Chapter 76: Because It Is All Too Fragile (6)
Perhaps thanks to the sudden intruder, Periyuro finally managed to break free from Olasird'arc oppressive aura. Even though his body still trembled from the frost dragon's chilling breath, he forced himself to move, dragging his frozen limbs to escape with all his strength.
"Cough… cough…"
That white dragon—the one who dared call himself Dragon King—clearly did not care whether they lived or died. Periyuro knew he could not perish here. His ambitions had been shattered, but at the very least, he had to ensure the survival of his clansmen.
There is an old human saying: United we stand, divided we fall. Normally, the more they banded together, the stronger they became. But now? It was the opposite. If they gathered, they would only draw down greater destruction. Against the wrath of the frost dragons, just like with the red dragons before, the Quagoa would be helpless—slaughtered to the last.
They had to scatter. To flee, to survive, and to pass on the warning. Even if he died, the future of the clans must endure. With that grim resolve, Periyuro forced his numbed body to move.
....
Meanwhile, the intruder had already provoked Olasird'arc's fury. The temperature in the palace dropped further, from cold to deadly chill. Frost spread again across Periyuro's fur, biting his metal-like hide. He shivered, on the verge of freezing to death, yet anger burned in him—at the frost dragon, at the intruder, at this wretched fate.
And then he saw it.
"—I'll make you understand, even if it's rough."
The intruder's words echoed.
Periyuro's bloodshot eyes widened as he witnessed the cloaked figure swelling, expanding—blackness surging out like living shadow. He rubbed his frost-encrusted eyelids in disbelief, but the vision did not fade.
The darkness writhed, swelling until it swallowed the dwarven citadel, engulfing even the ceiling, still rising higher, devouring space itself.
Panic overtook him. The tide of shadow rushed toward him, and he scrambled desperately to escape. The palace shook—pillars collapsing, ceilings caving, the flood of black swallowing everything.
Periyuro barely managed to flee before it consumed him. But within seconds, something massive struck him, hurling his body through walls like a ragdoll. Stone shattered, walls crumbled, blood filled his mouth as his vision flashed red and black.
Miraculously, he lived. His hide, stronger than adamantite, and his hardened body had spared him from being pulped outright. Curling up for protection had been impossible, but sheer resilience kept him alive.
Moments later—though it felt like endless hours of torment—the crushing force ceased. Instead, he found himself hurled into the open air, smashing through wall after wall until he tumbled across the ground outside.
"Khagh—cough! Ghh…!"
Every nerve screamed in pain. It was worse than any hammer-blow he had suffered in his life. What could possibly have caused this devastation?
But his thoughts ended there.
The sky itself seemed to collapse, pressing down with unbearable weight. Periyuro couldn't even scream. His body flattened against the earth, his bloodshot eyes catching one last vision—
The dwarven palace, reduced to rubble. From the ruins, a colossal shadow rose. Black, immense, with molten crimson veins coursing across its body like rivers of lava.
It was no creature. It was a mountain of despair. An existence whose mere presence forced life itself to abandon hope.
That was the last thing Periyuro saw before his mind surrendered completely.
From the ruins of the collapsed palace, a colossal black figure slowly rose. For such a massive body, its movements were impossibly light and smooth as it lifted its head.
"Hmph… a bit cramped."
It was Tiamat, shaking his head lightly.
The dwarven royal palace was no small structure. Hundreds of meters wide, dozens of meters high, it was one of the finest masterpieces of dwarven craftsmanship and artistry. Yet, it was far too small to contain his body.
The moment he deactivated the effect of Tarnhelm, his body had swelled as if it would burst apart. His equipment automatically returned to his inventory, and then the change—the transformation—began.
First, his skin turned black, splitting into countless cracks, each forming into scale-like plates of armor.
The scales thickened rapidly, and with them his legs, torso, arms, and head expanded dozens, then hundreds of times over.
Like storm clouds rolling in on a summer day, the space darkened as his body swelled, a human form becoming a titanic dragon.
As his expanding body smashed through pillars, walls, and ceilings, the central section of the palace collapsed entirely. Shards and debris rained against him but failed to even scratch a single gleaming black scale. Against his overwhelming physical resistances—let alone the perfected Dragon Skin—stone could do nothing.
The black figure erupted from the palace's heart, raising his long neck skyward. Tiamat spread his vast, shadowed wings, as large as his body itself, and with a single beat, he unleashed a gale that tore through the ruins. Debris was hurled away, buildings swept aside, devastation wrought across the city.
From the heart of those wings, golden eyes opened—pupils slit into burning vertical lines. His gaze swept across the devastation, then wavered slightly.
"Perhaps… that was a bit much."
He had only stretched, flexing his body as if waking from slumber, and yet the entire area lay in ruin. He hadn't realized his simple motion would treat the surroundings like fragile toys.
In Yggdrasil, there had been no such effects—unless he performed an attack motion, even fierce wingbeats wouldn't break so much as a tree. But here… this was different.
"Hmm… but to me, it's little more than broken toys."
From his towering height, the once-grand city appeared nothing more than a miniature model. His body stretched easily beyond a hundred meters in length, wingspan twice as vast. Before such immensity, everything else was insignificant.
Still, guilt pricked at him. The dwarves would one day return to this city, and he had destroyed it thoughtlessly. The red dragons had at least left it intact—but the master himself had been the one to ruin it. A loss of dignity, and more than a little shame.
As Tiamat brooded in silence over this regret, the rubble before him stirred.
"Wh-what…"
From the debris, a white dragon's head burst forth. Though caked with dust and rubble, its scales gleamed pure and unblemished.
Around the ruins, more dragons thrust their heads free, shaking off the rubble as they rose. There were about twenty in total—the number of life signatures Tiamat had already sensed when he first entered the palace, filtering out the countless lesser reactions scattered across the city.
"What in the world are you? An illusion? A phantom? A fake? Just what are you!?"
"As you see… a dragon."
"Don't be absurd! No dragon like you could exist!"
Olasird'arc's eyes bulged wide. Even as the enormous shadow before him took the unmistakable form of a dragon, he couldn't believe it.
A body as vast as a mountain, black scales streaked with molten crimson veins like rivers of fire across a volcanic slope.
A head crowned with jagged horns like a king's diadem. Wings so vast they seemed to blot out the heavens themselves. Every feature screamed of something impossible, something that should not exist.
"And yet… here I stand before you."
The thunderous voice rolled across the capital, shaking its very foundations.
The pressure of the Dragon Fear suffused the air, overwhelming. Olasird'arc's kin collapsed instantly. His three wives, his proud son Tranzelit, even his pathetic eldest Hejinmal crawling out of a ruined spire—all dropped to the ground, wings folded, tails curled, heads buried into the floor in submission.
Only Olasird'arc kept his head raised, stiffly resisting. But it was an empty defiance; his neck felt like it would snap under the weight of that pressure. His entire body had turned rigid, frozen. The only thing holding him up was pride—the pride of one who dared call himself "Dragon King."
What is this… what is this thing!?
Inside, he screamed. Never had such a dragon existed in all his kind's memory. Even the greatest of his ancestors, in their final, bloated years of slothful gluttony, had only grown marginally larger than himself. Nothing—nothing like this.
But the black colossus before him… its head alone dwarfed him. Its jaws looked wide enough to swallow him whole. The obsidian scales and that impossible mass radiated invincibility—no conceivable weapon, no magic he knew, could mar that hide.
Could it be… one of the mythical sovereigns? A true Dragon Emperor whispered of only in legend?
"No… impossible—"
"Hmph. You claim to know the difference in our stature? Then allow me… to return the favor."
Dragon Fear — Level 4.
This was no mere aura of intimidation. It was domination made manifest, a force that transcended spirit and crushed flesh itself.
Olasird'arc's head slammed down as if the sky itself had collapsed on him. His colossal body was driven into the ground, stone floors buckling as if gravity had multiplied a hundredfold.
What remained of the dwarven palace buckled and imploded under the crushing force that radiated outward in a perfect circle from Tiamat's form.
"This is the difference in stature. Prostrate yourself. Grovel. Beg for your life."
"Khh—kaahhk!"
"F-father… guhhhk—!"
Frost dragons spat blood beneath the overwhelming pressure, their bodies unable to withstand it.
Olasird'arc forced his head upward again, trembling, his neck scales cracking and splintering under the strain. Every measure—size, might, aura, power—Tiamat was overwhelming. And still, Olasird'arc endured, by pride alone.
The massive black head descended with fluid, effortless grace, until Tiamat's snout loomed directly above him. Despite his mountain-like bulk, his movements were elegant, natural—every motion precise and without strain.
The golden eyes narrowed, amused.
"This is our difference in height. Do you finally understand, dwarf?"
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