Chapter 96: Golden Devastation
Abraham did not wait for them to finish their warnings. To him, these two dragons were nothing more than minor obstacles in his path. With a fluid movement, he thrust his left fist forward a horizontal piston strike of disarming simplicity, yet its velocity created an air vacuum that sucked the floating stones toward the center of its wake.
« Vulcan, to the left! » Obliranca screamed.
With a synchronized lateral leap, the two dragons separated. Abraham's fist passed precisely between them, the thermal shockwave of its wake burning the skin of their arms as it sheared past. Capitalizing on the giant's extended arm, Obliranca kicked off a fragment of a column and propelled herself forward. Her white blade traced an ascending arc, aiming for the tendon of Abraham's elbow.
Clang!
The edge of the blade struck the Dragon's granite skin. Yellow sparks erupted from the point of impact, but the steel failed to penetrate more than a single centimeter, blocked by the supernatural density of the gold-infused tissues. Abraham did not even blink. With a simple backhand of his left hand, fingers wide open, he swept through the air to swat Obliranca out of the sky.
« Don't forget about me, you old fossil! » Vulcan shouted, appearing beneath Abraham's outstretched arm.
The dragon had concentrated all his mana into his right fist. He struck the Sacred Dragon's flank with a devastating uppercut. An explosion of crimson flames the absolute highest tier of his pyrotechnic magic, capable of burning through solid diamond detonated directly against the monster's golden ribs. The heat was so intense that a portion of Abraham's gold began to melt, turning into liquid lava that flowed down his thigh.
The Dragon let out a grunt of irritation. Vulcan's blow had forced him back half a step. Exploiting this opening, Obliranca, who had managed to evade the backhand by letting herself drop to the ground, stood up instantly. Utilizing her top speed, she dashed beneath the giant's monumental legs and delivered a rapid succession of three thrusting strikes to the back of Abraham's knee, seeking to sever the joint.
Each sword strike resonated like a hammer hitting an anvil. The blade succeeded in fracturing the gold, releasing thin streams of burning, golden blood that eroded the marble floor as it spilled. Sensing the attack from behind, Abraham pivoted with an agility that was startling for his size. His left foot swept low in a circular kick that gathered the debris and struck Obliranca head-on at the ribs. The dragoness was hurled across the courtyard, bouncing twice off the ground before crashing against the base of a shattered statue, coughing up a spray of dark blood.
« Obliranca! » Vulcan roared.
Distracted for a fraction of a second by the dragoness's fall, Vulcan failed to see Abraham's right hand descending upon him. The golden fingers closed around his torso before he could activate his flame teleportation form. Abraham's grip tightened, applying a hydraulic pressure that shattered the bones of the fire dragon's ribcage.
« Presumptuous little dragon, » Abraham said, lifting Vulcan to his eye level. « You think your fire frightens me? I was forged in the heart of this world's first volcanoes, long before your ancestors ever learned to rub two flints together. »
Despite the agony blinding his vision, Vulcan pushed his thermal aura to its absolute paroxysm. His body grew so hot that Abraham's golden armor began to glow white-hot. The dragon thrust both hands forward, clawing at the Ancient Dragon's face to unleash a continuous torrent of pure fire, attempting to burn his eyes. Meanwhile, fifty meters away, Noel had taken advantage of the diversion. Carrying Flora over his right shoulder, his legs buckling under the weight and the panic, he ran toward the courtyard's grand gates to escape into the sub-levels, forcing himself not to look back despite the magical detonations tearing up his wake. His teeth were clenched to the point of breaking, tears of frustration streaming down his cheeks.
On the other side of the battlefield, Abraham decided to clear the area. Vulcan, hands still outstretched, spewed his final waves of fire directly onto the Ancient Dragon's massive golden face. The heat was such that the very air warped, yet Abraham did not flinch. With a calculated, slow movement, the titan extended his monumental hand through the inferno. His fingers parted the sacred flames as if they were nothing more than a lukewarm mist. He seized Vulcan by the throat.
« Your fire lacks substance, little dragon. In my era, dragons were far stronger than this, » Abraham rumbled.
The grip closed. A sharp snap echoed through the courtyard as Vulcan's collarbone and upper ribs gave way beneath several tons of pressure. He coughed up a splash of burning blood, his flames instantly extinguishing around his arms. Abraham did not merely throw him; he slammed him vertically into the marble floor with devastating impact force, instantly reverting Vulcan to his human form. The ground cratered three meters deep. Vulcan lay motionless at the center, his body contorted, his eyes rolled back. In a single physical exchange, he had understood the terrifying truth: they did not belong to the same world as the Sacred Dragon of Gold.
As Abraham raised his massive foot to execute the unconscious mage, a silhouette interposed itself with lightning speed. It was Obliranca, still standing. Her long white hair whipped the air as she pointed her spiritual sword toward the titan's eyes.
« Look at me, you old fossil, » Obliranca barked, her feminine voice resonating with a royal fury. « You won't kill anyone here! We are both Sacred Dragons, Abraham. There is no way I will let you sow destruction. I intend to hold you here, even if I must lose my scales to do it! »
Abraham paused, his eyes narrowing to analyze the young woman's aura. A cruel smile returned to his lips.
« You haven't changed, Obliranca... I must admit that of all the Sacred Dragons, you were the one I fancied most… Do you remember when you refused my marriage proposal? I was deeply saddened; it was the first time a woman had ever told me no. And for that, I fully intend to make you pay today. »
Obliranca did not wait. She launched an assault of pure technical brilliance, combining deadly swordsmanship and highly agile close-quarters combat martial arts. But with a single gesture a lightning-fast right straight Abraham intercepted her trajectory. The Dragon's fist collided head-on with the flat of Obliranca's blade.
*Crack!*
The sword, despite being forged from spiritual energy, shattered into pieces under the kinetic pressure. The shimmering fragments crackled in the air before embedding themselves in the ground. Though disarmed, Obliranca did not retreat an inch. She immediately threw herself into a desperate hand-to-hand engagement, initiating a martial dance worthy of the Sacred Dragon she was.
The duel dissolved into raw brutality. Obliranca used her speed to slip beneath one of Abraham's grappling attempts. She executed a millimeter-precise spinning dodge, brushing past the titan's flank before hammering him with a devastating sequence of elbow and knee strikes to his pressure points. She twirled and slid across the sodden ground, evading the heavy hammers of gold that served as his fists. A sweeping strike from Abraham grazed her hair; she evaded it with a flawless backflip, landing firmly on her feet only to rush back into the fray.
Yet Abraham remained the undisputed master of physical violence. His domination quickly became overwhelming. Catching an opening during the young woman's flying kick, he grabbed her by the ankle mid-air and, with a circular motion of insane power, hurled her across the horizon.
Obliranca's body tore through the capital's mist at an impressive velocity, breaking the sound barrier before violently crashing against the mountain range surrounding the kingdom. The impact pulverized the flank of the first mountain, kicking up an immense cloud of rock and dust.
Within the rubble of the shattered mountain, Obliranca's body contorted under the twin forces of pain and rage. A wave of blue spiritual energy exploded around her as she instantly shifted into her draconic form to survive. Her limbs elongated, scales covered her skin, and her eyes turned into two luminous, glowing blue slits. Gigantic membranous wings unfurled, blasting apart the remainder of the rock wall.
Surgically bursting from the dust at a phenomenal speed, she soared high into the exosphere, deploying her wings to channel gravitational magic. Through her telekinetic and spiritual force alone, she ripped wandering asteroids from the vacuum of space and pulled them toward Earth, crossing light-years in almost no time at all. The sky ignited instantly. Dozens of giant meteorites, enveloped in blood-red friction, pierced the clouds and plummeted directly toward Abraham.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Yet, as these celestial masses threatened to level the continent, Abraham simply looked up. His pupils pulsed with a blinding yellow glare, unleashing his true power: the conceptualization of gold.
In an instant, the unthinkable occurred. Upon contact with his aura, the trajectory of the meteorites froze. The molten rock was transmuted at its very core. The celestial cataclysms turned into gigantic blocks of pure, solid gold massive, heavy, and harmless, gleaming beneath the lightning.
But the wave did not stop there. Abraham propagated his power across the entire battlefield, then the region, and finally the continent. The heavy drops of rain pouring down upon the kingdom instantly transformed into frozen, liquid gold dust, crackling onto the ground like a hail of precious metal. The black clouds in the sky took on an immutable, golden hue, reflecting a divine light. The ground beneath their feet, the earth, the shattered marble, and the surrounding mountains all turned into plains of solid gold. The entirety of the dragon continent was struck by this alchemical plague, frozen forever in a sterile and indestructible opulence.
To be continued…