CHAPTER 109: AN AERIAL BATTLE, AND A SHOCKING TURN

The dragon beat its wings fiercely, buoyed by smoke. A violent gale stirred in the air. The dragon showcased its dominion over the skies as a creature of legend. Its massive body should have been overwhelmingly heavy, but with absolute strength, even weight ceased to be a burden.

A dive required no claws or fangs—just straightforward collision. Enough mass, combined with overwhelming speed, amplified the impact to destructive levels.

The purple humanoid figure extended its arms in an attempt to block the attack, only for its arms to be twisted and broken in an overwhelming impact. The dragon's massive body crashed into the purple figure's chest.

The two beings weren't particularly different in size; in fact, the purple humanoid was slightly larger than Sieg's red dragon form. In terms of strength, however, the dragon held an absolute advantage.

The purple figure's chest caved in, shattering into fragments that dissipated into nothingness in mid-air. The collision sent the figure plummeting into the lake below, leaving massive waves upon impact. The entire lake churned violently.

The hovering dragon stared at the surface of the lake vigilantly. Had its dive overwhelmed the enemy completely? The dragon's gaze remained wary. Doubt clouded its victory.

How could the fight have ended so easily? Suddenly, countless droplets erupted from the water. The individual droplets weren't large, but were spread across the expanse of the entire lake.

Numerous purple arms emerged from below, defying all natural laws as they extended madly toward the dragon in the sky.

Form, it seemed, was the least significant aspect for void entities.

The dragon chose not to retreat. Avoiding such a massive number of tendrils entirely was nearly impossible. Instead, it dove forward to annihilate them all.

Powerful winds swirled around the dragon's body as it dove downwards, using its spiked tail as a massive mace.

Against the sprawling, twisted sea of purple arms, the dragon spun its body. Its tail sliced and slashed through the mass.

The dragon easily severed the sea of purple arms, its tail cutting through them as easily as a hot knife through butter. The raging tide of limbs scattered upon impact, failing to harm the dragon.

The dragon continued to brutalize the limbs with its claws, wings, and tail as it flew and spun amidst the relentless tide.

Despite their overwhelming numbers, the arms failed to pose any genuine threat to the dragon. Could sheer quantity overcome absolute strength?

The dragon continued its rampage, but the number of arms showed no signs of decreasing.

Colin drew upon the endless energy of the void. Energy depletion was irrelevant to it, but Sieg had a counter-strategy in mind.

The material world's suppression of void entities would intensify over time until it reached a tipping point. Then, the void rift would be forcibly sealed, and any remaining void entities expunged. Sieg was merely biding his time.

Both parties were acting purposefully. Were the seemingly ineffective waves of arms truly useless? Absolutely not.

"Captain, Professor!" Charles exclaimed. "Look at those severed arms."

Despite his growing dizziness from the dragon's wild maneuvers, Charles kept a sharp eye on the battle. He noticed the severed limbs transforming.

"I'm aware," Hugin replied. How could he have missed such a distinctive transformation? The severed arms didn't dissipate but instead began to twist and merge together.

Piece by piece, they coalesced into massive, dark purple centipede-like creatures with chitinous shells gleaming ominously.

These creatures exuded an eerie, spine-chilling aura as their razor-sharp mandibles ground against each other.

A swarm of purple centipedes began congregating above Sieg's head. They circled the air, their numbers growing with every arm that Sieg destroyed.

It seemed that they were waiting for a signal—for their numbers to reach a critical mass before launching a coordinated assault.

The soaring dragon continued to tear through the endless tide of arms emerging from the surface of the lake, but the growing swarm of airborne centipedes posed a mounting threat. Bit by bit, the dragon began to be encircled, like a massive beast slowly enveloped by a writhing swarm of worms.

A sharp, piercing hum filled the air, emanating from the grinding mandibles of the centipedes—their battle cry.

The centipedes went berserk, flailing their limbs madly as they lunged toward the dragon from all directions.

"Sieg, rise up. Let me handle the centipedes. We can't fight on two fronts," Hugin commanded the dragon from its back.

Without hesitation, Sieg obeyed Hugin's directive. The dragon beat its wings powerfully, ascending rapidly to distance itself from the grasping arms below.

Though the arms continued their unnatural growth, Sieg managed to gain enough height to escape their immediate reach.

Yet retreating from the arms meant drawing closer to the terrifying swarm of centipedes. Sieg didn't falter. The dragon charged straight into the oncoming swarm.

Thick plumes of smoke billowed from Hugin's form, forming chains of mist that radiated from the dragon's back. These chains, tipped with razor-sharp points, lashed out furiously.

Despite being made of smoke, the chains moved with a terrifying agility and solidity that defied logic.

The centipedes retaliated swiftly, as agile as birds in the air. Yet the chains were even faster, striking with precision and lethality. Like countless serpents hunting their prey, Hugin's chains began a ruthless slaughter.

The chains pierced through the centipedes' heads and coiled around their segmented limbs, shattering their cores and ripping them apart with unrelenting force.

The chains' frenzied dance cleared a path for the dragon to ascend further.

However, like the arms, these centipedes didn't vanish upon their destruction. Their fragments reassembled into new centipedes that swarmed back toward Sieg. As the dragon climbed higher, the density of centipedes increased alarmingly.

Eventually, even Hugin's relentless chains failed to stop every centipede. One managed to break through, exploiting a gap while the chains pulverized its brethren. It lunged at the dragon's side, sinking its glowing purple mandibles into Sieg's abdomen.

A sharp, eerie sound rang out—not of hard scales clashing, but of something distorting and breaking. The dragon's thick scales were inexplicably sheared away, leaving a gash that sprayed searing dragon blood. Sieg had taken his first serious injury in this fight.

"Damn it, these centipedes can use wizardry! Their bites are spatial rends! What the hell is this Colin thing?"

The dragon's roar and Charles' scream erupted simultaneously. The destructive power of these centipedes was far beyond imagination. The dragon's defenses should have been enough to withstand their attacks even at close range—but it was now evident that the dragon couldn't risk coming in contact with them at all.

"Sieg, we're high enough now. Counterattack!" Hugin remained calm. They had already risen to a sufficient altitude. Now was the time to strike back.

The dragon flapped its wings once more, accelerating sharply upward and ascending beyond the swarm of centipedes.

Then, the dragon turned its massive head downward, aiming at the dense swarm of centipedes surging toward them. In its maw, searing heat and radiant light began to gather.

Unlike the traditional depiction of fire-breathing dragons in works of fantasy, Sieg, in his red dragon form, unleashed a breath resembling a cannon shot—a red beam of light streaking across the sky. The residual streak of laser-like light vanished, giving way to an explosion in the midst of the centipede swarm.

In the sky, a miniature sun seemed to erupt, its radiance momentarily eclipsing that of even the actual sun. The impact point was a zone of annihilation. Within its range, everything—every enemy, every material substance—was engulfed by searing light and heat, vanishing without a trace.

Perhaps it lacked the raw power of a biological nuke, but its sheer visual impact was even more astonishing.

The radiant sun waned swiftly like a setting star. The dense swarm of centipedes was completely obliterated, leaving the sky clear. The shockwave from the explosion struck the lakeside, crushing large swathes of vegetation.

A low hum reverberated—not from any machine, but from the dragon's immense body as it beat its wings. From its chest, a patch of skin glowed with an unusual red light. Beneath lay its heart, the source of its breath. This wasn't magic or wizardry, but a dazzling and unique power born of biological evolution.

Massive heat had accumulated within the powerful organ, causing even the dragon's blood vessels to emit radiant trails of light. The overabundance of energy made the air shimmer and distort around it, giving the whole dragon an indistinct, almost mirage-like appearance.

A single breath had placed an immense burden on Sieg, who now needed time to dissipate the excessive heat.

"Is it over?" Charles glanced all around him.

"How powerful..." came Colin's eerie voice.

A gigantic hand suddenly materialized behind Sieg, clenching around the enormous dragon's body with a colossal grip. The hand was so exaggerated in size that it bordered on the absurd.

"Did you think scattering me was a good idea? All you've done is give me the chance to rebuild a vessel even closer to you, one stronger than before." Colin's unsettling voice continued to resonate.

Dishearteningly, the centipedes annihilated by the devastating breath hadn't truly vanished. Instead, they reformed from flecks of remnant ash. The attack didn't seem to have done a thing. Void entities appeared to be surprisingly resilient to physical attacks, regardless of their destructive power.

The centipedes, reduced to fine dust, had silently drifted toward Sieg, providing Colin with a springboard for claiming a new vessel.

A purple hand closed around Sieg, its immense fingers crushing the mighty dragon's body.

The sound of bones creaking and straining could be heard as the dragon fought against the overwhelming pressure. The sheer power of the grip was evident from sound alone.

The hand tightened further, subjecting the dragon to even fiercer pressure.

"Sieg, can you hold out?" Hugin called out anxiously. He wasn't sure if Sieg could endure this. All he could do was support Sieg, protect Charles, and ensure that their plan was carried out.

A fierce roar erupted from within the hand. A power unlike anything seen before surged within the dragon, abruptly amplifying its strength. With newfound might, the dragon unleashed unparalleled destruction, ripping through the colossal hand with its claws and tunneling through its center.

"Fighting spirit? You've imbued your dragon form with fighting spirit? Unbelievable. Sieg, you truly are a genius. Even without magic, you've brought fighting spirit to the dragon race. My harvest will be far greater than I imagined!"

Colin's strange voice remained emotionless, but his words revealed the nature of Sieg's sudden surge of power—fighting spirit.

Sieg ignored the taunt. Bolstered by the temporary infusion of fighting spirit, the dragon tore frantically through the giant hand as it dug toward a specific spot.

Although void entities weren't bound by physical form, their presence in the material world required a core—a tether. Destroying that core would force the entity back into the void.

Previously, Sieg had been able to inflict no damage on the centipedes or the hand because this core remained intact. The Nightblades had been focused on finding and destroying the core from the very beginning. The core had to be located at the epicenter of the void entity's manifestations—in other words, the center of this giant hand.

Sieg's pupils flickered as he detected a hollow cavity in the hand, from which intense void fluctuations radiated. The core had to be here.

"Oh? Congratulations," Colin's voice resounded again. "You've found a curse tailored just for you, a wingless dragon—your doom."

Before Sieg could react, a massive, closed eye appeared before him. The instant Sieg entered the cavity, the eye opened wide...