Deadly Clash

"That's... an epic spell! That red dragon is an epic spellcaster!" In the Avernian ranks, an aged devil sorcerer stroked his goatee and let out an astonished cry as he sensed the immense surge of magical power. "By the Lord of the Nine Hells! A reckless creature like a red dragon can actually become an epic wizard?!" An epic spellcaster capable of unleashing such magnificent and devastating magics would be welcomed as an honored guest anywhere in the multiverse. And this spellcaster happened to be a colossal red dragon sixty meters long! Dragons inherently possessed innate spellcasting; combining both meant his power could only be described as unfathomable! Kostchtchie stepped forward, and a massive floating iceberg instantly condensed beneath his feet in midair. The sheets of ice expanded frantically alongside the giant's stride as he charged after the red dragon, turning the entire sky into a realm of frost and snow. Amidst the howling blizzard, Cassius spread his wings, his will warping reality to twist the weather. In an instant, the battlefield once more erupted into a chaotic scene of colliding frost and flame, smothered in dense smoke. Through the swirling smog, the red dragon and the frost giant chased and clashed with each other in a fierce grapple, monstrous claws and hulking arms briefly emerging as they vied relentlessly for the upper hand. *Roar—!* Cassius let loose a thunderous roar, a deluge of flames erupting from his throat to forge a towering sea of fire across the high sky, melting every glacier in his path. The red dragon raised his head and howled, and blazing meteors plummeted from the firmament, hurtling down toward the frost giant. Standing atop a glacier, Kostchtchie swung his greataxe diagonally with monstrous force. *Swish—!* A blade of ice hundreds of meters long slashed across the sky, cleaving several meteors in two mid-flight, causing them to explode or freeze into solid ice on the spot. "Reptile, is this all you've got?" the Frost Giant King roared. Chilling torrents spread outward accompanied by a foul black mist that engulfed the wilderness, a tidal wave of chaotic energy rushing forward to erode Cassius's mind. *I can't let that abyssal will taint my mind!* Cassius snapped his wings open again, ascending thousands of meters. The magnificent Crown of the Supreme True Dragon manifested above his head, radiating countless beams of sacred light that scattered the encroaching tide of chaotic force. The red dragon reached out a claw, the elemental authority runes in his palm glowing brightly. The surrounding space warped, tearing open massive vortexes of flame. —*Summon Elemental Behemoth*. "Roar!" Over a dozen magma giants wreathed in raging fire charged forth from the vortexes. Brandishing massive flaming fists, they bellowed and leaped toward the frost giant. Each elemental behemoth radiated blistering heat, imbued with the majestic might of elemental fire. Their strength was not inferior to standard balors; left unchecked, they could easily devastate an entire nation on the Material Plane. Unfortunately, their opponent was a demigod-level demon lord. "Elemental behemoths? To think you'd fight me with such foolish, low-class trash... Ridiculous!" An eerie, ice-blue gleam flared in Kostchtchie's pupils. Endless frost and snow erupted from his colossal body, bleaching everything around him into pure white. In merely a single breath, the elemental behemoths were frozen solid in midair, instantly turning into stiffened, frigid boulders that shattered and fell to the ground. Yet Cassius had never counted on these summoned creatures to kill Kostchtchie. He only needed them to stall for a brief moment. And now, his objective was achieved! Hoisting his greataxe with an enraged bellow, the frost giant was about to charge back into the sky to engage the red dragon in close-quarters melee when the heavens suddenly ignited with blinding brilliance. Beams of boundless radiance cascaded down, bestowing heat and light upon the world. Glaciers dissolved, snowdrifts vanished, and even the howling blizzard ground to a halt beneath the intense sunlight. The glacier beneath Kostchtchie's feet melted into scalding, boiling water in an instant. Left with no choice, he summoned his Frigid Throne and stood upon it, staring darkly at the sky. "That damned reptile... He still has tricks like this up his sleeve..." "Th-that's..." "Look!" "By the Lord of the Nine Hells! That thing is actually appearing here! That's the first time in my life I've ever seen it!" The devils raised their heads in unison, gasping in heartfelt shock. Even Bel was awed, his mouth falling slightly open. In the blood-red sky of Avernus, something had appeared that never belonged here—something that had never once graced Hell throughout history! A sun! Many low-ranking devils had never left Avernus in their entire lives, let alone visited the Material Plane. This was the first time they had ever witnessed such a magnificent sight. Humans, devils, and demons alike turned their gazes upward. A dazzling sun hung high in the sky, showering the earth with its brilliance, melting the blanket of frost and snow across the land, and burning away the battlefield's lingering smoke and white mist. After devouring the divine sun origin within Wilhelm, Cassius's mastery over solar divine power had ascended to another tier. He was now equivalent to the collective culmination of the Fadlan godblood. Though he did not hold the divine rank of a demigod, his sheer reservoir of divine energy was colossal. Now, Cassius could manifest a genuine miniature celestial body rather than a mere illusion! *Eternal Sun!* Bearing the sun upon his back, the red dragon slowly beat his sky-blotting wings. Basking in the brilliance, his massive form blurred, his silhouette outlined with a shimmering golden rim. At this moment, Cassius was like the incarnation of the sun itself, towering and divine, his pale-gold pupils glittering beneath the dazzling light. He slowly parted his maw, blinding radiance swelling deep within his throat, enveloped by spiraling currents of fire. *Maximized Solar Breath!* *Boom—!* The world seemed to freeze. Then, a golden cascade of fire poured forth like a waterfall, cleaving the heavens in two. Bearing the devastating power of the sun, the breath weapon surged straight toward the frost giant. Faced with such an attack, even Kostchtchie had to treat it with utmost seriousness, his expression growing exceptionally grim. A formidable physique, comprehensive spellcasting, unpredictable divine powers... This red dragon had far exceeded his expectations. No wonder Jerlazax had fallen to his claws. Furthermore, this Cinder Emperor seemed remarkably young, having risen meteorically in just recent centuries with alarming growth speed. Allowing him to walk away would invite endless disaster! If the red dragon managed to escape back to the Material Plane, Kostchtchie wouldn't even be confident in defeating him. He had to end this swiftly! In a split second, Kostchtchie made up his mind. He was determined to kill this red dragon right here in Avernus and pull him up by the roots! Glistening ice-blue runes surfaced across the frost giant's skin. Jagged shards of ice crystal jutted out, hardening into an impenetrable suit of armor that radiated biting white mist. "Praise Kostchtchie!" "Great King of the Frost Giants! He is the terminator who freezes all creation, the divinity hailing from the Infinite Abyss!" The frost shamans and frost giant warriors chanted their prayers aloud. The power of faith surged skyward, converging into Kostchtchie's towering, hulking form. The divine frost power rippled outward like waves, completely condensing into the greataxe Heart of Winter. A terrifying chill erupted, sweeping across thousands of meters. *Boom—!* The greataxe cleaved through the air. A frosty-white torrent thousands of meters wide manifested in the sky, colliding head-on with the red dragon's sacred solar flames. Fire and frost crashed together, detonating into violent energy shockwaves and blinding brilliance that stirred up chaotic atmospheric turbulence spanning a radius of hundreds of li. This was not merely a clash of raw energy, but a collision of divinity and planar laws, violent enough to reshape the very essence of the plane! Scalding white vapor engulfed the heavens, and a maelstrom expanded wildly outward from the epicenter of the two forces, swallowing nearly the entire wasteland. "Run!" "Lord of the Nine Hells!" "Get into the trenches!" "Holy crap, is this just a beam clash? That's way too insane! A nuke wouldn't even be this crazy, right?!" Confronted by the storm tearing across the earth, both players and devils screamed in terror, fleeing in utter disarray. They had never imagined that even after running more than a dozen li away, they would still be caught in the shockwaves of this battle. The demons were even unluckier. Being closer to the fray, they had nowhere to hide as the tempest of blistering white smoke swept over them like a tsunami. In an instant, the land was reduced to mountains of charred slag and skeletons dripping with tar-like sludge; only mid- and high-ranking demons managed to survive the tempest. "Cassius, be honored! You shall perish beneath the might of a god! You will be preserved for eternity as a prize in the Iron Wastes!" Kostchtchie roared in fury, gripping his greataxe with both hands as he strode up into the sky, each step forcing towering mountains of ice to erupt from the ground below. Though the red dragon wielded divine solar power, it had ultimately been plundered from godbloods and weakened countless times over, far inferior to that of a true solar deity. Kostchtchie, however, was a genuine demigod and an Abyssal demon lord, possessing terrifyingly overwhelming strength. High above, the red dragon's solar breath gradually fell into a disadvantage, snuffed out and steadily pushed back by the frosty-white torrent. "In the name of the god of the tanar'ri frost giants—" Kostchtchie roared toward the heavens, channeling centuries of accumulated divine frost power into his greataxe. The dread cold expanded frantically, swallowing the golden flames and surging toward the red dragon, threatening to freeze all existence into ice. Even with Cassius exerting all his might, he seemed unable to reverse the tide. Under the influence of the divine frost power, space itself congealed, and the sky seemed to freeze into a massive block of ice. Even the brilliant sun dimmed, flickering erratically as if on the verge of being extinguished. "Praise the King of the Frost Giants!" "Long live Lord Kostchtchie!" the tanar'ri frost giants chanted in unison, their voices frantic and pious. *What terrifying divine frost power...* Shock stirred in the red dragon's heart. He pushed his sacred solar flames to their absolute limit, barely holding back the encroaching chill. He could feel his wingbeats growing sluggish as the heat within his body steadily drained away. *Eternal Freedom!* A pale-purple magical glow shimmered across the dragon's scales, granting him freedom from all restraints. Yet the divine frost power affected not just Cassius's body, but the surrounding space itself—the entire battlefield was being frozen solid. "Give up your futile struggle, Cassius..." Kostchtchie strode steadily toward the red dragon, his entire form glowing with pale-blue light and radiating bone-chilling gales, resembling the very incarnation of winter. The deep aura of chaos trailed behind him, bearing down with crushing pressure. Sneering, the frost giant continued, "You chose the wrong foe. A mortal is just a mortal; you can never cross that boundary!" Convinced that the red dragon was on the brink of losing all capacity to resist, the frost giant did not rush, carrying himself with unhurried composure. *Now, all I need to do... is wait for an opening,* Cassius thought to himself, feeling the chill seeping into his very soul. As Kostchtchie drew closer, Cassius felt the blood in his veins sluggishly slowing, his burning draconic heart gradually cooling—such was the power of divine frost, which no mortal, no matter how formidable, could withstand. A thick layer of rime coated his crimson scales, making Cassius look more like a warped, oversized white dragon. By now, the golden sacred flames in his throat had been thoroughly extinguished, the sun behind him completely darkened. A wild grin broke across the frost giant's face as he raised his greataxe— *Crack, crackle...* Right then, crisp fractures split across the frost covering Cassius's body. *How is this possible?* *That red dragon is just a wretched mortal. How could he break free from my frost domain?!* Surprise flashed across Kostchtchie's face. He swung his greataxe in haste, intending to sever the red dragon's head before any further complications arose. Yet at that exact instant, Cassius snapped his wings wide and reared his head with a resounding roar, shedding all the frost and snow from his body. Clamped in his jaws was an archaic warhammer. —It was none other than the "Father of Frost," Matalotok! Through past experiments, Cassius had long discovered that this warhammer was the vessel for Kostchtchie's divinity, capable of storing and even manipulating divine frost power. Clamping the heavy hammer in his jaws, the red dragon channeled his will to greedily siphon Kostchtchie's divine frost power, giving rise to a colossal vortex of frost in the heavens. Kostchtchie recognized the warhammer almost instantly. It was his favorite weapon, forged in the Iron Wastes over thousands of years, a relic he had intended to use as his sacred vessel for ascending to true godhood. *It was Zariel!* *This red dragon killed Zariel and claimed his artifact!* The frost giant god's face twisted into an expression of sheer ferocity, and he roared in uncontrollable fury, "Shameless thief! That belongs to me!!" "No, stop!" Cassius ignored his cries completely, using the power of the Father of Frost to drain the surrounding divine frost power dry, even forcibly absorbing the crystalline ice armor encasing the frost giant's body. In an instant, Kostchtchie's divine power bordered on complete exhaustion! Flames of wrath erupted in Kostchtchie's eyes. Boundless chaotic energy burst from his form, his demeanor spiraling into frenzy and madness as venom-dripping pustules erupted across his colossal body. Without the suppressive control of his divine frost power, the chaotic will of the tanar'ri inside the frost giant surged unchecked, nearly seizing total dominance. "Reptile, I will slaughter you!" His roar was like the tempestuous gales of the Infinite Abyss, howling endlessly in mad, chaotic fury.