"No—!"
The ancient gold dragon beat his wings violently and brandished the scepter in his claws, letting out a sorrowful roar. "Vile beast! How dare you strike down Duke Walter—how dare you murder a soul who stood so steadfastly for good and justice!
"Heroes are never forgotten, but a tyrant like you will be nailed to history's pillar of shame!"
A brilliant rainbow beam shot from the tip of the golden scepter. Nearly a meter in diameter and churning with the mingled forces of the elements, it blasted straight toward the distant red dragon.
*Boom!*
Cassius raised his right claw and conjured a spell vortex, effortlessly draining all the rainbow beam's energy. He sneered, "He wanted to kill me, so I killed him. Is that not true justice?
"Must you self-righteous hypocrites be allowed to swarm me, this so-called 'tyrant,' while forbidding me from fighting back? You wish to keep your renown and your lives all at once—where in the world does such an easy bargain exist?" the red dragon asked calmly, a mocking glint flickering in his pale gold pupils.
"What is more... he sought his own death. He even unsealed his divine spark himself; I never forced his hand." The red dragon lifted the pulsing golden orb in his grasp, examining it closely with unmistakable greed.
Without hesitation, he tore away a small wisp of solar divine power and swallowed it whole. The chaotic flame within his belly unraveled the divine energy, while the fire of order reconstituted it into power of Cassius's own.
Within the red dragon's colossal frame, each internal system worked in clear harmony, forming a systematic digestive engine fully capable of consuming and absorbing divine force.
The vast, searing solar power flooded into his gut and infused his flesh, drawing from him a low, contented murmur of pure satisfaction. Cassius even closed his eyes, savoring every nuance of the power's taste.
To Walter's allies, however, watching him do this was no different from devouring their fallen comrade's remains right before their eyes—an act of blatant, naked humiliation!
"Y-You will pay for this!" The ancient gold dragon's voice trembled with sheer sorrow and fury.
"Creature of sin..."
Barachiel's expression hardened as well. For the first time, a look of genuine sorrow surfaced on the flawless silver face of the Lord of the Silver Heaven.
"In heaven's name, I shall grant you final judgment so the departed hero's soul may rest...
"Remember, this battle is far from over! Though the road of light demands sacrifice, justice and order shall prevail in the end!"
Barachiel's gaze turned chillingly stern. Arc lightning detonated along his silver greatsword once more, unleashing blades forged of starlight. A sacred avatar hundreds of meters tall manifested around him, while countless colossal halos turned slowly behind his back.
The gold dragon beat his wings and took to the air, roaring in fury, "Duke Walter was deceived by this cunning red dragon and lost his life for it! We owe a monster like this no honor or restraint!
"Lord Barachiel, let us strike together this time! Give this vile, shameless fiend no quarter!"
Cassius flapped his wings as well, climbing thousands of meters in an instant, and let out a brazen laugh. "Have you finally abandoned your pretense and revealed your true colors?
"Hahaha, wonderful! Let all of Feanso witness the ugly faces of you hypocrites, paving the way for the Empire's future!"
*Rumble!*
Thunder boomed through the firmament. Barachiel offered no verbal reply; instead, he answered with celestial lightning blanketing the heavens, followed by a sweeping horizontal cleave from his starlight blade.
Yet the red dragon simply banked aside, evading the slash with ease, and opened his maw to unleash a torrential tide of dragonfire that turned half the sky into an ocean of surging flames and billowing smoke.
Under the Elemental Master's exquisite control, Cassius's dragonfire could even incinerate the dark storm clouds in the sky, swallowing Barachiel's celestial lightning whole.
Two entirely disparate elemental forces clashed, resisted, and fused, coalescing into a churning bank of brilliant clouds where rampant tongues of flame and flashing lightning took turns tearing through the expanse.
"Sword of the Archons!"
Barachiel shouted in fury. Countless golden swords of light carrying the full might of heaven shot toward the red dragon, tearing through the very fabric of space along their paths.
*Roar—*
Cassius opened his maw and unleashed a sweeping deluge of dark red dragonfire, raising a fiery rampart before him that swallowed the blades of light whole.
When Barachiel swept his gaze around with True Seeing, he found no trace of the red dragon. What he failed to notice was that, directly above his head, the flames were rapidly coalescing into a colossal draconic form.
"Watch your head!" Titus cried in desperation, beating his wings as though rushing to the rescue. But the red dragon merely sneered in contempt. With a single flick of his claw, a massive pillar of fire blasted the gold dragon away.
Cassius then dove straight down from the heavens, terrifying flames gathering in his maw, poised to impale the celestial avatar from directly overhead.
Barachiel, however, abruptly snapped his wings inward and raised the greatsword over his head. Boundless celestial power converged above him, condensing into a silver aegis a hundred meters across.
*Celestial Shield.*
*Boom—*
Dragonfire poured from Cassius's maw, only to crash against the silver round shield, unable to advance even an inch further.
And as Barachiel swept his blade, that starlight edge tore through the empty air with terrifying momentum, looking ready to cleave the red dragon in two.
*Awooo—*
Cassius could only let out a long roar, beat his wings, and veer sharply away, veiling his form under the cover of his dragonfire.
Numerous wounds had already opened across the red dragon's hide, but they were regenerating at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Barachiel, meanwhile, had also been driven into a ragged state. The massive white-feathered wings behind him were battered and charred, and his violet robes, adorned like starfields, hung in tattered, torn shreds.
Yet the soft light of heaven enveloped him entirely, swiftly mending every wound and imperfection; in mere minutes, he would be restored to pristine perfection.
The one in the most wretched state was Titus, the ancient gold dragon. His once-radiant scales were now dull and lusterless, blackened with burns and stained with splatters of blood. His wings were shredded like worn rags, his torso covered in gruesome gouges.
A horrific tear ripped across his flank, baring crimson muscle and pouring blood—a wound opened by a casual swipe of the red dragon's claw.
This gold dragon, once so dignified and noble, looked more like a blood-drenched "black dragon" now. Even so, he continued to roar in fury, courageously lunging at the red dragon again and again.
By this point, the aerial battlefield had descended into utter chaos. Powerful spells crisscrossed one another, and brilliant magical auras dazzled the senses.
The surrounding Weave was nearly tangled into a knotted mess by the sheer violence of the clash, leaving the spatial fabric of this region of the Material Plane fragile and tottering on the brink of collapse.
High-tier magic aside, even eighth- and ninth-tier pinnacle spells were hurled about as if they cost nothing, cast merely to create the slightest hindrance for the foe, and frequently failing to take effect at all.
Amidst the storm, those colossal figures darted and clashed relentlessly, flickering in and out of view, often revealing no more than a glimpse of a scale or a claw.
...
Down on the ground, Archmage Zalan slowly opened his eyes amidst the anxious cries of his subordinates and their continuous healing spells, only to look up and see the turbulent heavens.
The high sky was choked by roiling clouds radiating terrifying energy fluctuations, within which those mighty beings engaged in a chaotic melee. Every single clash between them was nothing short of a natural catastrophe.
Zalan's lips instantly turned pale, and he muttered under his breath, "Gods above... hasn't this battle ended yet? Are they trying to shatter this entire space?"
Suddenly, as if remembering something, his expression froze, and his tone turned frantic. "Wait, what about that tenth-tier spell?!"
He scrambled to his feet, grabbed his subordinate's shoulders, and shook them, demanding in agitation, "Where is that miraculous sun in the sky? Where did it go? Could it be... could it be that I was hallucinating just now?
"That's impossible! I saw it with my own eyes, how could it..."
The wizard fell silent for a moment, then shook his head, his face devoid of color. "My lord, your memory serves you well. It's just that... that sun—or rather, Duke Walter—has already fallen."
With that, he pointed into the distance. Zalan followed his finger, and his jaw dropped in utter shock.
There lay the corpse of an angelic godblood, chest torn wide open, quiet and still as gold-red blood pooled around him.
The body continued to radiate searing light, scorching a blackened crater into the earth, and no one dared approach. It was none other than the corpse of Duke Walter, a man Zalan knew all too well.
Frozen in place for what felt like an eternity, Zalan finally choked out a few words from the depths of his throat: "Th-This is impossible..."
"Someone, quickly!"
"Lord Zalan has fainted again!"
"Where are the clerics? Hurry! Lord Zalan is foaming at the mouth! No, wait, blood is pouring from his nose! Mystra above!"
The crowd around him fell into turmoil once more, while even more people looked up at the aerial battlefield, praying in silence.
Before such cataclysmic might, they had lost all power to determine their own fates; they could only wait for whatever was decreed for them.
...
*Boom!*
Manipulating the rampant elemental fire, Cassius conjured a colossal claw of flame a hundred meters long, which seized the starlight greatsword in an iron grip.
Rampant tongues of fire raced along the blade, furiously consuming the arm formed of heavenly light.
Exhaling a cloud of sulfurous white smoke, the red dragon bellowed insolently, "Barachiel, mighty Lord of Lunia—is this all the power you possess?"
Barachiel tightened his grip on the hilt, bracing it before his chest, and said coldly, "Foolish beast! Were this the Silver Heaven, your severed head would already serve as an ornament in Castle Malhavoc!"
*Roar—*
Taking advantage of the opening, the gold dragon roared and swooped in from behind. Ignoring his heavily wounded body, he lunged at the red dragon with bared fangs and brandished claws.
Yet Cassius didn't even spare him a glance. With a casual sweep of his tail, the gold dragon—far too outmatched in size—was hurled away with a pained howl, a fresh gouge torn across his chest.
"A laughable ambush!"
Cassius beat his wings, churning up a scorching tempest that instantly widened the distance, carrying him thousands of meters away to face Barachiel and the gold dragon in a renewed standoff.
Looking at the battered gold dragon, Cassius nodded inward with deep satisfaction.
Excellent. In this very battle, he intended to forge his alternate identity into the ultimate vanguard against the red dragon, using the feat to elevate Titus's influence among the anti-Cassius factions.
The title of 'Dragon of Dawn' and 'Wings of the Dawn' was already glorious and grand enough, but what if he added the legend of 'risking his life in combat against the red dragon to avenge a beloved friend'?
Cassius refused to believe that, armed with such sterling credentials, he could fail to infiltrate those righteous factions, win their absolute trust, and rise into their highest echelons.
*Still, before long... today's play can finally wrap up,* Cassius thought with a savage grin.
The red dragon then turned his gaze back to Barachiel. In just a few minutes, bathed in the radiance of heaven, that flawless form had fully restored itself, showing not the slightest hint of fatigue.
To Cassius, this was indeed a troublesome adversary.
As the Lord of Lunia in the Silver Heaven and a member of Mount Celestia's Hebdomad, Barachiel's power originated from Mount Celestia—more specifically, from the Silver Heaven itself.
Although the power of the Outer Planes suffered suppression in the Material Plane, Barachiel never drew more than the permissible threshold at once, channeling the rest into the glowing halos behind him to unleash as needed.
What was more, so long as the power of the Silver Heaven remained unexhausted and the Silver Sea did not run dry, Barachiel possessed an endless, inexhaustible wellspring of might.
Small wonder Barachiel was so proud and had backed Duke Walter with such supreme confidence. To the mortals of the Material Plane, he was practically an invincible existence.
Cassius's progenitor dragon constitution certainly granted him extraordinary regenerative capabilities, but waging a war of attrition against an entire Outer Plane was blatant folly—the sort of stupidity only native red dragons whose brains consisted of nothing but muscle and magma would commit.
Cassius knew he had to seize an opportunity to deliver a single fatal strike, avoiding a grueling battle of attrition at all costs; otherwise, he would inevitably be the first to wear down and fall.
Though easy to say, inflicting a lethal, debilitating blow on Barachiel was a monumental challenge.
That celestial light disgusted Cassius to his core; spells cast against it were smoothed away by the power of order, even chaotic flames struggled to erode it, and any wounds dealt were mended in moments.
As an Outer Plane embodying order and righteousness, Mount Celestia was inherently anathema to all chaotic beings, particularly abyssal demons.
Yet Cassius had not revealed all his trump cards to Barachiel. His opponent knew only that the red dragon possessed chaotic power, the spellcasting prowess of an epic sorcerer, and the bloodline of a progenitor dragon...
After several world-shaking battles, these traits were well known to the world's greatest powerhouses, an open secret.
What none of them knew, however, was that after slaying demons, Cassius had acquired another power from the system: the Breath of Ordering.
After all, order and chaos, good and evil, were fundamentally opposed, like water and fire. No one could ever imagine these contradictory traits coexisting within a single being.
*Perhaps... it is time to bring this to an end,* Cassius thought, glaring down at the distant Barachiel.
Chapter 623