Through the earlier ritual, he connected to the ice demon spirit bound at a distant altar, wrapped in blessings and dark blasphemous power, tightly restrained by layers of Magic Array. This ice demon spirit was formed from collected fragments of the former Ice Spirit. Because Salva had once handled part of its modification, he naturally left contingencies, and now he successfully borrowed the remaining Laws within it.
The dragon had merely stolen part of the Laws left in similar fragments, while he possessed most of them, with a more complete authority. How could one resist Laws born from the same existence? As expected, he blocked it.
Even if this borrowing later caused the ice demon spirit to riot, loosen seals, and leak its aura, possibly drawing Dotleivy or Icelis, or even ruining the plan entirely, it did not matter. In his current state, Salva cared only about staring at the Great Dragon with burning eyes. If he could obtain this Great Dragon here, the plan's success rate would soar.
"Come on, come on!" With layers added, the Flesh Cathedral reached a terrifying level of ice resistance, frost coating its flesh under Laws. The palace, now adorned with white ice and snow, spread a domain that fully dominated nearby Ice Element with higher Laws.
Just as Salva expected, the dragon's Laws could not rival his. That once deadly breath was now only a cold breeze. Maniacal laughter rang out as the frost-covered giant hand reached for the Great Dragon, multiple Magic Array lighting up as ice spread beneath Belial's feet and tried to climb his body and wings.
Belial was slightly surprised when he saw this change and the immunity to his freezing breath. But it was only slight surprise. Freezing breath had never been his true combat method, only a convenient tool for clearing weak enemies.
Now that this skill had been neutralized, he no longer hesitated. "Then you should hurry up and die." With eyes colder than any ice, Belial looked at the grasping hand.
In the next moment, the icy armor on the hand shattered. Countless bones crushed apart, blood spraying before freezing against the flesh, as if an invisible hydraulic press had descended. Salva froze as the arm and even the massive Flesh Cathedral were yanked from the mountaintop by incomparable force.
Nearly a hundred thousand bodies and monsters forming the palace crashed down, flesh flying and structures tearing apart. The pressure grew heavier, and although Salva struggled to hold it together, the bone pillars snapped one by one. Only the Great Dragon could do this.
He looked again, and his eyes widened. "Go!" A hole was burned through the Flesh Cathedral as Kwenfield decisively severed Salva's connected limbs with a blade of flame and fled with the mutilated body.
"Since I came here, you are the first worthy of this move," Belial said with a hint of emotion. The Nuclear Reactor pumped vast energy as it surged through crystal bones and flesh channels, a deep hum rising from his chest. Within the expanded Energy Field, Magic and elements roared uncontrollably, crushing the remaining Magic Array without effort.
Light different from ice rose along his back spines, pulsing as they vented heat, black shadows spreading over his back and wings. Crystals across Belial's body shone as he opened his jaws, an intensely scorching glow bursting from his throat. This was the symbol of the monster king, the God of Destruction.
"Spiral Heat Ray."
Blue white destructive light erased everything in its path. As expected, nothing was able to block it. A beam of blue white radiance burst from the mouth of the Great Dragon, a destructive light from another world that symbolized the king of monsters. It was the extremely compressed Spiral Heat Ray, packed with terrifying power beyond comparison.
When the roar of the internal reactor reached a critical frequency, the dorsal spines behind Belial kept flashing. Visible energy flowed from the tip of his tail along his body to the horns on his head, and then flared to full brightness. Vast energy surged out from the reactor, passed through every energy conduit in his body, ran along bone and flesh, gathered at his throat, and was finally released.
With a temperature exceeding five hundred thousand degrees, the Spiral Heat Ray pierced straight through the collapsed Flesh Cathedral. That massive body lasted less than ten seconds before being completely destroyed by the unstoppable heat. The remaining force did not stop there, boring through the mountain behind it as soil and stone melted into magma and burst outward, blasting the entire hill apart in the most literal sense.
The leftover power slammed into the residential districts inside the city, sending roofs and debris flying everywhere. Buildings fell apart like poorly built structures, then the city walls were breached, and the destruction continued beyond them, stretching all the way to the edge of sight. Nothing was able to stop it, as the spreading shockwave and air blast wiped out everything visible.
The light gradually dimmed. What remained was a massive fan shaped trench, widening from dozens of meters to hundreds, with molten lava flowing through it alongside heat crystallized stone. Nearby houses and structures were flung away by the blast, as if the ground itself had been rolled flat by a storm.
An entire section of the city wall was left in ruins, its surface scraped away as if shaved off. The foundation held, but it still had a hole dozens of meters wide, streaked with melted marks. As for the Flesh Cathedral that took the hit directly, it was completely gone, with not a single trace of flesh remaining.
The experience rewards arrived, and the mood was good. Only then did Belial slowly close his massive jaws, steam rising from his mouth as water vapor evaporated by heat. The power of Spiral Heat Ray consumed far more energy than Freezing Breath.
After all, the latter relied on Ice Element, which was everywhere in the Northlands, making it almost free to use. The former, however, required his own internal energy as support. Its power was unquestionable though, as one shot left almost nothing standing in front of him, with ice and snow sublimating or melting into water.
If that energy were evenly spread across the city, two or three shots would be enough to redraw the map. Belial muttered that it really had been a long time since he last used it, and that Spiral Heat Ray lived up to its name. Even with his current fifty meter body, enormous recovery speed, and the energy gained from devouring countless monsters, firing three or four times in a row meant he would need a short rest.
After resting briefly, he could continue again. In fact, his template was best suited for positional warfare, because once enough crystals spread around him, he could absorb energy in large amounts to cover the cost. In that state, he would become a terrifying living artillery platform.
This trip brought Belial huge gains. Dozens of small rewards plus one massive one pushed his template unlock progress up by a large margin. If the other side set up a few more traps like this, he might as well get infinite revival armor from the God of Destruction.
He hoped the next time they came, they would bring something more interesting. The enemy was not dead, and Belial knew it. He watched the map constantly, and the experience marker had shrunk only a little while briefly flashing an even larger reward, something impossible to miss.
Normally, if he were a typical chosen hero of the Lord, he would feel uneasy about letting an enemy escape. He would worry about future revenge and unresolved threats. But Belial wished they would come again, even if they kept harassing him endlessly, because enemies that dropped rewards were not really enemies at all.
Still, this incident made him more cautious. Otherworld was clearly not simple, and even if he could not fully understand it, the enemy had definitely targeted his breath attacks. He clearly remembered some strange power being used to block his Freezing Breath.
In his view, even after becoming the massive Flesh Cathedral, the enemy should not have been a threat. Such a huge target should have died to a single breath attack. Yet something changed later, allowing them not only to block it but even absorb it in reverse.
That meant the enemy was collecting his information and designing counters specifically for him. This time, his breath had been restricted. Who knew what else they might come up with later, whether something like a core eating plague or some absurd weapon, especially in Otherworld, where normal rules hardly applied.
Even a third rate opponent he could casually kill had such targeted methods. As he grew stronger, he would surely draw the attention of higher level forces. Belial raised his guard, realizing that his earlier confidence from slaughtering enemies had grown too much.
For now, the priority was still to obtain the God of Destruction. Even if there were counters to that power in Otherworld, having it would greatly increase both strength and safety. It remained his top goal.
The problem was that experience rewards were almost gone. He glanced at the map and saw that the many red dots were reduced to only a few scattered ones. After his recent rampage, there were very few places left that could provide him with rewards, and some red dots even vanished on their own.