Chapter 164: Divine Dragon [2] — He, The Malevolent One

“Oh? Wait… she’s tiring, isn’t she?”

A wicked smile curled her lips as she realized her strategy was working. Mirai was being forced to expend energy against endless small fry while simultaneously resisting Mind Corruption from four Grievance Fragments that Seraphine had tamed and assimilated at once.

“Haaa…! Haaa…! Devil! Don’t stop charging! She’s right there!”

Mirai kicked off the ground, shattering the entire painted Fantasy Field and closing in, only for Seraphine to laugh and sprout a new arm shaped like a towering pillar of salt, overflowing with strange, holy power.

“Looks like someone’s exhausted, hm? How about you go to sleep?”

TRUUUM!

A beam of pale light erupted from the salt pillar and slammed into Mirai. She raised her arms to block, but they began to salify, not just the surface. The purifying white light pierced deep into her cells, turning skin, muscle, and eventually bone into salt.

“Aaahh!”

Mirai screamed as three of her extra arms exploded into fragments of salt. The beam struck her with full force, until her Incarnation teleported in front of her, taking the hit and instantly crumbling into salt dust.

“That attack…! It’s the same light and salt element Louis wields…!” Mirai thought, gritting her teeth. “Nnngh…!”

She knew this was one of her few true weaknesses. As a being born of Demonic Power and Chaos, holiness and the element of salt were among the rare things that could truly harm her—perhaps the only ones aside from “Order,” which also seemed tied to salt and light.

“Heh… Hahaha! Well, would you look at that! Now who’s on the floor, dying, begging for mercy, hm?” Seraphine smiled wickedly, her mouth twisting grotesquely. “But don’t worry—I won’t kill you. I’ll turn your limbs to salt and seal you away. You’ll make a fine offering for the Order of the Fly. I’m sure most of them can’t wait to get their hands on you! Perhaps even Lord Myrghoul will finally notice me…!”

“I have never begged you for mercy,” Mirai hissed, rising even as half her body glittered with salt crystals.

“Hah? And who do you think you are? Maybe I really should just turn you entirely to salt and seal your soul somewhere else…” Seraphine nodded slowly. “That way Lord Pyrrhaxis could forge you into his newest Soul Weapon.”

“Heh…” Mirai returned a confident, dangerous grin. “You’ve run out of time.”

“What?” Seraphine’s eyes twitched.

“He’s here.”

Crack, crack…!

“…?!”

CRAAASH!

The Fantasy Field of salt and light Seraphine had erected shattered into countless fragments, revealing a radiant Dragonoid figure stepping forward.

“Y-You…!”

Seraphine, consumed by her battle with Mirai and fantasies of praise from the Order of the Fly, had failed to predict Louis’s arrival so soon.

What’s more, his previous dark, crumbling, ashen form was gone. Now he gleamed with white-gold scales, long golden horns, and wings of pure light.

A long white tail trailed behind him, golden claws extended from his hands, and hard white-gold armor covered most of his body. His wings of gleaming light constantly shed feathers.

Both Mirai and Seraphine stared in stunned awe. It looked exactly as if Louis had finally awakened his holy dragon bloodline.

…But that couldn’t be further from the truth—at least not yet.

His Fake Dragonoid Form—born from fusing with his Incarnations, combining his Cultivation Methods, and merging with his Fake Dragon Heart—had been “reversed” using a technique from his mother’s Legacy.

Only now, with his awakened Esper Abilities, could Louis sustain this “Reverse Fake Dragonoid” state, transforming him from a crumbling dark wyrm into a holy dragonoid—even if it was still artificial.

The boundary between fake and authentic was blurring more with every passing second.

“I-Impossible…! T-That appearance…! No…! You…! You awakened… your dragon bloodline?!”

Seraphine suddenly felt an immense weight crush on her entire body. She plummeted from the sky where she had been floating and crashed into a newly formed Fantasy Domain.

An endless ashen desert stretched beneath a glowing white sky. Trees of salt rose from the ground. Mountains of white dragon bones loomed in the distance. Gardens of white lilies bloomed across the ash, while gigantic dark-red trees towered far away, flowering with red roses that bore staring eyes.

An utterly bizarre Fantasy Domain—one Seraphine had never encountered.

This was how Louis’s heart appeared now that he had ascended to Tier 7.

“This can’t be happening! You’re a cripple! A talentless bastard!” Seraphine insisted, staggering to her feet—only to see a gigantic dragon palm descending toward her. “Gwaaaack!”

CRAAASH!

The palm slammed her into the ground. Overwhelming pressure began to crush her body. The many Grievance Fragments fused within her writhed in agony, slowly turning to salt and ash.

“W-What is this?! HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?! A DRAGON…! A-A DIVINE…! DIVINE DRAGON…!”

Seraphine screamed in horror, disbelief, awe, and shock as a titanic white dragon loomed before her. For a moment she truly believed Louis had awakened his full power and now rivaled—or surpassed—his mother.

“No…! NOOOO! WAIT! PLEASE FORGIVE US! WE DIDN’T KNOW…! WE DIDN’T KNOW!”

Trauma overwhelmed her senses as memories resurfaced—of the day Benladra descended upon a fortress city of the Vultarn High Dominion like a falling white meteor, obliterating it in a blinding explosion of light.

Every soldier stationed there perished instantly. She hadn’t even needed to fight; her mere presence disintegrated them at the molecular level.

Seraphine had been among the few survivors. As a young Fractured, she had been sent to witness the front lines, learn about fighting Entities, and hopefully devour a few to awaken her power as a Fractured, a derogatory term for Spiralwalkers whose Fantasy Hearts had been deliberately shattered to turn them into half-Grievances.

She had barely escaped. The rest of her team—Fractured, Demons, Sinners—all perished. The entire fortress city was so devastated that it took the Vultarn High Dominion over a decade to recover from the military losses. Even the Order of the Fly acknowledged the might of Frostbane’s Queen and left the kingdom untouched until she fell into slumber.

That terror, that nightmare of witnessing a sacred, divine dragon larger than the city itself roar like a primordial beast, unleash a blinding beam of light that shattered the walls, then spread enormous wings and depart, awakened fully within Seraphine once more.

Benladra could have annihilated the entire Vultarn High Dominion that day, but she chose not to—out of the mercy of her gentle heart. Instead she destroyed their largest military stronghold and their walls, crippling the nation.

The Inner Circle—including the Order of the Fly—had ensured her mercy would become her undoing…

But things were no longer going according to plan.

Though Benladra slept and they had plotted to seize her body and turn her into a weapon…

Now, out of nowhere…

A new Divine Dragon had awakened!

Or so she believed.

But as stated earlier, the line between fake and authentic was blurring.

If through everything he had forged Louis could at least appear as his lineage, even for just a few minutes…

Wasn’t he still a dragon in the end?

Especially within his Fantasy Domain, which he could now expand to this scale and trap enemies inside if timed correctly.

By fusing the laws of his domain with his Esper Powers, he could manifest as this gigantic, ethereal white dragon.

Thus Seraphine—overwhelmed by fear and resurfaced trauma—begged for her life.

“Please have mercy! Oh please have mercy, great divine dragon god! I was wrong! PLEASE HAVE MERCY ON MY SOUL! I WAS WRONG! I REPENT! PLEASE…! PLEASEEE! WE DIDN’T KNOW! WE DIDN’T KNOW THAT THE DIVINE BLOODLINE LIVED ON!”

For a moment Louis’s large reptilian golden eyes narrowed. His claw eased its pressure. Seraphine dared to hope it had worked.

After all, like Benladra, White Dragons perhaps carried that virtue—or terrible flaw…

They were too kind, too merciful, too gentle toward humanity.

Perhaps, along with his new power, Louis had awakened a far kinder heart.

“Hah… Hahaha…”

And yet…

“…?!”

Seraphine’s eyes widened in horror as the gigantic, majestic, virtuous dragon grinned like a deranged psychopath—wide, sharp teeth gleaming.

“BEG.”

“Eh?”

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