Chapter 1229: Dragon Claw Turns Fate
Seraphina moved first.
She transformed again into the massive Dragon God—towering up on her hind legs, wings flaring wide—and threw a crimson barrier across the front line. Under Andona’s mask, her expression turned grim as well. Her golden wings spread to their full span, Divine Power streaming between her palm and the edge of her blade.
The goat only took a light breath.
A blast of scorching breath-shot down from the ridge and slammed into Seraphina’s barrier. The shield shuddered violently. The red glow buckled inward, fine cracks spidering along the edges. Seraphina’s claws dug into the earth, but her huge body still slid back half a step under the pressure.
Then the goat swung its arm.
All at once, pounding hooves erupted from every direction in the forest. Goat phantoms surged out from between trees and slopes, all of them charging straight for Ethan’s position. Each phantom was as big as a yak, a red barrier angled in front of it like a battering ram. Wherever they ran, everything in their path was simply erased.
Small animals that couldn’t escape in time were smashed into ash.
Trees caught by the sweep of that red barrier exploded down the middle, branches and leaves flash-burning into gray dust. The forest’s gentle, flowing aura was blown apart—replaced by heat, rage, and that destructive red light.
Auri, who’d still been healing the little animals, clenched her teeth until her jaw trembled.
She yanked Ethan’s sleeve, then pointed at the sky-high silhouette ahead, eyes shining with hurt and fury.
"Dad! It’s bullying me—spank its butt!"
The moment the words left her mouth, Auri willingly fused back into Ethan.
Faced with an enemy this real, Ethan’s hesitation got crushed fast. The kid was upset. That meant he wasn’t going to sit there and play defense like before.
Up in the sky, Andona spread her wings. Golden motes rained down like sparks over the mountains. She held a judgment blade in each hand, Divine Power flowing along both edges as she hovered above the forest—declaring war on the goat standing on the eastern ridge.
Seraphina didn’t back down, either.
Still in dragon form, she threw her head back and roared. Rippling pressure rolled out from her mouth in layered waves, sweeping the forest like surf. The charging goat phantoms stumbled as the force hit them, but the plants below paid the price again—leaves crushed in swaths, soil shivering loose and flipping up.
Idra transformed into a dragon too.
She cleared her throat, then very seriously roared up at the sky.
...The only problem was, her roar didn’t exactly carry the same lethal punch.
Inside Ethan, Auri muttered under her breath, "I really, really want to spank Auntie Seraphina’s butt..."
Ethan glanced at the grass getting wrecked over and over and couldn’t help feeling a little pained.
The goat phantoms were already closing in from all sides. Seraphina scooped everyone onto her back and shot into the air, narrowly avoiding the first wave of impacts. From above, they looked down—and saw molten red lines writhing through the forest like veins. That road that had been full of birdsong and wildflowers was now a disaster zone.
Andona raised her twin blades. Her wings glowed gold as she flew straight at the goat, taking the initiative.
Most of the goat’s body was still hidden behind the mountain, with only its enormous head exposed above the ridge. It stared at the rising Andona with bloodshot eyes. Its horns were wrapped in heavy iron armor, and the huge iron hammer in its hand lifted—slowly, steadily.
In Andona’s eyes, it wasn’t slow at all.
It had locked onto her.
The instant the hammer-shadow shifted, the air around it collapsed outward, compressing and caving to either side. That weight crossed the distance and landed on her shoulders, adding pressure even to her wings. Andona knew it—if that hammer hit her head-on, she wouldn’t walk it off.
She flew above the goat, facing the oncoming hammer-shadow without retreating.
"Blades in hand—judgment and sentence!"
Light burst outward from her.
Golden holy radiance ran down the twin edges and chopped toward the goat’s crown. Each slash hammered its head from above, detonating sprays of gold where the light struck the joint between horn and skull. The goat let out a rough, angry growl. The lava-like patterns on its head were seared open by the holy light, and the hammer’s descent slowed—just a little.
But that iron hammer still came down like it could split the world.
Ethan patted Seraphina—still in dragon form—once.
"Put us down and go help. I’m here. Don’t worry."
After a frantic argument, everyone was finally settled on a nearby peak to watch. Seraphina immediately launched back into the air, streaking toward Andona.
Ethan didn’t waste a second.
He sat cross-legged, hands resting in front of him, and began to carefully sense the power moving inside the goat. Sometimes it felt vast and dangerous, like an ocean throwing up towering waves. Other times it felt solid and level, like earth that could carry anything. It wasn’t pure flame, and it wasn’t just lava—it was something heavier, something that mixed raw mass with explosive release.
Ethan’s eyes slowly lit up.
"What a good guy."
The goat attacking meant it was basically laying out its internal power flow for him to study.
Andona was still suppressing the goat’s head.
Holy light kept crashing down, forcing the goat to lower its gaze, but the hammer’s speed hadn’t truly dropped by much. Just as Andona prepared to pour in even more power—
The hammer suddenly accelerated.
With a thunderous crack, it punched a sonic boom into the sky.
The cloud layer was ripped open into a clean, circular hole, shockwaves rippling outward from the rim. Forced to react to the sudden burst of speed, Andona had to switch targets. A deep-gold shield formed around her as she retreated, and her blades stopped carving at the goat’s head—turning instead to meet the hammer coming down.
Beams of golden light shot from the ground up into the air, slamming into the iron hammer.
Holy radiance struck the hammer’s body with rapid-fire explosions, carving continuous slashes across the shadow like someone was chopping vegetables. But the wounds on the goat’s crown were already healing. It surged more power through itself, and the hammer dropped with even heavier pressure, aiming to crush Andona outright.
At the last possible instant, Seraphina charged in front of her.
A gigantic dragon claw slammed onto the falling hammer.
Boom!
The impact blew up in a violent burst.
The hammer that had been aimed at Andona was forcibly shoved off-line—pressed aside by Seraphina’s strength. Where the red dragon claw met iron, sparks erupted in sheets, dragon breath and molten hammer-force tearing at each other like two beasts locked in a bite. Seraphina didn’t let go. Using her downward dive, she kept driving it harder and harder.
The hammer’s path skewed—and the goat’s enormous body was dragged with it, both of them smashing toward the earth.
The next moment, the ground collapsed.
A deep, suffocatingly heavy roar shook the space between the peaks as a crater thousands of meters deep formed on the spot. Layers of rock buckled and caved downward in rings. Dirt and shattered stone were flung up into the sky, then thrown outward by the shockwave like shrapnel.
The goat got wedged at the bottom of the pit, only half its body still visible as it thrashed and struggled.
Ethan watched, the corner of his mouth twitching.
Well.
Now it really was a "well-bottom goat."
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