Beside Leonhart—
The soil split apart in eight different points.
From each crack, a figure rose.
Perfect replicas of him.
Formed entirely from hardened earth and compressed golden mana. Their armor looked carved from stone, their swords forged from condensed sediment glowing faintly with golden lines.
Eight soil-born Leonharts stepped forward in unison.
They formed a circle around the original.
Their movements were mechanical—
Yet synchronized.
Alive.
At the same time—
Hayami's shadow expanded.
Stretching unnaturally across the broken forest floor.
It rippled like liquid ink.
Then—
Eight figures rose silently from her shadow.
Each one identical.
Pitch-black silhouettes with glowing dark-blue eyes. Twin blades formed from pure shadow extended from their hands, edges shimmering like midnight glass.
They took their positions around her—
A silent ring of assassins.
From a distance—
It looked unreal.
Nine Leonharts.
Nine Hayamis.
Eighteen killing intents converging on a single colossal dragon.
The undead salamander sensed the shift.
Its black flames roared brighter.
It opened its jaws—
Mana gathering.
Too late.
Leonhart and Hayami launched forward at the same instant.
The clones moved with them.
The forest blurred.
The air screamed.
From afar, it truly appeared as if nine golden comets and nine streaks of shadow were flying straight toward the dragon's skull.
The dragon reared its mountainous head—
Its size overwhelming.
But they reached it in a heartbeat.
Face to face.
Eye to eye.
Golden and black mana collided against black flame.
Leonhart's voice thundered across the sky—
"HEAVY SLASH!"
Hayami's voice cut through the chaos—
"SKY SLICER!"
Leonhart struck first.
He descended like a falling star—
But this time—
The force was multiplied.
His blade crashed into the dragon's skull with a power far beyond his earlier strike—thousands of times heavier, denser, compressed through eight amplifying circles.
The impact alone fractured the upper jaw instantly.
Shockwaves burst outward.
But before the dragon could even react—
Hayami struck.
She didn't slam.
She sliced.
A perfect, surgical diagonal cut across the dragon's forehead—her twin blades crossing in flawless execution. Her strike didn't explode outward—
It went through.
Clean.
Absolute.
At the same time—
The eight soil Leonharts brought down their blades with crushing force.
The eight shadow Hayamis sliced from different angles with synchronized precision.
Eighteen impacts—
Landing in the same fraction of a second.
Then—
Silence.
A half-breath pause.
And—
BOOOOM—
BOOOOOOOOOOM—
The dragon's skull imploded under catastrophic pressure.
Golden shockwaves erupted outward like expanding suns.
Dark-blue arcs sliced through the air in razor patterns.
The collision created a massive spherical blast that flattened trees for miles. The ground caved inward beneath the dragon's body. Forest sections collapsed in rings spreading outward like ripples across water.
Mountains in the distance trembled.
Birds scattered in panic.
Mana storms spiraled upward into the sky.
The clones shattered upon impact—
Returning to soil.
Returning to shadow.
As the explosion swallowed the battlefield in light and darkness intertwined.
And at the center—
Two figures stood.
---
The battlefield had barely settled—
When the dragon moved.
Its massive skull jerked upward.
Just a small motion—
But the shockwave from that movement alone exploded outward like compressed thunder.
Dust vanished instantly.
The air cracked.
Leonhart and Hayami were blasted upward into the sky as if swatted by invisible force.
Mid-air—
Leonhart's composure faltered for the first time.
His eyes locked onto the dragon's head.
Cracked.
Broken.
Shattered bone hanging loose from their combined Octagram strike.
For a heartbeat—
Hope flickered.
Then it died.
The fractures began healing.
Not slowly.
Not gradually.
They were regenerating at a horrifying speed.
Bone fused together.
Cracks vanished.
Fragments reassembled.
Within two seconds—
The dragon's skull was almost fully restored.
Leonhart's mind went blank.
"…No way."
Beside him, Hayami's voice trembled—not with fear, but disbelief.
"What the hell…?!"
She stared at the rapidly healing skull, shadow mana flickering weakly around her.
"Undead monsters can regenerate minor damage—I know that. But this?!" she snapped. "We either destroy the core or kill it in one overwhelming blow! But Who the fuck in their right mind would design something like this?!"
Her voice rose with frustration.
"It's too massive to locate its core easily—too durable to break—and even when we manage to damage it, it heals instantly?! How is anyone supposed to defeat this thing?!"
Below them, the colossal dragon lowered its head slowly—
Unbothered.
Leonhart exhaled sharply, forcing his thoughts back into order.
"What's done is done," he said, voice cold again. "This is a B+ Rank territory boss. The gap between its rank and ours is too wide."
His jaw tightened.
"Forget killing it. Think fast. How do we escape?"
Hayami's eyes shifted upward.
Her voice went quiet.
"If you want the short answer… just look above."
Leonhart followed her gaze.
And his blood ran cold.
Above them—
Blocking the sky—
Was the dragon's palm.
A mountain-sized skeletal hand already descending.
No hesitation.
No mercy.
It covered the light entirely.
They were directly beneath it.
There was no angle to dodge.
No time to reposition.
No mana left for another grand technique.
For the first time—
They couldn't see a way out.
Below—
Reina watched from the shattered ground.
She saw the shadow of the descending palm.
Saw Leonhart and Hayami suspended mid-air beneath it.
Her breath caught.
Her eyes closed.
Then—
The dragon's palm struck.
Lightning-fast.
Sky-level force.
It smashed into them and drove their bodies downward like falling meteors.
The ground received them an instant later.
BOOOOOOM—
The impact was catastrophic.
The forest floor collapsed inward, forming a massive crater. Shockwaves ripped outward for miles, flattening what little remained standing. Trees snapped like twigs. Soil erupted skyward in a towering column of dust and debris.
For several long seconds—
There was nothing but rumbling earth and flying rubble.
When the dust began to settle—
All three of them were buried within the destruction.
From any outsider's perspective—
It was simple.
There was no way a NORMAL human body could survive that.