Sure enough, Gruumsh wiped the golden divine blood from the corner of His mouth. He grinned menacingly at Cassius, excitement gleaming in His single eye. "Red dragon, for a lowly mortal, you are quite impressive.
"Unfortunately for you, you have crossed paths with a mighty, invincible god!"
Gruumsh pressed forward step by step, turbulent scarlet divine light erupting from His body. His overpowering aura swept across the earth, making all living things tremble.
He raised His hand slowly. The battleaxe exuded a terrifying aura capable of severing all things, and His voice rumbled like thunder: "I shall make you understand once and for all—what true power is!"
Cassius flared his wings, fighting against the crushing divine pressure. His eyes locked onto Gruumsh's avatar, tracking His every move. Every muscle across the dragon's frame was drawn taut, not daring to show the slightest carelessness or lapse in vigilance.
This orc deity's combat skills were simply too seasoned and masterful, capable of predicting almost every move the red dragon made with ease. Cassius had no choice but to adopt a defensive posture, waiting for an opening in Gruumsh's assault to deliver a single, lethal strike.
Glancing sideways at the red dragon's cautious stance, Gruumsh smiled with supreme confidence. "Soon you will learn that before a true god, all resistance is nothing more than... futile struggling!"
Before His words faded, the orc slammed His feet into the earth. The ground shattered, hurling dust and gravel into the air. His black-plate-clad form blurred into an afterimage, reappearing above the red dragon's head at a terrifying speed that defied mortal eyes.
*Whoosh—*
The battleaxe swung down. Another scarlet arc of bladelike light carved through the air, hurtling straight for the dragon's head.
Fortunately, Cassius had anticipated the strike. His coiled, spring-taut muscles suddenly snapped loose as all four limbs pushed down hard, shattering the stone beneath him.
At the same time, the red dragon unleashed a thick, searing column of flame, propelling his massive body backward like a rocket booster.
*Boom!*
Aided by the powerful recoil and the violent beat of his wings, the dragon's colossal bulk vaulted into the air, ascending dozens of meters in a heartbeat.
Gruumsh's axe cleaved through empty air, but the scarlet blade light flew with terrifying swiftness. It instantly sliced through the dragon's scales, gouging a gruesome, meters-long wound deep into the flesh of his chest.
Had Cassius been a fraction of a second slower, his chest would have been split open, and his beating dragon heart cut in two.
Below them, the earth was cleaved clean in two. A fissure dozens of meters long opened across the ground, rumbling anew as if groaning in agony.
The fiery pillar Cassius had spewed also struck Gruumsh's chest with immense force, but His heavy breastplate stopped it cold, sending streams of high-heat flame and sparks splashing uselessly across the metal.
Gruumsh's armor was scarred and dull, appearing to be nothing more than ordinary plate that had weathered countless battles. In truth, it was a formidable divine relic, allowing the Orc God to slaughter without restraint.
An ordinary breath weapon could not harm Gruumsh in the least, incapable of even breaching the protective scarlet divine light surrounding His armor.
Cassius gritted his teeth and channeled the power within him to the absolute limit. Light and heat akin to the sun burst from his dragon crystal, countless dazzling motes colliding and weaving together.
*Boom—*
Solar divine power and flames of order erupted from within him. The pillar of fire shifted into a blinding silver-white, incessantly washing over, eroding, and disintegrating the protective divine light shielding Gruumsh's chest.
"No matter what tricks you pull, you are merely a mortal! I will make you fully comprehend the vast chasm between us!"
Gruumsh made no move to evade. Instead, He laughed with arrogant abandon and hurled the battleaxe with all His might.
*Whoosh—*
The axe spun violently through the air, whipping up howling gales and tearing ripples through the fabric of space as it hurtled toward the dragon's flank.
With every passing moment, the spinning axe sheared through dozens of meters of surrounding space, releasing countless arcs of scarlet bladelike light. Each arc was capable of cleaving a legendary fighter in two, and the sheer storm of them was enough to slaughter an entire army of extraordinary warriors.
Sensing the imminent danger from below, Cassius made up his mind in a split second. Instead of dodging, he dove straight toward the now-unarmed orc, the flames surging from his maw growing even fiercer and more blinding.
The high-speed spinning axe cut through the sky. The red dragon twisted to evade its main path, but dozens of the scarlet blade lights still slammed across his massive form.
In an instant, his golden wing membranes were torn to shreds, riddled with bleeding gashes wreathed in crimson light, reduced to tattered ribbons.
Yet Cassius ignored the pain. With an enraged roar and unstoppable momentum, he continued hurtling down toward Gruumsh's avatar.
*Roar—*
"Come, red dragon! Show me what you've got!"
Gruumsh looked up and sneered. Divine light converged in His left hand, condensing in an instant into a heavy, ancient shield that He raised before Him.
The next moment, the red dragon slammed violently into the earth amidst a tempest of churning fire. His nearly sixty-meter-long body crashed down like a falling mountain, the sheer impact making the very world shudder.
*Boom—*
In that instant, heaven and earth ruptured, and the world groaned!
The impact was like a falling meteor. The earth collapsed, stone shards flew, and clouds of dust billowed to the heavens as a violent shockwave swept the landscape, stirring up scorching gales.
A crater nearly a hundred meters wide and several meters deep caved into the ground. Amidst the swirling dust and smoke at its center, Gruumsh stood with both feet driven deep into the bedrock, the divine shield in His hand shattered to pieces.
Cassius roared. Seizing this rare opening, he swung a massive dragon claw with all his strength, smashing it viciously down toward the reeling orc god.
*Boom!*
A second massive crater was gouged into the earth. Caught off guard, Gruumsh was hammered deep into the ground, coughing up another mouthful of golden divine blood as fine cracks fractured the black plate armor encasing His form.
Such was the destructive power of a full-force strike from the red dragon! For a colossal beast nearly sixty meters long, the raw impact of his claws surpassed the destructive force of most high-tier spells.
Yet the protective divine light swirling around Gruumsh was already working to mend His injuries, repairing the cracked black plate armor. In less than a single breath, His wounds had mostly healed.
*As expected of a greater deity's avatar! What terrifying regenerative power,* Cassius marveled inwardly. He had intended to press his advantage and swing another claw, but his sharp senses caught something—a faint smile curling on Gruumsh's bloodstained lips.
The sight of that smile sent Cassius's heart racing. A piercing premonition of mortal peril seized his mind.
*Something's wrong!*
In the span of a heartbeat, he made his choice. Snapping his broad wings, he scattered the dust and smoke around him, slammed his feet against the earth, and launched into the air!
The next instant, to Cassius's astonishment, the battleaxe came spinning back in a lethal arc.
*Whoosh—*
The battleaxe carved straight through the space the red dragon had occupied a fraction of a second before, releasing hundreds of scarlet blade lights that nearly tore the spatial fabric to shreds before settling firmly into Gruumsh's waiting grip.
Gruumsh caught the weapon and sighed softly, looking somewhat disappointed that the dragon had been cautious enough to slip through His trap.
High in the air, a wave of lingering fear washed over Cassius. Had he been just a bit greedier for another strike, that returning axe would have shredded him to pieces.
Staring hard at the distant avatar of the orc god, Cassius cursed silently. *What a lethal monster... One careless move and I die here.*
The reality of the battle was now abundantly clear: Gruumsh could fight with reckless abandon, while Cassius had to remain on high alert, guarding his life at every step.
To be sure, Cassius still had an escape route. He could tear through space and flee back to the empire, instantly removing any threat to his life.
Yet the moment he retreated, the empire's foundation in the northern reaches of Feanso would be swallowed by the orcs, and his own prestige within the empire would suffer a devastating blow.
If he lost this once-in-a-millennium opportunity, he might well spend the rest of his life holed up in the remote Northlands, reduced to a petty local tyrant with a lifespan of merely a few thousand years.
Enveloped in dark mist, Gruumsh slowly rose into the air once more. His right hand gripped the battleaxe, while His left condensed another bloodstained spear. His voice dripped with supreme confidence: "I told you, the might of a god is far beyond your comprehension.
"Cassius, I shall give you one final chance. Submit to me, and you too may receive the worship of billions of orcs across the multiverse. However..."
He bared His teeth in a broad grin before continuing: "You will stand beneath my divine altar, serving for all eternity as my mount."
To display His sincerity, a contract woven of divine power materialized in midair, exuding an alluring aura, as if signing it would grant an immortal essence and vast power.
In Gruumsh's eyes, the red dragon should have been terrified out of his wits by now, desperate to preserve his life at any cost—especially given the generous terms offered.
All it required was selling away his pride to become a subordinate deity. Countless mortals had groveled before Him without ever receiving such a grace!
Yet Gruumsh did not know that His terms held zero appeal to Cassius, who had already secured several distinct pathways to godhood.
*Riiiip—*
Cassius slashed his claws through empty air. Several gleaming, claw-shaped force blades tore out, mercilessly shredding the divine contract into fading motes of light.
Looking down disdainfully at the orc, the red dragon mocked with cold scorn, "Old Greenskin, have so many of your worshippers died that you've lost your mind?"
"Ungrateful worm."
Gruumsh's gaze turned icy, veins throbbing violently across His brow. A torrent of terrifying divine power erupted from His single eye, casting a bloody radiance that shot into the clouds and blanketed everything for a hundred li around.
Gruumsh advanced one heavy step at a time. With each stride, His frame swelled dramatically, and the crushing pressure radiating from Him grew a degree more suffocating.
In the end, a one-eyed orc standing nearly a hundred meters tall loomed over the earth. Spear in His left hand, axe in His right, clad in dark plate, He emanated the primordial dread of an ancient, savage era.
The crushing aura of a greater deity bore down, striking Cassius's shoulders like a physical blow and nearly driving him from the sky. He had to beat his wings frantically to keep his balance.
Only now had Gruumsh chosen to pay the price of burning His divine essence to reveal the full incarnation of His avatar—the physical embodiment of war and conquest, an orc god who sought victory at all costs.
Flapping his wings against the suffocating pressure, Cassius looked at the towering orc without a trace of fear. Instead, a faintly mocking smirk curved on his lips. "Old Greenskin, you're actually burning your divine essence just to kill me.
"It seems... your old enemies must be laying siege to your divine realm. Heh, you're desperate to eliminate me as quickly as possible. Did I guess right?"
"Die!"
Consumed by boundless rage, Gruumsh leveled His bloodspear at the dragon in the sky and unleashed a deafening roar, locking a suffocating murderous intent onto Cassius.
Pushing his strength to the limit, the red dragon climbed steeply, trailing a brilliant tail of fire. He punched clean through the sealing barrier of the divine domain, ascending thousands, then tens of thousands of meters into the stratosphere, gazing down at the orc far below.
Though Cassius maintained his sharp-tongued mockery to provoke the god, he dared not relax for a second. This was, after all, the full avatar of a greater deity burning divine essence; the slightest slip would hand his opponent the chance to tear his life away.
*Roar—*
The red dragon threw his head back and bellowed into the heavens. Primordial flames drawn from the Inner Planes and the blazing light of the sun coursed into his frame, surging through every vein. In an instant, Cassius's form also expanded to over a hundred meters in length, rivaling the towering avatar of the orc god below.
*Boom!*
Armed with spear and axe, Gruumsh slammed both feet into the earth once more, causing the hills beneath Him to abruptly collapse. The hundred-meter-tall orc vaulted thousands of meters into the sky in a single bound, instantly matching the dragon's altitude.
His battleaxe swept horizontally through the air, carving a blade light that spanned heaven and earth, while His spear was hurled forward, tearing the sky in two. The two divine weapons complemented each other in a crosswise pincer, nearly sealing off every possible avenue of retreat.
Cassius reacted in an instant. Drawing upon his abilities as an Elemental Master and his planar authority over the Elemental Plane of Fire, he turned his entire body into pure elemental fire at the cost of his own energy. He dissolved into a sky-filling sea of flames that surged toward the earth below, his true form vanishing within the inferno.
The battleaxe, imbued with the essence of slaughter, sheared through the flames, while the all-piercing spear impaled the blazing sea. A fifth of Cassius's fire-element planar authority was instantly annihilated.
The moment he slipped through the divine weapons' encirclement, the rolling sea of fire surged violently, rapidly condensing into physical form to reconstitute the colossal bulk of the red dragon.
Without a moment to spare, Cassius tucked his wings tight against his flanks, pulling his massive body inward as he dove toward the ground at terrifying speed, plummeting like a falling meteor.
"Reptile, your death will be agonizing!" Holding axe and spear once more, Gruumsh followed in hot pursuit with fury plastered across His face, trailing arcs of bloody light as He locked onto the dragon's tail.
*Boom—*
Cassius slammed into the ground, sending violent tremors rippling through the battered earth. After hosting a battle between two such colossal entities, the landscape had long since been reduced to ruins.
Confronting Gruumsh's seemingly invincible avatar, Cassius appeared to have no option left other than tearing through space and abandoning everything here.
Yet the red dragon did no such thing. Looking up at the descending orc, he sensed a familiar presence, and a glint of cunning flashed across his eyes.
He had anticipated this turn of events long ago.
Lowering his head, Cassius shouted toward the fractured ground: "You'd better think this through! If I fall, no one on this land will ever be able to stop the orcs' advance! I can easily abandon North Aethel and return to Anzeta; ten years from now, I will still raise another army of conquerors. But what about you?
"Do the Elven Kingdom and the dwarven clans have any strength left to withstand the orc onslaught? Do you truly wish to watch the orc tide run rampant while Gruumsh grows even more powerful?"
The red dragon's voice rang out with impassioned resonance. His words were not directed at Gruumsh, but at a presence hidden beneath the bedrock.
*Does this red dragon have an ally? Not good! I cannot let him leave here alive!*
High above, Gruumsh's brow furrowed, His expression shifting violently. The fury in His eye blazed even hotter. With an enraged roar, He brandished His weapons and plunged toward the red dragon, wrapped in overwhelming divine power.
*Boom!*
The next instant, the earth cracked wide open and mountains trembled. A stone dwarf wielding a heavy warhammer and bearing a massive ore shield clambered forth from the depths, his entire form radiating thick, earthy-yellow divine light that clashed head-on against the orc god's scarlet divine domain.
This unexpected "ally" that had caught Gruumsh entirely off guard was none other than a dwarven deity! In fact, it was the very God of Shield Dwarves whom Cassius had battled months before, the Silent Keeper—Dumathoin!
Chapter 679