Free Web NovelTime froze at that moment.
The wind no longer swept across the ridges, the rolling dust hung suspended in mid-air, and the dragon breath turned into solidified flames, fixed at the instant before exploding.
Louis stepped out from the ripples in the void.
With every step he took, the ground beneath his feet changed.
Withered grass stems stood tall once more, the charred earth cracked with subtle patterns, and new greenery completed its growth in an extremely short amount of time.
The battlefield was carved apart.
The movements of the five thousand Dragonman Imperial Guard members were all frozen the moment Louis appeared.
Their charging stances stopped mid-air, their sharp claws had yet to fall, and the fierce light in their eyes was solidified at the same angle.
Louis turned around and looked at Lambert, who was still kneeling on the ground.
"You've worked hard, Lambert." Louis's voice was soft, yet it gave off a strong sense of security. "Leave the rest to me."
The knights of the Red Tide stood where they were, not moving immediately.
Their gazes shifted back and forth between Louis and the dragon that blotted out the sky, hesitant and uneasy.
A confrontation of this level had long since exceeded the scope of what they could understand.
Lambert grit his teeth and forced himself to stand straight.
He glanced at Louis and said nothing more, simply waving his hand heavily, and the knights began to retreat.
The shackles of time gradually loosened.
August was the first to regain movement.
The power of original sin surged within his body, allowing him to barely break free from that layer of restraint.
He lowered his massive dragon head and looked at the mortal who had suddenly appeared in the center of the battlefield, his eyes full of contempt.
In his eyes, this was just another being trying to use strange arts to gain an advantage.
He also noticed the retreating knights.
The dragon's maw opened slightly, and several breaths of dragon breath instantly took shape, pouncing toward the crowd in the distance.
Louis raised his hand, and these breaths were forcibly smoothed out in mid-air, as if wiped away by an invisible hand, leaving not even an aftershock behind.
The retreating knights were able to move away from the battlefield.
For the first time, a clear sense of alertness appeared in August's emotions; he realized he was not facing an ordinary mortal.
"What arrogant ants!" The Dragon Speech boomed, carrying an undisguisable violence.
"On my path to godhood, you are but another sacrificial offering groveling in the shadow of dragon wings!"
Dark gold scales glinted coldly in the air.
"This sky, these underground ore veins, and even the souls of mortals, all should belong to the noble dragon race!
You insects are only fit to be fodder, etched into the stomachs of the dragonkin!"
Louis looked up, his gaze calm, not shaken in the slightest by those wild words.
Five and a half original sin authorities intertwined at his fingertips.
A murky stream of light rotated slowly, like a forming celestial body, yet without any sign of losing control.
"The era belonging to dragons," Louis spoke, his tone flat, "was extinguished as early as a thousand years ago.
August, things buried by history should obediently rot in the soil. You long to return, but in this world, there is no longer a throne left for an Old Emperor."
Louis's nonchalance caused August's fury to be completely ignited.
He stopped testing; the half-portion of the original sin authority of Pride within his body was fully released. freewebnoveℓ.com
The dark gold pressure was like a bursting flood, tearing through the air and pressing down on Louis.
Mountains shook and the earth veins wailed; this was a power sufficient to make the world submit.
Louis stood in place: "It's time to end this farce."
The primal heart emitted a low, steady hum within his body.
The sound was not ostentatious, yet it caused August's pressure to lose its form the moment they made contact.
Not only that, a purer, more complete Pride slowly rose from within Louis's body.
Under the resonance of the primal heart, the pressure around Louis did not stop at the level of confrontation, but began to expand in reverse, as if completely covering August's pressure.
August quickly sensed the abnormality; his dragon form trembled slightly, a reaction coming from the deepest part of his bloodline.
It was a fear engraved in the instinct of creation, an impulse to submit to a higher-level existence.
At this moment, August felt a shiver.
"How is it possible..." A low roar rolled out of August's throat, carrying a clear sense of disorder.
He could not accept it; he could not accept being suppressed in status by a mortal.
The sense of humiliation brought by that reverse coverage was more fatal than any injury.
Pride was torn apart, and reason collapsed along with it.
"Impossible! I am of the noble dragon race, the sovereign who reigns over all ages!"
Dragon Speech exploded across the sky, and the dark gold scales vibrated violently.
"You lowly mongrels, you dare make me tremble?!" To reverse this intolerable reality, August let out a shrill dragon roar.
"All who bear my blood..." The dragon roar turned into a decree, covering the entire battlefield, "shall be my food!"
The moment the command fell, five thousand Dragonman Imperial Guard members screamed simultaneously.
Cracks appeared on their bodies, their scales curled back, and their flesh disintegrated in the uncontrolled resonance.
In the next instant, three thousand bodies exploded simultaneously.
Searing, concentrated essence of dragon blood was forcibly extracted, as if pulled by an invisible hand, turning into three thousand streaks of crimson light that followed the bloody trajectories drawn in the air, all flowing into August's spine.
The air was scorched, and space emitted a low tearing sound.
After devouring the essence and blood of the entire guard, August's size ballooned once more.
Atop the dark gold dragon scales, curse-like dark red crystal clusters grew rapidly, covering every joint like blood scabs.
In the most primitive way, he forcibly tore through Louis's pressure.
Dragon wings unfurled, blotting out the horizon.
At that moment, his power broke through the threshold and entered an unstable yet extremely violent ultimate state.
August hovered high in the air, blood-colored dragon breath gathering in his mouth as space distorted and deformed around him.
His voice swept across the sky like rolling thunder.
"This is the destiny of the dragon race! We shall eventually return to the peak and turn this lowly world into our pasture once again!"
August's dragon pupils locked onto Louis: "Die!"
Louis's expression remained calm.
The faint lights of five original sins slowly intertwined at his fingertips.
Then his hand waved gently, the movement casual, as if brushing away dust accumulated on a tabletop.
"August," Louis spoke, his voice not high, yet clearly reaching every corner of the battlefield, "don't you understand yet?"
The dark gold sky lost its weight at that moment.
"This era no longer has an ark to carry the dragon race."
Primal Authority was mobilized.
Inside the Old Emperor, the Greed Core that supported the operation of all his power was extinguished without any warning.
August's movements froze; he clearly felt that the laws which had absolutely obeyed his will were breaking free from his control one by one, pulling back against his existence.
Gravity no longer supported his body, and space no longer accommodated his scales.
That dragon body, heavy as a mountain range, began to disintegrate from its most basic level.
From scales to flesh, from bones to bloodline, it was stripped away layer by layer, turning into fragments that could no longer be gathered.
Fear truly occupied August's consciousness for the first time.
"No... this is impossible..." The Dragon Speech lost its majesty, leaving only panic.
"What exactly are you? This kind of power... should not exist in this world!"
He tried to struggle, tried to reorganize his body, only to find that even the act of struggling itself was failing.
"Spare me..." August's voice was hurried and broken, "I am willing to honor you as..."
Louis did not respond; he did not give this tyrant any time for repentance.
He closed his five fingers.
The Power of the Five Sins instantly converged, condensing into a pure white light blade.
It fell from high above, piercing down through the crown of August's head.
The decaying dragon blood was completely purified upon contact, and the hundreds-of-meters-long dark gold dragon completely disintegrated at this moment.
Scales, bones, and flesh all turned into dust scattering across the sky, vanishing without a trace in the light.
There were no remains, only a slowly falling layer of ash.
Louis slowly descended from the sky.
When his feet touched the ground, the scorched earth that had been burned by dragon breath and torn by battle began to show subtle changes.
Cracks healed, the black soil regained its vitality, and new grass sprouts broke through the earth.
On the distant hillside, Lambert knelt on the ground, leaning on his longsword, his body trembling slightly.
The surviving knights supported each other and knelt down along with ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) him.
Blood slid down their armor and mixed with tears, dripping into the reviving earth.
In the more distant forests, tens of thousands of subjects witnessed the dragon's destruction.
After a brief silence, cheers suddenly erupted.
"Lord Louis—!" The voices gathered into a wave, breaking through the clouds and shaking the heavens.
Upon the ashes, the old era came to a complete end.
