Chapter 345: Chapter 344 - Terrain-changing battle.
The black-boned colossus loomed like a nightmare carved from mountains, molten eyes burning with contempt.
Raven, though swollen with Voidborn power and standing at a towering two and a half meters, still looked like a reckless child sprinting at a lion.
His crimson-scaled feet tore the earth with every step, the massive blade balanced casually on his shoulder.
The beast sneered, rumbling like shifting tectonic plates.
"Little human," it growled, "I’ll swat you like—"
WHOOSH!
Raven blurred forward, a comet of black-red flame. The air itself screamed as he swung Omni down in a clean, savage arc.
The beast, however, barely moved—one clawed hand, black as night and thicker than a tree trunk, rose to meet the slash.
CLANG!
Metal met bone with a shockwave that flattened the cracked plane, but the claw held.
The monster’s molten grin widened. "Is that all—"
But before it could complete its words, Raven also grinned. "No. That’s not all."
Then—
SHHHRAAAANG!
A sound like the snapping of the world itself echoed through the battlefield.
The beast froze. Its eyes flicked down.
Its claws were gone.
Five dragon-bone talons, pride of its lineage, fell in slow motion—neatly sliced as if shaved by a cosmic razor.
All to the sword of a human.
’How is this possible?!’
The beast didn’t even know that the sword Raven was holding was a relic made to slay gods, so what was a mere beast with nothing but the bones of a dragon?
Staring at the beast, Raven tilted his head, smoke curling from his teeth. "You’re welcome for the free manicure. No need to thank me."
The monster, on the other hand, kept staring at the twitching stumps in sheer disbelief. Those claws were dragonic bone, indestructible and self-healing.
For the first time in centuries, it felt... naked.
A low, vibrating growl rumbled through its chest, rising to a roar that shook the heavens.
Not pain—rage.
Raven only laughed. "Aww. Sensitive about your nails?"
The beast lunged, another claw scything downward.
Raven didn’t flinch. He raised Omni again, Voidfire licking the blade.
SHHHRRRANK!
Another set of claws spiraled into the air.
The monster roared louder, froth sizzling on its fangs. "IMPOSSIBLE!"
Slash. Slash. Slash.
Each furious swipe ended the same way—another elegant SHHRANG of sundered bone.
The black-boned titan forgot strategy, slamming its claws again and again until nothing remained but jagged stumps.
"IF I CANNOT CUT YOU!" it bellowed, eyes blazing like molten suns. "THEN I WILL CRUSH YOU!"
Its massive shadow blotted the battlefield as it reared up, then brought a limb the size of a fortress down like a falling continent.
BOOOOOM!
The earth cratered, throwing up a cloud of ash and broken stone.
For a breathless heartbeat, it looked as if Raven had been obliterated.
The beast exhaled, a sound of grim satisfaction.
Then—
"Yo, do you even bathe? You smell bad."
As soon as that voice echoed, pain flared through the limb it had used to crush him. A piercing, burning agony that drilled straight into its core.
The monster looked down in horror.
Under its own hand, Raven crouched—shielded beneath a slightly tilted Omni, the blade sunk straight through dragon bone and buried deep.
Voidfire crawled up the wound like black lightning, sizzling nerves and marrow.
Raven grinned, fangs flashing. "By the way, nice grip. But I don’t do handshakes with beasts."
Before the beast could yank the limb away, Raven’s eyes flared crimson. "Extend!"
SKRRAAAAAAANG!
Omni grew.
The blade speared upward like a living pillar of night, drilling through scale and sinew, splitting the colossal limb from within.
It rose and rose, as if the sword itself wanted to pierce the heavens, until the beast’s arm was nothing but impaled flesh and shattered bone.
The monster shrieked, a sound so raw it seemed to peel the air from the world.
Ash storms rippled across the battlefield; even the other part-dragons froze mid-strike, eyes widening at the impossible sight.
Raven’s voice, on the other hand, cut through the chaos—calm, cold, and almost playful. "Fall."
SHHRRRRAAAAANG!
The sword dropped.
Gravity became a weapon as Omni cleaved downward, splitting the pierced limb clean in half.
Bone cracked like thunder. Black ichor geysered into the ashen air.
The black-boned beast screamed in pain so primal it silenced the entire battlefield.
Every creature, ally and enemy alike, paused to watch the impossible.
Raven stepped out from beneath the raining gore, shoulders rolling as if he’d merely stretched.
Voidfire danced along Omni’s edge, casting his grin in a demonic glow.
"Guess that manicure turned into a full amputation," he said lightly. "Don’t worry. First one’s free."
Omni chuckled darkly in his mind. "Boss, you’ve got a gift for customer service."
Raven’s eyes burned brighter as he lifted the sword again.
"Now," he said, voice low and lethal, "let’s see what else needs trimming."
The black-boned colossus calmed down in a second, hunched low as its molten eyes narrowed into slits of hate as it glared at the lone figure standing amid the carnage.
Its voice came out like mountains grinding against each other.
"Impressive trick, human. You caught me by surprise... but so what? My wounds will heal. They always heal. Even a basilisk’s poison cannot scar me."
Raven tilted his head, crimson eyes gleaming with faint amusement.
"Really?" He lazily pointed Omni’s massive, void-lit edge toward the mangled limb. "Then why isn’t that healing?"
The beast’s molten gaze followed the gesture.
Its entire body stiffened.
The limb—once proud and clawed—hung useless, limp, and slack like an octopus tentacle cleaved down the middle.
The sundered bone refused to knit, and the flesh refused to close.
No shimmer of regeneration. No spark of the famous dragonic recovery.
A ripple of disbelief coursed through the colossus.
"This... cannot be."
Raven smirked, lifting Omni just enough for its black fire to pulse like a heartbeat.
"Omni doesn’t care about dragon pride. Anything this sword cuts?" He tapped the flat of the blade with a clawed finger. "Never heals. Not now, not ever."
The beast’s molten eyes trembled between rage and fear—then hardened.
Without a word, it seized its own ruined limb with the other and ripped it clean off, black ichor spraying like a volcanic fountain.
Muscle tore, bone cracked—and then, horrifyingly fast, a new arm erupted from the stump in a writhing surge of bone and flesh.
Raven blinked. "...Well, that’s one way to handle a manicure."
Then, he exhaled through his teeth, muttering, "Man, I said too much this time, didn’t I?"
In his mind, Omni’s dry chuckle echoed. "You think?"
The beast flexed its freshly grown claws, its molten grin widening. "This time will be different. No surprise. No mistakes."
It threw its massive skull back and roared.
The sound wasn’t a cry but a command—one that only the other beasts understood.
So, as soon as that roar echoed across the battlefield, the other part-dragons froze mid-battle.
Then, one by one, they answered with roars of their own, a symphony of thunder that cracked the air and rattled the bones of the world.
The ground quivered under the sheer pressure of their collective fury.
Raven sighed, rolling his shoulders as if someone had just asked him to do extra paperwork.
"Why is it," he muttered, "that every third-rate trash blames surprise as the reason for their loss?"
His eyes flared crimson as he lifted Omni, voidfire crawling along its length. "Fine. You want round two? Then watch closely, as I haven’t even shown you my cards yet."
Before the beast could move, the world itself shuddered.
BOOOM!
The ground cracked open as Raven stamped one foot, earth mana erupting outward in a quake that splintered the battlefield into a spiderweb of fissures.
From those fissures, fire chains burst upward—serpents of molten flame that lashed around the beast’s legs, anchoring it in place.
At the same time, a surge of water rose from the very cracks, twisting into shimmering torrents that coiled around the monster’s torso, choking and constricting.
A razor wind screamed in from above, hammering down with invisible weight, crushing the air itself.
The black-boned colossus roared as elemental chaos tried to bind it from every direction.
The battlefield became a storm of earth, flame, water, and wind—four forces of nature kneeling to one man’s will.
Above the chaos, flaming wings snapped open as Raven shot skyward, a streak of red-black fire piercing the smoky heavens.
The air buckled beneath him as he hovered high above, Voidborn scales blazing like molten obsidian.
"Let’s end this—"
He folded his wings.
FWOOOOSH!
He plummeted like a meteor, Omni already stretching, the blade lengthening with a screech of warped reality.
"—EXTEND!"
The sword grew and grew, black lightning sparking across its impossible edge, until it was long enough to split mountains.
Its shadow swallowed the battlefield whole as Raven descended, the void itself bending toward the killing stroke.
But the beast only grinned.
Its molten eyes flared with savage joy.
Then, with a roar that rattled the soul, the colossus flexed every muscle in its titanic frame.
CRRRRRAAAACK!
The fire chains shattered like brittle twigs.
The choking torrents burst into steam.
The crushing wind scattered like torn silk.
Even the quaking earth stilled beneath its sheer, brute force.
It wasn’t that the magic failed.
The beast merely didn’t care about the damage because, other than Omni, there was nothing that could stop its dragonic healing.
"Your tricks..." It rumbled, voice dripping contempt, "...are dust to me."
With a ground-splitting leap, the beast hurled its entire bulk sideways.
KRAAAAAAANG!
Omni’s meteoric slash missed by a heartbeat, cleaving into the battlefield instead.
The world erupted.
A shockwave like the wrath of a god tore through the Ashen Expanse.
The ground caved, collapsing like a rotted floor.
Mountains of ash and rock disintegrated into a plunging chasm, dragging friend and foe alike into the abyss.
Selena’s skeletal titan clung to the walls.
Jessy skated down a sliding plate of iron.
Jake melted into shadow.
The others scrambled, dodging tumbling debris as the entire surface of the battlefield gave way, revealing a vast underworld beneath.
Dust and darkness swallowed everything.
Raven landed amid the wreckage, voidfire flickering across his scales.
Through the swirling haze, a single silhouette emerged—huge, jagged, and terrifyingly calm.
The early morning sun broke over the horizon, its pale light slicing through the rising dust just enough to sketch the beast’s shadow against the haze.
The black-boned colossus stood tall, molten grin gleaming.
"As I said," it growled, the sound vibrating through the stone beneath Raven’s feet, "This time... things will be different."
Raven narrowed his eyes.
Something shimmered—a faint, sinister glow—around the beast’s maw.
Red smoke leaked from its fanged mouth, curling upward like the breath of a furnace.
The heat around them spiked, warping the very air.
Realization hit Raven like a hammer.
It was charging for a breath attack.
A slow smile spread across his own face.
"Well," he muttered, smoke beginning to curl from the corners of his lips, "Wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t return the favor."
He inhaled.
The void within him roared awake.
Red-black smoke seeped from his teeth, coiling with each exhale, thickening the air with the promise of annihilation.
Both predator and prey squared off, chests expanding, the world holding its breath.
Then—
BOOOOOOOM!
Twin beams of raw destruction erupted at once.
The beast’s crimson inferno and Raven’s voidfire breath collided mid-air with a sound that shattered the sky.
The shockwave tore through the underground chamber, hurling boulders like leaves and stripping the dust from the air in a single, blinding flash.
Outside the collapsing battlefield, even Raven’s allies—now safely distant—stumbled as a sonic wall rolled over them, breaking sound barriers like fragile glass.
The earth itself trembled, as if recoiling from the clash of two living cataclysms.
Locked beam to beam, neither Raven nor the black-boned colossus yielded an inch.
The clash painted the ruined Ashen Expanse in blinding crimson and black, a duel of wills so violent it threatened to rewrite the very dawn.