Chapter 347: Chapter 346 - The Plot Twists.
Back in the Ashen Expanse, everything burned black and crimson.
Two entities—one cloaked in voidfire, the other wreathed in molten hate—locked their breath attacks in a cataclysm that tore at the bones of the world.
Raven’s red-black voidfire clashed with the colossus’s dragon breath, the collision birthing a storm of screaming light and molten debris.
None of them seemed to be pushed back because, while one side had stronger fire, the other had a stronger force.
Each second stretched like an eternity, every heartbeat a war of annihilation.
Through the searing haze, a voice crawled across the air—not through sound, but through mana itself.
It slithered into Raven’s mind, heavy and sharp as grinding stone. "This... is what happens when I get serious, human."
The black-boned colossus leaned forward, molten eyes narrowing to hateful slits as their beams locked.
"Without that toy of yours, you are nothing. All I had to do was avoid the sword. See what happens? The ground crumbles. The sky bleeds. Your friends will follow."
Raven said nothing.
His crimson eyes burned like dying stars, unreadable.
The voidfire roared louder, but his jaw remained tight, his silence more cutting than any retort.
The beast’s grin widened.
"By now, the basilisk will have the girl. The chattery one with the sound magic. Her body must already be turning to stone."
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Some distance away from the main clash, Clara exhaled a shaky breath and brushed ash from her skirt.
The shockwave from Raven’s attack had nearly flung her across the collapsing field.
She muttered under her breath, "When this is over, I’m making him buy me a new coat. And maybe a lesson on—"
Her voice died as she realized something—her feet refused to move.
A creeping grey shimmer crawled up her boots.
Cold, rough, and merciless stone spread across her ankles, racing for her knees.
Her fingers trembled as she looked down. Her hands were paling and cracking.
A wet hiss coiled behind her.
From the smoke, the basilisk slithered forward, a nightmare of scales and rotting fangs.
Its eyes glowed with sickly green light as it lowered its massive head.
"Caught you," it rasped, its voice a death rattle. "Soon, every inch of you will crumble... beautiful, brittle stone."
Clara clenched her jaw, mana sparking faintly in her throat, but the stone was already crawling toward her ribs.
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Back before Raven, the colossus’s voice slithered back onto the battlefield.
"The earthworm beast... is the one with dragon jaws... it must have already devoured the shadow queen."
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Selena stood within her towering Susano, a skeletal giant wrapped in writhing devourer beasts.
Bone armor creaked as she steadied herself, violet eyes locked on the duel in the sky.
But suddenly, her shadow construct began to sink—slowly and almost lazily—into the quaking ground.
"Tch." She flicked her fingers, ready to dissolve it and summon another. "These kinds of cheap tricks—"
Before she could complete her words, the earth split.
A gaping maw exploded upward—rows upon rows of jagged, dragon-forged fangs.
The earthworm beast lunged with impossible speed, its throat a tunnel of darkness.
Selena’s eyes widened.
"—oh, hell."
The ground swallowed her Susano whole.
Shadow, bone, and the girl vanished in a single, thunderous gulp.
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"And the iron conjurer," the colossus continued, mana-voice thick with amusement, "flies on her little board, firing spikes. She does not even know the wings she faces—dragon wings—swifter than anything that walks or flies. Even I could never catch that one."
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Jessy, who was still steadying herself on her iron board and shaking off the last tremor, looked for her opponent, but—
"Okay," she muttered, her eyes scanning the empty sky. "Where the hell is—"
Before she could even complete her words, a whisper of wind grazed her neck.
It wasn’t a morning breeze but a wind that only appeared when someone moved faster than the wind itself.
She spun around, but she was too slow.
A blur of black and crimson streaked past, claws glowing with corruption.
"—Sh*t!"
Blood splattered across the iron board as the impact sent her screaming toward the ruined ground.
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The beast’s molten grin widened as it pressed harder against Raven’s beam.
"And the shadow boy... the one who thinks darkness hides him. He fights the human-shaped beast. But that beast carries a dragon’s arm. One strike from that limb can tear apart reality itself. No shadow can hide prey from that reach."
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Jake crouched deep inside the shadow realm, breath silent, and heart steady.
Then suddenly—
—He felt a pull.
A violent and unnatural drag yanked at his very soul.
"Not good," he hissed, diving deeper into the void.
But it was too late.
The ground above convulsed.
A monstrous arm, scales black as obsidian, punched through the shadow like wet paper.
Its clawed fingers closed around him with crushing inevitability.
"No—!"
Outside, reality screamed as the dragon-armed beast wrenched its prize free, Jake thrashing helplessly in its grip before it clenched its fist.
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"Next," the colossus rumbled, the mana vibrating in Raven’s skull, "is the boy in red iron. His opponent is weak in every way but one: it has the legs of a dragon. The ground is its kingdom. If your friend lands on the ground... he dies."
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Far from them, Rufus sat dazed in a smoking crater, rubbing the top of his helmet like a man waking from a hangover. His red-black nanoparticle suit flickered with scorched light.
The situation he was in was entirely due to the earlier shockwave.
"Raven," he muttered, his voice muffled inside the helm, "friendly fire has limits, buddy. Seriously—"
Before he could finish his words, a shadow swallowed him.
Rufus looked up. His visor reflected a mountain of armored flesh—an elephantine beast plated in black scales, its four legs glowing with molten cracks.
"Oh, no. Not like this—!"
The creature dropped with earth-shaking force, the entire plain cratering beneath its charge.
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Back in the crater with Raven, the colossus’s grin widened as its molten eyes flared.
"And the child with lava," it hissed, "faces one blessed with a dragon’s horns. With those horns, it bends the world. It has telekinesis strong enough to crush the sky itself. What can a brawler do when the air itself betrays him?"
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Alex crouched on a broken ridge, Blargh’s molten lava form slithering across his arms like living armor.
"Okay," Alex said, his eyes flicking toward the blazing duel between Raven and the colossal beast. "That breath-lock? That’s metal. Think we can pull off something like—"
He wanted to ask his opponent beast if it would also like to have a breath attack lock.
But before he could ask, his feet left the ground.
He floated upward, spinning helplessly.
"Uh... Blargh? Is this you?"
"Negative," the symbiote rasped, its voice bubbling like magma. "Not me."
Alex twisted mid-air—just in time to see the massive wolf-beast ahead, horns glowing like molten brands.
Its jaws gaped, an invisible force dragging them forward like fish on a hook.
"Nuh-uh," Alex and Blargh said in perfect unison. "This isn’t good."
The beast’s teeth snapped shut, the telekinetic pull tightening like a noose.
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"And the ice witch," the colossus’s mana-voice slithered on, "believes her strange cold can bind a child of dragons. Foolish. The one she faces carries the mana and the eyes of a true dragon. No spell survives its gaze."
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Siris stood amid fractured earth, Cryovoid daggers spinning like orbiting stars.
She was the only one who hadn’t stopped fighting for a second.
Even when the shockwave blew her and her opponent, she didn’t stop and kept fighting.
Now, she was on the ground before the beast, ready for another round of suffering for the beast.
"Let’s finish this—"
But before she could complete her words, her frost sputtered, the air itself cracking her mana before it could form, as the eyes of the beast glowed golden.
"What?" She murmured, tilting her head in confusion.
And that fraction was all the beast needed.
A clawed hand like a black glacier snapped shut around her body, the dragon-eyed beast squeezing with bone-splintering force.
She was so small before the beast that she was held like a fly in the beast’s hands.
Siris snarled from inside, her icy breath misting the beast’s inner palm. "Try me, you oversized lizard—"
The grip tightened.
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The colossus pressed harder against Raven’s voidfire, its molten grin twisting.
"As for the armored girl..."
But then it paused, realizing something. "Why so silent, human? Do you not wish to know how she will die? The creature she faces—"
"No," Raven finally said flatly.
The single word cut sharper than any blade.
He hadn’t been speaking until now because the beast didn’t ask him anything.
He was merely letting the beast speak whatever it had to, but it seemed like his silence was taken as a weakness by the beast.
’Typical third-rate villain move,’ he sighed inwardly, while the beast, again misinterpreting the situation, barked a gravelly laugh.
"I will tell you anyway. Her death will be the worst of all, for the one she—"
Before it could complete its words, a loud, agonized death roar echoed through the surroundings, and although their clash was loud enough, it still reached their ears.
What followed was laughter—bright, wild, and human.
"Haaah! Now that was fun!"
The voice rang like a bell of defiance, echoing across the fractured battlefield.
From the haze stepped Graye, hair singed, blade glowing with embers of pure fire.
She twirled her sword, grinning like a devil set loose.
"Am I the first one to finish? Need a hand? I’m free!"
The colossal beast froze.
Its molten eyes flicked toward the distant figure—
—And narrowed with something that almost looked like disbelief.
Its strongest kin.
The one ranked just beneath it was gone.