Boom!!!
The void shattered, the earth trembled.
When beings above the level of Rules clashed, even the world itself shook.
Hiss!!! Tinkle!!! Chirp!!!
In the instant the shockwaves spread, across every corner of the Dream World, numerous Calamity Lords roused from their sealed slumber, erupting with overwhelming radiance to protect their territories.
In the Dream Demon's domain especially, countless moths layered and condensed into a sky-curtain, only to keep falling in droves—sacrificing an entire legion with devastating casualties to block the brunt of the aftershock.
A kaleidoscope of radiance, mingled with fragments of void and meteor debris, obscured all traces.
Pfft! Pfft!
Suddenly, a slender black line burst through and arrived before the One-Eyed Dragon. Burdak's prized dragon-scale defense was utterly useless against this attack—it was pierced clean through. Dragon blood!
Around the wound in particular, a dense layer of fine black spots materialized, carrying immense calamity force. Like a plague, they spread outward in every direction.
"Wretched thief, today you will pay the price for your crimes!"
Celusius's figure charged out from the curtain of smoke. His crystalline armor bore not a single scratch—the victor and vanquished had clearly been decided.
"As expected of an Eighth-Rank Calamity Lord!"
At this moment, Leilin also made his move.
The same dream power coalesced, forming a thin red membrane that covered the One-Eyed Dragon's wound, suppressing the spread of the calamity force.
"You are..."
Celusius halted, gazing at the
Leilin stood atop the Seventh-Rank One-Eyed Dragon, his robes snapping in the fierce wind kicked up by the explosion's aftermath. Wisps of dream power coiled around him.
Earlier, the hundred-meter-tall giant had been entirely unaware of this tiny figure. But now that Leilin had stepped forward, he seemed to have become the very center of everything!
Even Celusius's gaze was involuntarily drawn toward Leilin.
"Wizard... No! Bloodline Warlock!!!"
Celusius halted in his tracks, raising the massive black axe before him as a shield. "The bloodline power radiating from you carries the hallmarks of the Dream World..."
The dream essence overflowing from Leilin's body filled it with an overwhelming sense of dread... as though it were staring down its natural predator!
It was a memory, carved deep into the marrow of its bloodline and genes since the primordial age, threatening to resurface—only to be suppressed by something unknown.
This agonizing sensation nearly made Celusius cough up blood.
"A Disaster Lord! A Rank Eight existence!" Leilin studied the enemy before him—quite possibly the strongest he had faced since his rebirth.
Unlike his last confrontation with the Mother of Ten Thousand Serpents in the Infernal World, Leilin no longer held the advantage of time and terrain. He would have to rely on his own strength alone!
"Of course... the bloodline power of the Nightmare King is my trump card!"
Without that safety net, the ever-cautious Leilin would never have entered the fray. And defeating a Disaster Lord to test certain hypotheses he had been harboring was something that simply had to be done.
Otherwise, Leilin would never have bothered to stay behind and wait for Celusius to arrive.
"Very well... let me see what a Seventh-Rank Bloodline Warlock is truly capable of!"
A ring-shaped serpent's shadow materialized within Leilin's pupils as crimson-purple bloodline power surged forth in torrents. Carrying power vast enough to tear through several Great Realms, the force of countless bloodline descendants flowed into him.
Fundamentally, having broken free from the Mother of Ten Thousand Serpents, Leilin had become the new Bloodline Origin! He could now command every drop of bloodline power that belonged to his lineage!
"Hsssss..."
The infinite bloodline power coalesced in midair, taking the form of a colossal Targaryen Winged Serpent that spanned the void. The titanic serpent lunged forward with the primal ferocity and dominance of a prehistoric tyrant bearing down on its prey. Its massive jaws clamped onto the centaur, dragging it deep into the starry river of space.
These two constructs, born of the aura of Rule-level beings, clashed directly among the stars, sending out endless shockwaves that annihilated countless planets in their wake.
"Have I slumbered for too long? Since when can two mere Rank Seven insects dare challenge our majesty?"
Celusius roared, and the black axe in its hand transformed into a streak of blinding light, a colossal blade of radiance aimed straight at Leilin.
"I am the Lord of Calamity!!!"
Around the black stream of light, countless vengeful spirits were wrenched from the void, forming twisted spectral afterimages with blood weeping from their eyes, crying and howling in agony.
A black weeping mask was likewise frozen permanently in midair, forming an eerie sigil of calamity.
"After such reckless release of power, this land is completely ruined…"
Leilin watched Celusius's actions with a trace of bewilderment.
By all reason, beings above Rank Seven could cause devastating damage to the environment with every move they made—even in battle, they were supposed to minimize such fallout.
But this Lord of Calamity had clearly done no such thing, launching his attacks without the slightest concern for the consequences.
"You act this way—are you not afraid of interference from the
Leilin barked, and at the same time, several crimson shields materialized across the starry expanse, radiating an aura of absolute impregnability.
"Bloodline Shields!!!"
Upon the purple-red shields, which gleamed with a metallic luster, countless vortices churned—like the gaping maws of a thousand predators waiting for prey.
A powerful defensive barrier forged from the bloodline power of Rank Seven, fused with the Devouring Rule.
The shield surface, imbued with the Devouring Rule, clashed against the blade of light. The myriad vortices spun furiously, devouring the calamity force that bled from the axe's edge.
Crack! Crack!
Grating sounds of grinding erupted through the void, almost painful to the ears. The swarm of Bloodline Shields engulfed the Calamity Axe, like a massive mouth laboring to digest what it had swallowed.
"And what is the Will of the World to me?"
Celusius laughed maniacally, revealing a worldview utterly alien to that of Wizards. The red glow beneath his helmet burned even brighter. "Break for me!"
With a deafening boom, the crimson shields shattered one after another. The Devouring Rule was indeed formidable, but his opponent was an Rank Eight being—once the load exceeded capacity, failure was only to be expected.
After shattering the Bloodline Shields, the Calamity Axe seemed to have exhausted its own power as well, slowly fading into the void.
"Warlock! I admit your strength is quite impressive among all Rank Sevens! No… across every world I've wandered through, your abilities could be called top-tier! But so what? Can your Devouring Rule still bear the weight of my power?"
Celusius roared with laughter as a black Knight's halberd-axe materialized in his hand once more. The black haft blazed with terrifying flame, the cold axe-face flickered with streams of radiance, and the razor-sharp spear-tip radiated the chill of shattering void—powerful rule energy coiling around it all.
"Contesting accumulated power against a Rank Eight existence is truly overwhelming... especially since the rules they command are far more than just the Power of Calamity..."
"But still... what does the World Will matter? To speak such words so casually—it seems they've chosen the path of opposing the World Will..."
A flash of understanding crossed Raylin's eyes.
This was actually quite easy to grasp. Just look at the rule-bearing existences from other worlds—how many had been cornered like this, forced to self-seal just to reduce their expenditure, unable to even flee?
Only by standing against the will of an entire world could one possibly receive such treatment.
"Though... this might also be dictated by the Dream World's unique environment. They had no choice in the matter!"
Raylin felt his understanding of the Dream World deepen by yet another layer.
"Hiiihh..."
At that very moment, the illusory manifestations spawned from the aura radiating off both combatants—the giant serpent and the centaur—had also reached their conclusion.
The towering centaur roared, bringing its ferocious front hooves crashing down squarely on the Tagarian Winged Serpent's neck, while the serpent lunged forward with its maw gaping wide, leaving a bone-deep wound across the centaur's chest.
After one final struggle, the Tagarian Winged Serpent dissipated in reluctance, leaving behind a battered and scarred centaur that continued to roar without cease: "sksklgnlsdgnl!!! (I am the King of Calamity!!!)"
"You see?! The power you wield has already fallen completely behind mine when facing me head-on!"
Celusius lifted his head in pride: "Surrender now, and I might still consider letting you go!"
"A pity! But we both know that's impossible!"
Light flickered across Raylin's hand, and a Cross Sword wreathed in blood-red flames materialized. He ran his fingers along the blade and spoke evenly.
If he had planned for peace from the start, Raylin would have at least forced Bodach to hand over the Soro Gem first, and then seen whether he could quell this Calamity Duke's fury.
But since it had come to blows from the very beginning, he hadn't intended for things to end peacefully either.
"Don't forget about me! The greatest treasure thief of the Infinite Worlds—One-Eyed Dragon Bodach!"
The One-Eyed Dragon beneath Raylin beat its wings and unleashed a terrifying breath of dragonfire. In an ordinary world, a single exhalation would be enough to drive species to extinction, but here it hardly mattered.
With all three rule-bearing existences fighting without the slightest restraint, the surrounding environment had already suffered catastrophic destruction!
Even the fabric of space itself had begun to warp and distort, while the earth below had simply vanished, swallowed into a churning mass of gray, foggy chaos.
The vast surges of overflowing rule energy, along with the terrifying radiation, would give rise to a new perilous zone within the Dream World.
Yet after unleashing his breath of dragonfire, Bodach's mountain-sized figure lunged with astonishing agility toward Celerus, cutting a straight white line through the vacuum.
"Heh heh... So the coward has finally found the courage to face me?"
Celerus roared with laughter, the blizzard raging across his body growing even denser.
"A pity! None of it will work!"
He crouched slightly, bracing himself against the charging One-Eyed Dragon... BOOM!!!