Chapter 56: Falling to the Earth
"......"
Standing atop a mountain of corpses littered with broken bones and viscera, the golden-rank swordsman, his face devoid of any extra expression, gathered the strength from his exhausted body while wielding his twin blades. With a single slash, he conjured a cyan gale, forcing back the swarm of beasts surging toward him, finally earning a brief moment to catch his breath.
Scanning his surroundings, the beasts that had been driven back temporarily halted their assault. They tore at the carcasses of their fallen kin behind them, devouring them in great gulps, their cyan-blue eyes showing not a trace of fear. Their instinctive frenzy left them unafraid of the swordsman before them; this pause was merely to fill their empty stomachs.
Apart from feeding and killing, there was nothing else in the beasts' minds—they were like manipulated puppets.
"Honestly, being dominated by Chaos and the Mad Dragon Plague, aren't they just a bunch of flesh puppets?"
"Am I going to end up being eaten like this too?"
Brandon couldn't help but chuckle at his own idle thought. "That would really be terrible."
This encirclement—he couldn't break out on his own strength anymore... Should he use it now?
With that thought, he couldn't help but grip the Order Twin Blades in his hands tighter. A pure white, holy light flickered across the weapons forged by ancient sages.
Before the golden-rank swordsman could make a decision, he suddenly noticed a flash of light at the edge of the sky.
Panting amidst the blizzard and northern wind, he looked up toward the sky and murmured, "What is this..."
In his sight, not far away, the sky covered by overcast clouds was suddenly shattered by some force. Accompanied by a golden flash and a thick black pillar of light, the remaining clouds and black mist rapidly receded. Then, two streaks of light—one red and one black—entangled with each other, plummeting from the heights of the sky.
The black light exuded a chaotic fluctuation so dense it made Brandon's body feel a distinct sense of disgust, while the red light was very familiar...
"Joshua!?"
With a casual sword stroke that split the earth, he cleaved through the head of some mink-type magical beast attempting to ambush him from underground. Gray brain matter mixed with a terrible stench sprayed out, splattering onto the swordsman. He paid no attention to such trivial matters, instead speaking with extreme shock: "He's not dead?"
And it seemed he was fighting some powerful enemy—yes, that black dragon—he was battling that black dragon!
There was no time to ponder how Joshua had survived that breath attack. The fact that his comrade was still alive and still fighting injected new motivation into Brandon's weary heart.
He wasn't fighting alone, nor was it hopeless—most importantly, the Dragon Spider was dead, and the black dragon was tied up by Joshua. That meant only the golden ice butterfly, which wasn't very strong in combat, should be near the space-time gate... There was a chance!
And even that guy—the one who had taken a breath from the black dragon—was still fighting, so why couldn't he?!
"I was planning to save this for destroying the space-time gate..."
Muttering to himself, his fighting spirit blazing fiercely, the golden-rank swordsman laughed heartily as he raised the holy twin blades in his hands, crossing them. Countless runes from ancient sages flickered across them, even leaping out to dance around the blades. "But it looks like if I don't use it now, I'll die here."
Facing the renewed surge of the beast tide, Brandon didn't hesitate for a moment. He immediately stepped forward to meet them. As the twin swords in his hands shone, sacred storms and starlight began to appear around him, and faintly, one could even hear a melodious hymn.
The counterattack had begun!
—Within the falling streaks of light.
One hundred and fifty-three years ago, the Dragon Slayer of the Far Sea Holy Mountain, Saint George Ascalon, had solemnly spoken a single sentence to his descendants, a saying that all who sought to slay dragons held as the highest principle.
'Do not wrestle with a dragon.'
The power and vitality brought by a dragon's massive body far surpassed that of humans. In terms of momentary explosive force, a powerful warrior or mage could defeat a dragon, even slay it. But if it came to endurance, the dragon would undoubtedly win. Wrestling with a dragon was the most foolish choice.
This saying held truth.
Joshua was caught in a bitter struggle because of it.
As a pragmatic warrior who grew through battle, Joshua advocated using his strongest attack from the start, dealing maximum damage to the enemy, even achieving a one-hit kill. The Sunlight Spear and Sunlight Sword he had used earlier were examples of this, and their results were remarkable—the Dragon Spider died instantly, and the black dragon had its chest and spine cleaved open. In his experience of slaying countless dragons, this almost certainly sealed the victory.
Although his left hand had been grazed by the enemy's breath, causing insufficient strength to shatter its heart, aside from slimes, there had never been a creature in this world that could counterattack after having its chest and spine split open—not even a dragon!
But the dragon still struggling beneath him completely defied this iron law.
Its lungs were cut open, and the blood vessels near its heart were shattered. The red battle qi continuously transmitted from the silver Divine Mechanism exploded and burst inside this massive monster's body, churning its flesh into chaos. Yet the black dragon, which should have been severely wounded or even dead from such terrible injuries, still had the strength to roar, twisting its long neck, searching for an angle to bite this hateful human standing on its chest, wielding a silver-white greatsword.
Boom!
A punch was thrown, exploding like muffled thunder. The powerful burst force even created a vacuum in the air, and a piercing sonic boom erupted at the tip of the fist. Joshua clenched his teeth, which were already cracked, and used his left hand, soaked in blood and nearly shattered, to once again prop up the dragon's lower jaw, preventing it from biting his shoulder.
Using the greatsword embedded in the dragon's chest as a fulcrum, the warrior's feet had already sunk into the black dragon's flesh. With his right hand pressing down with full force, he drove the greatsword toward the enemy's heart, while his left hand firmly supported above his head, blocking the dragon's repeated counterattacks.
The warrior had doubled his strength through both martial techniques and battle qi enhancement, plus the amplified magical power flowing back from the Divine Mechanism. In terms of pure strength at this moment, Joshua was not much inferior to this dragon—at least while it was severely wounded. As for endurance, they were evenly matched. The black dragon's murky blood gushed out through its massive wounds, rapidly draining its stamina, while the bones in the warrior's left hand were nearly shattered inch by inch, held together only by battle qi.
Fortunately, due to its spinal injury, the black dragon couldn't use its well-developed forelimbs, strong enough to shatter cliffs, to attack Joshua. Otherwise, the warrior would have long been beaten into a pulp or burned to ashes by dragon breath.
Both bore severe injuries that would render an ordinary person or dragon combat-ineffective, yet neither had any intention of giving up. They continued to fight as they fell.
Distance to the ground: five hundred meters!
This dragon is wrong!
Joshua, his eyes blazing like fire, carefully examined the enemy's body. In an instant, he saw countless tiny black tentacles writhing at the dragon's wounds, seemingly trying to intertwine and heal them. At the same time, these tentacles squeezed the Divine Mechanism slowly pressing toward the dragon's heart, exerting immense force to push the greatsword out of its body.
Tch! This black dragon, eroded by Chaos, was no longer a normal creature but a minion of an Evil God, similar to a Wild God. The usual vital points and severe injuries no longer affected it!
As the dragon's attacks grew more frenzied, purple-black mist once again emanated from its wings, enveloping both the warrior and its body. Understanding the key point, Joshua immediately changed his attack method. Continuing a meaningless struggle with such a monster was pointless. Since his earlier judgment was wrong, he would correct it immediately!
Distance to the ground: two hundred meters!
Without any reluctance, he pulled out the silver-white greatsword that was nearly thrust into the dragon's heart. Instantly, black blood gushed out like a fountain, once again soaking Joshua's entire body. The black dragon, which had been about to attack, stiffened, its entire body losing strength.
Although the greatsword was embedded in its body, it had also compressed its blood vessels and muscles. Earlier, to prevent its heart from being cut in half, it had used its muscles to try to push the greatsword out. But now that the warrior suddenly pulled it out, all its strength converged on its wound, spraying out the already scarce blood. Its stamina plummeted below the danger line.
Distance to the ground: the final thirty meters!
"Get down!"
Seizing the opportunity while the enemy was stunned, Joshua decisively kicked out. The equally exhausted warrior could no longer use any flashy or powerful skills. He simply used his body, which had just been strengthened by ten levels, to viciously kick the enemy's chest wound—also its center of gravity!
Distance to the ground: zero meters!
Boom!!!
Instantly, on the black earth, two clouds of gray dust—one large, one small—erupted. The dust from the impact on the ground rapidly spread with the violent shockwave.