Chapter 462: Dragon (2/2)
An unceasing stream of scorching flames slammed into Zac the next moment, and he could only turtle up on the ground beneath his Fractal Bulwark. The flames carried a terrifying heat, and it felt like he was being boiled alive inside his little bubble. Less than a second passed before he felt that all the skeletons outside had been turned to ash, and he even sensed that the whole miasmic cage struggled to withstand the sea of flames that covered the whole area by now.
The shield of [Profane Seal] finally broke a few seconds later, and Zac received a strong backlash that made him groan in pain. Even the thick bulwark started to shown signs of tearing as small cracks let droplets of flames through.
He felt a scorching pain in his leg as one of them dripped right through a crack in the armor, but the burn was immediately healed by the Shard of Creation at the cost of even more life force. Zac knew he needed to finish the battles quickly. He couldn't let the Shard keep draining him to heal his wounds, or he'd return to Port Atwood as a senior citizen.
The flames finally abated, and Zac looked around only to see scorched earth in all directions. All the skeletal soldiers were gone, as was the cage trapping the beast. Even the vast swathes of Miasma and corrosive mists from [Winds of Decay] had been singed clean, leaving only superheated air.
Zac saw his opportunity as the dragon seemed pretty drained from having expelled a small ocean of flames, and he immediately swapped back to his human form. Lush growth rose from the ashen fields as the domain of [Hatchetman's Spirit] emerged, and Zac immediately launched a series of Fractal blades at the open maw of the dragon.
However, the Fragment-infused blades only caused minor scars on its face before they broke apart, and Zac knew he would have to use something stronger than that. Cosmic Energy surged in his body as he activated [Nature's Punishment], and the wooden fist emerged from the crack in space before it flew toward the exhausted dragon.
But another pulse from the Shard made Zac's hand twist and deform. Shockingly enough the same thing happened to the wooden hand, and it suddenly looked like a misshapen stump. The scene thankfully only lasted for a second before both of them turned back to normal after Zac shouted in his mind.
He had accidentally put too much focus on his hand from activating the skill, which the Shard had interpreted as desire.
A grand peak emerged from the enormous fractal in the sky the next second, and it shot straight down toward the head of the dragon. Zac wanted to end it once and for all with one massive strike, but he was dismayed to find that he had underestimated the sturdiness of a dragon's skull. Blood poured down from its head like rain, but it resisted the downward push with a furious roar.
It looked like it refused to give up in a battle of pure strength, and its whole body trembled as it tried to throw away mountain pressing down on it. However, its head had been noticeably pushed down toward the ground, and its throat was only five meters in the air while its whole body was fixed in position.
Zac knew he wouldn't get a better opportunity than this.
This was his final shot, but he knew that any attack with [Verun's Bite] wouldn't cut it against the thick plating protecting the dragon's throat. There were only two things in his repertoire that had a shot at killing this thing in one go. The first option was the third swing of [Deforestation], but it was impossible to launch the skill again after such a short duration.
Besides, he didn't have time to wind up 3 consecutive strikes before the dragon had managed to divert the mountain. He was already feeling that he was losing control of [Nature’s Punishment].
The second option was more fraught with danger, but he had already come to a point of no return. He felt that both the remnants were already building up for another strike at the fractal cage, and he knew that the rune was already teetering on the brink of collapse. His best shot at surviving whatever came next was to exhaust both the slivers first.
Two knives appeared in his hands and he stabbed them into his shoulders before he tried to launch what should be his ultimate move. He hadn't tried this before, but he saw no real alternative. A normal bronze flash was extremely strong, but the implosion area wasn't large enough to wound a beast of this size.
The pale pink flash he had managed to summon on the Technocrat Ship might work, but he still had no idea what it actually did. It might even heal the dragon rather than hurt it for all he knew.
Besides, either of those attacks would only exhaust one of the remnants, and he wanted to tire both of them out before the Miasmic Cage broke open. He needed to see if he could create a new flash by fusing Bodhi and Coffin in hopes it would create a mix of the two. That would involve both the slivers, and it should release the strongest force he could muster.
If that couldn't kill a dragon, then nothing would.
He was extremely drained already, but he still pushed more mental energy into the two fractals on his shoulders than he had ever done before. His vision was turning blurred, but he forcibly held on to his consciousness as he jumped toward the dragon's throat. The two Fragments entered the modified [Cyclic Strike] without issue, and streams of energies started to converge in the middle of his chest to merge as usual.
But the moment the two energies tried to merge in his chest the remnants turned insane.