Chapter 437: Draconic Fire
Julian turned his head toward the three women. Norah Walpurgy seemed barely out of breath, her piercings shining with a provocative gleam under the purple sky, while Rosalinda, still under the influence of her Lady Spina personality, observed the remains of the Lichts with obvious contempt. Lynn Of Lake, for her part, was already maintaining a water barrier to filter the toxic emanations.
"Take care of cleaning up the stragglers," Julian ordered in a tone that brooked no argument, despite his affection for Norah. "We must secure the main entrance before Spectrum’s reinforcements regroup."
"You give me orders?"
"Calm down Rosalinda" Lynn nodded her head. "Don’t dawdle, gentlemen. If you die behind that fog, I won’t go fishing out your corpse Jasper."
Julian, Nox and Jasper then rushed toward the heart of the sector, where the demonic mana mist thickened until it became an opaque and vibrating wall. It was a moving mass, saturated with such dense energy that it seemed to devour the light. As they stopped a few meters from this barrier, a familiar silhouette emerged from the shadow of a rocky pillar, walking slowly, hands in his pockets.
"Where were you, you dirty bastard?" Julian asked, his eyebrows furrowing instantly upon recognizing Klein Konstantine.
Nox Walpurgy let out a stifled little laugh. He took out a lollipop he had hidden in an inner pocket of his coat and stuck it between his teeth with a delighted look. "You missed an epic fight, Kaiser."
Jasper, whose white headband hid nothing of his usual irritation, clicked his tongue against his palate. "No need to ask him, Julian. Judging by his aura and that scent still floating on him, he was probably copulating with an elf while we got our hands dirty."
Klein cleared his throat, smoothing his silver hair back with a mocking smile that did nothing to deny the accusations. "Everyone has different priorities, Jasper. However, I am here now. Anyway, that’s not important... let’s find a way to get through all this."
Klein stepped toward the mist, his <Eye of Predator> activating to analyze the barrier’s frequency.
"If we strike separately, the mist will absorb the impact and regenerate instantly. We must combine our most powerful attacks on a single focal point. The idea is to cause such an overload that the explosion creates a temporary breach."
"Good..."
Jasper was the first to act. He moved back several dozen meters to gain amplitude. He took a silver arrow from his longbow, his lunar eye shining with an iridescent glow under his headband.
<Art of the Pleiades: Mirror Arrow>
The projectile split the air at supersonic speed. The moment the arrow made contact with the first layers of the mist, it did not penetrate; it reflected off the magical density. But instead of deviating, it multiplied. With each bounce against the demonic mana walls, a new identical arrow of light appeared, creating in a few seconds a swarm of hundreds of silver tips that harassed the barrier at a precise point.
Taking advantage of the structural destabilization caused by Jasper, Julian rushed forward. He concentrated all of his elemental water and ice mana into his vine-shaped blade. The air around him froze instantly, creating a miniature blizzard.
<L’Undine Sword>!
A gigantic sword, more than fifteen meters long and sculpted from ice of absolute purity, materialized above him. With a downward motion, Julian brought this mass of pure mana down on the weakened area. The impact was colossal, the biting cold of the undine sword freezing the demonic mana particles and preventing the mist from closing.
<Art: Sundering Eclipse – Third Movement: New Moon>
The world seemed to empty of its sound. Then, without giving the void time to fill, he followed up with a power he had never yet deployed in front of the other members of the Tetrad.
<Fourth Movement: Full Moon>!
A sphere of white aura, with terrifying gravitational density, burst from the tip of his katana. It plunged into the fissure created by Julian, absorbing the surrounding demonic mana to self-feed. The barrier began to crack, streaks of nothingness lightning through the mist.
Nox, who was watching the scene with growing excitement, decided to deliver the finishing blow. He threw away his lollipop and his hands became surrounded by a network of red lightning of destruction. His S+ aura exploded, making the basaltic ground vibrate.
<Discharge of Destruction>!
He thrust his palms forward. A wave of blood-red energy, the purest form of his anti-magic, struck the convergence point of the previous attacks. The contact between Nox’s destruction and the corrupted mana of the mist caused a detonation that hurled rock debris hundreds of meters away. A circular hole, five meters wide, formed in the mist, revealing an ephemeral tunnel of clarity toward the interior of the Bastion.
"Now!" Klein shouted.
The four warriors plunged into the breach at maximum <Dash> speed, their silhouettes disappearing into the Bastion just before the mana mist, driven by a malevolent will, closed behind them with a dull rumble.
A few minutes later, silence had returned in front of the mist wall. Only the craters on the ground bore witness to the violence of the Dark Tetrad’s passage. It was then that the sound of hooves striking the stone rang out. A reddish destrier, nostrils steaming, stopped in front of the impenetrable obstacle.
Kris Pendragon dismounted from his steed. His white hair floated in the ash-laden wind, and his amber gaze, devoid of any warmth, fixed on the demonic veil. He could still perceive the residues of Klein’s aura in the air, a scent that awakened his fury.
’They are already inside,’ thought Kris, his fingers tightening on the hilt of his titanic greatsword. ’You won’t escape me this time, Kaiser.’
The dragon tattoo on his arm lit up with a blood-red glow, and an unbearable heat began to emanate from his body.
<Draconic Fire: Breath of Judgment>
With a simple horizontal gesture of his greatsword, Kris released a sheet of flames of solar intensity. This was not ordinary fire; it was the manifestation of the Pendragon lineage. The enraged fire literally devoured the demonic mana mist, vaporizing it in its path as if it were mere haze.
Without even hurrying his pace, Kris calmly entered the enclosure of the Bastion, his greatsword resting on his shoulder, leaving behind him a trail of incandescent ashes.
