cassius backed by supreme authority within his Imperial Domain.
With the Abyssal dragon acting as a cushion, Cassius had emerged completely unscathed from the crash.
Flames danced within the red dragon's pale gold pupils. An ominous, terrifying aura emanated from his muscular form, trailing wisps of pale smoke.
Reckless and unhinged, Jerlazax clawed his way out of the ruins, shaking countless rocks and dirt from his frame. The ground rumbled as he dragged his heavily wounded, battered body and pounced toward Cassius.
*Boom!*
Dust erupted anew, sending debris flying in all directions.
Yet in Jerlazax's berserk state, his attack was far too obvious. In Cassius's Cataclysmic Dragon Eye, the movement played out like slow motion.
With a light flick of his wings, Cassius lifted into the air, evading the pounce and soaring above the Abyssal dragon.
*Slash—*
His talons swept down through the air, striking true across the Abyssal dragon's back. Shattered scales flew, and purplish-black blood sprayed across the red dragon's face.
Several long, deep gouges tore into the Abyssal dragon's flesh, drawing an agonized howl from the fiend.
Jerlazax thrashed madly, contorting his limbs in an attempt to roll over and crush the red dragon beneath him, but the crushing gravitational pressure held him completely immobilized.
Cassius flashed a ferocious grin. Clinging relentlessly to the Abyssal dragon's back, he snapped his jaws around the fiend's sole remaining left wing bone, his razor-sharp teeth sinking in as he violently wrenched his head back.
*Riiip—*
Blood sprayed, and the Abyssal dragon's sky-spanning wing was ripped clean away, leaving behind a ragged, hundred-meter-long tear along the membrane.
“*Awooo—*”
With another wretched shriek, Jerlazax craned his neck once more, his colossal frame shivering violently.
Both of the Abyssal dragon's wings were now torn away. Blood poured from his back like rain, and under the suppression of Severance, even the flames of resurgence could not mend his wounds.
At this moment, Jerlazax hardly resembled a dragon at all; he looked more like an astonishingly gaunt land drake.
The red dragon stood atop the Abyssal dragon's back, his eyes chilling and terrifying, his jaws dripping with fresh blood. He snarled in a low growl:
“How does it feel to be the prey, Jerlazax?
“Don't worry, this is only the beginning. Demon of Vengeance, everything you inflicted on me—I will repay twofold!”
Chapter 542