Winter Lord: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 476 Slaying the Dragon
Time stood still at that moment.

The wind no longer swept across the mountain ridge, the swirling dust hung suspended in mid-air, and the dragon's breath turned into solidified flames, frozen in the moment before the explosion.

Louis stepped out from the ripples in the void.

With each step, the ground beneath our feet changes.

The withered grass stems stood upright again, the scorched soil cracked with fine lines, and new green shoots completed their growth in a very short time.

The battlefield was divided.

The movements of the five thousand dragon-man guards all froze the moment Louis appeared.

Their charging stance froze in mid-air, their claws yet to fall, the ferocity in their eyes fixed at the same angle.

Louis turned around and looked at Lambert, who was still kneeling on the ground.

“Thank you for your hard work, Lambert.” Louis’s voice was soft, yet reassuring. “Leave the rest to me.”

The knights of the Red Tide stood still, without making an immediate move.

Their gazes darted back and forth between Louis and the colossal dragon that blotted out the sky, hesitant and uneasy.

This level of confrontation is far beyond their comprehension.

Lambert gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand up straight.

He glanced at Louis, said nothing more, and simply waved his hand forcefully, signaling the knights to retreat.

The constraints of time are gradually loosening.

August was the first to resume operations.

The power of original sin surged within him, allowing him to barely break free from its constraints.

He lowered his massive dragon head and looked at the mortal who had suddenly appeared in the center of the battlefield, his eyes filled with contempt.

In his view, this was just yet another person trying to take shortcuts with unorthodox methods.

He also noticed the knights who were retreating.

The dragon opened its mouth slightly, and several streams of dragon breath instantly formed, rushing towards the crowd in the distance.

Louis raised his hand, and the dragon breath was abruptly wiped out in mid-air, as if erased by an invisible hand, leaving no trace.

The retreating knights were able to stay away from the battlefield.

For the first time, August's emotions became noticeably alert; he realized that he was not dealing with an ordinary mortal.

"What arrogant ants!" Long Yu exploded, his voice filled with undisguised violence.

"On my path to godhood, you are nothing more than another sacrifice groveling in the shadow of dragon wings!"

The dark golden scales gleamed coldly in the air.

"This sky, these underground mines, and even the souls of mortals, should rightfully belong to the noble dragon race!"
"You reptiles are only fit to be food, imprinted in the stomachs of dragonborn!"

Louis raised his eyes, his gaze calm and unmoved by the arrogant words.

The powers of the five and a half original sins intertwined at his fingertips.

The dim stream of light rotated slowly, like a star in formation, but showed no signs of going out of control.

"The age of dragons," Louis began, his tone flat, "was extinguished a thousand years ago."

Augustus, what is buried by history should obediently rot in the soil. You yearn to return, but in this world, there is no longer a throne left for the old emperor.

Louis's nonchalant remark ignited August's fury.

He stopped testing, and the half of the original sin power belonging to arrogance within him was completely released.

The dark golden pressure, like a burst dam, tore through the air and pressed down on Louis.

Mountains trembled, the earth's veins groaned—this was a power powerful enough to make the world submit.

Louis stood still: "It's time to end this farce."

The primordial heart resonated deep and steady within him.

The sound was not loud, but it caused August's oppressive aura to lose its form the instant they made contact.

Moreover, a purer and more complete arrogance slowly rose from Louis's body.

Under the resonance of the Primordial Heart, the pressure surrounding Louis did not remain at the level of confrontation, but began to expand in the opposite direction, as if it completely covered August's pressure.

August quickly sensed the abnormality; his dragon body trembled slightly, a reaction from the deepest part of his bloodline.

That is the fear etched into the instinct of creation, the impulse to submit to a higher being.

At that moment, August felt a chill run down his spine.

“How is this possible…” A deep roar rolled out of August’s throat, clearly disordered.

He couldn't accept it; he couldn't accept that he was being suppressed by a mortal in terms of status.

The humiliation of being covered up in the opposite direction is far more devastating than any injury.

Arrogance was torn apart, and reason collapsed in the process.

"Impossible! I am a noble dragon, the supreme ruler who reigns over all ages!"

The dragon's voice shattered the sky, and the dark golden scales trembled violently.

"You lowly scum, how dare you make me tremble?!" To reverse this intolerable reality, August let out a mournful dragon roar. "All those who bear my blood..." The dragon roar transformed into a decree, covering the entire battlefield, "will all become my food!"

The moment the order was given, all five thousand dragon guards screamed in agony.

Their bodies cracked, scales rolled up, and flesh disintegrated in an out-of-control resonance.

The next instant, three thousand bodies exploded simultaneously.

The intensely hot and concentrated dragon blood essence was forcibly extracted, as if drawn by an invisible hand, transforming into three thousand crimson streaks of light that flowed along the blood-red trails in the air and merged into August's spine.

The air was scorching, and a low, tearing sound echoed through the space.

After consuming the life essence of all the guards, August's size increased dramatically once again.

On the dark gold dragon scales, cursed dark red crystal clusters grew rapidly, covering every joint like scabs.

He forcefully tore through Louis's oppressive aura in the most primal way.

The dragon's wings spread out, obscuring the horizon.

At that moment, his power broke through the threshold and entered an unstable yet extremely violent ultimate state.

Augustus hovered high in the sky, crimson dragon breath gathering in his mouth, and space around him twisted and deformed.

His voice swept across the sky like rolling thunder.

"This is the destiny of the dragon race! We will eventually return to our peak and turn this lowly world back into pasture!"

August's dragon eyes were fixed on Louis: "Die!"

Louis remained calm.

The ghostly light of the five original sins slowly intertwined at his fingertips.

Then he waved his hand lightly, the movement casual, as if brushing away the dust accumulated on the table.

“August,” Louis began, his voice not loud, but clear enough to carry across the entire battlefield, “don’t you understand?”

The dark golden sky seemed to lose its weight in that instant.

"In this era, there is no longer an ark to carry the dragon race."

The original powers were mobilized.

The core of greed within the old emperor's body, which supported the operation of all power, was extinguished without warning.

August froze, clearly feeling that the laws that were originally absolutely obedient to his will were breaking free from his control and pulling at his existence in the opposite direction.

Gravity no longer supports his body, and space no longer contains his scales.

The dragon's massive, mountain-like body began to crumble from its most fundamental level.

From scales to flesh, from bones to blood vessels, they were peeled away layer by layer, turning into fragments that could no longer be gathered together.

For the first time, fear truly took hold of August's consciousness.

“No…this is impossible…” Long Yu lost his composure, leaving only panic.

"What exactly are you? This kind of power... shouldn't exist in this world!"

He tried to struggle, to reassemble his body, only to find that even the act of struggling itself was failing.

"Spare me..." August's voice was urgent and broken, "I am willing to honor you as..."

Louis did not respond; he did not give the tyrant any time to repent.

Bring your five fingers together.

The power of the five sins converged in an instant, condensing into a pure white blade of light.

It fell from the sky, piercing down from the top of August's head.

The decaying dragon blood was completely washed away the moment it came into contact with the dragon, and the hundreds-of-meters-long dark gold dragon completely disintegrated at that moment.

Scales, bones, and flesh all turned into dust that filled the sky and vanished without a trace in the light.

There were no remains, only a slowly falling pile of ashes.

Louis descended slowly from the sky.

As his feet touched the ground, the scorched earth, which had been burned by the dragon's breath and torn apart by the battle, began to show subtle changes.

The cracks healed, the black earth regained its vitality, and new grass sprouts broke through the soil.

On the distant hillside, Lambert knelt on the ground, his hands supporting his longsword, his body trembling slightly.

The surviving knights helped each other up and knelt down with him.

Blood slid down their armor, mingling with their tears, and dripped into the revived land.

In the distant mountains and forests, tens of thousands of people witnessed the dragon's destruction.

After a brief silence, shouts suddenly erupted.

"Lord Louis—!" The voices gathered into waves, breaking through the clouds and shaking the heavens.

Above the ashes, the old era came to a complete end.

(End of this chapter)