The scene he expected never appeared. There was no torn flesh, no rampant loss of control over Magic. If anything had happened at all, it was just that a small patch of skin had been scraped.
He froze.
He looked at the still vigorous Great Dragon and heard the ominous humming in his ears, like pounding drums. Kwenfield's face darkened to an extreme, his teeth clenched tight.
"Long time no see, miss."
On the other side, Salva was still smiling as he drank his coffee, reclining in a lounge chair he had produced from nowhere. Sensing the storm's arrival, he set the cup down and greeted Icelis, who rode out of the snowstorm on a giant white wolf with a cold expression.
He even offered a polite greeting.
As the favored of the Great Fire of Decay and the incarnation who walked the land, Kwenfield knew very well what kind of effect the the Lord's Sacred Fire carried. He himself had often been burned by that kind of fierce flame. What looked like fire was only the surface of decay, because once burned by Sacred Fire, everything inside the body began to rot at the most basic level.
The decay caused the Magic within, along with the soul and other components, to lose control as they broke down rapidly. The unrestrained energy erupted outward and became flame, and the deeper the decay, the fiercer the fire. No one could resist this decay, because it was not something forcibly imposed, but the inevitable end of all things, just as even the sun would one day decay into a red giant.
He merely gave it a small push. When living beings were touched by this decay, the very process of life would accelerate toward ruin, showing as lifespan being burned away at high speed. The body would visibly age, and before death by old age arrived, it would usually be consumed by the uncontrollable flames.
This was authority, something beyond all things and no longer something that simple energy could suppress. It was a noble mechanism. And Kwenfield, who could wield part of this authority, had always been unstoppable in the past.
Until now, when he felt something was a little wrong. It was as if he had burned his life and made a desperate sacrifice to fire off a penetrating, critical, instant-kill strike, only for it to barely scratch the target. So his current mood was not fear or anger, but a huge question mark that refused to leave his mind.
How had the other side avoided it? Some other Laws besides ice, or had he panicked and missed? As for tanking it head-on, that was impossible. He had never even considered that option.
Yet the answer really was that absurd. Aside from Belial's absurdly long health pool and terrifying regeneration speed, the Energy Field contained within his body had also deflected part of that power. Even Belial himself had not noticed it.
There was still some distance between them, and due to the viewing angle, Kwenfield did not see the Great Dragon clearly. He did not catch the details of the black wound beneath the supposedly blasted white surface scales. But what followed left him no time to remain confused.
Not long ago, within that trap, the Great Dragon had displayed another kind of breath completely different from icy cold. The terrifying scars it left behind, and that blue-white light of destruction, still lingered in his mind. Now, it was about to appear again.
The omen of its release, the distant humming sound, and the crystal-like energy glow surging behind the Great Dragon's back were unforgettable. Thinking of that level of power, the conclusion came instantly and without hesitation. He would definitely die.
Kwenfield had considered using Authority of Decay as before to disrupt the opponent's internal energy structure and make it collapse. Scattered energy would always be easier to deal with than a focused spell. But the problem was that the Great Dragon's breath had no spell structure at all.
There was only brute force. If he interfered with authority, the result would only be even more violently reactive energy roasting him worse than before. That left only one choice.
Kwenfield ignited that same flame again, his face growing even more decayed as his figure vanished in an instant. Run. Who would joke about tanking something like that when he was only here to buy time, not to throw his life away.
He flickered repeatedly like teleportation, appearing in multiple places at once and even creating many flame-made Clone. But when he realized that the glow inside the Great Dragon's open jaws was firmly locked onto his true body, he sped up even more. Even as he kept burning himself and using blessings, his decay grew severe.
As long as he was not hit, it was fine. No matter how strong an attack was, it meant nothing if it missed. But this constant movement strategy had its limits.
"It's useless." Belial continued gathering power as the crystal-like dorsal spines along his back lit up one by one, spreading all the way to the horns on his head. Terrifying energy flowed through them.
Yet unlike before, during the constant flickering, Kwenfield did not notice that the white scales on the Great Dragon's body were slowly melting and blurring. Thin strands of black seeped out from beneath. This was because an extremely high temperature radiated from his entire body, with barely restrained energy leaking through the gaps in the scales.
Even highly condensed Ice Element on the surface could not withstand it. Against a fast-moving target like this, using Spiral Heat Ray directly might miss once or twice. That felt a bit wasteful.
But as said before, monsters did not follow common sense. His solution was simple. In a region, how do you eliminate a high-speed or hidden target?
The answer was simple. "I blow up everything." Never forget that Godzilla's skill set was never limited to just firing beams from the mouth.
Belial suddenly spread his wings wide, the heat he carried nearly evaporating all remaining snow and ice on them, sending up a blockbuster cloud of steam. His wing membranes stretched to their fullest. Blue-white light poured from his eyes, mouth, and the gaps in his scales.
The reactor energy did not concentrate in his mouth this time, but spread continuously through every part of his body. As a result, his body temperature skyrocketed, and the heat on the surface completely vaporized the condensed shell of Ice Element. The ruinous black beneath, long hidden by pure white, finally revealed its savage form.
Steam swirled around him, and the blue light leaking from between scales and claws outlined a massive figure. As the vapor thinned, the pitch-black body became clearer. The ferocity once concealed now bared its fangs again.
"…Black Dragon?" Kwenfield had been watching the Great Dragon closely, and when he saw the white color rapidly fading, he first thought his Authority of Decay was still working and corroding the surface scales. But his eyes were not that bad, and a closer look revealed something deeply wrong.
This dragon was black. He had no time to dwell on it. In the next moment, scorching energy and light waves burst from Belial's body like mirror reflections, spreading in all directions with an earth-shaking roar.
"In-body radiation!" the Great Dragon roared as surging energy poured out from every inch of his surface. The spread wings were especially dazzling, acting as prime conduits for energy and erupting with countless beams of light.
This was the first appearance in the story of this Godzilla skill once again. Compared to Spiral Heat Ray, in-body radiation was rarely used, mostly for clearing lesser enemies or blasting energy-hungry foes like Ghidorah. Against terrifying stat monsters, its damage was almost like a tickle.
But that was only when facing monsters weighing tens of thousands of tons and towering over a hundred meters. You, a third-rate villain who survived by luck, did not count for anything. With SpaceGodzilla's properties, the move's power was amplified, crystal-like refractions filling every angle with devastating force.
On the vast snowfield, it was like a fallen sun crashing down, and the ice vanished in an instant. Just as Belial expected, Kwenfield had been guarding against Spiral Heat Ray and devoted most of his effort to instant movement. He was caught off guard and hastily raised a wall of fire, only for it to be torn apart like paper.
His body was blasted away like trash, now a mangled, charred mess. "What is this, cough…!" Kwenfield spat blood in midair. That all-encompassing destructive light was far more than it looked, striking his body and even his organs evenly.
He was still alive, but only because he kept burning the concept of his own life with decaying fire to temporarily stitch his broken body together. He was still needed for now. Soon, he would not be.
He had succeeded, and the goal of buying time was achieved. "Hahaha, Ice Spirit, they've arrived too!" His face twisted into ecstatic joy as the corner of his mouth split open in a blockbuster gash.
Everyone who needed to be here had arrived, and the real plan could finally begin. "My the Lord will also descend upon this world! Hahahaha!" He laughed madly in midair, his fanaticism no less than Salva's, and used the momentum from the in-body radiation to fly back into the canyon.