CHAPTER 921: JUST AN AVATAR

Makareth was completely unhinged, delirious with battle-lust. With a roar, he charged forward, scimitar in hand.

Arcs of light from his blade flashes took out one of the thunder dragons, but the other two were already on him, their reactions lightning-fast, their movements savage.

A dragon’s tail lashed out like a whip.

CRACK!

The blow slammed into the Demon’s body with the sickening sound of crunching bone and tearing flesh. Before he could recover, crackling thunder exploded around him as one of the dragons caught him in its massive jaws.

The shadow of death enveloped him. Pressure like a collapsing mountain squeezed him from all sides, and Demon Makareth let out a scream of pure agony.

Just as he was about to be crushed into paste, a magical light flared around his body. He vanished, reappearing on the floor of the floating palace in a heap.

"Finally! It’s my time to shine!" Leonidas glanced at Makareth, who was lying on the deck like a sack of broken bones, before launching himself into the air like a rocket.

"Hey there, little beauty! Prepare to surrender to my handsome and charming self! Ha ha!"

As he shot forward, Leonidas had already sacrificed his battle-axe, activating his domain. He strode through the air, and the thunder dragons that had so thoroughly beaten Makareth came to intercept him. He annihilated them with a single punch each.

They couldn’t even withstand one blow.

Not far away, the female dragon rider, Daize, frowned. This new enemy was clearly on a completely different level. Her nephew had been killed, and she had come seeking revenge. She just hadn’t expected the enemy to be this powerful.

Daize chanted a magical spell. A suit of blue ice armor, crackling with arcs of lightning, covered her body. With a cold snort, she charged toward Leonidas.

In the next instant, Leonidas and Daize were grappling. That’s right—literally wrestling in mid-air. It was a deliberate, boorish tactic on his part.

"Looks like this side is about wrapped up, too," Orion murmured, glancing at the brawling pair before dismissing them from his mind.

He hefted his trident and flew to the patch of sea where Isabella had plunged into battle. Like a cannonball, he shot into the water.

The surface of the ocean cratered inwards, forming a massive vortex that expanded outwards in all directions.

Less than a minute later, the colossal dragon burst from the waves. It wasn’t flying. It was running across the water’s surface, stumbling toward the palace. Both of its wings were broken. It clutched its mangled limbs with its foreclaws, while its mouth held the bloody, unconscious form of Isabella.

The moment it reached the palace deck, it could hold on no longer. With a pained howl, it collapsed.

Fortunately, Leonidas’s subordinates had the presence of mind to act. They quickly summoned beasts and shaman who knew healing magic, and a constant stream of restorative spells began to wash over the two casualties and their dragon.

BOOM!

In the distance, a massive explosion erupted from the seafloor. A mushroom cloud of water burst into the air, and from its center flew a gigantic turtle carrying a mountain on its back.

Standing on the turtle’s back was an old man with downcast eyes and a tortoise shell strapped to his own back. He was the one who had crippled Isabella and her colossal dragon.

But now, the old man was staring down into the depths, his expression grim.

A mournful whale song echoed from below. The next moment, the sea began to tremble as if it were boiling. A black shadow rose from the depths, and a supersized ancient giant-horned whale breached the surface, hovering as it stared at the old man and his turtle.

"You’re pretty fast," Orion’s voice echoed across the water. "That turtle of yours having something like a teleportation ability... interesting."

He brandished his trident, sizing up the giant turtle. It wasn’t just its defense that was astonishing; it was also incredibly fast. If it hadn’t run into him and his ancient giant-horned whale, the old man would have caused a massacre.

So that’s why Leonidas chose the female dragon, Orion realized with a flash of insight, suddenly understanding the cunning merchant’s brand of insidious thinking.

The old man looked at the three severed turtle tails dangling from the ancient giant-horned whale’s mouth, his heart aching. His mount was a Tritail Dreadturtle, and those tails were the essence of its power, the primary conduits for condensing water magic. With them severed, the turtle had lost its elemental advantage and was forced to surface.

"Your Excellency," the old man pleaded, "the war has not yet fully broken out. I am just here to beat the drums for the opening act. There is no need for us to fight to the death."

In truth, he and his turtle were merely vassals of the dragons. He owed the dragon rider, Daize, a favor, and at her request, he had reluctantly left his own world and teleported to Dragonflame Island to participate in a war that had absolutely nothing to do with him.

"You should understand," Orion said, raising his trident and smiling coldly. "The moment you set foot on Dragonflame Island, you were already a player on the board. Since you’re already in the game, why cling to your excuses? Why hide and obscure your intentions?"

He took a step forward on the whale’s back. "If you do not wish to fight, that is fine. Death is a release."

Orion was utterly dismissive of his words. Just moments before, deep underwater, this old man had been laughing uproariously as he tortured Isabella.

"Then die."

The word had barely left his lips when the old man discovered with a jolt of terror that Orion had vanished. The figure still standing on the whale’s back was just a phantom.

To his mounting horror, the real ancient giant-horned whale had lowered its horn and was charging his Tritail Dreadturtle.

"Perhaps," a voice whispered directly behind him, "you should be more concerned about yourself."

The old man instinctively tried to flee, but he found he couldn’t move. At the same time, a tingling, itching numbness spread from his heart, agonizingly intense.

He looked down. A trident had pierced through his body from behind. His entire chest cavity, he now realized, had been vaporized by an unseen fire. It was the effect of the trident’s Flame of Will.

After being reforged by the demigod Arthas in Whitebone Coldflame, the weapon now inflicted a paralyzing, freezing effect on flesh and blood. It was why the old man hadn’t felt the pain at first.

"No... no... impossible!" he stammered, his mind reeling with disbelief. He simply could not accept that he had been killed so easily.

FWOOSH!

The Whitebone Coldflame flared to life, erupting from his chest and incinerating his body in an instant.

Orion stood where the old man had been, his face impassive. A flicker of disappointment crossed his eyes.

The old man’s death had not dropped a survivor’s chest, nor had his body of faith appeared.

It meant that this had only been an avatar. The real old man, in his own world, still lived.