Chapter 402: The Sky is the Limit

"Yes..."

Noel's voice echoed through the prayer communication network, heavy with an unspeakable emotion.

"Hum..."

The red dragon girl, waiting among the fleet of alchemical airships off the coast, placed her palm before her eyes. She stared at the faint mark, then tilted her head back and closed her eyes, forcing back the moisture as she focused her entire spirit upon that single point.

In the final moments of the Ash Wasteland, the process of creating mana had been carried out by Noel alone. Sieg had already lost consciousness by then, unable to take that final step which no previous attempt had ever reached.

Drawing upon her own knowledge and her connection to Sieg’s body, Noel had used his heart as a crucible to finally bring mana into existence.

At the very moment of its birth, Noel realized a terrifying truth: the process was irreversible and nearly impossible to halt. Once the creation of mana began, it would consume everything in its vicinity, transmuting all bordering matter into pure mana.

In other words, Sieg, having used his own heart as the furnace, should have been incinerated into pure mana back in the Ash Wasteland. The only reason he had been able to participate in the battle against Mielos on Dragon Island was the final "thank you" from that nameless dream deity.

That deity had expended its own source power—the fundamental essence that maintained its existence, rather than the shell of the dream god itself—to be burned into mana in Sieg’s stead, simultaneously halting the mana-creation reaction within his heart.

The mark on Noel’s palm was the final thing the dream deity had left for them. It could be used to resume the ignition process when necessary. This was the source of the confidence Sieg had displayed when he refused Wang Yu’s plea to sit out this battle.

Sieg had told no one, save for Noel, who already knew. Though he felt that even if Wang Yu had known, he would have respected his choice, Sieg did not want to gamble. This was his trump card against Mielos; he wanted all events to proceed as if this contingency did not exist, until the moment for the final reckoning arrived.

"Boom... BOOM!!!"

A violent, thunderous roar tore across the entire Dragon Island, drowning out the newborn heartbeat of the horrific entity gestating within the giant mass of flesh Mielos had summoned from beneath the earth.

If the heartbeat of that new shell was a crushing weight, the oppression of a superior over all beneath it, then the roar emanating from Sieg’s heart was pure, unadulterated power. His internal engine was running at a frantic, desperate pace, surging with an endless output of mana.

The mark on Noel’s palm crumbled. Within Sieg’s chest, the process that had been terminated in the Ash Wasteland resumed. A light, far dimmer than one might imagine, manifested there. Sieg’s chest began to shift, transitioning from mere matter into a vessel of pure mana through the combustion reaction.

"Easier than I thought. There’s no sensation of being burned. Creating mana... it has even fully compensated for my crippled spellcasting ability."

Sieg whispered to himself. His coma in the Ash Wasteland had prevented him from truly feeling what it was like to use his own body as a mana furnace. Now, re-igniting the fire, he finally understood.

It was marvelous—a feeling of incomparable fulfillment and power. The price, however, was this body and soul, now completely set ablaze.

"Boom!"

The hourglass of time rotated slightly. Sieg expended the final five minutes of acceleration. Twenty times the speed was instantly applied to his frame. The storm of boiling mana transformed into the spells of his intent, elevating his speed to an unimaginable degree in a heartbeat.

No one could react. All they saw was a streak of crimson light erupting toward the heavens. A massive hole was torn through the giant flesh-mass, and the ultimate body Mielos had gestated was dragged out from within by that streak of light, surging toward the firmament.

"So this was your plan? Why are all the people I know such magnificent beings?"

Wang Yu, piloting the Dragon King’s shell, looked back at the place where the streak of light had vanished. He understood what Sieg was doing. He hadn't even told him? Well, Sieg was right; even if he had known, Wang Yu would have tried to find another way, and that was exactly what Sieg had wanted to avoid.

To be honest, when Mielos had brought out that mass of flesh, Wang Yu had already been thinking of retreat. The strength of the creature gestating inside was such that no one present could likely break its outer defenses.

Perhaps the Dragon God of old might have had a chance, but this body—forced into motion by Mielos after being parasitized for centuries—could not possibly achieve such a feat.

"The process of mana creation... it really is impossible to stop..."

High in the void, borrowing Wang Yu’s senses to observe the world, Avia also saw the streak of light piercing the sky. As a fellow mage and researcher, she understood the implications of Sieg’s actions better than anyone. A faint, lingering sorrow permeated the young mage’s heart.

...

"Sieg Welsbach, I know you! What you are doing is meaningless. The mana you possess cannot break the defenses of this shell. Is this just to stall for time?!"

Above the firmament, Mielos’s shell was gripped tightly by the throat by Sieg. Endless clusters of mana clung to the bodies of the two dragons. Mielos’s form now bore an eight-part resemblance to the Dragon God, differing only in size and color.

Gravity magic, earth magic, spatial magic, storms, flames... there were countless spells cast upon the opponent’s body.

Endless mana pumped from Sieg’s chest, touching his soul—already ignited by the creation process—and instinctively transforming into super-magic.

Mielos struggled frantically to break free from Sieg’s grip. The red dragon’s assault had been too sudden. He should have been reigning over Dragon Island in this shell, crushing all who dared oppose his designs.

But before he could react, he had been dragged from his incubator by this red dragon, whose mana reactions were on the verge of explosion, and hauled into the heavens.

He had dared to expose the incubator because of the flesh-mass’s defensive power; it could withstand even the attacks of the reanimated Dragon King shell without issue. Besides, the gestation was in its final stage.

If he hadn't misjudged, this red dragon had stacked six dissociation spells beyond his own rank in an instant, along with two eighth-ring spells of "Destruction," and several others whose names he couldn't find in his bloodline memories, forcibly blasting a path to drag him into the high heavens.

By now, the spells clinging to him had grown from hundreds to thousands. They served no other purpose than to bind Mielos, their remaining energy converted into an increasingly exaggerated propulsive force, driving the speed of the two entangled dragons ever higher.

"Damn you! Even now, you can do nothing! Don't you see? Your spells can't even scratch my defense!"

Mielos roared madly. The layers of gravity magic stacked upon him multiplied the force he endured a thousandfold. The crushing weight of the earth spells rendered him unable to move a muscle, no matter how he drove this shell of immeasurable strength. That terrifying, pure physical power was helpless against this tsunami of magic.

Yet, as Mielos claimed, Sieg—now almost an avatar of mana—could not pierce the shell’s defenses with his endless barrage of super-magic. The body was simply too terrifying; it was perhaps the pinnacle of pure physical strength in this world, bar none.

It was a perfect body, forged from the mysteries of the Dragon God’s shell, combined with the things the abyss-creature had "learned," and cast from the remains of dragons left on the island. Without bias, this shell was a "miracle" in itself.

Endless spells hammered against Mielos, yet they could not truly harm him. They only suppressed him, driving him at ever-increasing speeds toward the zenith of the sky.

This perfect shell naturally possessed immense spellcasting ability. Its flawless, innate mana circuits allowed it to cast seventh-rank spells and above by instinct. Yet, before the red dragon—the younger brother of that "Silver Dragon," named Sieg Welsbach—all that mana simply ignored him.

"I know. It’s too late."

Sieg responded to Mielos at last. His tone was calm yet resolute. Every spell he cast was not intended for attack, for he knew the strength of that shell.

Could he break Mielos’s defense if he went all-out in this state of fusion with mana? Yes. But he couldn't kill him. His time in this state was extremely limited; his consciousness was already blurring as his soul burned away. So, he did what he had planned from the start: keep going!

"You want to send me to the Dissociation Layer? Don't make me laugh. Even that thing needs time to decompose my body. Without enough altitude, it’s meaningless. And you—you will be decomposed long before I am."

The altitude became increasingly absurd. They had long since passed ten thousand meters, piercing the clouds to leave only the clear sky and the dazzling sun. Sieg pressed Mielos closer and closer to the Dissociation Layer.

Mielos realized what Sieg was doing. He roared with contempt and rage, believing Sieg’s actions to be futile, though he knew it would indeed damage this powerful, precious shell.

"I won't."

A simple response. The two crashed into the Dissociation Layer. In an instant, the omnipresent force of decomposition descended upon Mielos’s shell. The initial damage was barely perceptible; the shell was so powerful that even the lower reaches of the Dissociation Layer could not destroy it.

But as the altitude climbed frantically, the air grew thin, drag plummeted, and speed soared. They broke through the shackles of the world’s gravity, rushing toward the source of the abyss-creature: the stars.

The destructive power of the Dissociation Layer turned frenzied. Mielos’s body began to be unraveled from within, from its very essence, bit by bit.

"You!? Why are you unharmed? Why does the Dissociation Layer not affect you?!"

The incredulous question erupted from Mielos. Indeed, Sieg’s body showed no signs of damage beyond the ignition process of mana creation. The destruction of the Dissociation Layer acted only upon Mielos’s perfect shell, leaving Sieg untouched.

"..."

No response. His consciousness was sinking into a deep darkness, leaving only instinct to drag Mielos onward.

Mielos’s disbelief stemmed from a gap in cognition. Even if he could read "knowledge" from the bloodline of the Dragon God and the minds of other dragons, some things could never be known without learning and feeling them—like the Dissociation Layer and mana.

"The origin of mana is the Dissociation Layer." This was what Sieg had realized after igniting the furnace in his heart in the Ash Wasteland. Creating mana was like a prerequisite to realizing this truth. Without that step, one could never understand the relationship between mana and the Dissociation Layer.

"It is not that mana is created but goes unobserved due to its omnipresence; rather, mana can only be born in an environment devoid of mana." Once Sieg realized this, the relationship between the Dissociation Layer—which restricted intelligent races from reaching the heavens—and mana naturally surfaced in his mind.

On the earth, mana was everywhere, so it could no longer be born, only transferred. Only in the Dissociation Layer, where no mana existed, could it be birthed.

The Dissociation Layer constantly destroyed matter that entered it, but because Sieg was constantly creating the "matter" of mana, the layer no longer affected him. It only destroyed the perfect shell of Mielos, which he was dragging into the void. That strength was meaningless before the Dissociation Layer three thousand kilometers above the surface.

As they reached this point, the Dissociation Layer seemed to have been completely traversed. The power to decompose all matter vanished. Mielos’s shell was utterly unraveled, leaving behind only the core of the abyss-creature itself.

"Abyssal creatures are immune to the dissociation layer," a truth gleaned from the Mechanical City in the sky; Sieg’s intent was to harness that very force to shatter Melos’s "invincible" shell, exposing the creature’s true abyssal form.

"So this is what Wang Yu called space, this is our world; at such a moment, my consciousness has actually cleared once more."

Sieg looked back down, having breached the atmospheric veil to reach a star-strewn expanse no sentient race had ever touched; at this height, freed from gravity’s tether, he beheld the true face of the world he had inhabited for so long: a planet...

A near-perfect sphere, mostly swathed in azure waters, with clouds veiling much, yet from here, the continent of the Endless Sea was visible, though the Dragon Isle had vanished from sight.

Sieg’s fading consciousness felt strangely lucid, capable of thought and movement, though he failed to notice the Chronos Hourglass had slipped free, drifting in the void; his soul had burned away, leaving only an echo of his being, a remnant of a body transmuted into pure mana.

"They call it the Endless Sea, yet it seems to have an end; is that a new continent, and what lies on the far side?"

Across the vast expanse of the sea, beyond the familiar continent, Sieg glimpsed a smaller landmass—small only from this height, for it would be vast were one to descend.

"Still, there is regret; are those countless stars other worlds like ours? Yet, to witness this at the end is enough; I shall not be greedy. There is work to be done, and I never cared for being a half-measure."

He turned his gaze toward the infinite void, a tapestry of stars; though mostly silent darkness, brilliant flickers imbued the endless expanse with life. The magic moon appeared as a pitch-black orb, seemingly within reach, while the sun remained blinding and impossibly distant.

How many mysteries lay hidden among these stars? As a pioneer, to have no chance to explore them was perhaps the greatest sorrow of a scholar like Sieg.

Yet, as he had said, he had a task; his body was shattered, and this "Sieg" was but a lingering echo of mana, yet that would not hinder him—a soul was, after all, optional.

"Sister, these borrowed wings have finally soared beyond the limit of the sky."

One thing remained, aside from Melos, whose abyssal form had been laid bare by the destruction of its shell: Sieg’s wings of steel.

Upgraded far beyond their state during the duel in the Undead Plane, tattered by battle yet shielded by Sieg until the very end, these wings would fulfill their final mission alongside him.

Mana surged; unaware of the finality of his actions, the echo of Sieg fused entirely with the steel wings, thrusters ignited, and he turned, accelerating toward the planet below.

Melos, whose abyssal form was formidable yet meaningless before this final resolve, was dragged directly onto the wings.

"Boom!"

A roar echoed through the vacuum as the wings accelerated back toward the world, Sieg’s fading consciousness shielding the metal from the dissociation layer’s touch.

Faster, faster, and faster still; every drop of remaining mana was poured into acceleration, shattering resistance, compounding gravity, maximizing thrust—all to push velocity beyond the ultimate limit, for the purest physical destruction could slay an abyssal creature, provided the force surpassed the critical threshold.

Sieg succeeded.

"Bang!"

The object returning from the stars struck the heart of the Dragon Isle; it is hard to describe the horror of that impact—tsunamis swept the alchemical fleet for tens of kilometers, the central mountain range was pulverized into dust by the shockwave, the remnants cast into the sea, and the Mechanical City was shoved aside by the gale...

When the dust finally settled, half of the Dragon Isle had already vanished beneath the waves.