When night fell, the wind and snow actually eased.
Looking south from above, the orc encampment’s bonfires flickered beneath the blood moon, countless and dense, stretching all the way into the shadowed depths of the Redridge cliff face. Turning back north, Nausil’s silver-white formations pressed forward, cold and silent.
The red-iron dragon withdrew his radiance, circling down to settle on a low ridge.
At the same time, a tall figure climbed the snowy slope toward the ridge, walking into the moonlight, approaching him.
Her footsteps were light; the snow rose over her boots yet made no sound.
The red-iron dragon narrowed his gaze and lowered his head to look.
A young-looking female elf was reflected in his sight.
She was statuesque and lean, draped in a moon-white floor-length robe embroidered with silver threads depicting the cycle of lunar phases—new moon, waxing, full, waning—luxurious but restrained.
Her long hair was gold, unadorned, falling naturally down her back.
Her face was exquisitely beautiful, high cheekbones without harshness, a soft jawline that still held sharpness. The most arresting features were her eyes: pale silver irises like two miniature full moons, reflecting the raging snow and the blood moon.
Issezeia.
Queen of the Nausil Empire.
She walked up before the great dragon, tilting her chin slightly. The massive silhouette of the dark dragon was mirrored in her pupils.
“Scarlet Emperor Cangxing, Garoth Ignas.”
She spoke, her voice clear despite the wind and snow: “When your flames burned across the wilderness, I saw it from the top of the Moon Tower. It was like the forge of the gods overturned over the earth—impossible to look away from.”
She paused, her pale silver eyes showing appreciation.
“I have heard many tales of you.”
“That you rose from ash as an emperor, that your talons rend the storm, that you are wild flame beyond the bonds of fate. Seeing you today… those tales seem to have still underestimated you.”
The elf’s praise was, as always, elegantly delivered.
The red-iron dragon inclined his head slightly. Warm breath from his muzzle condensed into white mist in the snow curtain.
“Voice of the Moon’s Bath, emissary of the Elves’ Moon.”
His voice was low: “Your Majesty’s name has traveled far, even to Atlan. To see you in person is more impressive than rumor—like a bright moon, like a mountain spring.”
When Garoth spoke, he matched the elves’ fondness for metaphor and imagery.
In truth he knew the queen before him was not an Immortal, not even a Mandate; she was a Crowned Legendary, and comparatively young among her peers.
But that did not matter.
The emperor of the Halden Empire was not an Immortal either.
Outside of a few emperors, leaders are monuments and guardians while kings are symbols of rule; both follow different paths.
The elven king—her counterpart—lifted the corner of his mouth in acknowledgment at the return compliment and continued: “You braved the snow tonight to see in person the Aola emperor who shattered the Bloodskull host with a single dragon.”
“Your campaign record has already spread through every military council of Nausil.”
Garoth gave a slight nod. “I am pleased to receive Nausil’s attention.”
He paused, then shifted his tone. “However… Her Majesty personally leading troops into battle—has this war reached the point that the empire’s sovereign must set foot on the front line?”
Issezeia shook her head gently, her hair fluttering.
“My soldiers bleed at the front. If I remained safe in the Moon Tower, I would not deserve to be their queen.”
She tilted her head toward the Kantum encampment. “What I can do is pass by every formation before battle, so Nausil’s warriors know their queen has not hidden behind a shield wall; she will face the storm with them.”
Then she returned her gaze.
“It bolsters morale.”
“As for the outcome of the war… that is not for me alone to decide.”
The great dragon nodded.
“Yes.”
“The outcome depends mainly on the duel between Saint-level beings and Immortals. Beyond that lie higher variables.”
He paused, dark red veins of light flickering between the plates of his scales.
“But saints have their support.”
“The brave beast worshipped by Kantum may well turn its gaze this way. I wonder if Nausil’s Immortals have such backing as well?”
Garoth asked bluntly.
He knew in his core that elven gods were never gentle forces. Tradition told that the father-god of Kantum’s brave beast once hated the Asura and never slept, a one-eyed war god whose one eye had been gouged in a divine war by Nausil’s chief god.
The elven queen fell silent for a few breaths.
A faint light shimmered in her pale silver eyes, then she shook her head.
“No.”
“Nausil reveres the gods but does not worship them. We praise the moon’s radiance, but we do not kneel.”
“Elven life is long—like dragons, long enough to see the true relationship between gods and us. So we do not beg for divine pity, nor rely on divine gifts.”
She lifted her chin slightly. “Or rather, any true empire of the Material Plane would not choose to believe in gods.”
“That is the pride of an empire.”
Material Plane empires…
The red-iron dragon considered this.
When he had been in the Serene Spirit Wilderness, he had conversed with a Legendary spellcaster from another Material Plane and learned of an empire called Nethseryl that exalted spellcasters. Talent in magical arts placed you above others there; lack of talent made you lesser. They revered a goddess of magic but did not worship her. That resembled Nausil.
Halden was similar: they revered the Dawn Lord and even had a state faith, yet the upper echelons lacked true devotion to gods.
As for Kantum… it was not truly an empire by nature. It was a giant whose flesh and blood were faith: the brave beast is its soul, saints are its bones, legions its claws and fangs. Plainly, it was a confederation of tribes bound by faith, held together by divine authority rather than kingly rule or order.
“I also revere the dragon gods,” the red-iron dragon said softly. “In that respect, we share some common ground.”
The elven queen inclined her head slightly and left the topic.
Her radiance lingered on the dragon’s dark scales for a moment, then she bowed slightly.
“My visit today is twofold: one, to pay respect; two, selfishly, to see the bearing of Scarlet Emperor Cangxing with my own eyes. Now I have.”
She straightened; the moon-phase embroidery on her robe caught the light.
“I look forward to your next stage, to the epics you will write and scenes more unforgettable than those before. Farewell.”
She turned and walked down the snowy slope.
Her steps were still light, leaving faint prints that the newly fallen snow soon filled.
Garoth watched the queen’s silhouette vanish into the storm.
After withdrawing his radiance, the great dragon lowered himself on the ridge, letting snowflakes pile across his scales, cloaking him in silver—this time the flakes did not melt.
The red-iron dragon closed his eyes and quietly felt the fierce, burning energy inside him.
His mastery over this force had matured; he could control heat leakage well enough that it no longer disturbed the surroundings.
In the blink of an eye, ten days passed.
The wind and snow intensified.
At the same time, the blood moon hung full in the sky.
Its light was viscous as if liquid, pouring over the land, cutting through the veil of snow to bathe sky and earth in a heavy, dark crimson.
Nausil’s legions completed their final formations this night.
The silver-white array was no longer a single line.
It lay like an ocean, stretching from northern low hills to the southern plain’s border; each phalanx was a silver surge frozen at the moment before it crashed.
Elven warriors wore solemn faces; countless pupils reflected toward the same point.
The army was austere, legendaries stood thickly among them.
High above each phalanx hovered Nausil’s Mandate beings.
Among them was a familiar figure to Garoth: the Solar Grand Knight Thalamond.
His greatsword was drawn, its blade flickering with light, burning into a harsh gold-white beneath the blood moon. Beside him was Aelarian, Moon’s Lament slung across her back, eyes sharp as lightning.
Other Mandate beings from different fronts had gathered too.
Counting Thalamond and Aelarian, there were six in total.
The red-iron dragon circled the sky on the other side, sweeping his gaze across Nausil’s six Mandates, memorizing their faces.
Several Mandates also fixed their gaze on him.
Night deepened.
The wind and snow sharpened.
Not like falling feathers, but like dense bone-dust grains whipped by the wind, they rattled against armor with a sibilant rustle.
The atmosphere of killing hardened like tangible matter, pressing down on every patch of snow.
The red-iron dragon lifted his massive head.
Far above, two presences blazed like the sun.
Even through the storm and darkness, the oppressive aura could be felt—waves of menace that made even legendary life recoil.
They were Immortals.
The dark-armored great dragons concentrating there looked intently but could not make them out clearly.
Those two figures were blocked by concentric radiating halos; only two humanoid silhouettes could be faintly seen, standing silently within.
At that moment, a tall figure stepped out of the moonlight before Nausil’s vanguard.
The elven queen, Issezeia.
She had exchanged the floor-length robe for silver-white light armor embossed with laurel branches and stars. Her golden hair was bound in a high ponytail; a slender sword hung in a scabbard at her hip.
She did not fly up but stood at the very front of the formation.
Behind her: six Mandates; behind them, rank after rank of legendaries; behind them, an endless silver sea.
Issezeia’s gaze swept each formation from east to west, from first row to last; under the queen’s scrutiny, the soldiers instinctively straightened.
She lifted her chin and parted her lips.
“Children of the silver-white.”
“You stand tonight not because I summoned you, nor because imperial decree conscripted you, but because behind you are forests, cities, mothers and children, and the land you have watered with blood and sweat.”
She paused, scanning the young faces.
“The orcs of Kantum think we will retreat, think we fear sacrifice.”
“They forget that every inch of Nausil’s soil flows with the blood of kin. They forget that Nausil’s moon was never won by kneeling prayers. It was earned standing—by spear, by bowstring, by bone and blood—inch by inch written into the sky.”
Her voice rose with each sentence, then fell calm again.
“If we fall here today, it is not an end but an early passage to a quiet place to wait, to sleep peacefully until the empire needs us once more.”
“So do not fear. Remember why you stand.”
“In Nausil’s name, in the name of all who cannot see this day—advance! Where the moonlight falls, there is Nausil.”
Then the silver sea began to move south.
Boots shattered the packed snow, heavy thuds mixing with the wind and carrying far.
The red-iron dragon watched the moving army from above.
He sensed that these elves possessed a resolve to win.
Not simply high morale, but the knowledge that death might not be final.
Nausil possessed a sanctum called the Moon Pool, similar to Aola’s Sanctuary, which could nurture the souls of the fallen and revive them—effects even stronger than the Holy Star in some ways. Costs and limits existed, but the Moon Pool gave these elven warriors one less fear when fighting.
Meanwhile the elven queen flew back to the front of the array, standing beside the Mandates.
Her strength was clearly insufficient to fight at Mandate level, yet she placed herself here.
The blood moon rose toward the zenith.
After a while, at the moonlight’s richest moment, Nausil’s host set foot on the southern plain.
Across the wide expanse, the orc army surged from the dark—olive-green waves and banners appeared as a black, sullen mass under the blood moon.
Their roars rode the wind—coarse, chaotic, primitive ferocity.
War drums pounded like distant thunder, shaking the snow.
Then countless orcs lifted rough axes and heavy maces and charged like a dam-burst torrent against Nausil’s silver line.
The first thing to greet them was dragon flame raining from the sky.
Garoth, cloaked in dark scales and three-headed, was terrifying in stature.
Seething inferno poured from the wide muzzles between each head in endless cascades, sweeping toward the Kantum legion and igniting the sky.
Faced with this heavenly fire, the orc legions kept coming.
They did not retreat.
They chanted prayers, voices combining into a deep, humming drone.
Faith, morale, and will—converged into an unprecedentedly potent formation that withstood the dragon’s breath.
The wards shimmered and warped under the blaze but did not shatter.
Orcs pressed on under the dragon breath.
At the same time, Nausil’s ranged barrages began to fall.
Countless arrows and spells streaked like meteors, slicing the wind and slamming into the Kantum lines.
Totem poles embedded in the host trembled but did not break.
This Kantum host was vast; their formation strength exceeded previous encounters and seemed infused with foreign elements. Under relentless bombardment, the wards dented and dimmed but did not collapse.
Orcs roared and charged faster; their banners snapped taut in the gale.
On the other side, Nausil’s line halted abruptly.
Warriors surged with vigor, silver light flaring on their bodies, strengthened by allied formations.
Frontline elven spearmen angled moonmarked lances toward the south, spear shafts braced against the earth, forming a bristling hedgerow of steel. Under the blood moon, the silver spearheads formed a glittering wave.
Then the olive tide struck.
Boom.
Like surf smashing into reef.
The first rank surged too fast and were impaled through the chest; blood flowed down the spear shafts, staining spearmen’s gauntlets red. Orcs behind trampled over fallen bodies to push forward, using sheer mass and brute force to bend the pike line.
Crack, crack.
Some shafts snapped from the weight.
Orcs exploited gaps, storming in with axes and hammers for brutal close combat against the front line.
At that moment, bowstrings twanged from the rear.
The hum of strings coalesced, arrows shot high into the sky, turning into a silver-white rain under the blood moon, then diving almost vertically into the dense orc ranks.
When melee met melee, formations concentrated their strength on close-quarters fighting, weakening defenses against projectiles.
Whenever an arrow rain fell, the olive tide showed a collapse; orcs behind toppled like harvested wheat, arrows piercing leather and bone, the ground stained dark red.
Simultaneously, the clatter of hooves came from the wings.
Elven cavalry flung themselves in from the flanks.
They did not charge the orc front head-on, but swept along the battlefield’s edges like sharp silver scythes.
Warhorses tossed manes in the wind. Lightly armored riders wielded crescent blades; each pass left a spray of blood before they disengaged—no long fights, no chance for counterattack.
The orc flanks were repeatedly sliced and torn; formations began to unravel.
The situation clarified in an instant.
Orc casualties spiked.
Bodies piled before the silver line, later waves pressured forward over still-warm corpses, only to be impaled by further spears and arrows.
But they did not falter.
Orcs did not collapse because of losses. When those ahead fell, those behind stepped over them. When commanders died, fighters filled the gap. They traded many times their losses for any hope of rending Nausil’s lines.
At the same time, battle at Legendary scale already unfolded above the army.
Spellcasters held the rear, led by their own legendaries.
Staffs raised, they maintained the formation while weaving spell barriers through the storm—ice walls, royal bulwarks, wind shields rising in turn to block wild spells hurled by orc shamans. Fire, lightning, and storms poured from their fingertips into the densest clusters of orcs.
Most of those spells were intercepted by the shamans.
Yet the elven casters were greater in number and more professional; some spells broke through or bypassed shamanic defenses, each detonation erupting in the orc lines.
In former wars, magical duels were the main spectacle of legion warfare.
This time, those duels were mere accompaniment.
Because a single red-iron dragon dominated the field.
He hovered in the sky; his presence made the entire war, even the legendary skirmishes, revolve around him.
Though he had failed to shatter the orc formations in the ranged phase and had to restrain breath attacks once melee began to avoid allied casualties, he remained the focal point.
Garoth peered down at the southern plain. His dark hide glowed scarlet under the blood moon.
He drew a deep breath.
A sunlike radiance blossomed in his chest; the air near him heated and warped, snowflakes near him sublimating from solid straight to vapor without even becoming liquid.
Then his three heads rose in succession.
Huu!
The left head unleashed the first breath.
A straight columnar torrent cut through the storm at an angle into the orc flank where mounted troops had formed to charge. The ground was gouged into deep molten ravines along its path.
Orcs inside the ravine instantly vaporized—their bones gone—only dark embers oozed along the edges.
Huu!
The right head followed, sealing off routes that orcs attempted to use to reinforce gaps. The flames hit those rerouting, burning them and their banners to ash.
The central head’s breath was deadlier.
It swept across elites trying to re-form shield walls; shields melted, flesh steamed away, leaving only dark crimson cinders.
The dragon’s breaths came almost without pause.
He was like a Mandate of the plastic-energy school with limitless reserves and no casting wind-up: three breaths crossed and swept, scabbling intersecting molten gullies through the orc host, carving a burning lattice.
Several Mandate war-chiefs surged at him from different angles.
Some attacked head-on, others tried flanking moves, all aiming to break his breath.
But Nausil’s legendaries would not stand idle.
They did not care about being upstaged. On a battlefield there is only life and death, not pride.
So they formed a tight inner ring around the red-iron dragon.
Not to mention Garoth himself was not a fragile caster; his scales and claws were no mere decoration. Yet the elven legendaries stood fast, buying the dragon more time to pour out breath.
Breaking that ring was no easy task.
Every orc legendary trying to breach it had to remain fully alert, because one breath strike would kill even a Mandate war-chieftain.
Then the dragon’s main head paused its breath.
“Compress toward me.”
“Push all orcs to the center.”
He said this as he began to adjust the angle of his breath, tracing circles from the battlefield center outwards with molten furrows. Each sweep encircled and tightened, each burned ring shrinking inward.
Orcs were compressed, driven together with no room to maneuver.
Every layer of the battlefield tilted in Nausil’s favor.
On a higher scale, in the sky:
Colors—blood-red, pitch-black, silver-white—shimmered and covered the dome.
The Chosen of the Red Tide and the Bone-Gnawing Saint were engaged in fierce combat with Nausil’s two Immortals.
The sky tore open again and again, revealing blackness beyond.
Their speed was so great legendary eyes could barely catch blurred shapes colliding, each impact unleashing shockwaves and light that dimmed the heavens.
Meanwhile, the blood moon began to change.
That crimson disc, which had simply bathed the field, now contracted its radiance.
Red light diffused across the plain was drawn by some invisible force to gather over the battlefield.
Everywhere, unavoidable.
Ordinary orcs and legendaries felt nothing special under that moonlight.
But the two Kantum Saints felt mired in deep mud.
Moonlight settled on them and their sanctums were repeatedly weakened and compressed; both offense and defense cost them many times the usual effort.
Nausil’s moon.
The empire’s foremost artifact.
Under its illumination, Saints flagged.
Wounds multiplied, steps slowed, while Nausil’s two Immortals grew bolder and seized the advantage.
Time flowed through iron and blood.
Across three levels of battle, Nausil steadily prevailed.
On the ground, orcs were cut, surrounded, and worn away—dying to dragon breath, pikes, and arrows.
The silver host advanced steadily, inching the line southward, trampling in mud of blood and snow.
On the legendary field, Garoth’s dark red dragon breath seemed endless. Under its onslaught, orc warriors died like grass; even legendary units could not approach.
During this, one Mandate war-chieftain burned his life in a desperate charge, paying dearly to break through the elven cordon and reach the great dragon.
He was covered in blood, hoisting his axe for a final mortal blow.
Then he met the dragon’s claw.
Garoth did not dodge; he kept breathing with his central head and extended his right paw.
A dragonqi bomb condensed between his claws—compressed, expanded—then he smashed it like a dribbed ball toward the orc.
The war-chieftain was hurled back, blood-splattered, diving rearward into the ring of elven legendaries.
Orc legendaries had no counters against a beast that could rain destruction remotely and still be deadly in melee.
At the summit, in the tier above legendary, the two Kantum Saints remained under pressure from Nausil’s Immortals beneath the blood moon.
Victory seemed a matter of time.
As time passed, the moonlight grew even denser, the blood-colored rays pouring down until the battlefield gleamed like a pool of blood.
Unnoticed, the moon’s brilliance reached its peak.
Light scattered across the battlefield began to retract as if drawn by an unseen force, converging to a single point.
They compressed further and condensed into a massive chain.
The chain appeared instantly, coiling tightly around the Chosen of the Red Tide—wrapping through his neck, arms, chest and stomach—binding him into a contorted posture.
He emitted a muffled groan.
Veins throbbed beneath patterned skin; muscles writhed like living snakes, trying to break the binding.
More light fell, layer upon layer, solidifying like amber encapsulating a struggling prey or a blood-hued gem sealing the Chosen and his chains inside.
Crackling sounds split the gem; fissures radiated from center to edge, fine fragments flaked off.
Clearly, such a prison could not hold a true Saint for long.
At the same time, the blood moon mutated again.
Originally it hung quietly in folded space, but to muster enough force to kill a Saint it revealed its true body from its hidden folded plane.
Torrents of energy guided the convergence in the firmament.
Like a vast crimson vortex slowly forming, a silvery white core brightened, blazing like a weapon charging.
Even distant perception stoked legendary vigilance to extremes.
The Bone-Gnawing Saint tried to rush and shatter the seal, but the two elven Immortals held him fast.
The orc Saint was distracted and could only watch the moon’s power rise—if this strike landed, the Chosen would be killed or maimed.
Yet at the same time, far beyond the heavens, space ruptured and a figure suddenly appeared in outer space.
“In the face of gods, the greatest creations of mortals are but windblown, fleeting dust.”
The newcomer’s expression was indifferent, his gaze cruel, bestial in its brutality, and overwhelmingly condescending—looking down on crawling ants beneath his feet.
No hatred, no pity—only superiority.
An avatar of Bag.
Using the remains of Blackfang Saint Yookte as a vessel, reconstituted by an altar, this body had become a container for divinity. Its shape between orc and beast, three times the height of a normal orc, limbs like stone pillars, muscles etched with dark-gold patterns. The body bore no weapons or armor.
Bag scorned all magic, armor, and arms.
This brave beast treasured only its strength.
Strength was his authority.
He needed nothing external; his fists alone could shatter the world.
Under his feet lay the starry void, behind him the nothing; his gaze locked on the charging elven moon.
It spanned tens of kilometers, spherical and covered with runes blazing silver-white, radiating vast energy ripples that twisted space like whirlpools.
He waited for this moment.
The blood moon exposing its body to slay the Chosen meant its defenses were no longer untouchable.
Previously it had hidden in folded space; now it voluntarily stepped out.
Bag’s avatar had no hesitation.
He clenched his fist, muscles swelling to breaking, locked onto the elven moon across vast distance and punched.
That blow was formless—pure force needs no shape.
But it tore through space like shattered glass, carving the outline of a fist as it drove toward the elven moon.
Space folded, elemental barriers, lunar wards—all the moon’s layers crumpled before that punch like paper.
The giant fist struck the moon itself.
The moon trembled violently; its surface vortex ruptured. Half-charged energies spilled from cracks like blood from a wound.
Bag’s avatar raised his arm again.
He made no flourish—simply lifted and threw another plain punch.
Crack.
A thunderous sound spread across Arotala.
Not noise traveling through vacuum but space itself trembling, sending shock through every corner of the continent.
At the same moment, all living things on the southern plain looked up.
Elves looked up; orcs looked up.
Combatants on both sides forgot to swing their blades and turned toward the sky.
Garoth felt the disturbance beyond the firmament and lifted his massive head.
What he saw was the elven moon shuddering.
The first fissure ran from the moon’s north pole to the equator; a second stretched from the south pole. They intersected, cleaving the moon into quarters.
Then a third, fourth—countless cracks.
The moon resembled a cracked eggshell; innumerable fissures scored its surface, dense and chaotic, about to shatter.
The sight triggered an odd familiarity in Garoth.
“I have done something like this before. Winds turn and fate turns—the country’s great relic is now on the receiving end.”
A divine avatar in outer space?
He looked up and judged quickly.
Divine avatars vary in strength; stronger vessels carry greater authority. Using a Saint as a vessel is the most potent way to manifest a god’s power. Bag had descended with Blackfang Saint’s husk—at least equal to a strong Immortal.
“We should withdraw.”
Garoth decided at once.
He ceased breathing fire; his hulking form silently retreated behind the ring of legendaries and extended a claw, ready to tear through space and vanish.
Huh?
Space grew resilient.
As soon as he acted Garoth felt an abnormal resistance.
The moon’s light had not fully dissipated; under its illumination the structure of space was more stable than before. Because he was not the moon’s primary target, the surrounding space was not wholly untearable—but it was tougher.
Crackle.
Though slow and grating, the dragon’s claws still sliced through space inch by inch, tearing a black rift.
At the same time, the two elven Immortals’ faces changed.
Forgetting the ground battle, the two shapes surged upward, racing beyond the firmament toward Bag’s avatar.
Meanwhile, the seal formed from condensed moonlight weakened as its core collapsed; the crystal surface of its shell filled with fissures and light poured through.
Shatter!
Shards flew; the Chosen of the Red Tide broke free.
He bowed his head and pierced the storm and chaos of the battlefield with his gaze, fixing on the figure whose claw had just ripped space open.
Scarlet Emperor Cangxing, Garoth Ignas.
In an instant Garoth’s scales bristled. He jerked his head up and met the Saint’s killing cold.
Bad.
Garoth’s heart clenched.
The Chosen’s gaze was cold. He reached out, fingers curved as if grasping nothing.
The dragon’s body froze.
He felt his blood lose control as if a higher will had seized it from its roots.
Dragon blood gained apparent volition—coagulating in the vessels, reversing through the muscles, seeping from organs into countless invisible blades, stabbing and slicing wildly within.
If his body were less tough, he would have exploded.
Even so, his life drained.
Light flickered in the dark scales’ seams as he tried to burst free.
But the Chosen’s dominance over blood had reached the level of Authority—on par with Immortal potency—hard to shake.
Burning Blood!
A low roar tore from his throat as his blood flared into gas-flame, burning outward and consuming his own flesh while scorching the invading Saint’s will.
Under that gilded fire Garoth’s massive frame moved again.
Huh?
A flash of surprise passed the Chosen’s eyes.
He had expected that gripe to end the overreaching dragon. He had not thought the dragon could wrench free.
But that was only a beginning.
Saint tactics were not singular, and there were more than one Saint present on the field.
The other, the Bone-Gnawing Saint, lifted his battle-axe.
“Offend the sacred power and you court death.”
The orc Saint wore a cruel, gleeful smile and then swung his axe.
A gray blade of light peeled from the axe’s edge.
The blade-light was unimpressive, ashen like wind-blown ash, but its speed was absolute—across distance in an instant, as if distance did not exist.
Garoth reacted instinctively to evade.
His combat experience was vast; as the blade appeared he responded—but the possessed blood impeded him, freezing his motion at the critical moment.
Cut!
The gray blade sliced as an invisible shear, cleaving through the dark-dragon hide.
Scales, muscle, bone, organs—all body structures became fragile in that instant.
Then the dragon’s body was dismembered.
Like a blooming death-flower, slabs of blooded flesh and scales ripped from the main body, each petal soaked in dark-red dragon blood falling to the earth and shattering into fragments.
The blood moon collapsed.
Scarlet Emperor Cangxing was cut down by the Saints.
The tide of the battle flipped in a breath—what had been deadlocked plunged into the abyss.
The Chosen withdrew his hold.
He did not even confirm whether the dismembered form retained life; to him that concern was beneath thought.
First blood turned upon the dragon from within, then the Bone-Gnawing Saint struck true from without.
A mortal without Authority, not yet at the threshold of Immortality, struck by two Saints—there could be only one outcome.
His gaze returned to the shattered moon and the twin silver trajectories shooting skyward.
Those were the real foes for the Saints.
The two elven Immortals pierced the night sky with speed that rent the firmament.
As they crossed into space, the sight before them froze them in their tracks.
The elven moon had been shattered.
Bag’s avatar had not stopped. With brute force he smashed it piece by piece.
His avatar hovered amid the fragments; the broken lunar masses dwarfed him but his aura brooked no disregard.
Victory. A god’s authority crushed mortal pride—Nausil’s ultimate weapon reduced to nothing by a god of force.
The avatar turned to the incoming Immortals and raised his fist again.
But then an anomaly occurred.
All remaining moonlight, fractured runes, and residual energies were activated by a built-in final program. They were drawn, compressed, and condensed.
A pillar of light shot up from the shattered moon’s debris toward Bag.
The avatar roared for the first time since his descent, then struck the light pillar with a fist to rend it by sheer force.
The pillar shattered into innumerable points of light, but the fragments did not dissipate—they hardened into chains that wrapped around Bag from all sides, layer upon layer, binding his limbs, torso, and neck tight.
Bag’s avatar was dragged down like a falling meteor.
He cut through cloud and storm, falling in a straight line toward the earth. Plasma-white flames ignited around him, leaving a multi-mile tail of blazing exhaust.
Boom!
The ground shook and a massive impact crater opened.
The shockwave spread in a ring, a wall of gale that flung snow, warriors, and stones aside, carving out a vast empty basin.
Bag’s avatar lay back in the crater.
Dark-gold flesh coiled in chains.
He tried to rise, but the chains yanked taut and pinned him; attempts to swing a fist tightened the bonds, stretching him wide.
Silver-white flames ignited along each chain link.
Flame and light burned his dark-gold hide to cracks, muscles dissolving to reveal metal-sheen bone; his body melted.
But the avatar’s power simultaneously fueled repair.
New flesh grew from cracks; bone resurfaced covered by sinew and skin in rapid succession—collapse and healing racing each other, healing seeming stronger.
This was the elven moon’s entire power.
It gave Nausil’s Immortals a chance to slay a divine avatar.
After all, this brave beast was not the father-deity Ge’ush but a lower-tier god; his manifestation in the Material Plane could be defeated.
The two Immortals exchanged a glance.
No words passed, and they folded back through the atmosphere, descending toward the crater faster than they had ascended.
They aimed to finish Bag’s avatar before the chains wholly broke.
But they could not approach the crater.
The Chosen of the Red Tide landed before the crater, feet crushing cooled lava, and glared at the elven Immortals. The Bone-Gnawing Saint planted on the other side, jaws parting slightly.
“Think to touch my god?”
“Pass us first.”
The two orc Saints spoke almost evenly; the resolve in their tones was steel.
Two versus two.
Four figures tangled around the crater; their speed blurred, too swift for legendaries to track.
The clash stalled.
A stalemate was not good for Nausil.
The blood moon’s final sacrifice had immobilized the avatar, but the chains were snapping one by one.
Immortals were stuck dealing with Saints, unable to land a killing blow.
Time favored the orcs.
With each breath the avatar wriggled more free.
From the crater a hoarse roar rolled up.
His flesh burned away, leaving bare red muscle; his spine arched, chains biting into shoulder bones with metallic snaps—one hand had already freed itself.
Meanwhile, the scattered dragon corpse lay across the southern plain.
Shards of dark scales jutted from frozen ground like banners torn by storm; broken bone protruded from snowdrifts; chunks of flesh lay between basalt fissures; steam rose and tangled with the snow.
Huu!
Suddenly they all ignited and surged upward, converging into the sky.
Golden flames burned like a high sun.
Master Life and Death!
An overwhelming vacuum force erupted.
Life essences across the battlefield were drained and fed into the blaze.
A blooded form was being rebuilt inch by inch—rebirth akin to nirvana.
Bones and organs coalesced first.
Then muscle, like countless threads entwining, weaving and wrapping rapidly over ribs, spine, and limbs to form living tissue.
Finally, scales.
Dark plates surfaced across the muscle and solidified under golden flame, becoming gleaming gold.
Garoth Ignas.
The Aola emperor, Scarlet Emperor Cangxing.
As a dragon he rose like a phoenix from flame; the damage that had reduced his body to fragments had not truly killed him. Now he radiated dazzling gold light, brighter than the sun; his pupils turned pure red-gold.
All three horns on his heads changed.
Where long straight horns had pointed back, each split from the root into branching antlers, like an ancient tree crown spreading outward—ends sharp like spears, glinting with the same gold as his scales, giving him even more majestic and untouchable authority.
Elements in the battlefield skies went wild.
Wind halted.
Snow hung motionless midair.
Embers in molten ravines flared as if in worship.
“You thought you could kill me?”
“Your victory ends now; my wrath begins at this moment!”
The dragon reborn roared, eyes sweeping the two orc Saints.
He had been preparing to withdraw only moments before—his claws had already torn a rift in space.
But the Saints wanted him to remain; very well—he would grant their wish.
Radiant State!
Born from Death!
White light flared, blending with his golden armor, giving him an air of sublime majesty as if something not meant for the mortal realm.
In a single instant Garoth’s gaze passed beyond the four tangled figures and fixed on the crater’s bottom.
Bag’s avatar.
Dark-gold flesh bound in the moon’s last chains, links snapping one by one.
Huu!
All three muzzles opened in unison. He inhaled.
Wind, snow, flame, lightning, light—all were drawn into his chest, forged and compressed within. White-gold light flowed between his mouths as he bowed his heads and fixed his sight on the target.
Bag’s avatar raised his head too.
Locked eyes found no reverence or fear in the mortal before him—only a hunger to burn everything away.
At the same time the dragon’s maw opened to its limit.
From the throat purest gold welled forth—like liquid sunlight, like hardened starlight.
Then he breathed.
HUU!!!
Three golden dragon breaths erupted simultaneously from left, right, and center, converging and coalescing into a concentrated golden torrent.
Unstoppable.
Irresistible.
It slammed straight toward the crater’s bottom at Bag’s avatar, ionizing the air and violently twisting space, leaving a long vacuum corridor.
The Saints were momentarily stunned.
The Chosen and the Bone-Gnawing Saint broke off their tangle with the elven Immortals and whirled toward the golden tide.
Could such an attack be from a Crowned dragon?
Both Saints felt the same incredulous shock.
By the time they reacted, the dragon breath had already flown past them and struck the pit—so fast that even Saints could not intercept it across such a short distance.
Bag’s avatar’s contempt did not change. He raised the only freed fist.
The brave beast—the god of brute force—scorned magic, armor, and steel, favored raw power and always answered assaults by punching.
He would not block, dodge, or defend—only meet force with force until one side was utterly shattered.
The next moment, the fist collided with the dragon breath.
Where the golden breath touched, muscle, fascia, bone—everything turned transparent as if dropped into a furnace and melted from the edges inward.
Like morning mist dissolving under sunrise.
Like ink dispersing in clear water.
Like everything that ought not exist being gently, inexorably erased from the Material Plane.
Dragon breath and the last moonlight swept across him.
Muscle dissolved into dust, carried aloft by the breath; metallic gleaming bones were exposed and then decayed piece by piece into ash—golden flakes drifting skyward.
Bag’s expression showed no pain.
Avatars do not suffer and gods do not care for pain.
“I will remember you.”
He spoke simply.
That face between orc and beast kept its gaze fixed on the red-iron dragon until eyelids, eyeballs, and skull turned to ash and the wind scattered them into the void.
From the rebirth of Scarlet Emperor Cangxing to the breath that destroyed a divine avatar—everything transpired within breaths.
Elves and orcs alike ceased movement.
All heads turned toward the crater, eyes raised to the sky to watch the blazing golden dragon silhouette.
The two Saints stood dumbstruck, confusion and disbelief in their eyes, then fury exploded.
“Dragon! You dare destroy my god’s avatar!”
“By the glory of the brave beast, you shall pay in blood!”
Hearing this, the dragon turned and faced the Saints. “Where is your god? Oh—he has become dust. Before me, even a god’s body is nothing but wind-blown, fleeting dust.”
The Immortals glanced and together looked at the shining dragon.
Both thought him arrogant… and yet his claim was true.
A dragon had slain a god’s avatar.
Though not the god’s true self and aided by the moon, the feat was epochal—worthy of inscription in history’s epics.
They stared at Garoth, not knowing what to say.
After a brief silence, a thunderous cheer erupted.
“Godslayer! Scarlet Emperor Cangxing!”
“Scarlet Emperor Cangxing!!”
The shouts rolled like thunder into the heavens.
From Nausil camp came voices the elves never expected to make—raw awe and worship for the dragon emperor as if he were one of Aola’s dragon followers.
“This… this—”
The elven queen was mesmerized, at a loss for words.
The dragon’s golden scales gleamed beneath the shattered blood moon like a new sun risen in the night.
She recalled the long hymns of heroes in her empire’s poetry, but now those grand phrases felt dim, inadequate to describe the being before her.
In the orc host, a funeral silence descended.
Weapons felt unbearably heavy in hands.
Then the rout began—disorderly collapse, the olive tide retreating, banners trampled, weapons deserted.
Orcs only wanted to flee.
Faith-born armies can collapse by faith.
They could endure casualties before because they believed their god watched, and that fallen souls would be received in Bag’s hall of heroes.
Now their god was defeated—projection or avatar, any shred of divine essence still counted as god.
Gods should not and cannot be beaten—but they had been, witnessed by their believers.
So the rout became a landslide, an irreversible tsunami.
The Chosen and the Bone-Gnawing Saint stood silent.
They did not stop it.
They knew it could not be stopped.
Soon they turned and joined the retreat, then glanced beyond Nausil’s Immortals to the radiant dragon, casting him one long look before averting their eyes.
Garoth looked toward the crater where Bag’s avatar dissipated.
A god had learned him; he had learned the god.
He had just greatly offended the orcs.
“Arotala.”
“No matter what comes after, at least it will take a Mandate to return to this continent.”
Garoth had not expected events to escalate thus.
In his plan he would not have showcased himself; he had been ready to withdraw if the tide turned—yet the Kantum Saints had locked onto him and nearly drained ninety percent of his blood.
He had nearly perished.
On the brink of death he had activated Radiant State and Born from Death, almost to the extreme.
If he had run away then, it would have been a waste.
The moon’s control of the avatar gave him the chance; he took the breath and created the present outcome.
“As for the elven reward—have them send it. It’s not too much. Nausil truly owes me a bow.”
Garoth thought wryly.
Sensing countless eyes upon him, the radiant dragon did not linger for castigation or worship. He tore open space with a claw and vanished.
The record of this battle spread quickly across Bernardo.
New Calendar 564.
Redridge Mountains, southern plain—Nausil and Kantum clashed here.
Scarlet Emperor Cangxing stood against two, fought Saints to death and rose again in golden scales—like a god descending—using his might alone to destroy an evil god’s avatar and save a collapsing world.
pS: Burned out. Please vote monthly.
If you have votes, please use the doubled event to cast them soon. I beg you.
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