Chapter 332: Crushing

Muen’s face went ashen.

Under the terrible external pressure, the mana circuit and alchemical matrix on his back had already begun to operate on their own; threads of searing heat kept needling his nerves, like being roasted over charcoal.

Yet he couldn’t feel a trace of warmth—on the contrary, it was as if he stood on a wind-lashed ice plain, cold to the marrow.

Ancient Dragon Heartblood.

No matter how he turned it over, the only thing on him that could attract this Calamity was the dragon blood from its kind—refined by Teacher Mela and fused into his body as one of the materials.

Damn!

Mela screwed me!

He’d been screwed by that old loli more than once or twice, but this time Muen truly wanted to go back, grab her baby-fat cheeks, and vent his anger hard.

Premise being, he lived.

“Wait, no—according to the books, aren’t dragons supposed to be a species extremely indifferent to their own kind? Would they really be attracted by a kin’s blood?”

“And besides, Teacher Mela refined that Ancient Dragon Heartblood to that degree back then—why would any aura still linger?”

Questions rose one after another in Muen’s mind, but he had no leisure to ponder them. The majestic golden pupils fixed on him, sweeping like the brightest searchlights, as if to see straight through his entire body.

—It was indeed probing for something.

Calm.

Stay calm.

A Calamity is different from an Evil God. Though a magical beast, an existence at this level should be able to communicate.

If it only wanted to kill him to vent for its kin, it would have struck the moment it appeared; he’d have no chance of survival—there’d be no need to drag this out.

Muen took a deep breath, forcibly pressed down the terror in his heart, didn’t dare meet those golden eyes, lowered his head, and squeezed out a deep voice from his lungs to ask respectfully:

“...Awe-inspiring Calamity, Dragon of Death’s Doom, honored Lord Hamrein, may I—”

But before the words were finished, the wind cut him off.

It wasn’t ordinary wind, nor the wind of the storm the priest had called down earlier.

It was like all the world’s winds gathered here and then # Nоvеlight # were torn apart, the edges of their dissipation letting out a wail-like moan.

“What?”

With the death-warning buzzing in his head, Muen looked up in shock—just in time to see a trace of mockery flicker in that Calamity’s majestic golden eyes.

As if laughing at a mere ant daring to speak a dragon’s name.

So, the Calamity lifted its ferocious forelimb, made a loose grasp, and a single finger popped forth—no, “claw” was the proper word.

Then that claw—still monstrously large to Muen—aimed at the top of his head and fell lightly.

“Lightly” because it descended so slowly that Muen could almost count every scale upon it.

Yet immediately he coughed a mouthful of blood, as if an invisible mountain—inescapable—were slowly, hopelessly crushing every inch of his flesh, even every cell.

“Damn it!”

Muen’s face twisted, teeth clenched; he forced the blood in his throat back down.

He would not sit and wait to die.

Even if the gap in strength was enough to breed despair, he still gripped his blade.

And, without hesitation, he swung!

Thunder roared!

Twentyfold Stack!

Dazzling blade-light, carrying Muen’s strongest might at this moment, hacked up at the claw that was toying with him as it fell.

The alchemical matrix was driven to the limit in an instant—but it still wasn’t enough. Under Muen’s forcible urging, the second alchemical core that Teacher Mela had inscribed ahead of time upon his body and temporarily sealed, began to glow.

Like the brilliant Morning Star before dawn.

Sixtyfold.

Seventyfold.

Eightyfold...

One hundredfold!

A hundredfold dilation of time—unleashed without reserve.

With that hundredfold blessing, the blade-light hung like a Milky Way, even more resplendent!

The blade-light, in a razor posture, split the invisible mountain. Muen himself was like an arrow about to leave the string—Zi and I’m Not a Fish says: Welcome to Tongren Novel Network at tongrenxsw.com to read this book!—full drawn and ready. If he could just slit open the invisible, awful pressure smothering him, he’d use his own speed to flee in a flash.

He wasn’t stupid enough to actually fight a Calamity to the death.

But... it still wasn’t enough. Even the strongest strike of his life, breaking past his limits, still couldn’t budge that lightly falling giant claw in the slightest.

He couldn’t even slow it down.

The golden eyes were still full of mockery.

An even more terrifying pressure descended; Muen’s whole body was drenched in blood.

“Sacred Light’s Blessing—”

Suddenly, a warm current coursed through Muen’s whole body. Under that holy power’s boon, the faltering blade-light surged up like flame doused with hot oil.

The invisible mountain pressing across finally split under the blade; Muen felt his body loosen. He didn’t have time to feel joy at being freed—following instinct, he rolled across the ground in a mess and, at the last instant, avoided the falling claw.

From the dragon’s vantage, it had merely lowered a single claw by a tiny arc.

But before Muen, a pit like one gouged by a meteor, bottomless and dead-still, formed in an instant—so deep that not even stray dust was stirred.

A chill ran through Muen’s body; it went without saying that if he had been even a heartbeat slower, he would have, like the dirt and stone that vanished in that pit, turned to nothing.

But he couldn’t spare that thought. He looked the other way and rasped:

“Why?”

There, a girl in a pristine skirt held Sacred Light; her whole body trembled, her eyes terrified yet steadfast:

“I... I don’t want to run.”

“Staying won’t help—go!”

“I know—”

Her adorable face was bloodless, but before a dragon titled Calamity, she did not retreat a single step.

“Maybe I’m useless, maybe I’m weak, but... but... but I don’t want to run away again. I am Liya Angel; I am the future Saintess!”

“A-and also.”

With trembling, beautiful eyes, Liya looked at Muen and said softly:

“I...”

【Hmph.】

A cold snort rang out; the black fog shrouding the place suddenly heaved in violent turbulence.

“Ugh...”

Holy radiance flared bright, but quickly withered and collapsed. With a pained groan, the girl was struck as if by a giant hammer to the chest and flung backward.

“Liya!”

Muen’s eyes split with rage.

Stupid woman!

His expression contorted; the crimson flames—still not fully recovered—erupted from within him without reserve. At the same time, his figure flickered—he appeared midair before the dragon.

With furious eyes unflinching beneath that majestic golden gaze, blade-light coiled with the world-scorching fire of an Evil God, he cleaved down at the thing called Calamity!

The dragon stared at the ant lunging at it. The mocking gaze tightened, as if it recognized those flames, and grew a shade more solemn.

So the single claw became... three.

Three claws caged Muen like a prison and slowly... closed.

The red flames still burned, yet could not halt the claws’ approach. Muen’s body let out countless low cracks, like bamboo exploding in a fire.

In that instant, he didn’t know how many bones shattered at once.

Agony tore his nerves. No matter how ferocious his rage, he could clearly feel his strength being drawn away.

Utterly powerless.

So this... is a Calamity?

Despair showed in Muen’s eyes.

The dragon did not close him entirely into its grasp; it let him slip, limp, through the gaps of its claws.

In the last moment before his consciousness faded, Muen strained to turn his head and look at the girl not far away.

Blood stained the white at her chest; her lashes quivered over shut eyes—like a butterfly with broken wings.

Looks like... I still dragged her down.

Muen gave a bleak smile, and his consciousness sank into darkness.

...

...

Silence fell over the woods; even the wind stopped, as if it dared not trespass by a hair.

The dragon loomed above, overlooking all.

Yet those majestic golden eyes paid no attention to the loathsome, Sacred-Light-drenched girl; they remained fixed on Muen.

It was waiting for something.

Muen was a bloody ruin. His organs and bones had shattered into who knew how many pieces; if not for those equally loathsome flames propping up the last sliver of his life deep within, he would already be dead.

For Muen, this was a dead end.

So it kept waiting.

Only a dead end sharp enough could force out the thing it wanted to find.

As for that faint-to-the-point-of-nothing ancient dragon aura on him—the black dragon hadn’t even put it in its eyes.

A kin, that’s all.

It had killed plenty.

Nothing worth caring about.

But time passed quickly; the light dimmed.

Muen looked like he was about to bleed dry...

And still, nothing happened.

A trace of doubt finally flashed in the dragon’s golden eyes.

Could it... have guessed wrong?

Caw—

Not far away came an awkward crow’s call.

“...”

Indifferently, the dragon withdrew its gaze.

It prepared to leave, to end this tedious farce.

But just then, as if it suddenly noticed something, its icy gaze swept Muen again.

At Muen’s chest, where his clothing had torn, the undershirt beneath revealed a sheet of paper—despite the savage battle, not a single mark or crease marred it.

It was a letter.

A very ordinary-looking letter.

The majestic golden pupils flickered. Endless black fog surged back and wrapped the colossal draconic body, cocooning it in a black giant chrysalis.

The world cleared; the sky dimmed; the stars shone bright.

Then, from within the chrysalis, footsteps sounded.

A tall figure stepped out.

A black long dress trailed the ground, embroidered in tiered, thorn-like exquisite patterns; crimson hair cascaded like a maple forest ablaze in late autumn.

Bare shoulders and neck were dusted with a scale or two, making the whiteness of her skin even more striking; the hands and bare feet that slipped from the black dress glimmered with a faint, enticing jade sheen under the starlight.

Her face could not be seen; only a pair of eyes—no longer blazing like a great sun, yet still like molten gold—before which the boundless night bowed in submission.

It was a woman.

A “woman” crowned with the name of Calamity.

She walked to Muen’s side; those majestic eyes never glanced at him again. She merely bent a little, reached out her hand, and moved toward the letter.

“That letter isn’t for you.”

A childlike, impish voice piped up out of nowhere in the woods.

The woman lifted her head; cold golden eyes met a pair of limpid amber.