Chapter 61: Dragon Falls, Demon Rises
Pulling the silver greatsword from the earth, Joshua looked up, gazing silently at the dragon before him—a creature that had once died and been reborn, only to fall once more beneath his blade.
Boom.
The massive body slowly toppled backward, kicking up a cloud of dust. Wisps of black mist rose from the bisected corpse, as if trying to dissipate into the air. But the Azure Orb hanging from Joshua's chest absorbed them all. Within that small orb, a calm yet immensely powerful flame of order burned, using the chaotic mana as fuel, transforming the tainted existence into a steady stream of power that restored the warrior's stamina.
This dragon was dead. Thoroughly and completely dead.
The long battle was finally nearing its end.
"...Done."
Feeling the vast and pure energy restoring his battle qi and stamina, a weary Joshua brushed the dust from his clothes, found a rock to sit on, and closed his eyes. He quietly controlled the power within his body, healing his wounds.
The dragon was dead. The monster had not used any innate spells, nor had it displayed its signature combat techniques. It had been relentlessly suppressed by the warrior's swift and ferocious attacks, and in its grievously wounded state, chaos had devoured its very self. Finally, a single sword strike from above had cleaved it in two.
Now, with the mad dragon—the "King"—gone, the surrounding beast tide immediately fell into chaos. Without the command of a superior, the true nature of chaos manifested. Discordant roars and howls echoed through the mountains. Countless different magical beasts began to confront each other, and some, inherently ferocious, had already started hunting the frenzied beasts around them to fill their empty stomachs.
But no matter how fierce or terrifying the creatures, none dared approach the resting warrior. Faced with this powerful being who had carved a bloody path through their ranks, no monster wanted to provoke him.
Without a ruler, this was the true face of the chaotic horde—cowardly toward the strong, bullying toward the weak, a disorder devoid of reason or logic. Not even their own kind could stop them from slaughtering each other.
Sitting on the rock, breathing the cold air, Joshua noticed that the blizzard had inexplicably stopped. But having nearly healed his wounds, he paid such trivial matters no mind. Not even the internal strife of the chaos could make him open his eyes. He had seen such scenes countless times in his past life while fighting abyssal demons; there was nothing worth watching.
Moreover, having completely slain the black dragon, he finally had the leisure to ponder certain matters.
First, why had the entities beyond this world granted such immense power to this black dragon?
Though it appeared that Joshua had cleanly killed it twice, only he knew that if his attacks hadn't been relentless and flawless, denying the enemy any chance to counter, the destruction caused by the black dragon would have been far greater. In the warrior's view, it was absolutely capable of breaching a fortress single-handedly.
After all, when the black dragon was empowered by chaos, even its simplest breath could easily shatter Joshua's Steel Armor Breathing Art and battle qi defenses. If such destructive power were unleashed at full force, even a fortress's tens-of-meters-thick super walls might not withstand many strikes. Granting such power to a gold-rank magical beast was clearly excessive.
Initially, Joshua couldn't understand this. But now, witnessing the frenzied beasts attacking each other wildly, the warrior finally grasped the reason.
Mad Dragon Plague and chaos were both terrible things that led to endless corruption and erosion. And the Black Erosion Dragon was the chaos's spreader and control hub in this world!
The control ability, centered on the chaos-infused Mad Dragon Plague, was entirely based on the black dragon's will. As the king of the chaotic frenzied beasts, as long as the dragon wished, it could make all those monsters willingly leap into the sea to die, like lemmings. This clearly contradicted the demands of the entities behind it. They did not want a creature that could control the frenzied beast horde but was beyond their control.
Thus, from this perspective, the black dragon's corruption was inevitable. Even if the warrior's relentless attacks hadn't destroyed it, it would soon have been overwhelmed by the excessive power granted to it, falling into the abyss of chaos and becoming a puppet of those lurking entities.
But whether it fell or not, that dragon couldn't defeat Joshua. That was an undeniable fact.
"ROOOOAAAAAR!!!"
Suddenly, as Joshua was thinking, a series of massive beastly roars erupted from the chaotic battlefield.
Accompanied by the rising and falling howls, an ominous tremor spread through the atmosphere. Then, with a cataclysmic rumble, a black pillar of light from a spatial gate appeared once again between heaven and earth not far away, right before the warrior's eyes. It stirred the dark clouds, pierced the sky, and scattered endless chaotic mana.
"Spatial gate... It seems this is the last one."
Sensing the violent fluctuations brewing within the pillar of light, Joshua, now fully rested, stood up from the rock with a serious expression. He turned and looked up at the pure black pillar of light and the expanding dark canopy above, then gripped the divine mechanism in his hand tightly.
—Near the Spatial Gate
A figure enveloped in deep cyan light pulled his twin blades from the torso of a giant butterfly. The wounds burst forth with clumps of gray, icy fluid, emitting a sweet, fishy smell.
This dead butterfly had a pair of translucent wings, on which ice-blue runes flickered. Snow and ice gathered around these strange patterns, and even the clouds above slowly churned.
Brandon wiped the frozen sweat from his forehead with a trembling hand. He sheathed the Order Twin Blades, took a deep breath, and used his battle qi to shake off the various ice crystals that had formed on his body.
Earlier, after a fierce battle within the beast tide and breaking through the encirclement, the golden swordsman had finally reached the vicinity of the spatial gate. But unfortunately, while crossing a small hill, he had unexpectedly stumbled upon a Gold-rank Ice Butterfly fluttering among the trees.
Even if it wasn't particularly skilled in combat, it was still a gold-rank magical beast. Both sides immediately prepared for battle. Facing a gold-rank swordsman of equal level, the Ice Butterfly stopped manipulating the weather and instantly launched dozens of simple yet powerful spells at Brandon like a rainstorm.
Crack!
A blue light swirled in his eyes. With the power of his magic eyes, Brandon effortlessly destroyed all the spells released by the gold-rank magical beast. Then, he took a step forward and charged—what followed needed no elaboration. After a great battle, the golden swordsman finally slew his opponent beneath the Order Twin Blades.
Though the process was arduous, he had won.
But before he could celebrate for long, a sudden earth-shattering tremor and roar came from the depths of the forest before him. A massive black pillar of light rose from the ground, piercing through the clouds and sky, dyeing the heavens a layer of pitch black. An endless torrent of otherworldly aura surged like a tidal wave, without end.
Perhaps because he was too close to the pillar of light, aside from the instinctive, extreme disgust and hatred born from his own orderly nature, Brandon also clearly sensed an energy within the massive pillar so dense it was terrifying. This energy was latent, seemingly gestating something.
"The Dragon Spider is dead, the Black Dragon is tied up by Joshua, and the Ice Butterfly was just slain by me... If we can destroy the spatial passage, this chaotic otherworldly invasion might be ended directly!"
Murmuring to himself, Brandon looked at the black pillar piercing the sky, took a deep breath, and calmed his weary body.
Before the final, most critical moment arrived, he had to recover his condition as much as possible.
—Moldova Fortress
On the icy battlements, silver knights rushed back and forth, swinging their weapons to knock down magical beasts trying to climb the walls. Archers, gunners, and mages calmly aimed and released their attacks. Amid the roar of cannons, the twang of bowstrings, and the chanting of spells, alchemical shells blasted into the earth, blooming into huge sprays of blood within the frenzied beast tide. Dense volleys of arrows and dazzling spells also brought violent explosions, creating countless gaps in the black horde.
For humanity, this situation was neither advantageous nor disadvantageous. Both sides remained in a stalemate. The defenders relied on massive supplies and alchemical creations, burning through resources to deplete the number of magical beasts until one side completely collapsed.
But suddenly, the frenzied beasts, which had been single-mindedly attacking the city, changed their determined demeanor and began to slaughter each other wildly. A lizard-type magical beast was just one step away from climbing onto the wall, but it suddenly gave up, turned its head, and bit into a nearby monster. The two tangled and fell off the wall, knocking many other magical beasts down with them.
"What's going on... The beast tide has completely fallen into chaos?"
Verdani, stationed at the center and ready to act at any moment, frowned. She blinked, looked into the distance with some confusion, and murmured to herself, "Could it be that Brandon and Joshua killed the leader of the magical beasts?"
But that shouldn't be the case. Except for the ant demon race, no magical beast had ever started slaughtering its own kind just because its leader was killed...
Whoosh—
As she was thinking, an eerie shriek, incomprehensible to mortals, echoed through the mountains. A flash of light appeared from afar, from the center of the Black Forest. Accompanied by a massive surge of mana, a black pillar of light rose from the earth, shooting straight into the sky!
Verdani abruptly stood up from her seat, her face filled with shock: "A spatial gate anomaly! This is the third time. Will Brandon and the others make it in time?"
Shaking her head, the purple-haired female mage's face showed obvious worry. She was a little unhappy that she couldn't fight alongside her beloved and comrades, but regardless, Verdani understood that the fortress was where she could maximize her abilities.
Letting out a soft sigh, Verdani clasped her hands together, closed her eyes, and prayed to the invisible deity.
"I hope everything goes smoothly."
—At the Dragon's Remains
Behind Joshua, the black dragon's corpse underwent a strange transformation under the influence of the massive chaotic mana released by the opening of the spatial gate.
The body, which had been drained dry by the Azure Orb, gradually swelled, then completely turned into a formless, sticky sludge like black water. It corroded the earth and rocks, rapidly spreading toward the corpses of other frenzied beasts nearby.
Silently, many frenzied beast corpses were corroded and drained dry by the black sludge. Gradually accumulating power, the formless sticky sludge soon devoured the corpses of hundreds of magical beasts in the vicinity. Its volume continued to expand, and even the original dragon corpse could no longer contain it.
From the shadows, the black water transformed into tentacles covered in barbs, silently reaching out toward Joshua, who was preparing to move toward the spatial gate.
The dragon falls, and the demon is born.
(To be continued.)