Chapter 27: Slaying the Dragon

After an unknown amount of time, Rhein and the others finally arrived before the massive Golden Gate.

“Brother Sigurd, how long have we been walking?”

Demos took the water flask handed to him by Hank.

Though the distance was visible to the naked eye, he felt as if he had crossed the Sahara Desert—thirsty and exhausted.

“I cannot estimate it myself; when we reach this door is decided by another.”

Sigurd approached the gate, stroking the golden relief carvings and feeling the draconic patterns that were so familiar to him.

His hand retracted when it touched a long, rectangular indentation.

The wise man smiled and actually sat down cross-legged before the gate.

“What do we do now?”

Zigris drew the greatsword from his back.

“Do we smash open this door?”

“No. We rest and wait for the one who will open it.”

The crisp sound of footsteps echoed from the darkness in the distance, rhythmic and unhurried.

“Who is it?”

The magicians quickly formed a tight formation.

Demos gripped his flintlock, the tension making him hold the gun body tightly.

Right now, he would snipe anything that emerged from the darkness.

The footsteps grew closer, and Zigris also approached with his greatsword in hand, immense magic power roaring from the massive blade.

The figure emerged from the darkness; it was Li Ruoyi, who had fallen behind earlier.

The hearts of the magician group and Zigris, which had risen to their throats, were pushed back down by a strong sense of relief.

They felt so exhausted that they almost collapsed.

Smiles graced the lips of Galena and Sigurd, and Rhein even threw herself into his arms.

“I almost thought I had lost you,” Rhein sobbed.

“Never.”

Though it was only two words, the undeniable tone of his voice made Rhein believe him completely.

She dared not ask for anything more from the heavens; she simply hugged Li Ruoyi’s body, unwilling to let him leave her side.

“Did you know from the beginning, Galena?”

Released by Rhein, Li Ruoyi walked toward the Golden Gate looming at the edge of his vision, asking her softly as he passed the blonde maid.

“Who knows? Is what you know not enough?”

“It’s enough. Thank you.”

With a serious expression, Li Ruoyi expressed his gratitude to this woman who was, in a sense, his elder sister.

“The one to open the gate has arrived.”

Sigurd laughed heartily and made way for Li Ruoyi.

“How did you feel about meeting Odin?”

“He was a benevolent old man. He truly deserves a good rest.”

Li Ruoyi spread his arms, and Gungnir appeared in his hands.

The mere appearance of this powerful Aika artifact outshone the brilliance of the entire Golden Gate.

This spear was forged by the dwarves at the behest of the master smith, Dvalinn (one of the Sons of Ivaldi).

It was inscribed with a sacred pact of Runes, and through its endless magic, there was nothing it could not pierce.

Furthermore, the spear shaft, made from the World Tree (Yggdrasil), was surprisingly sturdy; in Norse mythology, no weapon could destroy this divine spear.

Li Ruoyi placed the spear in the indentation on the Golden Gate.

A tremendous roar followed, and the gate burst forth with a light that blinded everyone.

When their vision returned, the astonished group found that the proud and towering Golden Gate had vanished.

The surroundings were no longer shrouded in darkness but were resplendent and magnificent.

In its place came a wave of poisonous gas that corroded the skin.

Li Ruoyi swung his long scythe, and the blade named End of the World stirred up a violent hurricane, blowing away the overwhelming poisonous gas.

What came into their view was a massive swamp of poison.

The poisonous water churned and boiled, and scorching white steam shot into the air with a thunderous roar.

The surface of the swamp cracked, and hundreds of tons of scalding poisonous water surged upward before falling back into the swamp as droplets.

They sprinkled onto dark scales and quickly evaporated.

It was a creature so massive that words could not describe it.

It broke through the water, arching back its body to let out a sound like the booming of an ancient bell mixed with the cry of an infant, then curved its neck and lowered its head to meet the eyes of Rhein and the others by the water’s edge.

The part of its body above the water was nearly the height of a building, its long neck covered in dark blue-black scales.

Along its spine were sawtooth-like black bone spurs that pierced through its scales and the tattered armor on its body.

Ancient iron covered its face, revealing only massive, dim yellow eyes and nostrils that puffed out air.

Without seeing it in person, no one would believe such a creature truly existed in the world.

Its image could be found in various myths and books; some described them as giant lizards hiding in caves, breathing fire laced with sulfur.

Some described them as highly venomous serpents with more than one head; others said they were symbols of life, half-gods.

Among the sailors of divine-era Europe, a saying quietly circulated: the further west one sailed, the more unnavigable the seas became.

In those waters lived swarms of strange creatures that swam beneath the surface.

When angered, they could destroy any great ship, unless you threw wheat stalks into the water, for wheat stalks looked like maggots, and the only thing these creatures feared was maggots burrowing into their scales.

But all these legends were insufficient to describe their true appearance.

When it revealed itself before humans, it was far more ferocious and majestic than any legend.

They were the pinnacle of all Western fantasy—dragons!

An incredibly foul stench came once again as the great dragon opened its bloody maw.

Its massive wings beat against the surrounding rock walls; it was enraged that Rhein and the others had disturbed its sweet dreams.

Sigurd roared and leaped into the air, a cyan light enveloping his body.

Silver-white armor, like modern mecha, covered his entire form.

Six horrifying bone spurs protruded from two fearsome dragon-head pauldrons.

The silver-white breastplate was cone-shaped, reflecting the cold light of his cyan pupils.

A purple-black cape billowed behind him.

He wielded the divine sword Gram and slashed at the great dragon.

This was a peerless weapon that possessed the attribute of the sun and was also established as a demonic sword.

The entire blade was over two meters long, resembling a finely polished cyan gemstone.

It was less a sword and more a blunt weapon in the shape of a sword.

The greatsword, carrying a cyan-blue radiance, smashed directly onto the dragon’s iron head armor.

The unparalleled force slammed the dragon’s head into the poisonous swamp, kicking up a tidal wave of venom.

Sigurd drew an “F”-shaped symbol in the air with both hands, and the flames that ignited burned and evaporated the toxic waves that lapped toward him.

“Lord Ruoyi, please leave this to us.”

The green patterns on Zigris’s chest spread with his breath, eventually connecting throughout his entire body.

He hoisted the massive metal longsword onto his shoulder and, with a powerful leap, caught up to Sigurd’s figure.

“Haha, dragon slaying is a man’s romance!”

Demos gripped his brand-new flintlock and fired fiercely at the giant creature before him.

Hank, unable to get close like the two heroes, was helping Demos reload gunpowder with a dark expression on his face.

The surrounding magicians were not idle either; they all unleashed their crests one after another.

For a moment, a frantic storm of magic was unleashed upon the great dragon’s body, striking sparks against its sturdy scales and armor.

“Rhein, don’t go. Help me keep an eye on the surroundings.”

Li Ruoyi did not choose to join the battle.

Overly worried for Rhein’s safety, he had crammed the knowledge left by Odin into his mind like a traveler stuffing a large amount of necessities into a suitcase before a trip.

To fight with a mind so full of unprocessed knowledge would indeed be very inconvenient.

“Alright.”

Rhein took Li Ruoyi’s hand and sat down with him.

A massive golden magic circle surrounded her body, forming a great domain that blocked the external poisonous gas and the aftershocks of the battle.

Li Ruoyi entered a deep meditation.

The great dragon slowly opened its mouth, its sharp teeth like a cluster of spears, its long black tongue revealed.

The great dragon named Fafnir was thoroughly enraged.

Sigurd sized up the prehistoric beast from mid-air.

The dragon was an estimated thirty or forty meters long, but this was not its full length; only its front half was exposed, while its rear half was merged with the poisonous swamp.

To be precise, the dragon’s rear half had not yet taken form; its thick spine gradually emerged from the water, eventually meeting the surface of the poisonous swamp.

This thing was like the legendary undead creature, the gargoyle, with one half showing the aspect of life and the other half showing the aspect of death.

Life and death were cleverly integrated into one, and something beneath the poisonous swamp was binding it.

Zigris pushed off the rock wall and, holding his greatsword, charged toward Fafnir like a cannonball.

To his utter surprise, the beast did not dodge; it opened its massive, foul-smelling mouth and bit at him.

This was a mistake in combat experience! And a fatal one at that!

Like a cyan meteor, Sigurd swung the sun-demonic sword Gram and struck the dragon’s cheek fiercely from the side.

The massive mouth that had been aimed at Zigris lost its direction and slammed into the rock wall on the other side.

The violent impact created a massive crack in the divine iron on the dragon’s face.

Zigris’s momentum did not wane; the edge of Balmung grazed the dragon’s neck, and a few dark scales fell into the poisonous swamp.

Zigris landed on the dragon’s black wing and, with a foothold, leaped back to the shore with a powerful push.

The difference in their output was truly worlds apart.

His own attacks could not even inflict effective damage on this evil dragon, while Sigurd’s sword, which didn’t even have a sharp edge, could pose a fatal threat to Fafnir.

If one needed to be rescued in battle, they were not a fighting force but a burden.

At this thought, Zigris felt somewhat discouraged.

Deep down, he was incomparably certain that he should be the one to defeat this evil dragon, yet he lacked the power to turn it into reality.

All of this was seen by the wise Sigurd.

Gram once again cut through the dragon’s flesh, and using the massive dragon wing as a foothold, Sigurd completed his leap and returned to Zigris’s side.

“Well fought.”

Sigurd’s hand, encased in armor, felt somewhat heavy as it rested on the swordsman’s shoulder.

One was a prince of the Netherlands, the other the King of Warriors of the Norse.

That they could stand on the same line and face a common enemy was precisely because they shared the same origin; they were both heroes who had slain the great dragon before them.

Sigurd’s words seemed to give Zigris strength; his grip on Balmung tightened.

The great dragon’s wings spread behind it, its wings and massive body forming a great cross, standing in this darkness.

Its massive golden pupils flashed with anger, hatred, and coldness.

The great dragon in the swamp moved; its pair of front claws extended from the poisonous pool, its massive body stirring up a toxic wave.

This time, the area was too vast; even Sigurd’s Runes could not completely burn away this sea of poison.

The poisonous water splashed onto the magicians behind them; even a small drop was enough to turn that part of their bodies into white bone.

Screams of agony came from behind the two heroes.

On Fafnir’s body emerging from the water was another massive head.

A dark green light shone from its mouth, and the massive, dim yellow eyes on the upper head began to rotate incessantly.

This dragon was finally about to use its full strength.

“What high-intensity magic power,” Demos, behind them, stopped his firing and exclaimed.

“Tsk, it plans to settle this with an overwhelming amount of magic?”

Sigurd also clearly found it a bit tricky.

He wiped his hands across the cyan blade, and powerful energy flowed through the sword’s body.

“Feel the power within your body,” Sigurd spoke.

The energy in the sword in his hand reached its peak at this moment, the overflowing power forming a massive light sword several meters larger than the original blade.

Zigris also lowered his stance, mimicking the movements of the King of Warriors beside him, like a mirror demonstration.

“Kingship—Dawn of Ruin!”

“Kingship—※※※※.”

Two holy swords of the same origin but different names converged, and the immense magic power formed a world-destroying tidal wave of light.

At the end of the light was the venomous breath released by the evil dragon’s two heads.

Like two world-destroying storms, they destroyed everything around them.

Clearly, the great dragon had not yet used its full strength.

This arrogant beast shook its body, and fine scales slowly grew all over it, even pushing open the outer dark blue-black divine iron armor.

The scales suddenly tightened.

At the same time, the multiple joints of its massive body reversed, and another pair of claws emerged from the water.

Its world-shaking dragon roar sounded, and the surrounding temperature rose explosively.

Scorching black flames and dark blue-black magic clusters were continuously compressed in its mouth.

The energy overflowing from its body even melted a massive hole in the rock wall above.

It leaped up, jumping into the darkness outside and cracking the poisonous swamp.

The two who had been gathering magic power saw the grotesque body of this great dragon: two heads, three pairs of claws, and multiple wings of varying sizes, looking particularly deformed.

It could no longer be called a dragon; it was a nightmare.

The evil dragon’s two heads roared, its massive, overlapping double wings swept back, and the giant creature erupted with unimaginable power, like a massive magic furnace core.

The air vibrated, and a massive, dazzling breath illuminated this world.

The speed of this world-destroying breath even broke the sound barrier; it was a toxic, calamitous breath that could end the world.

The brilliance of the two holy swords also reached its peak at this moment, and the supreme power of the two Kingships met the dark green breath.

The aftershocks of the two forces melted the rock walls and evaporated the poisonous swamp.

The strong winds sent the spectating magicians flying out of the room and into the dark corridor outside.

Zigris was at the center of the torrent of power.

He felt something different; or rather, the man beside him, as calm as ice and as wise as ice, had made him understand something from deep within his heart, as if a switch had been flipped.

Zigris tightened his grip on Balmung’s hilt, and a dim yellow light and a large amount of aether flowed from the blade.

The sword trembled unceasingly, resonating as never before.

An even stronger storm of magic power swirled around them.

The immense force made it difficult for Rhein, who was protecting Li Ruoyi, to hold on.

The roars of the warrior and the evil dragon, and the unimaginable concentration of magic power, caused cracks to appear in Rhein’s golden barrier.

‘Have I reached my limit?’

Sweat trickled down Rhein’s forehead; perhaps she was still too weak in the face of such power.

“There is no need to worry for the miss’s safety; it is better to watch their struggle.”

Galena’s hand gently wiped the sweat from Rhein’s forehead, and an incomparably reassuring feeling entered Rhein’s heart.

As Galena’s hands rested on her shoulders, the golden barrier before her once again became indestructible.

It stood firm in this hell of light and heat.