All-Cleansing Flame

"Roaaar—!" A howl of agony resounded across the heavens, but Kazul recovered almost instantly, letting out a low growl. "Die!" At point-blank range, he unleashed his breath weapon at Cassius. That fathomless dark radiance poured from his throat, surging head-on as if to swallow the Cinder Emperor's head whole. Less than a hundred meters separated the two colossal behemoths. If the Doomsday Breath struck at this distance, Cassius would lose his ability to fight, if not his life. Seeing this, Cassius dared not delay. Opening his gaping maw, he unleashed the divine power long brewing in his gizzard. This time, it was not merely blazing flame, but countless blinding arcs of lightning that lit up half the sky, bathing the distant onlookers in a pale glare so intense they could scarcely keep their eyes open. "Boom!" The two forces, each mighty enough to distort reality itself, clashed once more. High in the air, they created a sphere of energy a hundred meters across, whipping up a tempest of fire, lightning, and ash. The sheer horror of its power blew even mountain-sized dragons like Cassius and Kazul hundreds of meters backward. As both sides poured their strength into the struggle, the energy sphere swelled continuously, expanding from a hundred meters to several hundred, and finally to a staggering thousand meters. Everything within its reach—even the limbs of the two dragons when they inadvertently brushed against it—was ruthlessly obliterated. This time, Cassius's breath had the upper hand. Intertwining fire and lightning converged into a surging red-and-white torrent, scattering the endlessly rolling doomsday cinders. Kazul's wings had already regenerated beneath the steady influx of ash. Now, folding those draconic wings with their thousand-meter span, he shielded his entire body. At this moment, he resembled a floating island hanging high in the sky, or perhaps a pitch-black cocoon concealing something terrifying deep within. Accompanied by the dull, rhythmic pulsing of the Heart of Tiamat, an immense pressure of divine power radiated outward. A dark mist of ash washed over Cassius's body like a tidal wave, burning away the outermost layer of scales with each surge, reducing parts of his flesh to cinder. Cassius was like a reef amidst raging seas, constantly eroded and worn away. A searing agony, like the bites of ten thousand ants, wracked Cassius's body. Yet he knew he could not let such an opportunity slip by. Fully channeling the Authority of the Storm Sovereign within him, he filled the sky with countless intersecting bolts of lightning. Like a silvery-white forest, they violently annihilated everything that dared approach. "Boom!" "Boom! Boom!" Amidst the churning thunder, world-shaking lightning bolts plummeted from the sky, slamming brutally into Kazul's cocoon-like body. A dense web of charred scars ruptured across the surface of his wing membranes, leaving the broad draconic wings tattered and ragged—a shocking, gruesome sight. Yet Cassius knew this was not enough. It could not shatter Kazul's defenses, let alone take his life. The great wyrm red dragon's body was simply too immense, his regenerative capacity too monstrous. Bolstered by Tiamat's blessing and over a thousand years of battle experience, giving him even a fraction of a second to breathe would bring disastrous consequences! With that thought, Cassius raised his left claw. Tens of thousands of lightning bolts swirling about him converged into a spear of lightning of grotesque energy density, radiating blinding electric radiance. The moment he raised it, wind and thunder howled, and storm clouds roiled, as if the legendary god of thunder had unleashed his wrath. Yet that was not all. Cassius extended his right claw as well. Boundless solar divine power surged through his body, coursing through intricate fundus vessels into his throat and down toward his palm, coalescing into dazzling miniature suns that radiated air-warping light and heat. These miniature suns compressed and fused together, finally forging a golden greatsword blazing with ten thousand rays of brilliance—the Sword of Sun's Judgment! With that, Cassius hurled the lightning spear and swung the Sword of the Sun God's Judgment. Dazzling lightning and searing dragonflame intertwined, forming a terrifying storm surge that swept toward the nearby Kazul. "Boom!" The thunderous power packed within the lightning spear struck Kazul with full force, surging electric light instantly tearing his pitch-black draconic wings apart. Meanwhile, the slashing golden sword unleashed towering flames that plunged straight toward Kazul's chest, piercing through his thick scales and flesh in an attempt to impale the great wyrm red dragon's heart. Just then, Kazul snapped his eyes open. His battered wings flared out abruptly, unleashing a wild tempest that threw Cassius dozens of meters backward. Immediately after, over a hundred pitch-black, razor-sharp bone spikes ruptured from his chest, thrusting toward Cassius, each tip bearing a terrifying divine light of destruction. Cassius's pupils constricted to needlepoints. Beating his wings, he twisted his body to dodge. Yet they were far too close. Even with his evasive maneuver, there was no escaping the strike. Staring at the oncoming bone spikes, Cassius gritted his teeth and pushed the brand of the time dragon fused into his body to its limit. Time Stop! In an instant, the thunder, flame, and dark clouds in the sky froze in place. Yet the black smoke of ash continued to churn unabated. Kazul bared his teeth in a savage, taunting smirk, entirely unaffected by the Time Stop. The bone spikes moved even faster, like a hundred lances bursting from Kazul's chest, effortlessly piercing through the space frozen in time as they screamed toward Cassius's body. Cassius's heart sank. As expected, time magic was virtually useless against a being bordering on divinity. As a Dragon of Apotheosis, Cassius himself possessed innate resistance to temporal effects. Left with no other choice, Cassius shifted to protect his vitals, using his Dragon-Pact Sorcerer ability to quicken spells, layering over a dozen magical shields over himself to take the lethal blow head-on. "Riiip—!" With a sharp tearing sound, the keen bone spikes instantly impaled Cassius's wings, shoulders, and abdomen. Scalding dragon blood erupted, and the pierced flesh rapidly incinerated into ash before his very eyes. A wave of agonizing pain washed over Cassius, as if his body were being ripped apart by some colossal force. The divine power of destruction relentlessly corroded his wounds. The areas around each puncture rapidly lost sensation, and the necrosis and incineration of every scrap of flesh brought an agony and despair that pierced straight to his soul. This was the apocalyptic divine power of destruction—capable of erasing all traces of life from the world, bringing total ruin and devastation so the cosmos could begin anew. Even after piercing Cassius with the bone spikes, Kazul was far from finished. He swung a massive claw hundreds of meters long, wreathed in thick black ash, tearing through space as it whistled toward Cassius's head. Watching the dragon claw hurtling through the air, Cassius clenched his jaws and steeled his resolve, the chaotic thoughts in his mind instantly locking into fierce clarity. *I can't go on like this!* *This Doomsday Dragon's destructive power is far too immense. Merely defending will leave me completely on the back foot—he'll grind me to death!* *If that's the case, I have to stake it all on a desperate gamble! Come on, Kazul, let's see if your resolve to achieve godhood is as firm as you claim!* Cassius roared in near-madness, pouring every ounce of strength into his bellow. Inside him, the Heart of Garyx finally surged into full motion, pounding violently with an engine-like roar. The chaotic, savage divine power of the All-Cleanser surged ceaselessly through his fundus vessels, pooling in his breath gizzard before unleashing a world-destroying, deep-crimson dragonflame from the depths of his throat. In myth and legend, Garyx would periodically descend upon the Material Plane, unleashing the impure fires of destruction upon the mortal realm so that the foul, tainted world might be reborn through its own ruin. This was Garyx's World-Incinerating Flame. It shared the essence of apocalyptic ruin, matching Kazul's Doomsday Breath in sheer might, and surpassing it in raw destructive violence. "Boom—!" The deep-crimson dragonflame erupted, blasting straight toward the arm Kazul was swinging down. With an explosive crack, the immense dragon claw was engulfed by flame. In an instant, it was burned to nothingness, snapping off Kazul's body as a charred ruin. Kazul let out a wretched wail, yet a frenzied grin remained plastered across his face: "Just as I thought! Cassius, you truly are the puppet chosen by that madman! I can't wait to see the terror and despair on your face when the All-Cleanser replaces you!" Even as he spoke, ash surged and condensed— *A chosen puppet?* A grim foreboding flashed through Cassius's heart. Even so, he seized the black bone spikes driven into his shoulder, endured the piercing agony, and forcefully yanked them out. "Splurt!" Blood gushed forth, but Cassius paid it no heed. He unleashed the All-Cleansing Flame once more, this time shooting straight for Kazul's face at blinding speed. "The flames of Garyx truly are something to dread," Kazul marveled. Then he opened his maw, spewing a beam of gloomy black light from his throat. "Boom!" Two world-ending powers collided and entangled, canceling and destroying each other. High in the sky, they generated a colossal black hole with an immense gravitational pull, swallowing everything around it and ruthlessly wiping it from existence. Both combatants were caught in the violent backlash of their breath weapons. Half of Kazul's wing and Cassius's right claw were dragged into the vortex, mercilessly obliterated by the black void. Yet in mere moments, fueled by surging divine power and squirming flesh, the two behemoths regenerated before each other's eyes, plunging straight back into brutal melee combat. "Cassius, are you afraid?" Kazul sharply caught the flicker of panic in his opponent's eyes, sneering without hesitation: "You grew too fast—so fast that even you cannot believe there is no conspiracy behind it. You fear that one day, everything you possess will be stripped away in an instant, don't you?" "Whoosh—!" The massive dragon claw slashed through the air, laden with billowing black ash and surging divine light of destruction, tearing through space as it struck once more toward Cassius's head. "Worry about yourself, puppet of Tiamat!" Cassius roared. Violently flapping his wings, he climbed a thousand meters higher, dodging the oncoming claw. At the same time, putting every ounce of his weight into the motion, he whipped his thick tail—coated in the All-Cleansing Flame—around like a colossal lash. "Boom!" With a sonic boom, the tail struck Kazul squarely in the body with a dull, thunderous crack. The All-Cleansing Flame burned away the ink-black divine radiance cloaking his flesh, shattering his heavy scales with a brutal impact. Under that tremendous force, the muscles beneath the scales twisted and deformed. Kazul was knocked back several hundred meters, letting out an unwilling roar as his broad wings swept toward Cassius, whipping up a tempest of dark divine power. "What makes you think you have the right to stand against me?!" The divine tempest shredded the fire barrier before Cassius. Kazul barreled forward with a roar, his vast, savage form looming like a mountain of pitch-black stone, striking awe, dread, and helplessness into all who witnessed it. Cassius tried to use his superior maneuverability to evade, only to find that the storm of divine power had quietly locked down his surroundings, leaving no easy path of retreat. "Boom!" Under a force powerful enough to make space itself tremble, Cassius was blasted backward. Blood and shattered scales sprayed through the sky, and even the bones within his body were crushed to splinters. Where they had collided, pitch-black divine radiance clung to him, cracking and incinerating his flesh anew. Yet Cassius ignored the agonizing pain wracking his body. Twisting midair in an impossibly exaggerated arc, he swung his dragon claw—wreathed in the All-Cleansing Flame—straight toward Kazul's head, aiming directly for his eyes. "Aaaagh!" A shrill wail echoed across the heavens. Blood erupted from Kazul's eye socket, only to vaporize almost instantly beneath the blistering heat. Half of his draconic face was burned away by the flames, exposing stark-white bone. He looked utterly grotesque, like a skeletal dragon dredged up from rot and mire. Yet even so, Kazul hissed and roared with all his might, spewing countless rays of black light from his maw, launching near-suicidal attacks against Cassius: "To claim that throne, I endured a thousand years of bitter torment! "I cast aside my dignity as a dragon! I gladly became the most loyal hound of Her Majesty the Dragon Queen, sacrificing everything I had for this!" "Boom!" The black light slammed into Cassius's left shoulder, instantly annihilating all matter it touched, blasting a massive, ragged hole through his flesh that nearly tore half his body apart. Cassius twisted away, trying to drive him back with the All-Cleansing Flame, but Kazul's assault only grew more frenzied, practically burning through his own life force to attack. "And what of you?!" "I investigated everything about you long ago, Cassius! Your life is as fleeting as an ant's—a mere matter of decades! What right do you have to possess such power?! What gives you the right to stand in the same arena as me?!"