From the dust and rubble, something stirred.
The ground rumbled again—deeper this time—like the growl of a slumbering titan awakening. Cracks spiderwebbed violently across the battlefield, splitting stone and soil alike, as plumes of miasma hissed upward, darkening the already torn sky.
Chunks of broken earth floated unnaturally, twisting in midair, suspended as if gravity itself had given up.
Malraketh rose.
A towering, grotesque shadow against the storm-wracked heavens, its massive frame pushed through the debris with a sound like mountains grinding together.
The once-formidable armor that adorned its body was shattered and blackened, vast fractures crisscrossing its surface.
In the center of its chest, a massive crater burned, smoldering with ember-like veins where Belle's previous blow had landed, exposing the thrumming, corrupted core within.
Malraketh exhaled—a slow, guttural hiss—and from the split-open core, a flood of black miasma spilled forth like living tar.
The miasma wasn't just repairing Malraketh—it was mutating it.
Tendrils of darkness coiled around the cracks, knitting flesh and armor anew with grotesque precision. New armor plates sprouted like cancerous growths—gnarled, jagged, and more terrifying than before.
Where it had once been merely monstrous, now Malraketh had evolved into something more powerful.
Its molten crimson eyes reignited, flaring hotter, sharper, seething with hatred. With a roar that shattered the skies, it declared its unwillingness to fall.
A new transformation. A desperate rebirth.
Across the ruined plain, Belle stood her ground.
The silver-blue aura surrounding her burned brighter, spiraling into a furious cyclone around her body. Her long silver hair whipped violently in the storm, jacket snapping like a banner in a hurricane. She stood there, silent, motionless.
Her hand slowly rose into a fighting stance. Fingers curled tightly into fists that crackled with barely-contained power.
Her sharp silver eyes narrowed.
"Tsk. It's the miasma again." She whispered, a wry smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
"Guess I have to tear it faster than it could recover."
The earth exploded as Malraketh lunged, a black streak tearing toward her with a speed that defied its monstrous bulk. Its newly mutated blade-arm swung, trailing a maelstrom of miasma behind it—a blow powerful enough to cleave mountains.
BOOM.
The very air warped.
Belle didn't blink.
The instant before impact, her body moved in a blur, slipping through the attack like water through broken fingers. Her hand caught the blade mid-swing—barehanded. An impact that sent a shockwave outward, shattering the ground for kilometers.
The blade cracked under the pressure.
And then, with a dancer's grace, she pivoted—spinning sharply—her boot crashing into Malraketh's side like a silver guillotine.
CRACK.
Malraketh howled as it was sent hurtling, a streak of black and red, across the battlefield.
But Belle was faster.
She flashed into the air above the tumbling monster, body spinning, gathering energy into her palm. Fire and lightning compressed into a searing sphere, the energy vibrating with a banshee's wail.
Time seemed to freeze.
Belle's silhouette, framed against the raging, broken sky—her silver-blue aura flaring like the wings of a mythic dragon—was the last thing Malraketh saw before the sphere descended.
BOOOOOOM.
The world turned white.
A pillar of fire and plasma punched downward, splitting the heavens, blasting a hole through the ground so deep it reached bedrock.
The resulting shockwave roared outward like a living hurricane, flattening trees, flipping mountains, and sending every watching adventurer and knight sprawling helplessly to the ground.
The battlefield became an inferno.
But Belle didn't stop.
She dived into the inferno like a silver ghost, her form weaving through the maelstrom with impossible precision.
Malraketh, burned and broken, thrashed within the hellstorm, lashing out blindly with black tendrils that whipped and stabbed toward her.
Belle twisted midair—an elegant pirouette of death—dodging the strikes with inhuman grace.
Fire-missiles erupted from her fingertips, homing in on the tendrils and detonating them in spectacular bursts. Each movement she made sent ripples through the flames, each strike hitting with the force to tear craters into the land itself.
She appeared above Malraketh's skull, gathering a spear of pure lightning in her palm.
With a deafening roar, she hurled it downward.
The spear slammed into Malraketh's head, sending arcs of blinding electricity spidering across its body, illuminating its inner skeleton through its cracked armor.
Malraketh screamed—a sound of primal, bone-deep agony.
Staggering, it dropped to one knee, smoke and steam pouring from its ruined frame.
But even then—it refused to die.
It planted one massive claw into the ground, dragging itself back to its feet. Its core pulsed violently—blood-red and furious.
And then it exploded.
A massive dome of pure miasma surged outward in a last, desperate bid to engulf everything in its path, obliterating all that lived.
Belle's eyes sharpened.
She crossed her arms before her body as the miasma wave hit.
Unlike the others, she was immune.
She took a deep breath—steady, unshakable—and her aura exploded outward, a silver-blue star burning against the black tide.
She advanced through the storm.
Every step she took was faster, heavier, shattering the earth beneath her feet. Every strike she landed chipped away at Malraketh's new armor faster than the miasma could heal it. Sparks flew with each impact, a staccato symphony of destruction.
Belle flipped backward into a crouch, silver-blue eyes locked onto Malraketh.
The monster, barely holding together, stared back—its body cracked and bleeding miasma from a thousand wounds.
Belle's fists clenched tighter.
Silver-blue energy spiraled violently around her, coalescing into massive ethereal wings behind her, a phantom dragon rising in her aura's wake.
She whispered, almost lovingly, "It's time to end this."
The air screamed as she launched forward.
The ground beneath her detonated, sending massive slabs of rock into the air. She moved like a living comet—unstoppable, devastating—a trail of silver-blue energy tearing through the battlefield.
Her fist collided with Malraketh's chest in a titanic impact.
Malraketh reacted instantly, crossing its mutated arms into monstrous shields to protect its core.
The clash rattled the world.
Shockwaves rippled outward in concentric rings, blasting apart what little remained of the battlefield. Trees were uprooted. Mountains cracked.
The shields cracked—but they held. Its molten eyes glared at Belle, defiant even as its body crumbled under the strain.
But Belle didn't flinch.
"...It's over," she said, her voice low, calm and absolute.
Then came the follow-up.
A second explosion detonated behind her—the residual energy Belle had left in her trail, a silver-blue comet path that twisted the very fabric of space. The compressed force howled forward like a hurricane unleashed, slamming into Belle's back and supercharging her strike beyond mortal limits.
Her voice roared through the battlefield, cutting through the rising storm.
"OVERDRIVE BREAK: METEOR!!"
The force doubled. The air itself split.
Her punch—no, her very will—became an unstoppable meteor strike, a living embodiment of destruction and power. The shields Malraketh desperately formed screamed under the pressure, fractures spider-webbing across them in an instant.
CRACK. CRAAACK. SHATTER.
The shields disintegrated in a howl of broken magic, leaving Malraketh's vulnerable core utterly exposed.
Belle's fist slammed into it with a sound that was less an impact and more a cosmic event—like a mountain being split by a god's hand.
CRRRRAAAAAAAASSSSSHHHHHH!!
The dungeon core ruptured violently, splintering into a thousand shards of burning red light. For a frozen moment, the entire world seemed to hold its breath.
Then the explosion came.
A titanic blast ignited from the broken heart of the monster, swallowing the entire battlefield in an all-consuming dome of white-hot energy. A roaring sun was born from Malraketh's death throes, expanding outward with cataclysmic force.
The very earth was peeled away in layers. The clouds above were shredded into ribbons. Mountains in the distance shook from the force of the detonation.
The shockwave thundered across the land, flattening trees, tearing through hills, and forcing even the distant armies of adventurers and knights to brace or be hurled away like rag dolls. Many were thrown back, their weapons and capes flapping wildly as they watched in stunned awe.
It was the end of Malraketh.
A long, agonizing moment passed where only roaring winds and blinding light existed. And then, slowly, the radiance dimmed. The winds settled. The dust cleared.
And from the heart of the devastation, only one figure remained—standing amidst the ruins.
Belle.
Panting lightly, wisps of steam rising from her body, fists still clenched with residual heat. Her silver hair flowed in the soft wind, ethereal under the twilight sky. Cracks of blue energy danced faintly around her form like dying embers of a once-raging inferno.
The ground around her was a shattered wasteland. Scorch marks radiated out like a massive sigil burned into the earth.
Before her, the remnants of Malraketh—twisted fragments of black armor, molten slag, and corrupted flesh—crumbled into ashes, dissolving into the miasma-laden air.
The once-terrifying creature was no more.
Belle slowly exhaled, breath misting into the cooling air. Her silver-blue eyes, still glowing faintly, softened as she lowered her arms.
Victory.
But it wasn't just victory—it was triumph.
A battle fought not just with strength, but with soul. A battle that would be remembered for generations.
The watching adventurers and knights, who had been paralyzed with fear only moments ago, now stared at her in open wonder. Many dropped to one knee instinctively, overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of what they had witnessed.
A silence fell over the battlefield. Not one born of fear. But one born of awe.
And then—from somewhere among the ranks—a single voice rose.
A cheer. Then another. And another.
Until the battlefield erupted into a roaring ovation, the sound rolling across the broken plains like thunder.
Belle didn't react immediately. She simply closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the weight of it all—the exhaustion, the pain, the rush of adrenaline still coursing through her veins.
She opened her eyes again, lifting her head to the ruined heavens above. The clouds, broken by the explosion, revealed the first stars beginning to twinkle in the night sky.
She smiled softly—briefly—before her knees finally gave out and she dropped into a crouch, steadying herself with one hand on the scorched ground.
A voice cut through the plain.
The first to move was Lena.
Without hesitation, she sprinted across the broken ground, her boots kicking up dust and broken debris. She didn't slow down until she collided with Belle, wrapping her arms tightly around her from behind.
"You idiot," Lena whispered, her voice trembling with emotion. "That scared the hell out of me..."
Belle blinked, startled by the sudden warmth pressing against her back.
Lena quickly pulled away, grabbing Belle by the shoulders and spinning her around to inspect her, her hands running over Belle's head, her arms, her torso. Checking for wounds, for blood, for anything.
"Are you hurt?!" she demanded, her icy–blue eyes wide with fear, yet warming.
"Do you need healing?! Say something—!"
But Belle only smiled—a soft, serene smile—and shook her head.
"I'm fine," she said gently, her voice carrying a warmth that soothed Lena's frantic heart.
In truth, with the awakening of her Draconic Heart, her body was already self-repairing at an extraordinary rate. Tiny cuts had vanished. Bruises had faded. Even the deep strain Overdrive once left was gone without a trace.
It was as if her very essence had transcended beyond human limits.
Lena stared at her for a long second, then exhaled deeply, shoulders sagging with relief.
"Gods above," she muttered, wiping at her eyes before Belle could notice.
Heavy footsteps crunched over the broken earth.
Kai and Darin arrived next, still a bit out of breath, faces lit with disbelief and admiration.
"What the hell was that power?!"
Darin blurted out, tossing aside whatever pride he normally clung to. His usual cocky demeanor was nowhere to be seen. He looked at Belle like she was some legendary hero sprung from the pages of a myth.
"That was... insane! That was awesome!"
Belle chuckled lightly, feeling the tension ease from her shoulders.
Kai stepped forward, his crimson hair ruffling in the faint breeze, concern evident in his sharp eyes.
"That was Overdrive, wasn't it?" he asked carefully, searching her face.
"Are you... okay?"
He remembered vividly the last time Belle had unleashed Overdrive—how it had nearly torn her apart from the inside. Afterward, she couldn't even lift a finger without wincing.
But now? She stood there like an unshakable monument. Stronger. Wiser. Different.
Belle gave him a knowing look and nodded once, a silent assurance that this time was different.
A small smile ghosted across Kai's lips. He didn't say anything else—he didn't need to.
Behind them, standing a little apart from the group, Roderic and Gale watched the reunion unfold.
The seasoned Captain and his Vice-Captain bore similar expressions—relief, and a touch of awe.
"I guess this is the first time you've seen her fight seriously?"
Gale said lightly, folding his arms across his broad chest, his gaze never leaving Belle.
Roderic nodded slowly, his expression grim but respectful.
"Yeah," he said. "Now I see what you meant in your report during the subjugation quest."
Gale gave a dry chuckle, a rare softness in his usually sharp demeanor.
"Oh no," he said with a grin. "This was far more interesting than the subjugation quest."
The two knights shared a silent agreement: Belle wasn't just strong. She was something the world had no real name for yet.
A living legend in the making.
The survivors—knights and adventurers—began to gather around, forming a loose circle. Many had seen death flashing before their eyes when Malraketh roared. And yet, here she was.
She had not just survived the impossible—she had overcome it.
Belle looked around, her heart twisting strangely at the sight.
She hadn't fought for recognition.
She had fought because she had to—because if she hadn't, no one else would have survived.
A part of her wanted to laugh. Another part wanted to cry.
Instead, she just closed her eyes briefly, feeling the soft weight of the moment settle onto her shoulders.
End of Chapter 77