I Received System to Become Dragonborn-Chapter 1233: Struggling

While the fighters below struggled against the endless debris and searched desperately for a way to counter the spreading time distortion, the battle above unfolded on a far crueler level.

High in the fractured sky, Erend, Eccar, and Aesa faced the source of it all. And it was far worse.

Down below, time bent in pockets and loops while throwing the debris at them. Here, it ruled the whole sky.

Zerathul remained in his finalized form while floating effortlessly amid warped space.

He did not advance to then. He did not brace or prepare. He simply hovered there with a relaxed and almost amused manner, as if the three Dragons before him were no more than an inconvenience.

Gold-lined fractures pulsed along his body in slow rhythm. Each pulse sent invisible waves through reality, tightening his hold over causality.

He did not need to move because the time power did the fighting for him.

Erend sends the attack again. Lightning screamed from his body, braided with roaring fire as he hurled it straight at Zerathul. The attack should have crossed the distance in an instant.

Instead, it slowed.

The lightning twisted, stretched, then snapped backward as if yanked by an unseen hand.

Fire unraveled into sparks that reversed their paths, crawling back toward Erend before dissipating harmlessly around him.

Erend snarled as the backlash rattled through his body.

Eccar followed, slamming both claws forward as titanic pressure condensed the air. His earth power responded instantly. Massive slabs of compressed land surged upward toward Zerathul, layered and dense enough to crush mountains.

But they never reached him.

The earth trembled, then stuttered. The slabs fractured. Their forward momentum unraveled, rewinding piece by piece until the force collapsed back into nothing, dispersing as if the attack had never been made.

Aesa attacked next.

Ice erupted outward. Ice spread through the air, locking the air in crystalline stillness as razor-edged spears formed and launched.

For a heartbeat, she thought it worked.

Then the ice cracked. Not shattered, but reversed. Frost retreated along its own growth lines, collapsing inward as time peeled the attack apart.

The cold vanished, leaving only faint distortions where it had existed.

Zerathul did not react. He simply watched.

The space around him rippled lazily, his tentacles shifting slightly as if in idle curiosity. His posture remained loose and unthreatened.

"He doesn’t even bother to attack us!" Through their shared telepathic link, Eccar’s fury surged.

The frustration burned sharp and raw, spilling through the bond. Erend felt it immediately. So did Aesa. Because they felt the same frustration.

Every strike they launched was intercepted before it could exist long enough to matter. Their power was not being blocked or deflected. It was being denied. Rewound, unraveled, and rewritten by force of stolen time power.

Erend tried again, this time chaining lightning and fire together, staggering the timing of his attacks, forcing multiple layered impacts meant to overlap beyond a single moment.

Time folded.

The first attack reversed. The second slowed. The third snapped sideways, missing entirely as space bent around Zerathul’s presence. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Aesa adjusted instinctively, changing angles and freezing space behind him, then in front. It failed again.

Eccar growled low in his chest as he felt the pressure closing in. Because every failed strike drained more stamina and more focus. The distortion pressed against their scales, their senses, and their thoughts. It made them panic.

Zerathul suddenly spoke, his voice rolling outward like distant thunder layered with mockery.

"You struggle against inevitability, Dragonborn," he said calmly. "This power once belonged to one of you, a guardian of order. Now it serves me. You know how strong this power is don’t you? then why do you bother to resist?"

Gold fissures flared brighter along his body as time distortion began to thicken around the three Dragons, resisting even their movement.

Erend clenched his claws as he fought against the drag, lightning crawling angrily along his scales.

Suddenly, something rose from the ground far below.

The three Dragons felt it before they fully saw it. A surge of ancient power pushed upward through the fractured battlefield, cutting through the chaos of warped time.

Erend snapped his gaze downward, lightning still crawling along his scales, and his Dragon forehead furrowed.

Roots of pure light erupted from the earth.

They were colossal. One root alone has the same size as a skyscraper in thickness, its surface glowing with layered sigils and flowing energy.

It tore free from the ground in a rapid, relentless ascent, splitting debris and bending distorted time around its passage.

More followed, spiraling upward in vast arcs, intertwining as they climbed toward the sky.

"Tar’Zul-Vekar!" Eccar roared through the telepathic link.

Erend and Aesa realized it at the same moment. There was no mistaking that presence. The ancient forest god had awakened again.

Aesa stared, disbelief tightening her chest. "I thought they were supposed to rest."

"I don’t think they can," Erend replied grimly. "Not when this is happening."

And he was right.

Down below, Tar’Zul-Vekar rose once more. Just minutes earlier, the god had been still, their body rooted and recovering, wounds only barely closed after the previous conflict.

Now, despite that incomplete recovery, they moved.

Light pulsed through the massive roots as their androgynous body ascended with them, carried upward by their own power and resolve.

They could not remain at rest.

Not while the sky itself was breaking and while Erend, Eccar, Aesa, and the defenders of the world were being crushed beneath such terrifying power.

Even when they were weakened and strained, Tar’Zul-Vekar chose to rise.

The forest god’s ascent slowed as they reached the upper battlefield. They did not turn toward Zerathul yet.

Instead, they shifted laterally, roots of light anchoring them in the air as they stopped beside the four Archmages hovering in tight formation.

Magic symbols spun around the Mages as they argued and calculated, struggling to finalize a sealing construct capable of countering power over time itself.

Tar’Zul-Vekar extended several radiant roots toward them, gently.

Ancient runes flowed from the god’s body into the surrounding space, stabilizing the warped air and reinforcing the fragile spell lattice the Archmages were building.

"I will help with what I can," Tar’Zul-Vekar said, their voice echoing like wind through an endless forest.

Above them all, Zerathul remained unmoving and just watching the roots of lights.

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