Awesome, it's the Platinum Dragon Lord! We're saved!
A gentle breeze swept across the wilderness, carrying with it a mild, sacred aura.
Immediately afterward, before Enhela could even react, an unbearably scorching blast of sacred Dragon Breath crashed down from above, engulfing everything around him.
The massive platinum dragon was shrouded in a faint white glow, radiant light flowing across his entire body and lending him an air of elegance and dignity. His enormous jaws were spread wide as a continuous stream of Breath Attacks poured forth.
Most striking of all was the conspicuous patch of black on the dragon's chest.
Anyone who calmed their mind and sensed carefully would discover that the seemingly pure and flawless Dragon Breath was actually threaded with wisps of black mist.
The mist flickered in and out of sight, radiating an aura that made the heart tremble.
Without a doubt, that was the magical power of Catastrophe!
"Tsaindorcus Vaision."
"You finally made it. I was starting to wonder if you'd already left the Roble Holy Kingdom, or if you were deliberately pretending not to see what was happening."
Naraku spoke the dragon's name.
The timing of the Platinum Dragon Lord's arrival really couldn't have been more perfect.
He had appeared at the most critical moment, neither too early nor too late.
Hearing Naraku's words, the Platinum Dragon Lord lowered his head slightly, his enormous draconic eyes sweeping across the surroundings.
After exchanging a glance with the White Dragon Lord, he looked away.
His gaze then passed over the Minotaur Sage, who remained on high alert.
Next, it fell upon the Clear Light Dragon Lord, whose expression was filled with surprise and suspicion.
Only then did the Platinum Dragon Lord turn his attention to Naraku.
[I'm sorry. I ran into a few minor complications and some unexpected circumstances along the way, so I was delayed.]
The Platinum Dragon Lord transmitted his thoughts, his deep, resonant voice carrying a trace of apology as it echoed in Naraku's mind.
In truth, he had received Naraku's distress signal long ago. However, certain special circumstances at the time had prevented him from coming to the rescue.
Only after everything had been properly dealt with had he hurried here as fast as he could, frantic with worry.
[Leave everything here to me from now on!]
The Platinum Dragon Lord made the promise solemnly.
Whether in terms of raw strength or combat experience, the Platinum Dragon Lord ranked among the very best of all the True Dragon Lords.
And now, he was further empowered by the true form's power of Catastrophe.
By comparison, the White Dragon Lord offered considerably less of a sense of security.
Who would have thought that the contingency measure the true form had deliberately prepared back then would prove useful today in such an unexpected way?
Fate truly could be impossible to predict.
Before them stretched what looked like a hideous wound left behind after the earth itself had been torn apart.
A gigantic crater dozens of meters wide and more than a hundred meters deep now lay across the land.
"Huff…"
The Platinum Dragon Lord closed his mouth, easing the discomfort caused by maintaining his Breath Attack for so long.
Immediately afterward, a dazzling flash of light erupted, and his enormous body began undergoing a remarkable transformation before their very eyes.
His scales gradually contracted, his sharp claws slowly retracted and changed shape, while his thick, powerful limbs became increasingly human-like…
Before long, the Platinum Dragon Lord had transformed into a Dragonoid.
Although he was more accustomed to fighting in his true dragon form, his enormous size could become a weakness against comparatively small opponents.
It would only give them more opportunities to exploit openings and counterattack.
As the saying went, an arrogant army was bound to lose.
Pride itself was not a bad thing, but once it turned into complacency, destruction would follow. That principle applied not only to humans, but to all living creatures.
Not that the Platinum Dragon Lord was foolish enough to fall into that trap.
Even if he had once been arrogant, that arrogance had long since been beaten out of him after that guy mercilessly ground him into the dirt in E-Rantel.
A streak of gray light suddenly shot up from the ground, racing straight into the sky at an astonishing speed.
"Here it comes!"
The Platinum Dragon Lord immediately became alert.
[Soul Raiment]
A dazzling Luminous Armor swiftly enveloped his entire body.
The transformation brought about by Wild Magic did not interfere with his ability to wield his power. In some respects, it even enhanced his strength.
After all, compressing his original hundred-meter-long dragon body into a form less than two meters tall perfectly demonstrated the principle that the essence lay in concentration.
Someone might initially find such a form difficult to adjust to, but that certainly did not apply to the Platinum Dragon Lord.
For the past three years, he had spent most of his time traveling the world in Dragonoid form in order to conceal his identity.
Enhela's speed abruptly surged.
However, his rising strike failed to hit its target. The Platinum Dragon Lord was far more agile than expected.
He bent backward at the waist, his body tracing a graceful arc. At the highest point, he bent both knees, then suddenly unleashed a powerful dragon fist.
"Boom!"
The attack, imbued with both divine and Catastrophe magic, struck its mark.
The air exploded, and a Shock Wave more than a hundred meters wide burst across the sky as Enhela was smashed violently downward.
Light flared around his body, but before he could fully disperse the force of the impact, the Platinum Dragon Lord's follow-up assault was already upon him.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Enhela was instantly suppressed.
Under the Platinum Dragon Lord's relentless barrage, his clothes were shredded into strips of cloth, his left cheek swelled badly, and two teeth shattered inside his mouth.
The might of a True Dragon Lord hardly needed explanation.
Even setting aside Wild Magic, their sheer physical strength far surpassed that of every other race.
They truly possessed boss-level stats.
The Platinum Dragon Lord was Level 96, yet his attributes in every category had already surpassed those of a Level 100 Player.
Even the Minotaur Sage, whose class was Warrior, did not dare engage him in close-quarters combat.
His mastery of Wild Magic also far surpassed that of the White Dragon Lord and the Clear Light Dragon Lord.
On top of that, the Divine attribute naturally countered all evil powers. When combined with the power of Catastrophe, the results were far better than anyone could have imagined.
The resulting damage was greater than threefold.
"Damn Catastrophe!"
Enhela roared.
The power of his Divine Right warped space, forcibly interrupting the Platinum Dragon Lord's assault.
But that was all he could manage.
Although the Clear Light Dragon Lord could no longer cast magic, the spatial blockade he had established earlier still remained. There was no way to tear open a spatial rift in such a short time.
The Platinum Dragon Lord had realized something.
The opponent before him was a pure stat monster and mechanics monster, without the slightest bit of actual technique.
His mechanics were restricted, his stats were roughly on par with the Platinum Dragon Lord's, and his attributes were being countered on top of that.
Fighting him felt incredibly satisfying.
The Platinum Dragon Lord finally understood how Naohara must have felt when beating him back then.
After steadying himself, the Platinum Dragon Lord shot forward at blinding speed and drove a fist into Enhela, sending him flying nearly several hundred meters.
"Thud!"
Enhela crashed into the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust.
[World-Isolating Barrier]
[Ultimate Explosion]
When the enemy was vulnerable, there was no reason to show mercy.
Without wasting a single word or making any unnecessary movements, the Platinum Dragon Lord immediately unleashed his strongest trump card.
From Naraku's perspective, a pure white sphere of light exploded outward with the Platinum Dragon Lord at its center.
At that moment, sound seemed to vanish completely.
Absolute silence descended.
Only the blazing white light remained, bursting across their vision and expanding for kilometers in every direction.
Then a pure white barrier spread outward, stopping the shockwaves from escaping.
The energy released by the Ultimate Explosion was forcibly confined within the Barrier, forming an enormous hemisphere of white light threaded with countless tiny bolts of lightning.
As the light finally began to fade, the deafening roar arrived at last, rolling across the sky like thunder.
The Platinum Dragon Lord turned into a streak of light and descended in front of Naraku and the others, his breathing slightly labored.
Powerful techniques often came with equally severe drawbacks.
Ultimate Explosion consumed an enormous amount of Soul energy, and against an opponent of equal level, there was still a considerable chance that it would fail to kill them.
After all, despite being an ultimate technique, it was fundamentally an area-of-effect attack.
However, the Platinum Dragon Lord had cleverly used the barrier to concentrate all of its damage onto a single point.
The price was an enormous drain on his Dragon Soul, along with a brief period of weakness afterward.
The Minotaur Sage warily moved farther away from the Platinum Dragon Lord.
This was precisely why he had spent hundreds of years hiding from place to place. The sheer power of the True Dragon Lords made him unwilling to show himself carelessly.
Still, he had never expected his fellow countryman from the Sorcerer Kingdom to actually be allied with the Platinum Dragon Lord.
He had originally assumed the other party had either been captured or gone into hiding.
The Clear Light Dragon Lord wore an unreadable expression.
Had he… completed his mission?
But judging by the current situation, the Platinum Dragon Lord seemed to have been involved with the Sorcerer Kingdom for quite some time already.
That was hardly good news.
"You've gotten smarter since last time. This time, you played your trump card without hesitation."
Naraku walked over to the Platinum Dragon Lord with a faint chuckle.
"As you Players would put it, I simply learned my lesson the hard way."
The Platinum Dragon Lord replied calmly.
But only a moment later, his expression turned grave once again.
Not far away, a pitch-black object resembling a lump of charcoal came into view.
Those charred remains belonged to Enhela, who had taken the full concentrated force of the Ultimate Explosion.
Although his body had been burned completely black by the tremendous explosion, there was still no room for carelessness.
The seconds passed one by one.
Three seconds later, the charred body twitched.
A trace of crimson appeared within it, and fresh flesh began rapidly growing.
At this rate, he would soon resurrect once again.
"So it still wasn't enough…"
Naraku sighed softly.
An infinite-Resurrection cheater like this was going to wear them down through sheer attrition.
[Looks like this is the only option left. I just hope the method provided by the Six Great Gods actually works.]
He raised a hand to stop the Platinum Dragon Lord from charging forward again, then turned his gaze toward the Minotaur Sage, the Clear Light Dragon Lord, and the White Dragon Lord.
"You three keep that guy occupied and buy me some time. I have a way to deal with him."
Me?
The Minotaur Sage and the Clear Light Dragon Lord both hesitated.
The White Dragon Lord, however, charged straight at Enhela without a word while he was still little more than a charred corpse.
The White Dragon Lord had not been idle earlier either.
He had desperately squeezed out every bit of magical power he could and cast a Resurrection spell on himself, [Hymn of the Frozen Barrier].
Even if he died, he could simply resurrect and keep fighting.
"…You'd better make it quick."
After hesitating for a moment, the Minotaur Sage ultimately chose to fight.
He had already recovered considerably. Although his condition was still far from ideal, buying some time should be manageable.
The Clear Light Dragon Lord had originally intended to run, but slinking away in disgrace felt far too humiliating.
In the end, he gritted his teeth and followed after the Minotaur Sage.
"Tsa, interested in making a bet with me?"
Naraku withdrew his gaze, a faint smile appearing on his pale face as he looked toward the Platinum Dragon Lord's chest.
There, a jet-black Dragon Scale was giving off a faint glow.
***
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