Hearing Edith's mockery, Ethan's rage burned hotter than ever.
Yet, this fury was not directed at Edith.
After all, they were enemies by nature; a life-or-death struggle between them was only to be expected.
But at this point, Edith was on the verge of breaking, and there seemed to be a chance for everyone to survive.
And now...
Ethan felt his life force waning, his consciousness growing blurry.
With a resentful roar, he mustered the last of his strength and fired a Holy Light orb at Luke, the one who had unleashed the space blade.
"No!" Luke cried out in despair.
In that moment, Luke regretted his actions—not the sneak attack on Ethan, but rather his underestimation of Ethan's strength.
The space blade had only managed to partially sever Ethan's dragon form, still leaving him with the power to retaliate.
The Holy Light orb struck, reducing Luke to nothing but a bloody mist.
Ethan too could no longer maintain his form, and his massive Golden Divine Dragon body began to plummet from the sky.
"Is this the end?"
On the brink of unconsciousness, Ethan couldn't help but ask himself that question.
And in those final lucid moments, he saw a swirling vortex-like portal appear in the sky, out of which stepped a resplendently dressed woman.
Draped in silk and holding a crystal ball in her hands, she looked at Ethan, appraising him for a few moments before finally speaking.
"At this moment, I acknowledge that you've earned my regard—but that is all."
"Also, thank you for your assistance," Ethan murmured, bewildered, before his body hit the ground with a resounding thud, plunging him into unconsciousness.
Not far away, Alaric was overcome with excitement.
He rushed toward the mysterious woman who had appeared, falling to his knees in fervent worship.
"Princess Lana, you've finally come! I thought I would never see you again!"
The woman was none other than Lana Mokos, a royal of the Azure Empire.
However, upon hearing Alaric's impassioned words, Lana looked on with palpable disdain. "Alaric, do you think I am unaware of the slurs you just uttered?"
Alaric broke into a cold sweat at Lana's questioning and hurriedly tried to explain himself. "Your Highness, those words were thoughtless, spoken only out of fear."
"Fear? To me, you're nothing more than an incompetent fool!"
Lana cut him off, giving him no chance to further plead his case.
With a swift flick of her wrist, she sent a Wind Blade that decapitated Alaric instantly. Her face remained emotionless, cold as ice.
Eluna, Sherry, and Pale Wolf, who were still present, looked on in utter astonishment, their faces a mixture of emotions as they regarded Lana Mokos with a heightened sense of wariness.
"No need to be alarmed; I have no intentions of harming you," Lana noted, picking up on the caution radiating from Eluna and the others.
Yet they remained uneasy. This was, after all, a woman who had effortlessly killed Alaric without so much as blinking—an Alaric who seemed to be her own subordinate. Such a cold-blooded person couldn't easily be trusted.
Lana seemed unconcerned by their skepticism. "You should count yourselves fortunate to have someone like Ethan protecting you. Without him, given your meager abilities, you would've been dead many times over by now."
"Here."
Lana Mokos took out two vials of green elixir and tossed them to Eluna, adding, "This healing potion is an elven creation. While it may not completely restore Ethan and that girl to full health, it will at least keep them alive. In exchange, ownership of this beast now belongs to me."
"Also, if Ethan is lucky enough to awaken, make sure to relay my message: the weak should know their place. The heart of Oksd is a deity's artifact. Such a magnificent creation is not for someone as insignificant as a Dark Lord to covet."
Eluna's expression was a complex one, but she accepted the vials nonetheless.
With Ethan and Mia lying injured and unconscious, it was the perfect moment for such an elixir.
Without further words exchanged with Lana, Eluna, Sherry, and the others rushed over to Ethan and Mia, administering the healing potions.
Ethan, now returned to his human form, bore a narrow, deep wound across his chest, almost piercing through to his back.
The smooth cut seemed as if it had been made by the finest of blades, splitting the flesh in an almost unnaturally clean line.
For a mere mortal, such injuries would be fatal.
Yet within Ethan, remnants of the Blood Source still lingered, along with the self-regenerating Holy Light—Language of Nature.
His wound glowed softly with a golden light, as if slowly mending itself from within.
The timeframe for a full recovery, however, remained a mystery.
As the healing potion flowed into him, a green glow emerged around Ethan's body.
Eluna offered silent prayers, but as Lana had warned, the potion only preserved their lives.
The green glow quickly faded, and Ethan's wounds remained much the same.
Mia, in comparison, was far less gravely injured.
Mia had only been pierced through the lower abdomen by a tentacle, fortunately missing any vital organs.
Her unconscious state was due to extreme pain rather than life-threatening injury.
So, when the healing potion was administered, she slowly opened her eyes.
"Lord Ethan!"
Upon waking, Mia rushed over to Ethan, completely disregarding her own unhealed wounds.
When she learned from Eluna that Ethan was no longer in mortal danger, she exhaled in relief and promptly fainted again.
While everyone was attending to Ethan and Mia, Komait staggered over, humor lacing his words.
"That was definitely my most disadvantageous battle yet. A devil must have taken control of my mind for me to challenge such a monster! Now, I'm going to end up a crippled dragon."
Komait's words lightened the mood significantly.
Eluna, Sherry, and Pale Wolf helped the unconscious Ethan and Mia to their feet, readying to leave.
Before departing, Komait surveyed the surroundings and picked up a parchment of animal skin and a few other items that looked valuable from beside Luke's corpse.
"That wench took Oksd's heart; I can't go home empty-handed. That'd be a disgrace to dragonkind," he explained.
Among the items Komait picked up was a worn little wooden box.
This was what Ethan had excavated from the giant octopus.
Inside had been a diary that recorded the creation of Oksd's ancient kingdom, which Ethan had stored in his Space Ring.
The box itself couldn't be stored in the Space Ring, but Ethan hadn't discarded it, considering its non-storability to be special in its own right.
And so, the expedition to the Red Jade Valley came to a rather hasty conclusion.
Almost everyone was a loser, with a single winner emerging: Lana Mokos, who was now sizing up Edith.
"Arrogant woman, do you think you're a match for me?"
Edith was infuriated.
Just when she thought she could exterminate all who had dared to offend her, this woman appeared out of nowhere to thwart her plans.
Worse, while talking to the others, Lana treated her as though she were a mere commodity to be bartered. Edith felt humiliated.
But Lana's arrogance exceeded even her wildest imaginings.
"An opponent?"
"I believe I am."
"No, to be more precise, you've never been one in my eyes. Even at your peak, I had the means to kill you—though it would have been costly for me. But now that you've been gravely injured by that dragon, you are unworthy to be my opponent."
Arrogant Lana may have been, but she had the credentials to back it up.
As she finished speaking, a powerful energy emanated from her.
Wild winds swirled around her, even the clouds in the sky seemed disturbed, and dust billowed from the ground.
Edith felt the pressure—pressure that was not inferior to that of a rampaging Ethan.
"Arrogant woman, you will pay for your hubris!"
Edith roared, but in the next moment, she was speeding away in the opposite direction. She wanted to flee; she wanted to live.
"Think you can escape?"
Lana delicately covered her mouth with her hand, a slight smile on her face.
The crystal orb appeared in her hand once more.
Conjuring another vortex portal, she instantly materialized in front of Edith's escape route.
Seeing this, Edith felt terror and sensed the looming shadow of death.
"Stop struggling! I, Lana Mokos, never do anything without assurance. The moment you laid eyes on me, you should have started planning your own funeral."
Lana spoke coldly, "You're done running?"
Edith, giving up the attempt to flee, snarled back, "You're unworthy of claiming my master's heart!"
Launching her assault first, Edith hurled dozens of tentacle-like whips at Lana, only to have them severed by Wind Blades that Lana had preemptively summoned around her.
Then, a transparent Wind Blade cleaved directly through Edith's body.
Split in two, Edith's life force rapidly diminished.
Yet facing her impending demise, Edith suddenly wore an inexplicable smile.
She looked at Lana and sneered, "Arrogant woman, the day will come when you'll pay for your hubris!"
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶