Chapter 236
Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 236
Chapter Title: Part 2, Chapter 15: Dragon Heart (1)
“Grrraaack!”
Bloody vomit surged back up his throat.
Jamie collapsed beside it, gasping for breath with great difficulty.
His body felt utterly powerless.
In his rage, he had lost his reason and pushed beyond the limits of his usable strength.
A realm he should have reached later had been forcibly attained.
Thanks to that, the Red Dragon lay across from him as a cold corpse, but Jamie was far from unscathed.
Can’t move a muscle.
The mana in his body was completely depleted.
His muscles had been strained to the point of screaming, and it was only thanks to the Orb of Life that he had held on this long.
If the Red Dragon had overcome the curse, he would be in the afterlife by now.
It had been that perilous a situation.
Lucky it was just a Holy Dragon.
If it had been an Ancient Dragon...
No, even a Blue Dragon like Mayatrey would have made this outcome impossible.
Even against her earlier form, victory hadn’t been guaranteed.
Dragons grew stronger with every year they lived; that was the nature of their existence.
Of course, talent existed among dragons too, with monsters who stood out from hatching.
Fortunately, Kairos wasn’t one of those freaks.
...Would’ve been bad if it had hit.
Jamie rolled only his eyes toward the inner wall of Gremia.
It was the scar left by Kairos’s missed breath attack.
No ordinary spell could create a hole that massive.
A fitting display of destructive power from a dragon’s ultimate weapon.
A direct hit would have vaporized him.
Is the fight with Jin over? Did he lose?
Kairos had clearly said Jin couldn’t defeat the demonic sword.
He’d normally dismiss it as nonsense, but coming from a dragon, it gnawed at him.
No way a Sword Master loses.
Jin was among the strongest Sword Masters Jamie knew.
Especially under a full moon, his power bordered on theoretical invincibility.
The demonic sword looked vicious, but surpassing Jin was absurd.
Still, a corner of his mind remained uneasy.
Need to get up. But how...
Jamie’s gaze shifted to Kairos’s corpse.
Most of its massive body had rotted away from the Curse of Decay.
Only the outer layers were fully decayed; the organs and bones inside seemed relatively intact.
Especially the Dragon Heart, still emanating energy from within the carcass.
The most potent energy source in existence.
Even the Orb of Life, which Jamie had seized from the chimera creator and absorbed, had been modeled after a Dragon Heart.
If he could just absorb that, his near-dead body would recover fully.
The problem was crawling all the way over there...
I have to.
If Kairos was right, the situation below was dire.
He hoped it was wrong, but he always had to assume the worst.
Jamie glared fiercely and writhed his body.
“Ngh...!”
It was enough to draw out a mere groan amid the agony.
Enduring excruciating pain, Jamie began crawling toward Kairos’s distant corpse, his mind detached as if viewing from afar.
Jin eyed the blood dripping steadily to the ground.
His right field of vision was red.
Wiping his eye with his hand left it smeared in blood.
Deep gash on the forehead.
He channeled aura into his index and middle fingers, cauterizing the wound on his brow.
The pain was teeth-grinding, but without stopping the bleeding, things could worsen.
His opponent demanded no less.
Jin stared at the monster hovering slightly in the air, its tentacles of blood qi writhing.
A grotesque smile twisted the face of the creature, formed entirely of blood in his own likeness.
A disquieting foe.
The demonic sword on his right arm screeched mockingly, like a sneer.
That was the true body.
Destroy that core he’d failed to shatter earlier, and the enemy would crumble.
The issue was that this state was far stronger than when it had possessed Kenji’s body.
He sheathed his sword.
The night is still long. As long as the sun doesn’t rise, I won’t fall.
Under moonlight, Jin was invincible.
Not truly unbeatable, but he was confident he wouldn’t lose.
He didn’t know where Jamie Welton had vanished to, but as a sorcerer, the boy might have a solution.
Hold out until he returned.
With that sole thought, he resumed his stance.
-Kiririk!
Blood Bringer’s lips curled wide as it unleashed blood qi tentacles from all directions.
The ground, trees, and bushes were mercilessly gouged by their power.
Jin deployed his iaijutsu, slicing through the mass of tentacles.
The severed ones burst into droplets midair, forming hundreds of crimson orbs that rained down on him.
Jin, empowered by Moonlight Resonance, vanished from his spot and ambushed from Blood Bringer’s left.
Frenzied Moon
Rending slashes under moonlight
Jin’s eyes flashed as his blade shredded the blood-formed body at blinding speed.
Blood sprayed in all directions.
Without pause, he infused his palm with moonlight aura.
Moonlight Seal
Explosive palm strike
His palm force erupted, bursting the blood body with a pop!.
He raised his blade straight and struck down toward the core.
But the scattered blood reformed faster than expected, hardening to block the sword.
Tsking at how his blade had barely pierced the shoulder, Jin reacted.
In that instant, Blood Bringer freely shifted its blood body and swung its blade from an unnatural angle—an unexpected direction.
Pulling his sword to block was impossible; the shoulder blood had already hardened around the blade.
Jin released the hilt and leaped back.
“...”
Blood Bringer’s body rippled, drawing Jin’s blade embedded in its shoulder with its left hand.
And gripped it.
Right hand: Blood Bringer. Left hand: Jin’s sword.
To think his weapon would be stolen—a humiliating first.
Amid the shame, frustration at the situation mounted.
A body that controls hardening at will. Attacks aren’t landing properly.
Fluidity and rigidity on command—slices were blocked or deflected.
Even with such a body, superior skill and aura could overwhelm, but this demonic sword felt stronger by the second.
Its blood manipulation had grown more adept, leading to this disarming.
Only Moon Radiance left?
Jin’s one-strike kill technique.
Even Jamie would dodge rather than block it; its destructive power was immense.
The problem: no guarantee it would finish the foe.
Unless every drop of blood on this land evaporated, it would revive.
Then—
——————————————————!!
A massive explosion rocked the high sky, a crimson beam sweeping the entire mountain range.
The blast’s light turned the night sky to day.
Jin shielded his face with both arms against the oncoming shockwave.
Kwaaaaaaaa!!
A roar followed.
In the chaos, Jin first checked Blood Bringer.
The monster’s body was half-dismantled by the sudden blast’s aftermath.
How, when his own attacks left it unscathed?
He didn’t know, but missing this chance meant no next one—he felt it instinctively.
“Moonlight Resonance.”
His body bathed in moonlight, Jin pierced the dust cloud and closed in instantly.
Up close, he unleashed Moon Radiance.
Moon Radiance
Penetrating light burst
-...!
Piercing light spread circularly, engulfing the area.
The blood flesh scattered under the radiance; the true body, the demonic sword, deployed a barrier in desperate resistance.
Jin snatched his fallen curved sword and unleashed sword ki.
He plunged it toward the core.
Kwajik-!
It hadn’t reached before, but now it did.
Dispelling Moon Radiance, Jin eyed his curved sword embedded in Blood Bringer.
The grotesque tentacles encasing the core writhed in agony.
Jin invoked Moonlight Resonance again, shattering the core from within.
Passt-
The orb-shaped core crumbled to dust.
The massive blade clattered to the ground.
The demonic sword that had raged ferociously moments ago was now an ordinary blade.
Yet Jin remained vigilant until all reactions ceased.
“Hoo.”
Only then did he exhale in relief.
He looked skyward.
A colossal metallic structure floated there.
Like a ship or a fortress—something he’d never seen.
A massive hole marred one corner; the crimson beam had likely burst from there.
“What the hell was that?”
Tremendous power.
The night sky had blazed like noon, and the mountains bore a massive gash like dragon claws.
“...A dragon?”
Come to think of it, Jamie Welton had called that enormous presence a dragon.
Was Jamie fighting a dragon inside that giant structure?
Even at 9th Class, battling a dragon was premature.
An Ancient Dragon or not, he couldn’t solo one.
“Whatever it is, I need to check...”
But Jin couldn’t ascend.
Kuung-!!
He whirled toward the immense energy from behind.
Jin’s pupils trembled behind his mask.
The demonic sword floated into the air.
He had destroyed the core and confirmed no reactions.
It was mere scrap metal...
He didn’t know.
That Blood Bringer’s power source wasn’t just the core.
Even its own power alone couldn’t push Jin this far.
What enabled it was something else.
“...No way!”
Jin swallowed dryly at the aura emanating from Blood Bringer.
It matched the crimson beam from the sky.
As expected, a dragon atop that structure.
Thus, powering Blood Bringer now was dragon mana.
Puddles of blood on the ground glowed scarlet and rose.
They merged, forming a human shape.
“What a tenacious mess.”
Dragon above, undying demonic sword ahead.
Blood Bringer shaped a mouth and bellowed in fury.
-I... I am the bringer of the world’s destruction!!
Kwajijik-!!
Blood qi lashed out like lightning, ravaging the surroundings.
-I am!
As the sword roared again—
“You’re nothing.”
Kwaaaaaang-!!!
Black lightning struck.
Blood Bringer’s blood body evaporated instantly.
Pazijik-
Someone stood there.
Gripping the sword’s blade—now bodiless—he asked again.
“What are you?”
Bodiless, no answer came.
He snorted and crushed it.
Kwajik—the blade cracked and crumbled.
“Just trash.”
Jamie kicked away the hilt and raised a hand to Jin.
“I’m back.”
At that casual greeting, Jin stopped thinking.