The air shook as a wave of Draconic power burst out, sweeping away the miasma and revealing to everyone the terrifying opponent ahead.

It was a colossal serpentine dragon, thousands of meters long, stretched across the skies in an endless darkness. Its emerald-green scales were marked with corrupted veins that leaked the very essence of its decay.

Its two red eyes radiated a presence as oppressive as it was terrifying. In its front claws, a scarlet power pulsed — so intense that just looking at it was enough to freeze the soul.

Darian swallowed hard; the thing in front of them was like a corpse, reanimated through corruption. It had no soul, no trace of life, and its immortal body was corrupted.

*Divine Dragon Possession*

Niara's shout shattered the oppressive silence around them. In that moment, everyone focused on her, glowing with an intense light.

Darian focused on her too, half-shocked. She was really managing to use her Draconic Bloodline right in front of the Divine Dragon's body?

Even without a soul, that body had a concentration and purity of Bloodline infinitely higher than hers. Because of that, Niara should've been completely suppressed. But that wasn't what was happening, breaking all logic.

'Dan…' Suddenly, Niara's voice echoed strangely inside Darian's mind. 'I… I can't explain it… but I feel something really weird when I look at that thing. I really want to destroy it, but at the same time… I feel a deep pain coming from my soul…'

Darian heard that and felt exactly what she felt. It was something truly strange, practically indescribable. Darian had never seen or felt Niara so shaken and confused before.

'… Enfield also acted really weird when he saw Niara before… everything seems to have some connection…' Darian muttered, but this wasn't the time to think about that.

With a snort, his primordial physique activated to the max. A multicolored light flared around his body.

"We have to fight, then find a way to win or run." Darian said beside Niara, taking a step forward.

**ROAAAAR!!!**

That corrupted figure roared, and the whole world twisted.

Seeing those massive scales in front of her, Niara clenched her fists, pushing aside every bad feeling. Nothing mattered besides winning. Only then would the two of them truly be able to live together. She'd waited too long for that, and she wasn't going to fall now that she was so close.

"GO!"

She shot forward ahead of Darian with frantic momentum.

Darian took a deep breath, drawing Awel and Eleri. With a thought, all the power of the ring flowed into them without restraint.

Before, the ring's power was just a bonus he used to control Artifacts or small things. Later, he started using it on his stellar physique; but now, his primordial physique didn't need the ring's power anymore. So that power finally found a good destination in the hands of his three partners, who could use their elements to the fullest with it.

Darian gripped the daggers, coating them in dark power.

*BOOM!*

That Dragon whipped its body, and Niara crashed violently against it in the sky.

It was an opening, and Darian moved at the same time.

*CLANG!*

His daggers struck with maximum speed, hitting the scales and producing a sharp metallic ring. But they were absurdly tough — completely impossible to pierce.

'Master, the core of our power is unstable and almost impossible to use…' Awel's voice echoed seriously.

Darian sighed; his three daggers were part of that enemy's body, and besides that, they were forged with the cores of common Dragons. That confirmed it — Niara was the strange one for being able to use everything normally, while his three daggers were basically unusable, exactly as expected.

The skies fractured. From afar, everyone saw a Dragoness throwing herself at a colossal Corrupted Dragon. When the enemy tried to react with even greater power…

Everyone sighed in relief when they saw Darian raise his hand, and a bright white light flowed toward the enemy, making it roar in discomfort. Clearly, the same plan they'd used against Enfield was working.

At that moment, Darian received a message from Lucy. Those from the Blood Race without circles really had been sent by Celestial Shadow, and now she and her army were fighting them, stopping them from entering.

"DIE!"

Amid a wave of explosions, Niara roared, attacking in a crazed frenzy.

*BOOM! BOOOM!! BOOOOM!!!*

Violent clashes echoed. Niara and the Corrupted Dragon slammed into each other over and over, using their bodies and raw power. Waves of destruction and cracks in space spread nonstop. Everyone, even Darian, was stunned.

Even after dying, having its immortal physique corrupted, and being unable to properly use corruption… this enemy's strength was still far above someone with nine rings, but below a Spiritual Sovereign.

'Niara's actually fighting it evenly?' Darian thought quickly, focused on using his white power to stop the enemy from fully using corruption.

He focused on Niara carefully… then finally noticed something even more shocking.

"S-She… she's suppressing the Corrupted Dragon's Bloodline?!"

Darian spoke in disbelief. Every time Niara attacked, the enemy's physical body and Bloodline grew weaker and more unstable. How was that even possible?!

Even the corruption it had became chaotic. Because of that, it stopped trying to use it and was relying only on its physique. Meaning, Darian wasn't even needed.

*BOOOM! BOOOM!*

The two clashed nonstop; it was like only the two of them existed, and that fight belonged only to them.

The Dragoness beat her wings and roared in frenzy, attacking with fists burning in violet flames. On the other side, the Corrupted Dragon whipped its body or used its claws, aiming only at her.

Darian noticed that Niara was in a strange, numbed state. With every move, she was using 100% of what she could, and that drained her extremely fast.

She alone was fighting evenly — but she wouldn't last long, maybe ten minutes. And the damage the enemy had taken was zero. When that time was up, the enemy would still be able to fight, but she wouldn't.

Niara couldn't deal any damage. Darian couldn't hurt him with his daggers. And the others with nine rings wouldn't be any different. Meaning...

'I have to use this time to come up with something fast...'

Darian stepped back a little, his mind working at full speed. The best chance he could think of came from the knowledge he had received from Enfield recently.

He had learned and seen many things; the main one was how that Primordial Beast used its bloodline and power. Darian saw it create all kinds of things with that — it only had to burn its bloodline and primordial power to connect with the laws of the world.

Among everything Darian saw it do, one thing stood out: it could make the laws of the world give power and energy back to its universe. That's how it managed to restore some extinct races after the Divine Dragon's actions. Humanoids, for example, had completely disappeared, but came back easily, since Chromaraics were pretty common in all universes.

'Can I try getting power to hurt this Dragon?' Darian muttered internally. 'I don't have many options. I'm not lacking bloodline, but primordial power to... no, that's not needed.'

Darian turned toward the army of Heavenly Elemental Spirits and ran quickly. Once in front of them, he gave the order in the simplest way possible:

"I need you to pray to Heaven's Will again. But this time, I want you to ask for help for me. I'll also have to connect to you."

Darian waved his hand, and chaos power flowed from him like thousands of tiny gray runes. In one second, each rune connected to one of the Heavenly Elemental Spirits.

They all nodded and didn't doubt anything. They just had to do what they always did: pray together. But this time, instead of asking to heal and purify evil, they would focus on the missionary.

Darian took a deep breath and pulled the ethereal body out of his inventory. Back then, that body had been created using a bit of Niara's Draconic bloodline. So he intended to extract that from it and use the connection with the world laws created by his allies to make everything happen.

It was easier to use that bloodline because he was more familiar with it. He didn't know if it would work; actually, there was a much bigger chance nothing would happen. But... when he thought about it, he felt a strange confidence in the middle of that desperate situation. Since he had nothing better, he threw himself into it.

All the Heavenly Elemental Spirits joined into a large formation and started the process.

Meanwhile, Darian, using chaos power to connect all of them to him, focused as much as he could while using the Draconic bloodline in that body.

1 minute...

3 minutes...

6 minutes...

Time passed quickly, and nothing happened.

Through the connection with all of them, Darian felt as if a closed portal stood right in front of him; he tried to pull something out from within it or open it... but nothing moved, nothing seemed to work.

8 minutes...

"FUCK!"

Darian was already feeling desperate. Niara wouldn't last much longer.

9 minutes...

Until...

Suddenly, Darian felt his connection with the ethereal body get completely cut off.

"!"

His eyes widened, and then he saw that the small dragon's body twisted, completely out of his control.

Then, its eyes opened...

...and a radiant light, overflowing with immense power, burst out from it. In that second, Darian felt time stop around him.