Ember Dragon

Chapter 856 A Battle Approaching the Gods

"As expected of Tiamat's most loyal lackey, you do have some strength, but you think you can defeat me with just that—it's not enough!"

Kaisius spread his wings and roared. The blazing sun behind him slowly moved toward Kazul, bringing raging flames that dispelled the apocalyptic embers that shrouded the sky.

“Kaisius, you are too young and too arrogant.” Kazul’s eyes flashed as he looked at the Burning Emperor with calm eyes, a hint of undisguised killing intent emanating from his narrow pupils.

He waved his jet-black dragon wings, and the ashes released by the power of destruction swept across the sky like a flood, clashing with the scorching sun, constantly canceling each other out and colliding.

As these two forces, which transcend natural disasters, clashed, the sky flickered between light and darkness, sometimes shining brightly and sometimes plunging into boundless darkness, as if being constantly torn apart by these two colossal beasts.

Each flap of the two red dragons' wings brought with it a howling storm, each strike triggering a muffled explosion of air that shook the boiling crimson lake below. The mountains groaned in the shadows they cast.

The onlookers, gazing up at the sky, felt a stinging pain in their eyes and a burning sensation on their skin. They instinctively covered their eyes with their hands, and some even went blind on the spot—this was a battle between beings beyond legend. Ordinary mortals, even those observing from a distance of a dozen kilometers, could suffer unimaginable harm.

"boom!"

The blazing sun was pierced by the black light, and a burning fragment fell from the sky, crashing to the ground and instantly unleashing terrifying energy—the divine power of the sun, containing multiple laws such as fire, light, destruction, and rebirth.

With a deafening roar, the earth trembled violently, and flames and thick smoke from the explosion shot into the sky.

When the smoke and dust cleared, a mountain peak that had once stood there, hundreds of meters high, was razed to the ground. Trees, rocks, and the mountain itself had all vanished without a trace, leaving only a charred crater thousands of meters in diameter and ruins composed of countless rubble.

This explosion destroyed a mountain that had witnessed countless ages of change, killed countless lives living within it, and caused indelible damage to the local environment.

But this was merely an insignificant aftershock in the midst of this battle.

“This is the power of dragons.” Adrian gazed at the two enormous, blurry figures shrouded in flames and ash in the sky, his expression growing increasingly complex.

The closer it got to this point, the more he could feel the terrifying power of the Burning Emperor, and the more worried he became about the future of the Seleucia Kingdom—would someone with such power really stop his ambitions in the northern part of the Fianso continent?
But Adrian also knew that if His Majesty harbored ill intentions, they would be virtually powerless to resist.

"Faced with such a colossal dragon, even His Majesty Amannata himself would likely be powerless."

The bitter thought had barely appeared in his mind when he forcibly stopped it. Adrian was startled; such a thought was utterly blasphemous!
He prayed several times in his heart, begging for the sun god's forgiveness, and turned his attention back to the battle in the sky.

At this moment, the space around the two dragons was shattered by the collision of divine power, with countless spatial cracks appearing, resembling a ruin destroyed by an explosion.

Burning meteorites, dazzling lightning, fragments of the void, and pitch-black ash mingled together. Elemental monsters and remnants of dragon blood poured out from those spatial rifts, fighting each other like dense, mottled dark clouds, making this sky even more bizarre.

In a daze, Adrian thought he was in a bizarre outer dimension—not the material world.

But soon, the dragon's roar interrupted his momentary daze.

"Casius! You'll soon realize how foolish it was to make an enemy of me!"

"is it?"

Kaisius’s tone was unusually cold.

Kazul, however, said to himself, "It's time to end this. I will show you the true power to destroy the world. I will let you know that Her Majesty Tiamat's arrival is a foregone conclusion and cannot be reversed!"

"Om-"

The sky trembled violently, becoming incredibly blurry, with spatial cracks tens of thousands of meters long stretching across the horizon, appearing like a spider web on the dark sky.

Centered on the Primordial Red Dragon, within a radius of tens of thousands of meters, the earth cracked, magma flowed wildly, greedily covering the land like living things, flames and ash flew through the air, and countless heavy boulders and fine sand grains floated in mid-air like asteroids.

At this moment, gravity seemed to have lost its meaning, and the entire space, like the astral plane, had no distinction between up, down, left, or right, and the laws of the world became chaotic.

As Kazul flapped his jet-black wings, everything around him was gradually decomposed, turning into fine, pungent ashes—this was the end of the world.

Just as the prophecy said: "When lava covers the earth and ashes fill the sky, the old era will be utterly destroyed."

Each deity transcends the laws of the material plane; their very existence distorts reality, creating "domains" similar to divine kingdoms, and Kazul now possesses a similar ability.

The black ash that adhered to the ancient red dragon's body gradually condensed into thick scales, a thick tail, and ferocious bone spikes, forming a brand new body.

This caused Kazur's dragon body, which was originally only over 80 meters long, to expand rapidly, growing from 100 meters to 200 meters, 500 meters, 1,000 meters, and even 2,000 meters in length.

What does such a behemoth mean?
It's worth noting that the highest peak in Seleucia, Mount Sunset, is only a little over 3,000 meters above sea level.

A dragon that is two thousand meters long is equivalent to throwing a majestic mountain into the sky. With the limited imagination of ordinary mortals in the material world, they probably could not even imagine such a scene.

But at this moment, the colossal dragon, as large as a mountain peak, actually appeared high in the sky, spanning the heavens, constantly radiating immense pressure and a chaotic hurricane that could destroy everything, which was simply unstoppable.

"By the gods!" "Oh, God!"

"By Amannata! Is this the dragon that destroys the world? Even the Burning Emperor—"

People looked up at the distant sky, their varied faces revealing undisguised surprise and deep awe.

At this moment, the Primordial Red Dragon was entirely black with a reddish tinge. Its vast wings covered the sky and the earth, casting a huge shadow. "Covering up the sky and blotting out the sun" has become an understatement to describe the reality.

Those wings, like clouds hanging from the sky, with just a slow flap, generated such strong wind pressure that they destroyed everything within a radius of more than ten kilometers. Those pitch-black wings exuded a torrent of destructive power, even leveling several undulating mountains and hills into ashes.

This was a scene straight out of a myth, comparable to Ragnarok, and the ancient red dragon in the sky seemed to be the embodiment of the end of the world, capable of bringing the most complete and desperate destruction to this world.

At this moment, in the Empire's territory, the dragon-blooded ogre archmage Langpu raised his head, looked up at the sky, and his eyes were extremely solemn.

"This...this is...the laws of the world are being altered by Him! This ancient dragon is actually this powerful!"

Langpu turned to look at the Burning Emperor, his eyes filled with anxiety and worry. Although he had great faith in His Majesty's strength, even he felt uneasy after witnessing the terrifying dragon that was thousands of meters long.

As a legendary spellcaster and the head of the Imperial Divine Research Institute, he had a fairly accurate guess about Kazul's strength and knew what that meant.

Can His Majesty Caesar truly defeat this "Dragon of Doomsday"?

"Casius, tremble before the power to destroy the world—"

Kazul flapped its sky-covering dragon wings, and a chaotic black wind carrying ash swept in, containing terrifying destructive power. Any matter that came into contact with the ash was quickly assimilated.

The oppressive divine power that filled the air surged in from all directions, making Caesus feel somewhat suffocated.

In a sense, Kazul, who is now fully activating the "Heart of Tiamat," is equivalent to a true god with the power of a weak deity, and Caesus is facing a god directly.

"Get out of my way—"

Kaisius dared not be negligent in the slightest, and also flapped his dragon wings with all his might. With a series of explosive bursts of air, fire poured out like a tide, barely blocking the oncoming dark hurricane.

He gripped his right claw and activated [Storm Monarch's Authority]. Dazzling lightning burst forth from his vertical pupils, accompanied by crackling sounds. Dark clouds filled with lightning also emerged, and the densely packed lightning bolts resembled a giant silver-white net, encircling him.

"A futile struggle"

A hoarse voice came from Kazul's gaping maw, like a low growl echoing in the bottomless abyss.

At this moment, Kazul is the embodiment of the apocalypse; even ordinary words have the terrifying power to destroy the minds of mortals and plunge their souls into despair.

Before he finished speaking, the surging black wind became even more violent, enveloping Kaisius like a raging beast, ready to devour the red dragon in the sky alive.

Under the erosion of this divine storm, most of the flames surrounding Kaisius were extinguished, and his body was covered with countless hideous wounds that emitted black smoke.

"Ow—"

Under the powerful pressure of this divine force, Caesus raised his head and roared with all his might. His heart, which came from the body of the god Karix, also beat wildly, pumping the frenzied divine power and scalding dragon blood through his veins to his entire body.

The dazzling fire of the sun, the silvery flames of order, the dark red flames of chaos, the holy light of heaven, the pitch-black fire of hell, and the endless power of the snow-white lightning surged from the dragon crystal on Kaisius's chest, instantly enveloping his entire body and forming a brand new physical form.

Within this body, various powerful and extremely destructive forces intertwine, like a miniature plane, operating according to peculiar rules.

These forces are also altering the surrounding environment, influencing reality within a kilometer radius around him, and even changing the laws of nature, creating a "domain" unique to him.

At this moment, Kaisius was nearly 500 meters long, his figure as majestic as a mountain peak. Although his size was far smaller than that of the "Dragon of Doomsday" Kazul, he had barely reached the same level, thus avoiding being completely crushed.

Kaisius's appearance was almost identical to his previous self, equally strong, well-proportioned, and perfect, exuding an aura of sacred majesty. The scales on his body shimmered with various colors of light, including crimson, silver, dark red, and deep black, and the dragon crystal on his chest also displayed a strange phenomenon like a vast starry sea.

What is even more striking are Kaisius's eyes and horns. At this moment, his pale golden eyes are incredibly deep, as if they can see through everything in the world. His narrow vertical pupils exude a faint sense of power, while his four enormous horns are as sacred and noble as crowns, radiating a divine might that commands submission.

After consuming the divine bodies of Erebus and Gorazdra, Caesus modified his own body, using their divine bodies as a reference and the remaining divinity to transform his eyes and horns into god-like material.

"boom--"

With a roar in the air, a tremendous divine pressure also emanated from around Kaisius, which was able to barely contend with Kazul's divine might.

This is the new ability that Kaisius developed after several days of experimentation and adjustment following his ascension to the [God-like Dragon] – the body of a demigod!
All of this was prepared in order to confront Kazul, a being who was close to a god.

(End of this chapter)