Tiamat's Divine Thunder of Destruction

"Boom!" The two colossal dragons collided once more. A tempest intertwined with lightning and flame swept across the land, rapidly spreading thousands of meters outward. The instant she collided with the Red Dragon Emperor, Gorazdla's expression shifted drastically, disbelief flooding her eyes. What terrifying flames! They carried the laws of order and chaos, of destruction and rebirth; in their very essence, their power was not the least bit inferior to her Divine Thunder of Destruction. It was only because Cassius had newly ascended to demigodhood, leaving his foundation far less formidable than that of Gorazdla, a quasi-deity, that he remained at a disadvantage in this clash of raw elements. Cassius was equally surprised. The great wyrm blue dragon's thunder could actually suppress him so thoroughly, her vast surge of thunder and dazzling lightning relentlessly encroaching upon the flames' domain. After all, the Northlanders had once hailed Cassius as the "Lord of Thunder and Blazing Flame." Yet this time, the Storm Giant's Strength that Cassius relied upon to manipulate thunder proved utterly useless before this Divine Thunder of Destruction. He could even feel the storm giant's imprint trembling and quaking within him, completely terrified of facing her presence. Dazzling arcs of lightning wrapped around the Red Dragon Emperor, washing over his draconic body time and again, scorching his scales pitch-black and even blowing them apart, leaving him looking thoroughly battered. This old blue dragon's foundation is too deep. Continuing a war of attrition against her is a guaranteed loss. I have to find a way to end this quickly! Cassius thought to himself. He beat his draconic wings and lunged toward the great wyrm blue dragon with a roar. In the realm of close-quarters combat, this red dragon—stretching over eighty meters long and looming like a majestic mountain—was unmatched. Braving the surging tide of thunder, Cassius seized the great wyrm blue dragon's left wing. Muscles bulging and veins throbbing, his claws tore with ferocious might. Rrrrrip—! Gorazdla threw back her head and shrieked to the heavens. Under that immense strength, her wing membranes were brutally torn apart, leaving her wings ragged and tattered as steaming dragon blood gushed forth. Yet the presence of immortal power allowed her wounds to regenerate at a pace visible to the naked eye. Seizing the opening, Cassius flapped his wings and soared upward. Opening his gaping maw churning with roaring fire, he clamped down toward the great wyrm blue dragon's neck, spewing a searing pillar of flame from his throat even as his jaws snapped shut. "Damned freak!" Gorazdla struggled wildly, twisting her massive frame. Boundless lightning gathered above her head, solidifying into an enormous crown of thunder. Facing the Red Dragon Emperor lunging for her throat, a dark, uncanny glow gleamed in Gorazdla's eyes as she unleashed one potent divine spell after another. Thunder Abyss! With the great wyrm blue dragon's body at its center, a vortex of swirling deep-blue energy resembling a hideous maw rapidly expanded, engulfing hundreds of meters around them. Cassius felt countless bolts of lightning hammering into him, scouring his body and threatening to twist and tear his internal organs apart. He tried to break free, but the lightning bound him like chains, holding him rigid. In merely an instant, Cassius abandoned the idea of breaking out by brute force and fell back upon his roots as a True Dragon Sorcerer, a vast tide of sorcerous magic surging within him. Empower Spell! Quicken Spell! 10th-tier Draconic Spell—Eternal Freedom! Cassius snapped his wings open, his whole body radiating a soft violet light. In an instant, he broke free from the binds of the Thunder Abyss, turning into a crimson afterimage that pierced through layer upon layer of lightning barriers as he shot rapidly upward. "Trapping me? You're far from capable of that, you pathetic blue dragon slave!" Cassius parted his jaws, and a torrent of dragonflame poured downward, devouring everything and reducing it to ash. Gorazdla drew in her wings, the thunder around her condensing into a colossal shield hundreds of meters across, shimmering with blinding light to block the cascading flames. She hissed low, her voice intermingled with the crackle of lightning. "Ignorant mutant dragon! I am Chosen of Her Majesty Tiamat, a member of the chromatic draconic pantheon destined to rule the world! Had you been born a century later, you would be kneeling in worship before me!" Her scar-covered wings snapped open, scattering the Red Dragon Emperor's flames with a burst of thunder. Raising her head high, Gorazdla let an utterly horrific energy overflow from her massive divine horns. That energy carried an aura intimately familiar to Cassius—dark, evil, all-destroying. It was the manifestation of Tiamat's divine power, the might of the blue dragon head whose breath weapon was the most piercing of the five. In a flash, the dark clouds blanketing the sky dissipated as countless bolts of lightning erupted from the horns, converging into a majestic deluge that cast a blinding glare across the realm. Tiamat's Disintegration Lightning! "Boom!" "Witness the majesty of a god and repent for your sacrilege! This is your final chance, Cassius—for you are about to be thoroughly destroyed!" Gorazdla's arrogant voice rang across the heavens. Everywhere this Divine Thunder of Destruction passed, all things turned to powder, and even the moisture in the air was dismantled into fundamental particles. Without the slightest hesitation, Cassius buffed himself with Greater Haste, Aerial Maneuverability, Draconic Agility, and numerous other spells. With a single flap of his wings, he became a streak of crimson, fleeing at absurd speed. After all, this was an attack nearing the level of a true deity. Even though Cassius had ascended to a demigod and possessed an immortal body, taking this hit head-on would likely exact a heavy price. Gorazdla was startled by the Red Dragon Emperor's sudden burst of speed, but she quickly directed the Divine Thunder of Destruction in pursuit, hissing furiously, "Futile, mutant dragon! Cease your pointless struggles! This is the price of defying a god!" The torrent of lightning pursued the Red Dragon Emperor like a shadow. Cassius weaved and dodged amid the billions of intersecting lightning bolts before plunging headfirst into a dense bank of dark clouds. "You think this can save you from my pursuit?" Gorazdla sneered. Several arcs of lightning lanced into the dark clouds, dispelling the thick bank instantly. In battles at or above the legendary tier, the concealment of mere clouds and mist was meaningless—doubly so against a great wyrm blue dragon who was herself the eye and master of the storm, a sovereign over meteorological phenomena. The red dragon concealed within the clouds was exposed, fleeing in apparent disarray. The Disintegration Lightning brutally obliterated everything in its path as it pursued him relentlessly, closing the distance between them. Gorazdla laughed arrogantly, her slit pupils churning with thunderstorms and filled with manic glee. "Cassius, I know you envy me! I am the offspring chosen by Tiamat, the new god destined to rule this world, while you are nothing but an outcast freak despised by chromatic dragonkind!" "Gorazdla, stop lying to yourself! Your so-called godhood—is it nothing more than becoming an avatar of Tiamat?" Even as he fled, Cassius did not forget to mock her. Gorazdla was beside herself with rage and roared, "Nonsense!" Yet soon enough, a smug smirk surfaced in her hate-filled eyes. "Cassius, you'll soon be just another dead soul under this Divine Thunder of Destruction anyway. Arguing with you is utterly pointless!" "Boom!" Accompanied by an earth-shattering blast, the torrent of lightning engulfed the red dragon's body. The terrifying divine power of destruction fully unleashed, eradicating the physical existence of everything in its grasp and reducing it all to dust. Following the demise of "Cassius," explosive firelight flared in the sky, and scalding air currents spread frantically, sweeping across the heavens in an instant. Yet Gorazdla's expression shifted slightly. Her brow furrowed, lacking the slightest euphoria of slaying a hated foe. Something's wrong. This is far too abnormal! The death of a red dragon like the Cinder Emperor, over eighty meters in length, would inevitably trigger a cataclysmic detonation and radically upend the surrounding climate and sky—after all, his body was like a miniature star, harboring unfathomable energy. Had Cassius truly died, volcanic eruptions, scorched earth, and massive droughts extending across thousands of li would have been considered normal occurrences. Yet this muted, understated aftermath only filled Gorazdla with dread and unease, leaving her at a loss. If the Divine Thunder of Destruction had not killed Cassius—then where was the real Cinder Emperor? "Looking for me?" A chilling voice drifted from a distance, prompting Gorazdla to whip her head around. The Red Dragon Emperor hovered a thousand meters away. Faint cracks of fire patterned his chest, blinding radiance poured from his dragon crystal, and his throat gathered power that made the very world tremble. It turned out that the "Cassius" destroyed moments ago was merely a Greater Dragon's Simulacrum forged of flame; the true Cinder Emperor had long since crept behind the great wyrm blue dragon, gathering his breath. "Boom—!" The air cracked and detonated as all moisture within a hundred meters was flash-vaporized. The terrifying heat warped the air; in that moment, the Red Dragon Emperor seemed to hold a blazing sun within his maw, shedding countless rays of blinding light. A breath weapon intermingled with Chaos Fire, the Flame of Order, the Progenitor Dragon's Source Fire, and solar divine power ripped through the sky, scattering the dark clouds and tempests as it hurtled straight toward the great wyrm blue dragon with cataclysmic momentum. "Futile, mutant dragon! You cannot defeat a god!" Gorazdla shrieked toward the heavens, lifting her head and roaring at the top of her lungs. Countless bolts of lightning erupted once more from her massive "divine horn." Gathering denser and brighter with deafening booms, they condensed into a dazzling sphere of blue electricity. The storm clouds dispersed, the sky darkened, and the entire world seemed to plunge into dead silence. The next moment, the lightning spread out high above, weaving into an all-destroying net whose blinding glare illuminated the somber sky and bleached the earth pale as snow. "Boom—!" Thunderous roars shook the firmament as though the world itself were being pierced through. Thunder laden with divine destructive power poured from the great wyrm blue dragon's maw like a deluge, lightning dancing like wild silver serpents through the sky. Though her response had been hurried and her preparation far shorter than Cassius's, Gorazdla's Lightning Breath remained peerlessly mighty, more than capable of shattering mountains and cleaving stone. Unfortunately, what she faced was a full-power breath weapon that Cassius had gathered for far longer. The two breath weapons clashed. Instantly, an enormous sphere a hundred meters wide bloomed across the sky, mottled with shades of crimson and blue. Beyond the sphere, lightning and flame tangled into an all-shredding vortex, encircled by a tempestuous storm that rapidly swept over sky and earth. Lightning detonated; fire surged in every direction. Beneath the explosion, all things fell into oblivion, mountains fractured, and every creature possessed of survival instinct fled frantically from the battlefield. Only the two terrifying dragons wielding transcendent might stood within the epicenter, pouring forth every ounce of their energy. "A clash of gods... this is practically a battle between deities! Never in my life have I witnessed a magical duel of this magnitude!" The archmage looked up, staring in utter fascination at the spectacle in the sky. Adrian's face was etched with solemnity and shock. A duel like this was beyond anything he could have conceived; disbelief shone in pupils marked with the sun disc. He could not help but murmur, "Is this the true power of dragons? By Amaunator, why would such creatures even inhabit the Material Plane? This defies all natural laws. Their mere existence brings unending calamity upon mortals..." By now, the ancient gold dragon Dionysius had assumed the form of a middle-aged man wearing an opulent robe and a monocle. Looking up at the two distant dragons, he sighed. "The finest among dragonkind indeed possess power capable of tearing apart heaven and earth. But once left unchecked, such power brings terrible consequences. We metallic dragons spend our entire lives learning how to control our strength, how to benefit the world with it, and how to shoulder the responsibilities of the strong. Alas... those chromatic wyrms do not understand this. They wield their power without restraint, greedily plundering everything they see, only to meet tragic ends." Misha watched the battle tensely, though she still coldly interjected, "You are speaking of Tiamat's followers. His Majesty has always been lenient and benevolent, using his supreme might only to destroy enemies who fail to recognize what is good for them." Dionysius nodded rather helplessly and added, "Naturally. His Majesty Cassius is a rare exception among chromatic dragons and cannot be judged by the same standard." An allied officer from Taliro watched the great wyrm blue dragon high above, obscured by lightning until only a vague silhouette was visible, terror filling his eyes. "If the Thunder Tyrant wins, all is lost! Gorazdla is the most cruel and tyrannical of the Three Pillars of the Cult of the Dragon! She... she will slaughter everyone with her rampaging thunder!" With mixed emotions, Adrian remained silent for a moment before whispering, "Let us hope His Majesty Cassius prevails and returns in triumph." The archmage pointed his staff toward the heavens and cried in astonishment, "It looks like... the victor is about to be decided!" At that moment, the thunder and flames in the sky churned and surged, breaking their protracted stalemate as the two powers surged back and forth, driving space itself to groan in agony. And then, an abrupt transformation occurred!