The torn stump where the black dragon’s wing had been twitched—then sprouted. Flesh knitted with sickening pops, bones reford, and sinew stretched taut, and within monts, the wing was whole again, black scales gleaming.
Its molten eyes locked onto Raven, disbelieving and seething.
"You—! How is this possible?!" The beast roared, its voice shaking the sky itself. "You are no false imitation. You are a dragon. Your mana, your blood—everything is dragonic."
The black dragoon couldn’t believe how a human could beco a dragon.
That had never happened—no, it was impossible. Without a dragon heart implant, it was impossible.
And an implant of that caliber could only be done by an elder dragon.
But as it thought of a dragon heart, it noticed sothing.
Its eyes narrowed, pupils tightening to slits as it studied Raven’s furnace-lit body.
"...you lack a dragon heart," it muttered.
Raven didn’t say anything, and Graye, sowhere on his back, focused her on her mana, gathering it all for an attack.
The black dragon, on the other hand, continued. "You have a true dragon’s form, yes. But you cannot hold it. No matter how mighty, a dragon without a heart will always burn out."
Raven rolled his molten shoulders, crimson firelight flickering across his massive chest plates as he finally spoke, his voice like a mountain stone cracking.
"Then I’ll just have to finish this before my ti runs out."
"Bold words." The black dragon stretched its wings wide, the shadow blotting the already fractured heavens. "But yes, right now, you are a threat to ..."
Its wings jerked as it leaned forward. "However, what happens when that ti ends?"
As soon as it said that, the black dragon launched upward, its wings thrashing hurricanes into the wasteland below.
Raven’s eyes widened as he saw that.
Without a second’s delay, he muttered, "Oh no, you don’t."
Then, his body surged after the black dragon, a living cot of shadow and fla. Graye clung to the ridge of his molten spikes, her small fra looking absurd atop the titan dragon, like a mouse riding a flying warship.
Yet, with her hair whipping back, she laughed wildly, definitely enjoying it.
"Man, being wielded by a dragon feels different," Omni, who was held in Raven’s clawed hand, muttered.
The sword was no longer three ters, but scaled to its master’s body: a monstrosity of steel nearly twenty ters long, radiating killing intent sharp enough to split storms.
The black dragon, however, was getting away, so Raven growled, waving his hand as missiles made of fire, water, rock, wind, and voidfire surged forward, hitting the black dragon on the back.
Unfortunately for Raven, none of those attacks did any damage to the beast as the mana barrier surrounding it stopped them dead.
All of those attacks crashed into the black dragon’s scales and shimred out of existence.
However, those attacks did pull the black dragon’s attention as it turned its head downward.
Looking at Raven, the black dragon wheeled in midair, jaws gaping. A torrent of death surged forth—the sa breath it had used on Graye.
In response, Raven inhaled. His chest glowed brighter, cracks of molten black spreading across his torso. When he exhaled—
The Breath of Destruction erupted.
It was straining for him, but he had no other choice right now. He didn’t think Voidfire was strong enough to face death because death was inevitable.
The only thing that stood a chance against the death breath was destruction breath.
And the mont Raven used it, a torrent blacker than death itself roared outward, layered with crimson fissures that pulsed like doomsday itself.
The mont it was unleashed, even the black dragon flinched, twisting in horror.
"That breath...! How do you have it?!"
Raven’s molten eyes narrowed. He didn’t answer. He only pushed harder.
KRSSSSHHHHHHHHHH!
Two pillars collided—death and destruction grinding against each other.
One was inevitable, while the other was the destruction itself.
Both sides tried to overpower each other.
The clash split the sky, and for the first ti in centuries, the black clouds of the Ashen Expanse tore apart, revealing sunlight bleeding across the cursed land.
The shockwaves ripped the skies open. Lightning forked across the edges. The world itself groaned.
That was when Raven’s voice thundered across the mana storm. "You’re forgetting sothing."
Graye’s laughter cut through the deafening clash. "Damn right you are!"
She climbed up Raven’s massive head, balancing with reckless poise. Her greatsword, dwarfed by him yet still massive at 1.5 ters, glead as she swung downward with all her might.
From her blade burst an illusionary colossus: a sword of fire, water, earth, wind, and lightning—and at its core, a burning streak of unique purple fla. It descended like judgnt.
The black dragon’s eyes widened in pure panic as it recalled how that purple fire could cut through its scales.
It wasn’t sothing the black dragon feared, but it knew that letting Graye’s attack hit it would montarily disable it, and Raven could use that mont to slay it.
So, the giant dragon twisted violently, wings straining, trying to avoid the elental guillotine.
But that flicker of distraction was enough.
Raven shoved, and the balance of the clash shifted.
His Breath of Destruction surged forward, overwhelming the death pillar.
The two forces slamd into the black dragon.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
That attack would’ve split the dragon in two if not for its tily move of placing its wings as shields.
That move saved it, but at what expense?
Its wings exploded—Graye’s rainbow-fla strike cleaving them apart, Raven’s breath detonating into the raw flesh.
The impact rattled the heavens. Blood like molten tar rained in black torrents.
The dragon shrieked, its body spinning helplessly as gravity reclaid it.
The tyrant, once the terror of the Expanse, now fell, wings obliterated, body thrashing as it plumted toward the scorched land below.
As it fell downward, the black dragon saw Raven’s huge form flying down towards it, Omni ready to cleave it in two pieces, and the black dragon growled.
A glow burst across its chest, its throat, its maw—light searing through cracks in its charred scales.
"You think... I would die so easily?!" The monster snarled, and with one last act of defiance, its throat expanded. The air warped, mana collapsing inward.
Its death breath ignited again.
Raven’s molten eyes went wide. He could already feel the wave of annihilation screaming toward him, but pulling back wasn’t an option. He had already committed.
"Then I’ll tear you down with !"
He inhaled, chest splitting with crimson fissures, and exhaled.
The Breath of Destruction roared once more.
Two torrents t midair, screaming black against black. The clash blackened the sky. The heavens peeled apart, ripping clouds into ribbons.
But Raven didn’t stop there.
With a savage roar, he slamd into the black dragon’s chest.
His clawed feet dug into its flesh, crushing bone, while his weight drove the beast faster toward the earth.
Their locked breaths beca a single beam, a spear of colliding destruction stabbing downward as both titans plumted.
The heat between them was so high that the air itself seed to be vaporizing, and yet, Graye, who was quite close to it, threw her head back, laughing like a madwoman in the storm.
"Perfect timing!"
She leapt from Raven’s spine, her small form vanishing in the chaos, only to reappear sprinting across the black dragon’s body.
Her sword cut arcs of fire and lightning, purple fla trailing as she carved deep wounds into the beast’s scales. She moved like a streaking phantom, slashing, plunging, and vaulting, each strike tearing another howl from the dragon’s throat.
The dragon could feel the pain, so it tried to swat her away, but Raven growled, "Like I’d let you," and waved Omni, cleaving the claw of the black dragon.
Rage flashed past the black dragon’s eyes, and in anger, it pushed its attack with more intensity, almost pushing Raven back.
Almost. Because the mont it used all of its mana in the breath attack—
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!
—They hit the ground, shaking the whole world.
The wasteland cratered, the earth buckling, as mountains trembled and dust and smoke erupted into the heavens.
For a long, breathless mont—nothing but silence.
Then, through the haze, a towering silhouette erged.
Raven stood atop the black dragon’s corpse, his massive chest rising and falling, molten cracks spiderwebbing across his body. Omni was buried deep in the dragon’s skull, pulsing with sinister light.
For a while, there was silence.
Then, Raven exhaled heavily, his voice like stone grinding. "...It’s done."
But his groan betrayed the truth—his heart was hamring too fast, mana flickering wildly. The toll of using this form was coming.
Graye, perched on his shoulder, leaned forward, her eyes gleaming. "So... that’s it, huh? It’s really dead?"
Raven’s molten gaze drifted down at the corpse. He gave a firm nod. "...Yeah. It’s dead."
But then his expression froze as he realized sothing.
’Fuck!! A red flag!’
Without a second’s delay, he pulled Omni out of the dragon’s head, knowing that a red flag mont only happened when the world was trying to tell the protagonist that things weren’t over yet.
But before he could turn around, the air behind him warped.
His instincts scread a split second before the world lit black.
FWOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!
A pillar of death breath smashed into his back, the force blasting him and Graye forward like ragdolls.
While Raven hurled forward, Graye shot into the sky like a baseball. She couldn’t even control her body.
However, Raven knew that she would be fine, so he let her be and tried to steady his body midflight.
His head whipped around, trying to see who or what had happened, and the mont he saw it, he couldn’t help but groan.
"Fuck sideways."
The black dragon, who was supposed to have died, was standing a hundred ters away.
The body Raven had killed was still there, but a new one had now taken its place.
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