Moonlight stepped forward and nuzzled it as a reward.

"That creature... it didn’t just cut away a piece of stone. It cut away a piece of the ’world’."

Sun murmured to himself, looking from the stone wall to the unsettling spatial indentation.

To put it simply, Coal Ball had carved a tiny fragment of the world from the world itself.

Raylo was equally stunned, but he quickly suppressed his emotions, a smile breaking across his face.

He walked over, scooped Coal Ball into his arms, and rubbed its little head.

"Excellent work, Coal Ball. You’ve done us a great service."

He turned to the two Hill Giants who had been waiting quietly.

"You two, carry this slab."

The two Hill Giants looked at each other, seemingly not understanding Raylo’s command.

Sun let out a low roar from the side, relaying Raylo’s order.

They finally rumbled in acknowledgment. Stepping forward, one on the left and one on the right, they easily hoisted the slab onto their shoulders—a slab that weighed several tons and still had a spatial fissure clinging to it.

They seemed completely oblivious to the Power of Space clinging to it, merely thinking the stone ’had some decent weight to it’.

"We’re moving out!"

Raylo commanded, his tone decisive.

"Leave this place immediately."

The group retreated quickly. When Ed pushed aside the vines at the mouth of the cave again, a wave of heat and a deafening cacophony assaulted them.

The sky outside the cave was no longer the same.

Not only had the previously dispersed swarm of Demon Fire Crows returned, but their numbers had increased more than tenfold.

Tens of thousands of Fire Demon Crows, burning with an ominous Flame, blotted out the sky, dyeing the afternoon sun a bizarre, dark red.

They circled and shrieked, forming a massive, swirling vortex with the very peak they stood on at its center.

The air was thick with the stench of sulfur and burning, and the eyes of every Fire Demon Crow blazed with madness and greed.

Raylo’s heart sank.

The Black King, the Black Dragon Lord who held dominion deep within the Black Stone Mountain Range, had become fully aware of the anomaly here.

"Sir!"

Ed’s expression was grim.

"There are too many of them!"

"Griffin Knights, take to the skies! Punch a hole through them!"

Raylo vaulted onto Baofeng, his voice sharp and cold.

"Don’t get bogged down in a fight! Cover the ground troops and retreat at full speed!"

"Yes, sir!"

The Thunderbolt and Storm Squadron, thirty Griffin Knights strong, roared into the air again, plunging like a sharp sword into the dark red canopy.

Arcs of lightning and blades of wind crisscrossed in the air, instantly tearing an opening in the swarm. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

However, the swarm was simply too vast. The moment a gap was torn open, more Fire Demon Crows would surge forward suicidally to fill it.

Each dive of the Griffins claimed the lives of several Fire Demon Crows. Charred corpses, sent flying by the Knights’ Long Spears, rained down from the sky.

But to the swarm as a whole, these losses were but a drop in the ocean.

They frantically slammed into the Griffin Knights’ formation, using their talons, beaks, and even their own burning bodies to crash against the Griffins’ Iron Feathers.

"Dammit, these feathered beasts have gone insane!"

A Knight’s roar carried on the wind. A few feathers had been pecked from his mount’s wing, igniting several dark red sparks that were quickly extinguished by the Griffin’s own Power.

"Hold the formation! Don’t get scattered!"

Ed’s Thunderboltous Griffin King repeatedly unleashed Lightning Chain, clearing one temporary gap after another within the crow swarm.

On the ground, Raylo and his party had begun to advance at full speed.

The Hill Giants carried the severed slab of rock, each step leaving a large crater in the ground.

Sun flew guard low in the sky above.

The pursuers in the sky were relentless, clinging to them like a persistent plague.

The massive shadow moved with them, and the piercing cries of the crows never ceased, as if they were guiding the way for some more terrifying presence.

Time ticked by, second by agonizing second. Every moment felt like walking on a knife’s edge.

The march continued for several hours. Thanks to the powerful strides of the Hill Giants, the rugged mountain road was steadily left behind them.

In the distance, the terrain began to level out. They only needed to cross one last ridge to escape the region shrouded in the Black Dragon’s shadow.

Victory seemed to be within their grasp.

However, at that very moment, an indescribable and terrifying pressure swept over them from behind like a tsunami—a presence so dreadful it felt as if it could freeze their very souls.

WHOOM!

It was as if someone had hit the mute button on the entire world.

The tens of thousands of frantically shrieking Fire Demon Crows in the sky fell silent in the same instant. All sound vanished.

They froze in mid-air. Then, like the most devout of worshipers, they turned in perfect unison and bowed their heads toward the sky behind them.

Ed and his Griffin Knights felt as if they had been dealt a heavy blow. Their Griffin mounts let out a series of uneasy whines, their flight becoming sluggish.

On the ground, the two Hill Giants carrying the stone slab stopped dead in their tracks. Their massive bodies began to tremble uncontrollably, their faces showing a primal, childlike terror.

Even Sun’s massive draconic form tensed. His golden eyes were locked on the sky behind them, a low growl rumbling in his throat.

The air grew as thick as mercury, and each breath felt like inhaling molten lead.

An invisible Domain Power surged from behind, crashing down on them with the force of an overwhelming tsunami.

Raylo sharply reined in Baofeng and looked back.

On the distant horizon, a colossal black shadow was approaching.

The shadow blotted out the mountains, dwarfing the entire world and making it seem dim.

A draconic roar, seeming to emanate from the Abyss itself, crossed the vast distance and exploded in everyone’s ears.

The Power contained within the roar made the very rock of the mountains tremble and the trees of the forest topple.

The Black King had arrived.

Its spread wings were vast enough to blot out the sun. Each beat stirred a destructive gale through the mountains.

Its pitch-black scales were without a single fleck of other color, as if polished from the purest Obsidian, yet they possessed a cold, hard, metallic quality.

A pair of dark red eyes, like molten rock, stared coldly across the vast distance at the "ants" who had trespassed into its territory.

Raylo had seen this Young Black Dragon from afar several months ago, but the Black Dragon that had since become the overlord of the Black Stone Mountain Range was now a completely different sight.

At the apex of the Giant Dragon food chain, Black Dragons were renowned for their brutality and immense physical strength.

In the face of this true Black Dragon Lord, the instinctual fear deep within the bloodlines of both the Griffins and the Hill Giants was fully awakened, robbing them of nearly all will to resist.

Yet, in this atmosphere frozen by fear, one figure rose against the tide.

"ROAR!"

A second, higher-pitched draconic roar, filled with dauntless battle spirit, soared into the sky. The golden sound wave was like a physical shockwave, forcibly tearing a rift in the Black King’s suffocating draconic aura.

Sun’s massive body unfurled. His hundred-meter-long frame seemed to hold up a piece of the sky, his presence meeting the Black Dragon’s head-on, not yielding in the slightest.

In the dimming daylight, his golden scales shone like a burning star, radiating a scorching and imperious light.

His golden eyes stared directly at the massive, approaching black shadow, holding not a trace of fear—only the fury of being challenged and a seething will to fight.

Back when he had yet to awaken his Domain, he had dared to face the Black King and its ten-thousand-strong Magical Beast Legion alone for the sake of the Dragon Blood Ancient Tree.

Now that he had mastered a true Domain, why would he ever fear a proper duel?

The Black King did not respond to Sun’s challenge. It simply accelerated.

Its massive body tore across the sky at a speed that utterly defied its size, leaving a trail of blossoming, ring-shaped sonic booms in its wake.

Raylo knew that this was a battle between Giant Dragons. Any outside interference would be seen as an insult to his companion.

He calmly made his decision.

"Ed!"

Raylo’s voice rang out.

"Lead the Griffin Knights and escort the Giants with the stone slab back to Black Stone Castle."