At the same time, he activated the skill [Blazing Inferno].
Countless blazing golden flames erupted around him, forming a cloak of fire. As he dove on Euron, the flames clung to the Kraken's surface like a living parasite, continuously scorching the crimson barrier and the mutating flesh beneath it.
Carried by the momentum of his charge, Golden Dragon Lo Quen's hind claws—sharper and more devastating than any weapon—raked savagely across the Kraken Euron's bloated, soft belly.
RIP—!!!
This time the crimson shield finally gave. It seemed thinner, strained by the need to fend off the flames while its energy was scattered through its body to sustain the metamorphosis. With [Blazing Inferno] chewing at it and the sheer brutal force of the dragon's claws, the barrier tore apart at last.
The claws sank deep into the Kraken Euron's belly, carving several huge, jagged wounds.
Thick, sticky fluid burst out, splashing across Battle Island and even spattering the base of the High Tower.
"WRAAAAGH!!!!!!!"
The Kraken Euron's roar shook the air, equal parts agony and fury.
The forced interruption of its transformation brought pain beyond imagining.
It snapped its head down, that blood-red gaze locking onto the golden dragon at point-blank range. A massive hand—slick with slime and plated in clammy scales—shot out with speed that didn't match its size, clamping hard around Golden Dragon Lo Quen's throat.
The other claw tore for Lo Quen's golden wing.
RIIIP!
Talons screeched across Lo Quen's unbelievably tough golden scales, throwing off sparks. They didn't fully break through, but the pain was sharp, and the strike pinned his movement, limiting his flight.
Caught off guard, Lo Quen felt a monstrous crushing force surge through him, as if it meant to grind his Dragonbone to dust.
He roared and fought back, and without hesitation blasted scorching Dragonfire straight into that tentacle-choked face inches away.
At point-blank range, the Dragonfire punched through the Kraken Euron's crimson shield.
Blazing golden flame flooded over Euron's face, searing the tentacles black and curling them into ash. Even those blood-red eyes sizzled within the fire.
"AAAGH!!!"
The Kraken Euron shrieked again, and its grip on Lo Quen loosened despite itself.
Lo Quen surged with all his strength, wrenching free. He beat his aching wings and shot upward, putting distance between them once more.
Hovering in the air, his molten-gold dragon eyes stared down with grim focus.
Below, the two massive flesh tumors on the Kraken Euron's back—swollen with black stone energy—split with a tearing sound. They unfolded outward, stretching into a pair of narrow, fleshy wings veined with blood and webbed with thin membranes.
They looked wholly incapable of supporting its enormous bulk in true flight, yet the aura they gave off was profoundly ominous.
As Lo Quen took in the final shape before him—half human, half octopus, with warped flesh-wings sprouting from its back—a name buried deep in memories from his previous life flashed through his mind.
Cthulhu!
It wasn't identical in every detail, but the silhouette was unmistakable, like a lesser, stripped-down incarnation.
"This world actually has something like that?!"
Lo Quen's heart lurched.
He didn't know the Cthulhu Mythos in depth, but he understood what it represented: terror and chaos on a scale that broke sanity.
An unnameable existence from beyond the stars, beyond the limits of human understanding.
If Euron had truly used the black stone and blood sacrifices to turn himself into something like that—even as a crude first step—then this would be trouble of the highest order.
The Kraken Euron, now past the first stage of its change—or rather, the Cthulhu-twisted Euron—threw back its head and bellowed in madness. It wasn't just a creature's roar anymore; it carried a psychic taint that left Lo Quen unsettled even at a distance.
Those eyes, still burning with deranged crimson light, locked onto the golden dragon in the sky. The deformed flesh-wings on its back began to beat violently.
WHOOSH—!!!
A powerful gust surged outward.
Its colossal body actually lifted off the ground and lunged at Lo Quen in midair.
And it was fast—terrifyingly fast.
Lo Quen's mind jolted. He snapped his wings hard and veered away.
Cthulhu Euron swung its newly formed giant claws at him, the strike cutting the air with a vicious bite.
Lo Quen twisted aside, narrowly avoiding the talons, and whipped his tail into Euron's ribs.
BANG!!!
The impact landed with a heavy thud. Cthulhu Euron's body rocked, but it didn't seem to suffer much. Instead, it used the opening, lashing out with its other claw to seize Lo Quen's dragon tail.
At the same time, the blood-red barrier reappeared around its body. Though dimmer than before, it still stubbornly resisted the scorching flames of Lo Quen's [Blazing Inferno].
"Roar!"
Lo Quen bellowed, snapping his dragon head around and blasting Dragonfire straight at the claw gripping his tail.
Cthulhu Euron howled in pain and was forced to let go.
A brutal close-quarters battle erupted in the air beside the High Tower, dragon and monster locked in deadly combat.
Claws crashed against dragon talons, tentacles slammed into a sweeping dragon tail, and Dragonfire and blood-red energy tore at one another.
The fight surged from the shoreline to the area around the High Tower itself. Thunderous impacts rang out again and again, and chunks of stone rattled loose as shockwaves from their clashes shook the tower's walls.
Lo Quen grew increasingly uneasy.
The creature's raw strength, its defenses, and the strange crimson barrier's resistance to energy attacks were all terrifyingly high.
His physical strikes could still inflict damage, but the monster's horrifying vitality, along with what seemed like slow but constant regeneration, greatly reduced their effect.
And though his golden dragon scales were immensely tough, the claws infused with that sinister power were already leaving cracks and waves of pain.
Cthulhu Euron fought with reckless abandon, completely ignoring its own injuries. It clung to Lo Quen, trying to drag him down from the sky or bind him with its tentacles.
They grappled their way up along the outer wall of the High Tower, fighting from the base to dozens, then hundreds of feet above the ground.
Dragonfire ignited fixtures clinging to the tower, while tentacles smashed windows and decorative stonework.
Horrifying roars and crashing sounds echoed across Oldtown.
Lo Quen began to feel the strain.
In a straight fight, he might hold a slight edge.
But killing this monster outright was proving extraordinarily difficult.
That blood-red barrier severely weakened the effects of Dragonfire.
Still, under his relentless scorching, the barrier was clearly faltering.
Once it shattered, that would be his moment.
At last, after a violent exchange, Lo Quen seized an opening and closed in. A blast of blazing Dragonfire finally punched through the crimson barrier and slammed into Cthulhu Euron's left shoulder and part of its chest, burning the flesh open and filling the air with a scorched stench.
"Roar!"
Cthulhu Euron screamed in pain. But instead of lashing out wildly as Lo Quen expected, it suddenly made a move that caught him completely off guard.
Ignoring Lo Quen's follow-up claw strike, it twisted violently and dove headfirst toward the Bleeding Sea below.
Its enormous body hit the water like a falling mountain, sending up towering waves before vanishing beneath the dark red surface.
Lo Quen froze in midair, molten-gold dragon eyes fixed warily on the churning sea, ready for a sudden counterattack.
"Trying to run, or setting a trap?"
But after more than ten seconds passed, the sea showed no sign of movement beyond the slowly settling waves.
Just as doubt crept into Lo Quen's mind—
BOOM!
The surface of the sea exploded once more.
Cthulhu Euron's massive body burst up from the Bleeding Sea.
The horrific wounds burned into it moments earlier by Dragonfire had already healed for the most part.
Only pale patches of newly grown flesh remained.
The blood-red barrier around its body had solidified again, and the madness blazing in its crimson eyes was fully restored—if not even more intense.
It let out a triumphant roar and lunged savagely toward Lo Quen in the air.
A flicker of shock crossed Lo Quen's massive dragon eyes.
"How can it recover that fast?!"
Such regeneration was completely unreasonable.
Could it be that the Magic within the blood itself was allowing it to heal?
...
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