A massive halo of light rose from the Chimera's charred remains and surged into Lo Quen's body.
He glanced into the depths of his consciousness, his eyelids twitching:
Dragon's Soul: 4.8%
Magic: 10112/48550
Fifteen thousand points of Dragon's Soul!
That was five thousand more than the ten thousand he had gained from killing the purple bird-beast.
Yet the Chimera was clearly smaller and weaker than that purple monster—so why had it yielded more Dragon's Soul?
The question turned in his mind.
Lo Quen suspected it was tied to that strange black stone.
The Chimera had undergone some kind of evolution there. Though interrupted, it had reached a higher stage than the purple beast in a certain sense.
A flicker of relief crossed him. Fortunately, he had cut the process short. If the Chimera had finished its evolution, its strength would have been unimaginable.
He wasted no time. His massive body turned toward the tower's edge.
With a violent beat of his wings, he stirred a storm of wind and plunged down toward the city thousands of feet below.
Breaking through the final veil of gray mist, a hellish sight unfolded before him.
Unlike when he had first arrived, Tyria now drowned in blood and fire.
White marble avenues were littered with severed limbs like broken dolls. Smashed skulls rolled into corners, their empty sockets staring blankly at the crimson sky.
Lo Quen's heart clenched at the sight. His eyes swept the carnage—those scaled-claw beasts!
They crouched over still-warm corpses, barbed tongues burrowing into split skulls. Sickening slurps echoed as they sucked out the viscous fluids within.
The air was thick with the stench of blood and entrails.
The city was burning, groaning, sinking into despair and death.
Lo Quen's dragon gaze swept down the broad steps leading from the tower's base.
That too had become a slaughterhouse.
Several young wizards in gray robes lay gutted, their entrails dragged out, their skulls cracked open to reveal red and white pulp. Viscous fluid seeped through the cracks of the steps, pooling into a nauseating mess.
His golden vertical pupils showed no pity, only cold indifference.
These lackeys of Osarion had met the end they deserved.
His eyes shifted upward and caught a figure in crimson higher up the steps.
Jaelena.
She stood like a blood-drenched bronze statue, fixed at the last steps before the tower gate, shielding Janice behind her.
Her flaming sword carved searing arcs of death with every swing, cleaving and driving back the scaled-claw monsters that surged at her.
Her crimson armor, etched with ancient runes, shone with a harsh red light that held back their claws and fangs, though it bore charred gouges where their strikes had landed.
But there were too many.
Like sharks drawn by blood, they knew no fear, no fatigue, swarming in endless waves from the corpses below.
They shrieked with piercing cries as they hurled themselves at that lone point of crimson.
Jaelena's movements grew visibly heavy, her swings slowing.
Each strike came with ragged, painful gasps.
Sweat and blood dripped from the rim of her helm.
Her armor was not seamless—the joints and the gaps at her neck became easy targets for clawed strikes.
Fresh wounds opened. Blood seeped through, staining her underclothes red.
She could feel her strength ebbing rapidly, her vision blurring with blood loss and exhaustion.
"Cough—!"
A violent spasm tore through her. Blood sprayed inside her visor, painting the metal mesh red before dripping down the edges.
"Sister!" Janice's desperate cry rang out from behind her, raw with despair and helplessness.
She clung to her sister's waist, her small body trembling from terror and the horrors before her. Her face was streaked with blood—whether from the monsters or Jaelena herself, it was impossible to tell.
"Go!" Jaelena's hoarse voice rasped from behind the blood-soaked mask, each word tinged with the metallic tang of blood. "Now… hurry! Get to the port, find a ship to Oros…"
With the last of her strength, she swung her sword, cutting a gap through the monsters to buy her sister a sliver of space.
But Janice shook her head violently, tears and blood carving lines down her cheeks. "No! I won't leave! Even if I die, I'll stay with you!"
Jaelena met her sister's eyes—deep purple, mirrors of her own—burning with reckless determination.
In that instant, the ice in her gaze melted. Hot tears welled and slipped down, mingling with blood.
She said nothing more. With the last of her strength, she pushed her sister deeper behind her.
Gripping the searing hilt of her sword, her violet eyes locked onto the tide of scaled claws rushing up once again, filled only with the fire of a death-wish.
Then it came—a dragon's roar, vast enough to rend souls and shake the earth, thundering down from the blood-red sky like an ancient horn.
And with it, the flood of destruction.
Golden Dragonfire poured from the heavens like molten suns, engulfing the crowded steps before Jaelena with perfect precision.
The roaring flames devoured dozens of scaled beasts in an instant.
The unbearable heat made the air itself scream, and the stone steps glowed red before shattering under the fire.
The monster writhed and twisted in the golden inferno, shrieking so piercingly it seemed to split the air. In an instant, it was reduced to blackened bones and scattering ash.
A scorching wave of heat crashed over the steps like a tsunami, carrying with it the breath of total annihilation.
Jaelena spun around at once, pulling Janice tightly against her chest, shielding her sister beneath her breastplate and arms, using her body and armor as a bulwark.
The burning gale whipped through her exposed silver-gold hair, singeing the ends into brittle curls. Her skin seared under the heat, but she did not move, pressing Janice's head firmly against her chest.
The storm howled, lifting ash and broken stone from the ground.
Then a vast shadow blotted out the sky, casting the blood-soaked steps into darkness.
With a thunderous crash like a falling meteor, stone shattered, dust billowed, and a colossal dragon—more than ten meters long, clad in resplendent golden scales—landed heavily before them.
The cold stone floor groaned and split beneath its claws.
Jaelena struggled to lift her head. Through the bloodied mesh of her visor, her icy violet eyes reflected the towering golden figure.
Beside her, Janice also raised her head, her wide violet eyes brimming with shock—and with a flicker of familiarity that left her trembling.
"Get on!"
The dragon's voice was deep and commanding, cutting through the crackle of fire and the dying shrieks of monsters, landing clear in the sisters' ears.
Jaelena froze, her mind reeling.
A talking dragon? Was this a hallucination in the throes of death?
"It's you, Lo Quen!" Janice cried, her voice breaking with sudden, desperate hope.
The golden dragon inclined its head slightly.
At the same time, its cold golden eyes, sharp as blades, swept across the steps below.
There, the horde of scaled-claw beasts—having crushed the last resistance of the wizards—surged upward like a vast ant colony scenting blood. They hissed as they climbed, trampling over the charred remains of men and monsters alike, forming a foul torrent that poured up the steps once more.
Their eyes held nothing but slaughter. Toward the dragon, they showed no fear, only unrestrained bloodlust.
"Now!"
Lo Quen's voice rang out again, pounding against Jaelena's chest.
The will to survive drowned out her doubts.
Gritting her teeth, she seized Janice's hand and dragged her up the dragon's massive wing joint.
The scales beneath their feet burned like red-hot irons. Even through her armor, the heat was suffocating.
The sisters crouched low, gripping the jagged spines along the dragon's neck.
"Whoosh—!"
The golden wings thundered, sending a storm howling through the air.
The surge of lift tore them from the blood-soaked steps and carried them high into the skies above the city.
From above, Tyria's devastation lay bare.
Lo Quen bore them along the central marble avenue—once vibrant, now piled with corpses and crawling with monsters.
The dragon's head dipped, golden eyes narrowing on the teeming swarm below, every beast raising its head to scream.
His jaws parted, golden light building in his throat.
In the next breath, a blinding column of Dragonfire erupted, molten gold spewing forth in a torrent.
The flames poured down like scalding liquid sunlight, crashing over the massed horde.
The fire surged and spread along the avenue in an instant.
Ignited creatures rolled and thrashed like burning effigies, their screams sharp with despair as the flames clung to them like maggots on bone.
Within heartbeats, the wide street became a roaring river of pale golden fire.
The blaze lit the smoke-darkened sky, casting a cruel golden glow over the dying city.
...
[Upto 40 chapters ahead for now]
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