Chapter 781: Chapter 781: Cassian Vs Kain (6)
Vauleth dove with terrifying speed, his massive body coiled in fury, molten light flickering across his scales. The Solar Dragon barely had ti to raise its head before a new roar—deeper, heavier, and sohow layered—tore through the battlefield.
It wasn’t just a Red Dragon’s cry anymore.
The sound was jagged, discordant. It was like two dragons screaming in unison. One piercing and blazing, the other guttural and thunderous.
Kain’s eyes widened.
A stream of breath poured from Vauleth’s mouth—not the blazing inferno of a Red Dragon nor the seething acid of a Black Dragon. It was both.
A hybrid.
The hybrid flas were an unholy blend of blazing red-orange flas threaded with veins of sickly green and oily black tendrils
But this hybrid fla didn’t dampen the effects of either dragon’s breath. No. It strengthened the individual attributes of each fla.
The fire burned hotter, and beneath it ca an oily trail of corrosive mist, eating through the air with a hissing shriek. The breath seared and lted, radiating both heat and corrosion.
The Solar Dragon flared its wings and tried to leap aside, but the torrent was too wide. It struck hard against its torso, fla clinging like tar, acid burning through scales and flesh
A blinding explosion of green-black steam followed.
The Solar Dragon scread.
Its scales curled like scorched paper. The domain flickered violently, unable to protect its master from a breath that bypassed its natural resistances.
It tried to stay upright. Failed. Then scrambled back, lurching across the sky.
And just as Vauleth surged in for the kill—
The Coronaflow Dragon chasing Kain slamd into him from the side, knocking him off guard but not causing any injuries. With Vauleth knocked back, the Coronaflow began dragging the Solar Dragon away with a stream of misty water-light in its wake. It wrapped both of them in a soft veil and vanished into the edges of the battlefield, using its unique optical distortions to conceal the retreat.
Kain blinked.
Then breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing that the deadly predator that had been stalking him since the match began had left him alone.
Finally.
But he had no ti to relax.
Across the arena, sothing was happening.
The plant-light fusion dragon was still convulsing, and the convulsions were only getting stronger.
Its bark-like body—still twitching and unstable after Aegis had purged it with Abyssal energy—shuddered, split, then cracked open from chest to tail.
A massive limb of living wood unfurled.
Then another.
Vines snapped taut and pulled back the broken shell like a rotting husk.
Rising from the remnants stood a creature what appeared to be a new dragon made completely of wood.
It was like a Russian Matryoshka doll—if the doll were made of flesh and blood and tore itself open from the inside out. The outer shell, once the light-wood dragon, split down the middle with a wet, cracking sound. Instead of a smaller, gentler version nestled within, what erged was sothing older and more terrifying. A second dragon, this one ford entirely of living wood.
Its ergence resembled a grotesque birthing—a mature predator peeling out of a shell it had long outgrown. Each segnt of bark peeled back like armored plates, revealing more of the creature’s colossal form within, layer by horrifying layer.
Considering that this newly appearing dragon was much larger than the body it erged from, one had to wonder how it even fit inside…
Its eyes glowed green with no pupils.
Its body was a collection of bark and roots in dragon form, standing almost twice the size of the original dragon— the pressure it emitted was imnse.
It didn’t breathe. It didn’t snarl. It simply turned and backhanded Aegis across the field.
The impact sent the stone giant tumbling end-over-end before he crashed onto the arena floor. Dust and stone exploded outward. For a long second, Aegis didn’t move.
The Vespid Guards reacted instantly.
They abandoned the Ethereal Dragon, darting in tight formation toward the wooden behemoth. Their wings created a furious buzz, stingers ready, coordination perfect.
They struck.
And did nothing.
The Vespids’ stingers bounced harmlessly off the Verdara Dragon’s bark-like scales. Even the venom in the stingers failed to penetrate.
With a lazy motion, the dragon swept its arm through the air.
Three guards were split in half mid-flight.
The others scattered.
Queen let out a shrill cry and dove to catch the nearest falling guard, green light spilling from her wings as she tried to stabilize them.
She only managed to save one.
Kain’s jaw tightened.
Vauleth, still in the air, saw it all.
He didn’t hesitate.
A second hybrid breath burst from his mouth, aid directly at the Wooden Dragon. The searing fire-corrosion struck true, burning and lting a layer of bark, but the creature simply turned its head and stared at him, unflinching.
It was injured, yes.
But not enough.
Not nearly enough.
Kain clenched his fists.
His eyes darted across the field.
The Solar Dragon had been removed. One threat out of the way. The Ethereal Dragon remained, as did the Coronaflow and Cassian’s ntal dragons—but this thing, this wooden dragon, was now their biggest problem.
He tried to make sense of it.
Is this still Cassian’s light dragon?
The feedback from Chewy and Bea when reading its energy and ntal signatures was confusing. Sohow it was…yet wasn’t?
Especially Bea’s investigations seed to suggest that there were two distinct ntal signatures, and after the abyssal injection from Aegis, one was now much stronger than the other. It was like an opportunistic parasite that had finally found an opportunity to gain control.
Kain had no idea what kind of dragon this was. Or if it even was a dragon at all…
The audience had no idea. Even the announcers were lost for words. But Cassian knew.
The mont it erged, a flicker of recognition had passed through his eyes. His other dragons shifted uneasily, their soul-bonded instincts sensing sothing unnatural. Cassian didn’t speak. Didn’t move. But his jaw was tight. His knuckles white.
Because he knew this creature. And he had no control over it.
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