Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 385: Thread of Vulnerability

When he tried to take flight, wings spreading wide, flaming constructs leapt upon him, clawing and clutching at his scales as they dragged him down.

They climbed onto his back and clung to his wings, forcing him to crash into the scorched earth below.

|GET....OFF ME!!!|

His roar shook the volcanic skies, and in the next moment, he unleashed an omnidirectional burst of cosmic energy and grey fog, the explosion incinerating and disintegrating everything that had piled atop him into nothing but drifting dust.

Bellowing in rage, he rose again, sword flashing with grey light, each stroke igniting the void-like flames that coated the weapon.

Sweat ran down his skin as he swung once, twice, then again, every motion faster and heavier, carving apart swarms of enemies that poured endlessly at him.

Constructs burst into ash under his blade as he charged through the unending swarm, his eyes glowing red with fury, each step carrying him closer to Miranda.

The intensity of the grey fog grew with every construct Ikerth destroyed, faint at first but impossible for Miranda to overlook as his strikes started dealing more damage, cutting down swaths of her constructs with each swing.

In response, she poured more magic power and cosmic energy into the constructs, and one of them immediately charged at Ikerth, meeting Ikerth head-on and slamming its fist into him with such force that he was hurled across the volcanic landscape and crashed into the ground like a discarded rag.

Groaning, he forced himself upright, folding back all but one pair of wings, and rolled aside just in time to evade a draconic construct that came crashing down where he had lain. Mid-air, however, he was caught by a massive flying serpent, its coils wrapping around him before it flung him directly into the jaws of a werewolf that clamped down with crushing force, its fangs tearing through his scales and rending his wings.

|LAVAWALKER!!|

His Unique Authority activated, power erupting from his body as he pried apart the wolf’s jaws with brute strength, wrenching himself free before spinning mid-motion to drive his fist into the creature and send it flying.

Landing roughly on the scorched ground, he staggered but whipped his tail into the earth to balance himself before leaping aside, narrowly avoiding a rain of flaming arrows that crashed down from above.

|COME!|

With a roar, his sword returned to his grasp, and the instant his hand closed around it, the grey fog seeped from his body once more, prompting Miranda to arch a brow in response.

’Oh... his power stems from the sword?’

Ikerth swung his blade in a wide arc as he charged forward, cleaving through hundreds of weaker constructs until he reached the towering dragon-shaped one ahead.

It slammed down its palm in an attempt to crush him, but this time, however, Ikerth caught the colossal limb with his arms, muscles straining as he roared and shoved it upward before swinging his sword in a vertical slash that ripped through the torrent of purple fire spewing from its maw.

The flames clashed against his slash and overwhelmed it, and he hacked at them in a frenzy, his strikes wild as the grey fog consumed more of the flames, intensifying with each echo of flame laws devoured until its power grew to match the dragon’s breath, and then surpassed it, splitting the inferno apart.

’Deconstruction of Flames... The grey fog becomes increasingly effective against my flames the more of it it consumes. If this principle applies to other universal laws, then...’

Miranda’s eyes narrowed as she immediately grasped the implications, reconfirming Richard’s earlier analysis.

Ikerth’s pseudo-nonexistence continued to consume the surrounding space by default, but it proved especially effective against fire, and the more the fog deconstructed ’Fire’, the greater its effectiveness grew in countering it.

Worse still, Ikerth himself was growing stronger. His Authorities empowered as the Cosmos itself appeared to acknowledge this ’Deconstruction’ as a valid comprehension of laws, and thus, he was meeting requirements for Existence Realm Ascension.

’I’ve seen enough.’

With that thought, Miranda’s eyes glowed as she raised a finger, a single drop of blood falling from her index finger and landing on the ground.

It touched the sea of lava and immediately, cosmic energy boiled upward in violent waves, erupting and condensing into a blank-faced humanoid figure holding a long sword.

Ikerth immediately sensed it, and the instant he turned towards it, the figure was already before him, swinging its blade with the clear intent to sever his head.

|!!|

Ikerth narrowly avoided the initial strike, but the follow-up kick struck him hard, sending him crashing into a distant mountain.

As his body slammed against the rock, the figure charged forward once again, and Ikerth, roaring, unleashed more of the grey fog while spreading all his wings, his cosmic energy rising to a new peak as he concentrated everything into one ultimate strike.

|LAVAWALKER: SCORCHING NOVA!!!!|

His sword descended with the force of a kilo-nova, releasing a burst of cosmic energy and an eruption of grey fog that spread across everything in sight, stripping away layers of reality.

The blank-faced construct merely lifted its longsword in return, unleashing a single slash of flames filled with more cosmic energy than Ikerth could ever possess, cleaving apart not only the wave of fog but also Ikerth’s own strike, severing his right arm and his right wings with the same attack.

The slash only exhausted its power when it split apart Miranda’s Domain, casting them back into mainstream space, and the mutilated Ikerth fell through the vacuum, crashing onto the wreckage of one of his fleet’s ships and landing amidst the corpses of the dragons he had sacrificed.

"..."

Ikerth silently lifted his gaze, his hazy vision catching sight of the blank-faced humanoid construct who seemed to look down on him from above, and at that moment, THEIR voice echoed once more in his head.

[Well done, Ikerth. The test was a success. It is effective enough that she abandoned her intention of testing you and moved straight for the kill.]

"!!"

His eyes widened as he fixed his gaze on the flaming construct, and cosmic energy streamed into his vision from an unknown channel, revealing the single drop of blood within the figure’s chest that powered its existence.

’She...used her blood...!’

Blood was a crucial currency for Vampires.

As a Vampire-Werewolf Hybrid, Miranda was no exception to that rule.

The fact that she had chosen to use her blood against Ikerth, despite being infinitely stronger than him, revealed just how great a threat she considered him to be.

That was the message THEY were essentially telling Ikerth, and immediately after, THEY spoke.

[You’re not going to let this be the end, are you?]

Cosmic energy flooded into his heart, igniting it with grey flames, and at this sudden swell of power, Miranda frowned, her senses unable to identify where this additional strength was originating from.

Ikerth forced himself back onto his feet while she searched across even higher dimensions, and his sword returned to his grasp as he broke into manic laughter.

The sight of Miranda’s frown thrilled Ikerth, for it confirmed that she could not truly grasp the origin of his power, and soon his manic laughter reverberated across the galaxy.

He swung his sword and severed all his left wings, staggering forward as he roared before leaping toward the blank-faced humanoid.

And for the first time since the beginning of this entire fiasco, Miranda spoke.

"Kill him."

Five seconds.

That was the amount of time it took for the clash that followed to ensue.

Ikerth’s sword met the longsword of the blank-faced humanoid with a thunderous collision, cosmic energy and grey fog erupting from both as shockwaves tore through space.

The Dragon King swung furiously, but his opponent handled all his attacks with enormous ease.

Every dodge and counter felt premeditated, each movement perfectly timed to match the ferocity of Ikerth’s strikes. His swings carved gashes through space, splintering planets, stars erupting in explosions, but the humanoid cut through everything in a path directly toward him.

Ikerth roared, swinging and spinning to avoid attacks after striking, the grey fog erupting with each swing as he tried to push the figure back, but anticipating his moves, the blank humanoid caught Ikerth’s own sword, turned it against him, and drove it through his chest, right through his heart and out his back.

His roar cut off in a strangled gasp as cosmic energy and grey fog exploded outward, and the attack had already landed.

Blood poured from Ikerth’s lips, dripping down his dying body, but he grabbed the sword with his left hand, drawing the grey fog within it into his body as he roared and unleashed a shockwave that sent the blank-faced humanoid flying into a distant planet.

He fixed his gaze on Miranda, silently floating in the vacuum, cracks spreading across his skin as his body began to crumble into dust, yet he roared once more and dashed toward her through space, the shockwaves from his speed decimating every planet and star orbiting the galactic centre in an instant.

Darkness enveloped the area as all light was extinguished, the only illumination coming from Ikerth himself, his crumbling body burning with grey flames as he charged at Miranda like a man possessed, reaching out with his right hand and firing a blast of grey fog that devoured space along its path toward her, fading as it extended from his body but ultimately reaching her.

The grey-flaming fog tore through the multi-layered cosmic energy barrier surrounding her and brushed against her skin, leaving a thin line that slowly turned red.