The sheer scale of the Dragonkin Soldier fighting at full power was imnse, a spectacle of overwhelming force.
The roar echoed through the night sky, so loud that it even stirred Astel from its deep slumber.
Since descending from the cosmos to the Lands Between, it and its kin had utterly annihilated the Nox dynasty.
All the Eternal Cities had been obliterated by the Astels.
But after being summoned to the Lands Between to complete this "divine punishnt," they were left without purpose.
With no new orders, Astel and its spawn scattered across the Lands Between.
After participating in the destruction of the Eternal Cities, this particular Astel had remained here, slumbering among the cliffs of Nokstella.
And now, on the ground below, the Dragonkin Soldier was seething with uncontrollable rage as it beheld the very architect of Nokstella's ruin.
Scrabbling with both hands and feet, it rose from the ground in a frenzy.
Its head swam...
The disorienting haze plunged it into a state of confusion, which only served to stoke its ferocity.
In the chaos, its directive to prioritize defense was gradually forgotten, then ignored.
The hatred in its heart was taking over.
When the Astels had invaded Nokstella, it, the most successful of all the prototypes, had not been deployed.
The final order it received was to stand fast before the throne and guard this place.
This pool was far removed from the main city of Nokstella, and the Astels only needed to destroy the core of the Eternal City.
In the distant past, their paths had never crossed.
But now, the ti for vengeance had co!
There was no longer any need for restraint. The disoriented Dragonkin Soldier had gone completely berserk.
Its eyes turned crimson as it threw back its massive, gaping maw and let out a furious roar at the Astel in the sky.
Its arm was regenerating at an incredible rate, flesh and sinew forcibly knitting the shattered bones back together.
Before its arm had fully healed, the Dragonkin Soldier unfurled its wings and launched itself toward Astel.
Ice lightning coalesced in its hand, which it hurled at the cosmic creature.
By this point, Bai Shi had climbed onto the armrest of the throne-like structure, securing the best possible seat to watch the battle unfold, leaving the field to the two behemoths.
Ah, his favorite kind of show—a real-life monster battle!
And this was a grudge match: the Dragonkin Soldier versus Astel. Could the soldier truly achieve its revenge?
This trip was more than worth it!
The Astel in the sky was utterly oblivious to the history of hatred between it and the Dragonkin Soldier.
But when a creature bares its fangs, it must be answered.
Even in the vastness of space, the Astels were a race renowned for their savage brutality.
Facing the ice lightning hurled by the Dragonkin Soldier, Astel swept an arm forward, and a dark nebula instantly unfurled before it.
As the bolt of ice lightning struck the nebula, it triggered a violent explosion.
From within the blast of stardust, the raging Dragonkin Soldier burst through the aftershock, closing the distance to Astel in an instant.
Imbuing its hands with ice lightning, the Dragonkin Soldier seized Astel's colossal mandibles, sending frigid electricity coursing over them.
The biting cold of the lightning caused frost to creep across Astel's skull, rendering it increasingly brittle.
The Dragonkin Soldier intended to rip the mandibles right out of Astel's maw!
Astel's mandibles clamped down with all their might, resisting the soldier's pull, while its largest pair of arms joined the struggle.
A considerable gap in power existed between the Dragonkin Soldier and Astel.
But the Dragonkin Soldier's imnse strength, inherited from ancient dragons and trolls, now held Astel's mandibles in a death grip.
For a mont, Astel's vaunted mandibles were powerless against the Dragonkin Soldier.
But its mandibles were not its only weapon.
While fighting a contest of strength, a purple gravity beam was already gathering within Astel's mouth.
Before the beam could be fired, its long, massive tail was already striking, aiming for the Dragonkin Soldier's head.
Astel's tail, jointed like a string of stars, pierced through the air with terrifying force.
The Dragonkin Soldier twisted its head aside to dodge the lethal blow, but the horrific tail barb still tore through the armor on its shoulder.
The dense, sharp spines on the tail's tip pierced the Dragonkin Soldier's shoulder, shredding its dry, tough flesh to pieces.
Yet the Dragonkin Soldier completely ignored the pain, instead increasing the pressure of its grip.
Once it had a hold of its target, there was no letting go!
It could never forget the sight of Nokstella crumbling to ruin under Astel's teor shower.
It was supposed to protect everything in Nokstella, yet it had protected nothing.
In the end, all that remained was this final throne, a pile of corpses, and a dead city.
Now, the chance for revenge was right in front of it. It had to seize this once-in-a-lifeti opportunity!
As the gravity beam in Astel's mouth condensed with ever-greater intensity, the Dragonkin Soldier was the first to strike, unleashing a torrent of ice lightning breath.
The ice lightning surged toward Astel's head, completely engulfing its ghastly, skeletal face.
However, the long-charged gravity beam had reached its peak density. In an instant, it pierced through the ice lightning like a needle.
The gravity beam struck the Dragonkin Soldier, punching through its chest and burying itself deep into the cliff face behind it.
Countless cracks spread across the towering cliff, and the next mont, it collapsed with a trendous roar, sending huge waves through the pool below.
Taking the full force of this terrifying laser, the Dragonkin Soldier was grievously wounded.
But Astel's assault wasn't over. A continuous stream of gravity lasers shot from its mouth, piercing the Dragonkin Soldier's body again and again.
If not for its artificial nature, the Dragonkin Soldier would have been utterly incapable of fighting on.
Its chest and abdon were blasted to shreds by the lasers, and its hands no longer had the strength to contend with Astel's mandibles.
Freed from the soldier's grip, Astel's mandibles began their retaliation.
Astel's secondary limbs clamped down on the Dragonkin Soldier's right arm while its now-liberated main jaws tore at it madly, repeatedly piercing its limb.
The Dragonkin Soldier's right arm, already broken by Bai Shi, was now punctured several more tis, instantly turning it into a mangled pulp.
As if in deliberate provocation, Astel stuffed the Dragonkin Soldier's right arm into its maw and began to chew.
Despite its severe injuries, the Dragonkin Soldier kept beating its wings, hovering before Astel.
While Astel was busy tearing at its right arm, the Dragonkin Soldier's still-intact left arm shot forward, aiming for the deep, vacant eye socket atop the creature's bleached skull.
Astel was forced to stop, pulling its head back to dodge.
Seeing the Dragonkin Soldier's tenacity, Astel had no desire to continue the aerial dogfight. Its two pairs of smaller limbs began to coalesce a gravity field.
Gravitational ripples appeared beneath it, pulling the Dragonkin Soldier relentlessly toward the ground.
But just before it fell, the Dragonkin Soldier suddenly turned its head and clamped its jaws down hard on the tail barb still embedded in its shoulder.
The dense spines pierced its mouth, shredding its tongue like a sieve and pinning it to its lower jaw.
But such an injury was utterly insignificant.
Its double rows of teeth locked onto the tail, and the Dragonkin Soldier once again had a hold on Astel.
With no fear of Astel's tail escaping, the Dragonkin Soldier's jaws, ignoring the piercing spines, bit down slowly and deliberately, like a hydraulic press.
With the Dragonkin Soldier's motion, Astel's tail began to fracture, and fine cracks appeared along its star-like segnts.
Astel had rarely felt such pain in its existence. It couldn't help but thrash its tail wildly.
The Dragonkin Soldier's massive body was flung about by Astel's tail, whipped back and forth, occasionally slamming into the cliff walls and shattering the rock.
Yet no matter how much Astel thrashed, the agony from its tail did not lessen in the slightest.
On the contrary, the Dragonkin Soldier held on stubbornly, its grip relentless, and the pain only grew more distinct.
Unable to bear it any longer, Astel spun around and, with a final, mighty heave, flung the Dragonkin Soldier aside. At last, the Dragonkin Soldier was separated from it, sent crashing into the cliffside where it beca embedded.
Astel's tail had been completely severed, dripping a thick, resplendent fluid.
The unprecedented pain made it shriek.
The Dragonkin Soldier pushed itself up, climbing out from the mountain face. It, too, opened its great mouth, answering Astel's shriek with a roar of its own.
Inside its mouth, the shattered tail fragnts had fused with its mangled flesh, making its roar sound incredibly bizarre.
But to Astel, it was inexplicably terrifying.
An emotion Astel had never before experienced now arose, impossibly, in its heart.
It did not understand what this feeling was, but in the Lands Between, people called it—fear.
As an intelligent race, it possessed emotions to so degree.
Long, long ago, it seed to have encountered creatures like this before.
They had stood before the target cities, only to be annihilated under the teor showers.
Although the Dragonkin Soldier before it looked slightly different, there was no mistaking it. It was one of those weak creatures.
Yes, this creature was weak. It shouldn't be feeling this way toward it!
Upon realizing it felt this unknown emotion towards the weak creature before it, Astel was consud by fury.
Astel raised its arms, tilting its terrifying mandibles toward the heavens.
Purple gravitational magic instantly saturated the night sky. A vast, dark void distorted space, appearing above Astel's head.
Massive teors erged from the dark void, hurtling down towards the Dragonkin Soldier, which had fallen into the pool below.
Seeing the sa teors that had once destroyed Nokstella appear before it again, the Dragonkin Soldier completely lost control, descending into a total frenzy.
Ignoring the destructive power raining down, the Dragonkin Soldier scrambled on all fours, crawling rapidly toward the distant Astel.
Its speed continued to climb, its wings pushing it to the absolute limit of what it could achieve.
The Dragonkin Soldier opened its cavernous mouth and fearlessly charged Astel.
Heavy teors constantly crashed down upon the Dragonkin Soldier's body.
Its cape and armor, symbols of the Nox dynasty's honor and its status as a soldier, were the first things to be destroyed by the teors, just like the ruined Eternal City itself.
Next to be destroyed were the false, rock-like scales.
An imitation of ancient dragons, yet unable to possess their true immortality, destined only to perish in this aged, dragon-like form.
But even without these things, it was still a Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella!
As the last and strongest Dragonkin Soldier of Nokstella, it would rather die charging than ever retreat!
By the ti it broke through the teor storm and reached Astel, the Dragonkin Soldier was a mangled wreck.
But its charge had reached its destination, and that was enough.
The Dragonkin Soldier's head, modeled after the thickly scaled skulls of ancient dragons, had been smashed to a pulp by the teors.
Its heavy scales were gone, half its cranium was shattered, and its face was a bloody ruin.
Its already severely damaged body was now almost unrecognizable.
Despite its broken form, the Dragonkin Soldier slamd heavily into Astel's body.
Astel never imagined the Dragonkin Soldier could break through its teor storm.
While maintaining the spell, it was struck head-on by the soldier's charge.
Its trump card, the teor shower it had been sustaining, was interrupted. Worse still, the powerful impact had thrown it off balance.
After a mont of dizziness, the fallen Astel finally ca to its senses.
And then it discovered that it was pinned underneath the Dragonkin Soldier, the bases of its two pairs of gossar wings crushed in the soldier's left hand.
Astel sensed grave danger, but now, even teleportation could not guarantee a clean escape.
Deep gravitational energy instantly materialized in its multiple limbs, pressing down into the ground.
Dark waves spread through the pool, suppressing everything, including the Dragonkin Soldier.
The Dragonkin Soldier, pressing down on Astel, was crushed by the imnse gravity.
Its left hand clutched Astel's fragile wings and, with a great effort, twisted them downward.
All four wings snapped simultaneously, left to hang limply to one side.
Astel's mandibles clamped onto the Dragonkin Soldier's body, flinging it away.
Free from its grasp, Astel was instantly swallowed by a dark star cluster and vanished from the spot.
The next mont, it reappeared on the opposite side, a great distance away from the Dragonkin Soldier.
The Dragonkin Soldier was left behind, pinned to the ground by the crushing gravity, able only to watch as Astel began to charge another gravity beam in its mouth.
It roared, it bellowed, desperate to rise again.
Unfortunately, determination alone could not overco such a vast difference in power.
The Dragonkin Soldier had reached its limit; it had no strength left to resist such overwhelming gravity.
An ordinary Dragonkin Soldier possessed power that was rely above average among heroes.
This one was different, far stronger than its kin, on par with a top-tier hero.
But its opponent, Astel, was a cosmic being capable of destroying an Eternal City—a being of true demigod strength.
To fight so far above its class and achieve such results, this Dragonkin Soldier was a true warrior.
Honestly, its performance had been outstanding. Unfortunately, it still wasn't quite enough.
Bai Shi looked up at the false night sky above Nokstella and shook the Spirit Calling Bell in his hand.
"Now it is."
A mont ago, the Spirit Calling Bell on Bai Shi's person had rung on its own. Spirits were calling out to him.
The two Dragonkin Soldier ashes he had obtained, the maid and the crippled, were roaring silently, conveying their desperate desire to return to the world of the living.
They, too, craved vengeance.
So, Bai Shi gave them the chance to achieve it.
Two consecutive roars echoed through the night sky.
A Dragonkin Soldier, shimring with spiritual light, beat its wings and dove, crashing heavily into Astel.
Without its gossar wings, Astel was unable to dodge. The laser from its mouth shot wide, striking the city of Nokstella on the cliff above and completely destroying another towering structure.
The other Dragonkin Soldier's spirit summoned ice lightning, which spread across the pool, encasing Astel's entire body.
Astel suffered one heavy blow after another, its condition rapidly deteriorating.
Why? Why were there suddenly two more?!
These two Dragonkin Soldier ashes had been specially enhanced in the spirit world. Their current strength had surpassed what they possessed in life, reaching the level of top-tier heroes.
Because of this, the two Dragonkin Soldiers were more than strong enough to join the fray.
Working in concert, the two functionally incomplete soldiers relentlessly assaulted Astel, and for a mont, they had it completely suppressed.
Freed from the gravitational restraints, the strongest Dragonkin Soldier desperately charged toward Astel.
It sank its teeth into Astel's slender neck, venting all the pent-up fury of Nokstella in the most primitive way imaginable.
The other two Dragonkin Soldier spirits sward in, tearing and biting with savage frenzy.
The Dragonkin Soldiers' great jaws snapped Astel's spine and tore off its head.
Astel, the destroyer of the Eternal City, finally t its end at the hands of Nokstella's Dragonkin Soldiers.
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