A suffocating and terrifying magical aura radiated from Constantine's body, spreading across the entire grounds of St. Heath's Academy in an instant.
The oppressive energy was so overwhelming it visibly warped the surrounding space, making the air shimmer and distort. The previously clear, sunny skies darkened abruptly with thick, roiling clouds, and muffled, menacing thunder rumbled deep within them.
The campus swiftly descended into chaos.
Parents, driven by instinct, shielded their children with their own bodies, ushering them toward the sturdy school buildings for safety, while the academy's well-trained security personnel rushed to evacuate the panicking crowd and form a coordinated defensive perimeter around the epicenter of the disturbance—Constantine.
Once the immediate panic was somewhat stabilized, several Dragon Kings who had been attending the conference, along with a few spectral wolf warriors from allied clans, descended from the skies to join the effort to contain the raging Crimson Flame Dragon King.
At the center of the field, Constantine stood motionless, shrouded in a dense, churning black mist.
His draconic form began to grow larger, bulkier, and the dangerous, aberrant features manifesting on his body—spikes of dark energy, patches of scaleless, pulsating flesh—became increasingly pronounced.
But as the chaotic energy surged and took hold, these monstrous traits began to paradoxically "dragonize," as if the foreign corruption was being forced to conform to a draconic template.
Before long, Constantine's powerful body had fully adapted to these violent transformations, actively reshaping the foreign chaotic traits into organs and features more compatible with his innate dragon biology.
Unlike the cold, lifeless aura of the mindless Flame Demon or other corrupted creatures, Constantine's presence now felt distinctly, powerfully dragon-like. However, it was terrifyingly clear that this transformation was entirely beyond his control, a puppet show of horrific power.
"Father, what's happening to him?" Noah asked, her voice tight with concern.
After ensuring her younger sisters were safe with their teachers, she had hurried back to the field to stand by Leon.
"Why is Constantine suddenly so out of control? He was fine moments ago."
"It's the Black Dragon Scale," Leon said, his expression grim, his eyes never leaving the transforming dragon. "The aura he's emitting—it's the unmistakable signature of the Scale's chaos magic. I should have seen this coming... I should have known the risk was still there..."
Noah frowned in confusion. "What do you mean? Could you have predicted this would happen today?"
Leon's frustration was directed inward. He had long known that the Empire's shadow rulers, led by the enigmatic Shadow, were intrinsically tied to the Black Dragon Scale, and that their longevity experiments and fusion techniques originated from that chaotic, otherworldly realm.
Constantine, as a resurrected product of these very experiments, inevitably carried their unmistakable mark deep within his soul.
And that mark was the latent power of the Black Dragon Scale.
For entities like Shadow, who trafficked with ancient chaotic powers and could create abominations like the Flame Demon, it wasn't inconceivable that they held the means to remotely trigger this corruption, to torture a Dragon King down to a state of pure, destructive instinct.
"That's why I should have been more vigilant, should have known this dormant threat could be activated..." Leon murmured bitterly, his fists clenching at his sides.
"ROAR!"
Constantine, now fully engulfed in the writhing black energy, threw his head back and let out a deafening, soul-shaking roar that echoed across the mountains.
Dark purple flames, tinged with black corruption, spewed from his mouth, indiscriminately attacking everything in a wide arc around him.
Fortunately, the academy's defensive personnel, working in concert with the other Dragon Kings, had already erected a powerful, multi-layered magical barrier just in time to block the chaotic assault and contain Constantine within a designated zone.
But it was only a temporary solution, a holding action.
Everyone present could sense it—the chaotic energy radiating from Constantine was not stable; it was growing stronger, denser, more volatile by the second.
"What's gotten into that fire-breather?!" one of the Dragon Kings shouted over the din.
"This is St. Heath's Academy—he can't just run wild here!" cried another.
"Damn it, this isn't normal dragon magic or even a berserker rage," a third muttered, his voice laced with unease. "It's downright chilling... It feels ancient and wrong."
The gathered Dragon Kings muttered nervously amongst themselves, their confidence shaken.
Isha, who had been helping evacuate the younger students to a safe distance, rushed back to the scene, her face a mask of concern and confusion.
"What's going on, Leon? He was fine just a moment ago, chatting with us about Hefei's studies. How did this happen so suddenly?"
Leon clenched his fists tightly, his knuckles white. "I'll explain the details later. Right now, we need to focus all our efforts on containing the situation and preventing him from breaking out."
Before he could say more, a sharp, crystalline cracking sound echoed across the field, followed by the shattering of the magical barrier like fractured glass.
Constantine let out a low, guttural growl and lunged forward with shocking speed, his massively enlarged form closing the distance to the perimeter in an instant. A nearby dragon guard barely had time to raise his shield before Constantine struck him with a devastating, backhanded blow, sending him flying several meters through the air to crash against a stone wall.
Other guards quickly stepped into the breach, spreading their dragon wings and extending their claws in a coordinated attempt to pin Constantine down.
But Constantine simply flexed his body and released an explosive, concussive wave of pure chaotic energy, throwing them all back as if they were weightless dolls, their armor screeching in protest.
In the brief moment of reprieve this created, a coordinated barrage of concentrated dragonfire—streams of red, blue, and gold—rained down on Constantine from the other Dragon Kings. The sheer intensity and density of the combined attack would have overwhelmed, if not incinerated, even the strongest of Dragon Kings under normal circumstances.
Yet—
Constantine stood his ground, unmoved.
With another deafening, reality-warping roar, he dispersed the colossal inferno with a single, earth-shaking bellow, the force of it flattening the grass in a wide circle around him.
"ROAR!"
A deep crimson dragon shadow, massive and brilliant, collided with Constantine at hypersonic speed.
Despite his newly enlarged form, Constantine was still dwarfed by the sheer, immense size of the attacking dragon. Isha, in her magnificent full Red Dragon form, had entered the fray. She tackled Constantine with the force of a meteor, effortlessly sending him flying backward into a nearby storage building.
The stone and timber structure imploded under the impact, burying Constantine beneath a small mountain of rubble and dust.
Isha transformed back into her human form in a flash of light as Leon hurried to her side. "His aura... it's ice-cold," she muttered, her eyes narrowed. "It feels wrong for a fire dragon, almost like a lifeless dragon animated by will alone."
Leon nodded, his brows furrowed so deeply they nearly met. "He seems completely out of control, operating on pure, corrupted instinct... Or worse, he's being actively controlled."
Before he could finish his thought, a violent wave of chaotic energy, darker and more potent than before, surged from the center of the rubble pile.
The next moment, the debris exploded outward in all directions, and Constantine emerged, his towering form now even more fearsome and distorted than before.
His body was now fully enveloped in dark purple flames that seemed to drink the light from the air, and his dragonized features were even more pronounced and monstrous. Most terrifying of all, the earlier combined attack from multiple Dragon Kings had left no visible damage on his scales.
"This... This is impossible!" a Dragon King stammered. "Even if he survived, he shouldn't be completely unscathed!"
"Do you feel it?" another said, his voice hushed. "His aura—it's changed again... It's denser, heavier."
Another Dragon King, an elder from a water-aligned clan, spoke up, his voice trembling slightly. "Rumor has it Constantine acquired a fraction of the Primordial Dragon King's power during his expedition to the Far North ruins. But this chaotic energy he's radiating—it's not pure primordial power at all. It's a perversion."
The remark struck a chord with Leon, connecting disparate pieces of information in his mind.
His gaze sharpened as he analytically scanned the terrifying figure before him, perceiving the layers of energy warring within.
"The Black Dragon Scale can unleash pure chaos magic. And Constantine also carries the trace of Primordial energy he seized from the ancient ruins in the Far North," he reasoned aloud, his voice low and urgent.
"And if those two opposing, primordial forces were to somehow combine inside him..."
Leon's pupils dilated in sudden, horrifying realization, his voice dropping to a tremulous whisper barely audible over the howling energy.
"Tiamat... the Dragon God..."
The others stared at the transformed Constantine, the weight of Leon's words settling over them like a physical blow. The chaos magic and the primordial energy had not just coexisted; they had fused into a horrifying new, composite power—a blasphemous power that hadn't been seen since the ancient age of the dragons, when Tiamat, the creator, split herself into Order and Chaos.
Constantine's body was no longer his own. The chaotic fusion was turning him into a vessel for something far beyond any Dragon King's understanding—a walking shadow of the Dragon God's divided nature.
"Father! They can't hurt him! Stop them, please!" Hefei sobbed uncontrollably from the safety line, clinging to her teacher's sleeve as she watched the assembled Dragon Kings gather their energy for another, likely even more devastating, assault.
Her teacher could only embrace the distraught girl tightly, offering no empty words of comfort, her own face pale.
On the field, the collected magical energy of the Dragon Kings—a spectrum of destructive light—erupted forth once more, converging on Constantine's location in a cataclysmic explosion of power.
Amidst the blinding light, deafening explosions, and relentless waves of concussive force, Constantine's defiant, pain-wracked roar echoed through the chaos, a sound of both immense power and profound agony.
When the smoke and magical residue finally cleared, the figure that emerged from the crater sent a wave of pure, primal chills through everyone present.
Constantine's massive frame stood not just unscathed, but seemed to have absorbed the energy. His body now radiated an even more overwhelming, oppressive aura, a palpable pressure that made it hard to breathe.
For a brief, crucial moment, even the veteran Dragon Kings hesitated, their confidence shattered.
Leon stared at the fully transformed Constantine, his heart a battlefield of conflicting emotions—worry for his old rival, fear for the students and his own family, and the undeniable, terrifying recognition of the cosmic threat he now embodied.
"The Black Dragon Scale unleashes chaos magic, and Constantine carries the Primordial power from the Far North ruins," he whispered, the final puzzle piece clicking into place with dreadful certainty.
"And when these two fundamental forces combine, when Chaos and Primordial Power fuse... doesn't that mean..."
Leon's pupils widened sharply as the ultimate realization struck him. He murmured the name in sheer, staggering disbelief, a name that was both a prayer and a curse:
"Tiamat... the Dragon God!"