No sooner had Amon finished speaking than the mind dragon straightened atop the colossal stone pillar.
Its abyssal-black pupils pierced through the layers of illusory doors, sweeping across both him and Edward. The instant their gazes t, both felt their spirits lurch, their thoughts unravelling into chaotic disarray. Signs of imminent loss of control crackled through their minds.
Low, overlapping murmurs rose within their consciousness—high, low, indistinct—each whisper carving out a new, alien persona inside them, as if they were splitting into fractured selves:
"I'm only a re Sequence 4—how could I dare fight the Dragon of Imagination?"
"It isn't that I want to fight, but if I don't resist, I'll die!"
"I can't win—not a chance. I should flee, quickly!"
"I must be insane, cooperating with Amon. He must have dug a pit for long ago."
"Why am I risking my life here? I could leave this place right now."
"No! If I run, my advancent ritual will be ruined."
"Which matters more—advancent or survival?"
"Both!"
A torrent of contradictory thoughts surged ceaselessly, dragging Edward into a state of dull stupor.
Even the act of siphoning corruption from Amon slowed to a crawl…until it stopped altogether.
The first to suffer from his stagnation was Amon. In just over ten seconds, the endless tide of black liquid he had been absorbing clung to the vast phantom stone clock behind him like maggots burrowing into bone. Even that "dead object" sprouted countless eyes. And then, so too did Amon's own body rapidly begin mutating.
As for the ntal Plague unleashed by the dragon, Amon himself was not so greatly affected—after all, he had long since split into hundreds, even thousands of avatars, each with different tasks, different thoughts, and different personalities.
"Heh. And still you refuse to return to the Sefirah Castle?"
The corners of Amon's lips curled upward in amusent. "Guarding against ? Or is this rely a suggestion planted in your heart?"
With the thought, he reached toward Edward and snatched away the tangle of chaotic thoughts the plague had spawned within him, then barked,
"Don't just stand there!"
Edward's mind snapped clear in an instant. His understanding of the Spectator Pathway deepened yet again—
Such attacks, aid purely at the level of consciousness, could strike even through layers upon layers of phantasmal doors. Unaware, he had still been caught. Hastily, he used several Placates he had recorded upon himself, calming the turbulence of his psyche. Only then did he resu stealing away the corruption from Amon.
When he turned back toward the mind dragon, however, it had already vanished without a trace—together with the endless flow of darkness.
This was psychological invisibility.
Lightning flashed within Edward's eyes. Thunder roared in his veins. At his will—
Rumble!
Bolts of lightning cascaded down from the heavens. The vast Hall of Truth was blanketed in serpents of silver–white electricity, arcs leaping and writhing, their aura of destruction leaving not a single corner untouched.
In monts, the gray–white mind dragon was revealed once more. Its stone–like scales crackled with darting sparks, fissures splitting open to expose crimson flesh beneath.
A low, guttural growl rumbled out. But this ti, the sound was laced with two voices—Ariehogg's…and another, alien one.
Its abyssal eyes, laced with blue fissures, burned with madness and hatred as they locked onto Edward.
Edward's body went rigid. Then, without hesitation, he flung a thunderbolt spear—speed not toward the dragon, but straight at Amon.
That bastard…is it deliberately succumbing to battle-hypnosis, coming straight for without hesitation?!
Amon muttered under his breath. With a casual gesture, he stole the thunderbolt spear and hurled it back at the mind dragon instead. He was just about to speak when a sudden brilliance flashed in his eyes.
A few seconds later—
The corners of Amon's mouth rose again. His hand clawed through the air once more, successfully stealing away several of its extraordinary abilities. Imdiately after, he reached for Steph, yanking him out of the psychic maze.
Steph's gaze cleared from dazed sorrow back into impassive calm. With a forceful step, he surged forward, chanting swiftly:
"I am the Servant beside the Throne of the Lord, the Angel of the Holy Words—Steph. I walk this land in His na."
"Ankewelt—fallen hound of yore—accept the punishnt of my Lord. Die!"
As the final two words were spoken, His aura surged to its peak, while simultaneously seizing upon the "Punishnt" He had just uttered. The depraved power upon the Blade of Spirit and Flesh abruptly turned sacred, savagely piercing through the thick, ashen scales of the dragon and cutting into the flesh of its neck.
The mind dragon let out a mournful wail. Twisting its head, it clamped down viciously on Steph, its sharp teeth easily crunching through the black armour before snapping him cleanly in half with a resounding crack.
Boom!
Almost at the sa ti, Steph's bisected body exploded outward, bursting into a mass of flesh and blood. So surged down the dragon's throat and invaded its body, so sared themselves within its jaws, so clung parasitically to its torso, and so splattered across the walls and floor of the Hall of Truth.
Yet every single fragnt of flesh writhed instinctively—squirming into the mind dragon's body, burrowing into its flesh, crawling like a swarm of parasites.
The colossal dragon of the mind imdiately convulsed in agony, writhing uncontrollably.
At this mont, Edward also succeeded in breaking free from the effects of the battle hypnosis with the help of [Unfettered]. The ancient gears within his eyes began to slowly turn. With the amplification of [Magnify], torrents of spirituality surged forth as he unleashed [Regression] upon the mind dragon.
But unlike the imdiate, decisive effect from his previous attempts, this ti Edward felt as though his opponent were so ancient, decrepit machine—rusted through, corroded, its gears and bearings long since jamd together, utterly immovable.
In his ears faintly echoed the harsh creaking of strained tal. Forced to push onward, he poured more spirituality in, violently wrenching those decayed gears into motion, dragging along shattered bearings piece by piece.
His gaze seed to pierce through the dragon's greyish scales, glimpsing the blood and bone within its body—the surging streams in its vessels, the heart thudding sluggishly, the countless cells blackened by the taint of pitch-dark liquid.
The next second—
Rumble!
The gears turned at last, driving the bearings, linking the chains, forcing the "machine" to move—only in reverse.
In an instant, the dragon's aura plumted, weakening at a staggering pace: from Sequence 2 down to Sequence 3, and from Sequence 3 again down to Sequence 4, still in decline.
This was abnormal!
Edward was shaken to the core. When facing Zaratul, he had also managed to force a Regression, but it had rely dropped him to Sequence 3, and only for two or three fleeting seconds.
Yet now, this mind dragon—tainted by a high-order corruption, infused with the persona of the Dragon of Imagination—was collapsing like floodwaters breaching a dam, tumbling down two full sequences in succession?
Could this be the blessing of luck from Little Snake taking effect?
No ti to dwell on it. Edward once more summoned forth a lightning storm and flicked his wand, unleashing streaks of erald Avada Kedavra curses.
Scales shattered and scattered, blood sprayed in torrents, destructive lightning crackled through its flesh, spreading across its body, while the green Killing Curses gnawed savagely at its very soul.
The mind dragon thrashed in tornt, its pupils shifting between pale gold and abyssal black, its body flickering between transparency and illusion.
Just as Edward thought it was about to perish, the effect of Regression abruptly vanished. The dragon surged back from the brink of Sequence 5, regaining the power of a Sequence 2 angel in the blink of an eye.
Its state instantly stabilised. With a mighty breath, it spewed both dragonfire and writhing flesh toward Amon and Edward, corroding one phantom Gate after another while spreading its wings to soar aloft. Its form split into countless phantom dragons, rushing toward the two—then vanished without a trace.
Edward's heart clenched. It was diving into the deeper layers of the sea of collective subconscious to assault his mind directly—this was the true domain of the Spectator pathway, the most terrifying battleground of all!
Throughout the earlier battle, the mind dragon had never attempted such a move. Edward had assud perhaps Ariehogg's interference prevented it from doing so.
Now, within the hidden world of the mind, the jet-black dragon soared among islands of consciousness, searching frantically for the one that truly belonged to Edward.
It unleashed dragonfire, blasted out shockwaves, whipping the sea of collective subconscious into a tempestuous storm of psychic terror, again and again hamring against Edward's island of consciousness.
In the instant a crack appeared in Edward's defences, it beat its wings and dove, invading his ntal body.
But at that precise mont, boundless gray-white mist poured forth, and the sea of collective subconscious and islands vanished. One after another, ancient stone pillars sprouted around them, and blossoms of brilliant hues burst into bloom. In the blink of an eye, the place transford into a garden wreathed in fog.
At its heart stood a bronze round table with thirteen bronze chairs. Upon the highback chair sat a faceless figure who gazed calmly at the mind dragon.
Edward was panicking inside, but still forced himself to feign composure:
"Welco to my domain."
The Mind Dragon's black eyes writhed with madness. Veins of blue fire cracked through them, spilling devouring brilliance. Its jaws parted, and it spoke—not with Ariehogg's voice, nor Ankewelt's, but sothing far older, far stranger:
"Celestial Worthy!"
—Holy shit. That voice…could it be THE "God"?
In the Hall of Truth, the personality sealed behind the throne by the Dragon of Imagination seed to be influenced by the Chaos Sea. And since the Chaos Sea had been split apart from the fall of the previous God Almighty, it inevitably retained fragnts of His consciousness.
In other words, the personality of the Dragon of Imagination might not rely have been polluted by the Chaos Sea—it could very well be that the consciousness of God Almighty Himself was reviving within it. That was why this fragnt had split off and was sealed behind the throne of the City of Miracles.
Thinking further, it seed this move had originally been Ankewelt's attempt to preserve himself, like a lizard abandoning its tail. But when he was slain by the Ancient Sun God, madness, fear of death, or the corruption's influence drove him to twist this severed "tail" into a contingency for resurrection.
In that case—if the Dragon of Imagination truly resurrected through this contingency…wouldn't that also an the resurrection of God Almighty?
———
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