Chapter 194
Chapter 194
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 194
Chapter Title: The Flame That Burns the World (8)
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The dragon's ferocious strike tore the grand sorceress apart mercilessly.
"Ngh..."
The scales of the tightly balanced fight had now tipped irreversibly. Melissa focused solely on evasion and defense instead of counterattacking, desperately warping space and erecting walls of flame. Even so, she couldn't cope with most of the assaults and suffered massive damage.
Of course, she still bore no external wounds. Thanks to the 'Blessing of Mana' that blocked damage with mana. But unleashing spells nonstop had built up tremendous strain on her body, and the rate at which her remaining mana was depleting was far from ordinary.
Rapustran immediately noticed the change in his opponent.
"..."
She had about half her mana remaining. At this rate, she might lose every last drop before the day was out.
Her attempts to pierce the dark veil had failed too. Every time she secretly hurled hellfire into the pitch-black sky, the dragon sensed it like a ghost and chanted Dragon Speech to block it. She occasionally landed minor hits of hellfire, but the veil itself was so sturdy that even that barely made a dent.
But Melissa didn't wear the face of someone staring defeat in the eyes.
Instead, she burst into roaring laughter, as if she were having the time of her life.
"Ah, ah... Haha, hah, indeed, just as I thought."
"You, you see things differently from others, don't you? Not heat exactly, but something like roughly gauging strength and danger levels?"
"But as a reptile, wouldn't sensing heat suit you better? Heh, hahaha..."
A thunderous tail strike was the response to her crude mockery. Even as it slammed her brutally against the wall, Melissa didn't stop laughing.
"Hah, heh... Ah, so that's how it is. No wonder it only reacted to the most dangerous spells. Ahh, I really should record this fascinating discovery... Shame I left my notes back at the Magic Tower."
"Hahahaha... Yeah, probably not."
The laughter drained from her face in an instant, like a lie.
Melissa went stone-faced, her expression blank and cold. Rapustran twitched his eyes in suspicion.
From somewhere, an intense red light was flooding in, encroaching on his vision.
"Truth is, I've known for a while now. I only told you because I figured it doesn't matter anymore."
"I did some thinking. To pierce that dark veil, I'd need a 'grand spell'... Stealth doesn't work, illusions don't, distortions don't... So how do I prepare one in secret? How do I ready a 'grand spell' strong enough to break through and teach that arrogant reptile what divine retribution feels like once more..."
An explosive breath cut her words short. Ferocious claws ripped through the flame walls, and massive forepaws swept across everywhere like a storm.
Rapustran had a gut feeling. Something fatal was about to happen soon. To stop it, he needed to kill this sorceress as quickly as possible—but the mana shielding her wasn't something he could just brush aside.
"Heh, the answer was simple. If there's a 'light' too dazzling to ignore... just hide it behind an even 'bigger light,' right?"
"Shall we see if this light can pierce your dark veil?"
Melissa gently slammed her palm downward.
With that gesture, the sky tore open.
A meteor wreathed in black flames pierced the veil and appeared in the sky. The black heavens churned like a stormy night sea, and dazzling rays poured through the breached gap.
The dragon's pupils contracted sharply. Melissa lightly clapped her hands together.
"Ah, got it."
It was as if the apocalypse had rent the night sky asunder.
For the dragon, it was no different from the end of the world. The meteor cloaked in hellfire from the deepest abyss was threatening enough, but the greater peril lay beyond it—the ultimate predator that had wiped out dragons from this land.
The 'Eye That Gazes Down' locked onto the last dragon.
A beam of judgment shot from beyond the veil. To Rapustran, it looked like a crimson blade slicing his cornea in half.
The 'Divine Retribution' shattered the dragon's scales—which had shrugged off hellfire like thin ice—with effortless ease.
Pain like a spike driven into his heart—Rapustran let out a scream. His wing membranes quivered as he frantically crawled toward the shadows where no light reached.
It was futile. The sun blazed, incinerating the remaining veil. Adding insult to injury, it poured retribution onto every possible cover, eliminating all shadows from every direction.
The result was a reenactment of the events from 150 years ago.
Deadly beams poured down like bundles of death itself. Scales exploded, armor plating tore, flesh sloughed off. Rapustran writhed and thrashed like a lizard stabbed repeatedly by a red-hot awl.
Melissa erupted into peals of laughter.
"Ahahahaha, ahahahaha! Hahaha, haha, ahahahaha!"
Her plan had worked perfectly. The dragon, which had instantly detected any dangerous spell she prepared, hadn't noticed the meteor at all.
It had no choice but to miss it. Prepared in secret behind the veil, aligned perfectly with the sun. To the dragon, the greatest threat was the sun delivering 'Divine Retribution.' Against that, even a meteor-summoning 'grand spell' became a mere trifle, invisible in its shadow.
Rapustran staggered on his blood-soaked body. He crawled toward the cliff's edge, desperate to return to his nest.
He had no mind left for anger at her mockery. The dragon had completely lost his arrogant confidence. In his trembling eyes flickered the afterimages of his kin pierced by retribution, plummeting like falling petals. No matter how they struggled, before divine wrath, they were mere creatures—this truth burned into him once more.
However.
Just before fleeing, the dragon halted.
Suddenly, his own image facing the sun's retribution overlapped with that of a certain human facing his own breath.
That pathetic human hadn't trembled in fear.
That human had no draconic power or authority. Just a frail mortal body and a half-melted shield—yet he proved with his whole burning self, without hesitation, that those who don't fight gain nothing.
And now, he—who was far stronger than that human—what disgraceful spectacle was he showing?
"Ahah, ahahaha... Where do you think you're going, dragon? It's been a while since you've seen sunlight—why not bask a bit longer?"
Distortion magic sealed off all escape routes. Rapustran was trapped like a rat in a cage.
But it didn't matter.
There was still one direction left open.
He gritted his interlocking fangs and endured the impaling beams.
He steadfastly opened his golden eyes, mirroring his blazing breath.
He faced the crimson light filling his vision without a shred of fear.
His jaws parted wide, and a roar boiled up from the deepest recesses of his heart.
The resonant Dragon Speech echoed from the earth to the heavens themselves. Majestic wings, like a golden citadel, unfurled, scattering fragments of glory.
Just like that day of the 'Night of Divine Retribution,' when a thousand dragons took to the skies to incinerate the sun.
The last dragon soared once more into the brilliant sky, defying its will, higher and higher.
A sapphire claw raked the wolf's flank.
The lone monster blocking their path was this one; the black panther leaped beyond the wolf dangling its guts. Mindful not to injure the woman on his back, he landed with care.
Parneo and Lilia were smoothly ascending the World Tree.
The journey to the World Tree had been smooth. The monsters prowling Hesiliad's streets couldn't match the black panther's speed. Even when they tried to form a net, Parneo slipped through like an eel.
There were a few monsters inside the World Tree too, but no major issue. Familiar with the inner passages, Parneo dodged and dispatched them as deftly as he had in the streets, heading upward.
Still, the two elves' faces weren't bright.
The perilously shaking passages, debris crumbling down.
"My sisters... didn't follow the Apostle of Prophecy."
Kadim's plan to lure Melissa to hell had failed.
Whether Kadim had been captured midway or Melissa had changed her mind... the reason was unclear. What was certain was that reaching the upper levels meant confronting her.
Parneo growled to a halt. He meant to wait safely until the dragon subdued the grand sorceress. But Lilia shook her head firmly.
"No... We can't afford to hesitate, Parneo. The prolonged battles have made the World Tree extremely unstable. At this rate, even standing still... it'll collapse in less than an hour. No, half that."
"Don't worry. The dragon is fighting hard right now... Once we enter the 'World Tree's Dream,' my sisters won't be able to touch me. It's shameless of me, but... please keep heading up, Parneo."
He twitched his ears unpleasantly, but the black panther ultimately obeyed Lilia.
However, upon reaching the root-neck cliff, they faced a sight that forced them to stop.
"Th-that's..."
A meteor tearing through the black sky, blinding beams pouring through the hole in the heavens.
The 'Eye That Gazes Down' unleashed retribution, and a cry of agony echoed. Lilia's face drained of color as memories of the nightmare from 150 years ago resurfaced.
Surprisingly, the dragon didn't flee as easily as before.
Instead, it spread its wings and soared toward the sky. It nimbly evaded, spewed breath and Dragon Speech. It swung its forepaws like a gale and flew closer to the sun, ever closer. Bolstered by its courage and desperate resistance, several beams of retribution fizzled harmlessly.
But the limits were clear.
The power of the retribution grew stronger with each passing moment. Beams that flew like javelins grew denser, eventually pouring down like merciless rain. No matter how desperately the dragon fought, coping with that infinite barrage was impossible.
The outcome was horrific beyond words.
A dozen, two dozen... retribution beams struck in clusters, culminating in over a hundred piercing the dragon dead-on.
Scales shattering into glittering shards, wings ragged like torn sails, blood spraying like misty rain.
The last dragon plummeted, drenched in blood.
Unable to avenge his kin's grudge, just as in ancient times and 150 years ago, brutally ravaged by that false god in the heavens.
From atop the World Tree came the apostle's lament, from below the dragonkin's scream.
"D-Dragon...!!"
"Rapustraaaaaaan!!!"
At least it fell into the World Tree's shadow, escaping the sun's gaze at the last moment. Unfortunately, the dragon's foes weren't just that heavenly sun. The grand sorceress extended her hand downward as if waiting.
Pierced mercilessly by the highest flames, now the lowest flames descended upon it.
Flames rising from hell's deepest abyss, black fire that annihilated existence, a massive meteor cloaked in 'Grimoth's Flames.'
"No, Rapustran!! No, ah, aaah..."
Remillion hurriedly spread his wings and flew, but tumbled before he got close. Even if he had reached the dragon, it wouldn't have changed anything.
It was hopeless.
They had fled even from Inferno, which scattered the weakest hellfire. Let alone cope with flames drawn from far deeper in the abyss.
It was over.
The dragon would be crushed beneath that meteor and die. Melissa would find them all. Parneo would die, she'd be imprisoned, and the World Tree would fall. She didn't need prophecy through dreams to know that much.
She didn't want to see it.
Lilia instinctively squeezed her eyes shut. Forgetting even her mission and duty, she turned away from the gruesome future and fled into boundless darkness.
However.
Even so.
An unforetold future was always brimming with unpredictable variables.
The black meteor did not crush the dragon.
It froze midair, just before touching the dragon's back.
"..."
"..."
"..."
A silence so profound no one dared breathe.
What halted the meteor was no miracle.
Not a miracle, nor coincidence. Not divine blessing or inscrutable mystery. It was the product of fateful threads woven from ancient times to now—someone's regret, an unforgettable memory, a historic encounter—that stopped the meteor.
Lilia peered tremblingly beneath the World Tree.
"...Melissa?"
Her long-lost sister stood there, the one she thought she'd never see again.
The World Tree's root-neck, now abandoned even by the dragon.
An unfamiliar visitor scattered flames into the 'Hall of Eternal Dreams.'
No—more unfamiliar than any, yet more familiar than any. A girl weary from a grueling journey, her temperament a bit prickly, but still harboring pure passion, courage, and camaraderie.
"Hey. Are you... really my future self?"
She clutched something tightly to her chest. A record meticulously noting every new discovery. Now, it chronicled her lost journey—how she met a certain man by chance and saved the world.
A bitter smile crept across the ash-covered woman's lips.
"In the World Tree's dream... this must be how it felt, Kadim."
"..."
Three hundred years ago and three hundred years hence.
A lost past and a diverged future crossed at the twisted coordinates of fate.