At the center stood a massive altar of flesh and black stone, connected to the ceiling. Hanging from it was a blood-red heart covered in wailing, twisted faces. Each beat sent out a strange Magic pulse, matching the faint traces found within the maddened monsters above.
An ice-blue fragment was embedded in the heart's core, glowing weakly. Its presence was identical to another fragment elsewhere, and to that of a certain ice-blue-haired little girl far away. The Black-robed Man ground his teeth and spat out a few words.
"…That dragon!"
Filled with resentment, he reached out and tore the fragment free with his bare hand, blood spilling freely.
The fragment was wrapped in flames and held tight in his palm. After cutting the link between the fragment and the heart, the endless blizzard outside began to weaken, at least within this blockbuster area, though the change was subtle. The madness that had ridden in on wind and snow through the fragment also started to fade.
As a result, part of the surrounding Magic Array connections were forcibly severed, and sparks of Magic scattered everywhere. Several blood vessels that served as formation lines burst open, spraying blood. The secret ritual he had spent so much effort arranging was destroyed by his own hands, and a huge amount of blood shot out of the gap in the heart like water from a hose.
What was meant as preparation to open a gate now forced him to accept a harsh reality. If his goal was to be achieved, it would have to be at the worst possible cost. He muttered, "I did not expect even a worthless, low-grade monster to interfere like this. What is it trying to do?"
He could not understand it at all. With the pride of a dragon that looked down on all others, how could such a being act this way? Hearing a faint dragon roar in the distance, he stopped hesitating, thrust his hand wrapped in black aura straight into the heart, and tore out a gray-white glow wrapped in black Magic.
"So little food collected," he said through clenched teeth.
First of all, as a traditional black-robed villain who was clearly meant to oppose the protagonist, he possessed all the classic traits. He never explained things clearly and always spoke in vague riddles, wore a black robe that did nothing to hide his identity and only made him stand out, and relied on incomprehensible methods and mystery to toy with even so-called invincible protagonists before leaving at will. He had all of that.
But recently, he was close to losing control. Several key locations and arrangements had been uprooted by some ice-using little girl, leaving him nowhere to hide. Several families that secretly supported him were also killed by Wolf Lord and his wolf pack.
It was as if the enemy had activated some cheat, like someone who had read the script and pointed directly at his weak points. In just the past few days, his losses had been severe. He even suspected the other side had access to some powerful divination or prophecy.
Even the outer support rituals had been smashed by a dragon. It was as if the enemy had full-map vision, finding ritual nodes with perfect accuracy every time. Several ritual sites had already been destroyed, the modified monsters serving as nodes were killed, and even some important Gold Rank combat forces meant for later use were lost.
Just days ago, everything was under control, and now the situation was about to flip completely. He snarled, "You mad dragon. The power of my lord's blessing is not something your body can imprison."
Thinking back on the dragon's actions, even he, a madman, felt the other side was too extreme. Of course, the great lord's methods were unfathomable, and losing some intermediate steps was not a big deal. He had long prepared for key ritual nodes to be destroyed, since the blessing power could attach itself to life and many other things.
Even if a hero drew a sword and slew monsters, they would eventually turn into an evil dragon at the final ritual site and become part of the ritual. But this dragon had gone mad, using its body as a container, opening itself to absorb power, and then expanding at insane speed. Before the ritual was even finished, it was already close to being completely smashed.
It was a direct collision. Look at it now, reduced to a pitiful thing that only knew how to roar, its appearance twisted until it barely resembled the White Dragon. Still, it was a serious problem, and his earlier decision had been a mistake that he would correct with his own hands today.
"Dragon," he said coldly. "Arrogant dragon. This is the age of my lord now, and I will personally sweep away trash like you that should not exist in my lord's world."
He walked out of the underground stone chamber. Countless blasphemous objects and octagonal runes buried inside had already been burned to ash by flames, leaving no trace behind. At that moment, the massive white dragon had flown overhead, its shadow darker than his black robe, and the wind it brought lifted the corner of his clothing.
"Hmph."
He used the souls of innocent people in his hand as fuel to ignite the blessed holy fire. This was power granted by the lord, blessing power in essence, with flames as only its surface. Its true core was consumption and exhaustion, the dissipation of souls, a sun that would one day swell and die, and a universe inevitably marching toward heat death.
It was the end of all things. It was the ash left after burning.
Even so, despite being ranked Gold Rank, the cost of using this flame was still enormous and could even burn him to death without distinguishing friend from foe. Therefore, most of the time he only used a tiny portion of its power. For ordinary people, letting the firelight reflect in their eyes was enough for their memories to rapidly burn away.
This burning was not a crude erasure but a natural forgetting, a biological instinct that the flames merely accelerated. Used this way, it could be roughly understood as a crimson king. Like before, igniting an enemy's attack would cause that ice dragon to burn instantly, since burning just one part would naturally collapse the whole structure.
By burning away his own sense of presence and traces of movement until they were exhausted, he could move silently. Against those above Silver rank, whose souls were refined and clear, it would only cause a brief moment of dazed distraction. "But that is enough," he said.
Blessed fire spread from beneath the black robe as he directed the Magic in his body toward the white dragon flying in. Black-red flames spiraled and gathered at his fingertips, the extreme heat warping the air as highly compressed fire formed vicious claws. He was confident that even an ancient dragon was, in his eyes, just a battered old thing barely clinging to life.
With strength that counted as top-tier even among Gold Rank, enough to solo an adult dragon, plus the blessing power on him, how could he lose. How could this possibly fail. "How could I lose," he muttered.
In mid-charge, a transparent barrier suddenly appeared in front of him, and he noticed it immediately. He did not care and even sneered, since a defense with no obvious Magic aura was not worth mentioning. Die, you old thing.
Then he slammed into it like a fly.
Belial truly did not expect that even in the Otherworld, he could still run into something like this. Let us rewind time a bit. He was still flying toward his destination.
This signal was far too obvious. The towering Magic aura could be sensed from far away. He even felt it was considerate, as if marking the spot clearly so he would not miss it.
The surprise did not end there. Belial saw two signals, one large and one small, stuck together and coming straight toward him. Before he could even think about being polite, he saw a tiny ant in a black robe ignite with flames and charge at him.
"Wait, I am a dragon," he said. "With my size and weight, how do you even dare?"
Looking more closely, he realized this was the large signal he had been craving. His joy was mixed with a strange feeling, because he suddenly thought, "This is not the real owner coming to find me, is it?"
That thought made him break into a cold sweat. Thinking back on what he had done for these signals, smashing other people's buildings, breathing once at target locations and turning entire structures into frozen rubble. He had destroyed many buildings that emitted Magic and were engraved with Magic Circle, swallowing all the Magic inside.
From another perspective, did that not look exactly like the behavior of an evil dragon. Belial had always tried to shape himself into a model dragon, and even if he could not fully achieve that, he at least did not want to become a universally hated evil dragon.