From clouds as black as despair, a massive black Great Dragon dove downward. Storms twisted into tornadoes, lightning fell, and sleet and hail mixed into the rain as if the world were crying out. The clouds sank and spun toward the center, gathering around the Black Dragon.
The Black Dragon planted itself on the erupting crater, four claws stepping into the magma as it opened its tooth filled mouth slightly. "La la la… after working so hard, soaking my feet once in a while is not bad."
Belial narrowed his eyes in comfort. Magma heated past three thousand degrees was instant death for normal beings. For Godzilla, using it as a foot bath was barely acceptable.
the Lord had been running around hungry for days, checking underground magma branches and blasting volcanoes, which was honestly a bit tiring. For some reason, the number of creatures nearby had dropped a lot, making it even harder to eat well. A few bold monsters that thought they were strong and dared to attack him could not fill Belial at all.
With his current size and energy needs, ordinary meat barely helped. He needed high energy material, and his digestion speed had clearly increased since awakening, though he did not understand why. "Did someone else stir things up? Why did all the little animals run off?"
While soaking his feet, Belial thought briefly and then dropped it. Whatever, it had nothing to do with him, and he could always hide in a volcano and sleep until he reached full growth, then fight whoever he wanted. After washing his feet, he beat his wings once and left the temporary foot bath behind.
After persistent searching, he finally found a place suitable for sleeping, one rich in heat. It was a tall mountain with exposed dark rock like cooled magma, red light glowing faintly in the cracks. The peak was bare, the surrounding land sank like a basin, vegetation was sparse, and the temperature was clearly higher than elsewhere.
This was the ideal spot. Belial did not rush to blow up the mountain as usual and instead prepared first. "For example, clearing the surroundings."
Just like scrubbing a Bathtub before filling it with hot water, the logic was the same. He released a full area internal burst, and light of destruction poured from the Great Dragon, flattening all nearby plants, soil, and stone like a nuclear blast. Centered on the mountain, he cleared a blockbuster, leaving only scorched ground with slight crystallization.
"Then I can start blasting the mountain." A routine Spiral Heat Ray pierced down from the peak deep into the ground. The earth shook, huge Rift split the mountain, and red light seeped out. Continuous roaring followed as chain reactions caused quakes and surface collapse, with Rend carving spiderweb like Rift everywhere.
Several magma veins converged beneath the surface, and the nearest support point had been broken by the earlier Spiral Heat Ray. Heat erupted upward, spreading through connected veins and tearing open more Rift. In the end, a massive and spectacular volcanic eruption occurred.
"Fireworks, huh. Pretty impressive." From the shattered mountain, blazing magma burst out with thick ash, forming scorching rivers. Elsewhere, countless cracks opened and magma flowed out, spreading like a web. To ordinary eyes, this was a vast natural disaster.
From Belial's high vantage point, it looked different. "Hot pot… wait, if this is hot pot, then what am I supposed to be?"
He joked, but did not jump in yet and kept preparing. He used his rarely used white crystalline growths to form an energy gathering field. With Gravity Tornado, he shaped the magma, mixed in his crystals, cooled and fixed them, and arranged them toward the central crater.
More than ten slightly curved black prism like pillars rose from the ground, restraining the spreading heat. The surface needed little setup since most of the work was underground. Belial folded his wings slightly and dove down as magma overflowed from the crater, hotter than before.
He was not worried at all, since it had not even reached ten thousand degrees. His entire massive body sank into the magma, and although his eyes could not see, he used Energy Field Perception and his cosmic horns to orient himself. Deep within the magma veins, he placed more crystals to draw underground heat efficiently and gather it into the volcano.
After the setup, the volcano became a proper energy collection site. The magma at the crater stopped overflowing as if held by an unseen force. Belial lay in warmth, the spines on his back glowing as crystals fed heat steadily into his body.
In such a warm environment, it was easy to fall asleep. Belial slowly closed his eyes and sank into deep sleep.
Dornmis Forest lay in the eastern lands of the Rohn Empire near the northern border, far from major cities. A small frontier town faced rising defense pressure as inner forest monsters moved outward, but no powerful creatures attacked, so the situation remained stable. Rumors claimed something far heavier had arrived and pressed the chaos down, though few knew whether to believe it.
Lyles did not seek surface welcomes, as they were useless to his kind. He returned to a manor used as a temporary base, where a fully armed Warrior opened the door and bowed. "My lord."
"Mm, keep preparing. The information is taking shape, and it should be here." "Yes."
After issuing orders for an upcoming gathering, Lyles returned to his private space where outsiders were forbidden. His steps were hurried, his breathing heavy, and the vertical pupils in his eyes contracted. The cursed bloodline stirred again.
Tiny scales began to grow at the corner of his eyes. Used to this, Lyles opened a hidden freezer in a secret room and took out a piece of raw flesh with scales still attached. "Ha…!"
He tore into it like a beast, uncaring that it was raw and frozen, bones cracking as he chewed. The dark curse in his veins rejoiced and grew more demanding. When the flesh was gone, his breathing eased, the scales receded, yet grew imperceptibly more than before.
The flesh came from the last Great Dragon he had hunted. Every so often, or whenever he used that bloodline power, an uncontrollable craving for Great Dragon flesh surged. This was the shadow beneath the glory of the dragon hunting duke, a curse passed down through generations and destined for his daughter as well.
"The dragon hunting Edward family is bound to pursue dragon calamities, whether for honor, duty, or… forget it." Lyles glanced at the greatsword beside him, its surface shaped like scales and claws of a living Great Dragon. The carved closed eye always felt as if it would open in the dark, watching him struggle at the line between man and dragon.
After the scheduled half hour rest, Lyles entered the hall where more than ten formidable men and women waited. They were retainers of the Edward family, members of the dragon hunting group, each strong in their own right. Under Lyles, they had slain seven dragon calamities.
"My lord, we are ready." "Good."
Lyles took the the Lord seat and tapped the table lightly before coughing once. "The intelligence is confirmed, and I checked personally. I can be sure that red dragon is nearby."
"It may be linked to the volcanic cluster with special minerals." The group nodded, knowing those volcanoes were active and hard to mine due to extreme magma heat.
"You all know what kind of dragon we hunt. This is likely that red dragon's doing. Even mad, they can pull this off." "It was injured and probably sought the largest volcano to trigger it, using scattered Magic to recover, or to drive itself further insane."
"We enter the forest tomorrow and get to work." Lyles' pupils, like a true Great Dragon, swept across the serious faces before him.
"Who the hell are you."
Belial rubbed his eyes and pushed his head out of the magma. When he saw the visitor, he paused for a moment, as if his sleep had not fully cleared. To explain how this happened, it helps to move time back a little.
With his entire body soaked in magma, Belial folded his wings around himself, wrapping his frame until he looked like he had returned to an egg-like shape. Vast geothermal energy was drawn into his body by the fully deployed Energy Field, rapidly filling the gaps left by earlier consumption. As a result, his body was developing again at an extreme pace.
The root cause was the stacking effect of God of Destruction, which gave his body traits that ignored normal physical limits. With those traits added, his original form could break past earlier constraints. In simple terms, once the strength of bones, muscles, and organs within the System cycle rose, a living body could naturally grow larger.
To put it even more plainly, after grafting the God of Destruction template onto himself, his overall output surged wildly and without restraint. To withstand that absurd power, his body issued a simple order to itself and grew into its current ten-foot-tall frame. Size was the most direct sign of becoming stronger.
Compared to before, his muscles were slightly less dense, because a large amount of stored energy had been diverted to promote growth. Visually, he looked a bit leaner than his ideal proportions, with plenty of room left to develop. Once that space was filled, both his weight and muscle mass would climb rapidly.