Chapter 385: Mourning of the Dragons, Desperate Flight

Surrounded by dragons, Maelos now faced the most formidable species in the world: the dragonkind, an onslaught of nearly every surviving great dragon.

The label of "heretical dragon" had long since been cast aside; this abyssal entity, which had dwelled within the Dragon King Wendell Mix for centuries, had become the singular enemy of all dragonkind.

In an instant, the bronze dragon Beorlo and the blue dragon Susumi were slaughtered by this dragon, whose form seemed composed entirely of crimson blood. The terrifying extent of Maelos’s power was already beyond the measure of mere ranks.

Perhaps its destructive force had not yet reached the level of some ancient abyssal beings or deities; after all, in a sense, it was a prisoner who had only just broken free, a newborn who had only just "birthed." It was only natural for it to be slightly weak. It was, after all, an abyssal creature, needing more time to learn, to devour, and to grow.

Yet, as Maelos had claimed, it held absolute suppression over the dragons of the Dragon Isle; numbers had lost all meaning before it.

"Ah, it is useless. I am indeed not yet as powerful as my kin beneath the deep sea. As one of the two beings to have attained the most vital ability for what you call abyssal creatures—'wisdom and thought'—I am far cleverer than it. Give me time, and its power shall eventually be mine as well."

Having witnessed Maelos absorb and reflect their dragon breath, the concentrated energy annihilating the bronze dragon Beorlo, the dragons dared not use their breath weapons against it again.

They dove toward the earth, tearing the ground asunder, lifting massive boulders. Infusing them with earth-based draconic magic until they were impossibly hard and heavy, they either hurled them or carried them in a collision course toward Maelos.

Maelos remained as casual as ever, rambling on about its kin in a way the dragons could not comprehend. Its body was struck by the first massive boulder, shattering into a mass of entangled, blood-colored liquid that scattered in all directions.

Though its form collapsed, it was not a fixed state, and this caused it no harm whatsoever. The body turned to liquid, continuing to crawl and spread across the incoming rocks, its monologue never once faltering.

"Bang!"

Several dragons collided with it, clutching massive stones. The rocks smashed into one another, the astonishing force annihilating and bursting within, sending fragments of stone and shards of Maelos’s body spraying into the surroundings.

"True enough, I likely cannot adapt to the world outside this island in my current state. That thing you detonated back then did indeed make the world reject us all the more. To venture into the outside world in this form would likely be quite troublesome. Let me fashion myself a new 'suit of clothes' first, before considering anything else."

"Squelch!"

The liquefied shell, scattered by the impact, suddenly contracted and coalesced, forming a massive, blood-red dragon claw. It seized several dragons that had attempted to strike Maelos with their resilient bodies, pressing them together with irresistible force.

"Roar!"

The dragons let out cries of extreme fury, their claws, fangs, and tails straining to attack Maelos with every part of their bodies. Yet, it was meaningless; mere physical strikes could not harm Maelos in the slightest.

Blood splattered, only to gather once more.

"Creak, creak..."

Maelos’s liquefied crimson shell crept and wove between the bodies of the dragons it had forcibly pressed together, rapidly corroding and breaking through their tough scales. It touched the flesh within, then expertly invaded the vulnerable spots known only to the dragons themselves, as if these bodies had always been its own.

"Augh!"

The dragons let out sharp, agonizing shrieks. Their wills were being invaded, their flesh twisting in synchronization. Maelos was currently gripping these dragons, forcibly "piecing" them together as if playing with its own modeling clay or building blocks.

"Ah, this is quite nice. A bit weak, perhaps, but it will suffice in the end. Let me see... hmm, how exactly did this fellow Wendell influence your wills?"

"Ah, found it. This very spot. He truly knew the flaws of dragonkind inside and out. To him, you were truly something to be handled however he pleased. Is 'merciful and weak' the right way to describe him?"

Bones squeezed and squirmed within the flesh, moving autonomously to stitch themselves together. Blood vessels ruptured, only to weave through the interior of the skin. The brains within the skulls were ground into paste by Maelos’s invading liquid form, transported through external channels to wherever this new shell required such materials.

Muscles and bones lay exposed, skulls hideously shattered. The dragon itself plucked out the excess eyeballs and flung them to the ground, eerie and abominable. Several dragons that had attacked Maelos were forcibly compressed together, spliced into this so-called shell.

"Boom!"

The sky brightened. A blinding bolt of lightning struck down from the firmament, hitting the twisted dragon shell Maelos had fashioned. The instantaneous high pressure blanketed the body in searing heat, and violent currents surged through the twisted frame made of draconic flesh.

Charred blackness immediately spread across Maelos’s body, and the residual plasma continued to ravage the flesh. Maelos seemed temporarily paralyzed by this near-eighth-tier destructive thunder, cast jointly by the faerie dragon Bichu and the white dragon Doris, and for a moment, it actually ceased all movement.

"It works! As long as we don't use dragon breath, magic can hurt it. Bichu, please, gather more mana! I will try to freeze it."

The white dragon Doris shouted to the others. Nearby dragons helped her gather mana, and under the guidance of the faerie dragon Bichu, Doris completed the legion spell.

Doris possessed an innate affinity for ice magic. If she were to accept this gathered mana to cast a spell, the resulting freezing power would reach an extraordinary level.

At this moment, even this dull white dragon, who had seemed somewhat childish before, became resolute and mature. The fire in her eyes was filled with nothing but the intent to kill Maelos.

"Sigh, a waste of effort. Digging through memories is quite time-consuming. It seems I have yet to adapt to your species' form of thinking. A faerie dragon, is it? Since you want mana, I shall give it to you."

However, the twisted dragon, seemingly paralyzed by the lightning, began to move once more. Its eyes opened, and Maelos’s voice rang out. It had apparently been searching through its own memories, not paralyzed at all.

It had barely suffered any damage from the lightning spell; it seemed its body possessed some resistance to electrical currents, likely derived from the perfect bloodline that served as the source of all dragons' power—specifically, the power related to blue dragons.

The knuckles of its dragon claw rubbed together. A ripple carrying an indescribable power spread outward, sweeping over the faerie dragon Bichu. In an instant, the latter felt an uncontrollable disturbance from within its own body.

The faerie dragon Bichu, who had transformed into a state of mana to merge with the white dragon Doris, faced a total loss of control over its own magic due to the internal disturbance.

No matter how it tried to manipulate its mana-form, it could not stop the process of destruction. Maelos understood these dragons too well; it knew their weaknesses even better than the dragons themselves.

The will of the faerie dragon Bichu was the first to be wiped away by the surging, boiling mana. The mana torrent it had been guiding—which had gathered the surrounding dragons' power to bestow upon Doris at the limit of her capacity—also spiraled into a state of runaway chaos.

Uncontrollable and unstoppable, the maddened flow of mana poured into the white dragon Doris’s body, invading her magic circuits. Before the spell could be prepared, the overwhelming torrent of energy annihilated everything.

A dragon’s magic circuits are located within its body, which meant that once a massive flow of mana was forced into them, the dragon’s own innate talents might cause the mana to automatically complete the spell.

Thus, Doris did not even have time to resist. The extreme mana forced into her body turned her into an ice sculpture on a physical level, and she plummeted to the ground, shattering into countless shards of ice.

"Hum!"

Space shattered. A silver light flashed suddenly behind Maelos. Aeriella, having exhausted nearly all her strength, took a breath and launched an attack. A silver stream of light pierced the sky, plunging violently into the twisted shell.

Against the silver dragon’s unique power, Maelos seemed unable to resist or negate it. The silver blade pierced the flesh, and countless slashes erupted from within Maelos’s body around the light blade, severing muscles, shattering bones, and unleashing the full force of the destruction.

"A bit painful. As expected, only your power can hurt me. Tell me, do you like this power? It comes from the stars; it is precisely what makes you so unique. I have waited a long time for you. For one who can threaten me, I must be sure to treat you well."

Maelos said calmly. Aeriella’s long-sought opportunity had failed to strike the core entity directly; the shell of twisted draconic flesh had completely shielded the Maelos within. Aeriella’s power could hurt it, but that was all.

Just as she moved to withdraw the silver blade and strike again with all her might, Aeriella felt something she had never experienced before. The silver blade, forged from her own power, had been caught. But this power was supposed to be able to tear through space—how could it be restricted?

"Surprised? I prepared this power just for you. Being able to hurt me does not mean I cannot strike back. Tsk, how weak. I might as well finish you off now."

The starlike radiance climbed back up the silver blade that Aeriella had driven into Maelos’s body, swift and unstoppable. Aeriella could not break free, no matter how she tried.

"Bang!"

A pitch-black figure flew past at high speed, forcibly pinning Maelos’s shell and dragging it away from Aeriella. It was the black dragon Pompey; his strength was still enough to shake Maelos, even now.

"What do you think you are—"

Before Maelos could finish, it was violently shoved into a gaping maw by the black dragon Pompey. It was the green dragon Gloria, who had flown beneath them and swallowed Maelos and Pompey in a single gulp.

"Go."

Gloria’s word was simple, directed at Aeriella. The look in her eyes made Aeriella’s heart tremble. There was not a shred of hope to be found there; only the fury of a final, desperate struggle and a gamble on some possibility for the future.

And Aeriella, with the power to hurt Maelos, was the possibility Gloria was betting on. As for the other dragons here, Gloria, still possessing a rational mind, knew it was meaningless...

"Bang!"

The dead dragon Krogmo flew to this spot. In mid-air, it tore open its own chest with its claws. The necromantic flame burning within its heart was the core of its life, and this heart had one other purpose: to forcibly open a passage to the undead plane within the space already locked down by Maelos.

The passage opened, and its body collapsed. Aeriella did not hesitate, charging into the opening created at the cost of the dead dragon Krogmo’s life.

"Boom!"

The next moment, the mountain-sized body of the green dragon Gloria, which had swallowed the black dragon Pompey and Maelos, detonated under the ravages of the scorching solar energy erupting from within, shattering into pieces.

A light that pierced all things bloomed where her body had perished. The radiance of the high-energy sphere, akin to a sun, eclipsed the light of the true sun. This was the result of the red dragon Caesar detonating his own life force, releasing all his power—a feat that far surpassed anything he had ever unleashed before.

Pure energy, indeed; this no longer falls within the realm of dragons, impossible to resist directly. Tsk, to think I was actually disrupted. The plane of the undead, I cannot reach it yet, but I shall adapt soon enough.

As the radiance dissipated, Mirlos and his blood-hued true form emerged in tandem with his words. The grotesque shell, stitched together from dragon flesh, had been utterly vaporized by the energies unleashed by Kaiser the Red. Now, clutching the skull and spine ripped from the body of Pompey the Black, he cast his gaze toward the gathering of dragons in the distance, a smirk curling his lips.

By using the hide of this stubborn black dragon to evade that strike of absolute destruction, it seems, does it not, that the materials for a new vessel are now quite abundant?