Roar!
The newly awakened Five-Clawed Divine Dragon let out another earth-shaking bellow. It shook its massive body, stretched its limbs, and then soared directly over the players' heads, its trajectory aimed straight for the Dark Arch-Sorcerer known as the Double-Headed Raven King.
Seeing the Divine Dragon closing in, the Raven King cursed its own stupidity. Blinded by rage over the stolen 'Dark Violet Sky Dragon' egg, it had chased the thing all the way here without a second thought, completely forgetting about the city's guardian Divine Beast; a legendary creature that the entire Demon Clan had feared for generations.
'Is the egg lost? Will I have to slink back to the Demon Lord in disgrace?'
'No. Impossible.'
The Raven King watched the Divine Dragon's approach and a defiant scream echoed in its mind: 'I will fight!'
If it could bring this legendary beast down, it wouldn't just reclaim the egg; it would earn a fame that would resonate across the world.
"Demon Lord's Aegis!"
The Raven King invoked the ultimate defensive art of its kind. A shroud of pulsating black energy enveloped its form. It raised its Nine-Feather Dark Thunder Fan, ready to summon a storm of dark lightning, but the Divine Dragon was already upon it, moving with impossible speed.
"Impossible! It's too fast!"
The Raven King saw the dragon close the distance in an instant, its jaws unhinging in a terrifying maw. The old tales were true; the Five-Clawed Divine Dragon was every bit as fearsome as the legends claimed.
"Finish it!" The players atop Dragon's Peak Citadel roared in a single, unified voice.
From their vantage point on the walls, the scene was surreal. A colossal, spectral image of the Demon Lord's head materialized behind the Raven King, merging with its form and layering the black energy around it until it looked like a solid mass of storm cloud, obscuring the sorcerer from view.
The Divine Dragon paid no mind to the display. It hurtled forward, tilted its head back, and opened its jaws wide.
The motion captured the attention of every onlooker, and the city's roar was perfectly synchronized with the dragon's attack.
"Kill!"
"Dragonfire Lance."
As the players shouted, the Divine Dragon unleashed a continuous, laser-intense stream of crimson fire from its maw. The searing beam shot toward the dark cloud that concealed the Raven King.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The Raven King's black shield and the dragon's fiery lance collided with the fury of meteors scraping the atmosphere. The noise was deafening, the light blinding; a spectacular and terrifying display.
Under the relentless assault, the Raven King's shield began to fail. The sheer force of the impact sent it reeling backward. The dark energy around its body flickered and burned away, the "Demon Lord's Aegis" on the verge of total collapse.
"Caw... Caw..." The Raven King's cry was one of pure distress. If it hadn't mastered this ultimate defense three years prior, it would never have dared to face the beast alone.
But the Aegis wasn't enough. Its only victory was that it had prevented the dragonfire from vaporizing it instantly.
Hearing their leader's cry, the fifty-strong cadre of Dark Sorcerers flew to its back, channeling their own dark energy into the Raven King. The combined power finally halted its backward slide and, for a moment, stabilized the Aegis against the Dragonfire Lance.
'This… this is the power of a Divine Beast?' To witness such a magnificent battle firsthand was beyond anything the players had ever dreamed of.
"Oh my God, I need a Divine Beast!"
"Holy crap, that is insane!"
The players screamed, their excitement boiling over.
"Cyclone!"
Enraged that its attack had been stalled, the Divine Dragon's fury intensified. It thrashed its mighty tail, and with a series of deafening cracks, it conjured a massive windstorm.
The swirling energy coalesced into a tornado twenty meters high and five meters wide, ripping through the air with a deafening whoosh as it hurled toward the Raven King and its supporting sorcerers.
Seeing the approaching vortex, the Raven King knew evasion was impossible. The gale-force winds buffeted them violently, the Raven King's faces contorting in panic. It tried to shriek, but the sound was stolen by the storm.
The players watched, mesmerized, as the colossal tornado swept across the sky. Upon impact, it slammed into the Raven King, shoving it back even further. The dragonfire, now fanned by the immense winds, flared with new intensity, lighting up the heavens and finally beginning to melt through the last of the Demon Lord's Aegis.
The tornado plowed forward, tearing through the Raven King's dark cloud and into the ranks of the Dark Sorcerers. The sorcerers had only a moment to scream before they were utterly annihilated.
"Whoa..."
A stunned silence fell over the players, followed by a collective gasp. The Five-Clawed Divine Dragon was on a whole other level.
As the fifty vanquished Dark Sorcerers exploded, they showered the landscape with over a hundred pieces of high-grade gear and weapons. The loot fluttered down like metallic snow, gleaming with gold, red, and black light, settling into the massive crater the Raven King had blown open earlier.
Meanwhile, the airborne Raven King felt the Dragonfire Lance intensify. Without the sorcerers' support, the searing heat began to cook its flesh. If it didn't escape now, it would be roasted alive.
'But how?'
It had gravely underestimated the Divine Dragon's power. Was this it? Was this barren field to be its grave?
"Dark Summoning, Sky Shrikes!"
Its eyes fell on the falling corpses of its followers. This was its last, desperate chance.
One of its heads spat a gout of its own lifeblood onto the Nine-Feather Dark Thunder Fan. The other head expelled half of its inner core energy onto the artifact, activating its hidden summoning power. Fifty Sky Shrikes materialized from the void.
"Corpse Explosion, Shroud of Night!"
Using the summoned Shrikes as a living shield against the dragonfire, the Raven King then wielded the fan once more, triggering a dark secret spell.
It abandoned the Demon Lord's Aegis. The Nine-Feather Dark Thunder Fan in its grasp writhed and changed shape. Its two mouths chanted guttural, alien syllables as the fan disintegrated into a cloud of black particles crackling with dark lightning, which swarmed around the Raven King.
Just as the last of its protective cloud was about to be incinerated, the fifty Sky Shrikes flew into the path of the flames. They were vaporized instantly, but their sacrifice bought the Raven King a single, precious second.
It seized the opportunity, fanning the cloud of black particles toward the corpses of its fallen Dark Sorcerers. The particles shot into the fifty falling bodies.
BOOM... BOOM... BOOM...
The corpses detonated in a chain reaction of violent explosions. A massive, thunderous black cloud erupted instantly, forming a crackling, impenetrable veil of dark lightning that finally, mercifully, blocked the Dragonfire Lance.
"Holy cow, that Shroud actually blocked it! The Raven King is seriously tough!" a player yelled, shocked.
"Idiot, it's a Dark Arch-Sorcerer. Of course it's tough. You think a Divine Beast would bother with anything less?" another player shot back in frustration.
"Yeah, did you see how it obliterated the city guards? You have to respect that kind of power," a third added, a note of grudging admiration in his voice.
"Waaah, I missed the beginning! I just logged in!"
"You missed one hell of a show, man."
"Don't worry, I got the whole thing recorded. I'll send you the link."
"Caw... Caw..."
Utterly spent, the light in the Raven King's eyes dimmed. It could no longer maintain its sorcerer form, reverting to its true shape; a massive, two-headed raven. Beating its wings frantically, it fled north, toward the relative safety of the Demon Clan territories.