Chapter 868

The bluish fog, stretching like a wall, was split cleanly down the middle

Yog swiftly slipped through the gap and shot upward.

Now it really looks like the Fangs of Heaven Defier.

Ian glanced at the blazing violet blade of chaos, which, even after he became a demon and grew vastly larger, still looked like he was wielding a greatsword.

Even while soaring higher, Yog spread its wings and tentacles wide like a gliding predator, whispering lazily.

—Honestly, I didn’t expect it to get that angry. Still, let’s follow it up and land on that bastard’s head.

They had already angled themselves away from the massive trail of fog created by Raskagin.

The moment Ian gave the order, Yog thrust its wings and tentacles backward and began diving.

Whoosh—

Wrapped entirely in bluish fog, Raskagin’s massive body tumbled sideways in the distance, looking less like a living creature and more like an impossibly gigantic blade of fog crashing into the sea.

—Feels like we’re finally becoming true partners in every sense now, doesn’t it, my friend?

Yog whispered while diving straight through the violent shockwaves rushing against them like headwinds.

Even though Ian’s perception had accelerated to the point that time itself seemed slowed, Yog’s leisurely tone remained the same as always.

Instead of talking nonsense, find that thing’s weakness. How do we kill it?

Suppressing a bitter laugh, Ian dragged the Fangs of Heaven Defier diagonally behind him. His gaze never left the gigantic trail of fog growing closer and closer.

Raskagin was already nearing the sea, filled with the shattered remnants of islands.

—Well, if I’m being honest, I don’t think we can kill that thing with our current strength alone.

That alone was enough to narrow Ian’s long, jagged eyes even further.

What?

As Ian silently questioned it, Yog chuckled.

—Still, that doesn’t change the fact that we need to land a solid hit on it. Brace yourself for the impact, my friend.

There was no need to ask what kind of impact he meant. The gigantic blade of fog had already slammed into the ocean, carving a deep trench.

Swoosh!

The blue fog covering Raskagin crashed over it like a waterfall, while the surrounding space visibly rippled outward in expanding circles.

The space around Raskagin was warping.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

That was why Ian simultaneously activated Hunter’s Time, Wild Fury, and the Subterranean Carapace. Of course, it was also because Yog had warned him that they would be swept away otherwise.

The edges of Ian’s vision turned crimson while a gray haze spread across the hardening fibrous skin covering him.

Whoosh—

Breaking through the dense fog, enormous tidal waves erupted upward on both sides of Raskagin.

The fog exploded skyward with them.

Almost simultaneously, Ian’s membrane wings folded backward while the tentacles wrapped around him like a closing flower bud.

Boom, boom, boom!

The shockwave violently scraped across the surface of the tentacles. Heavy pressure traveled through the black sword protruding diagonally beyond them.

The beak-like fangs jutting inward from the tentacles tightened around Ian, locking him firmly in place.

—Brace yourself, my friend.

At Yog’s low whisper, the tentacles bloomed open all at once, scattering the remnants of the shockwave with the violet chaos erupting outward.

However, Ian no longer had the attention to spare for that.

Whooom—

A gigantic dark-red head, haphazardly covered with scattered eyes and scales, filled his entire vision and was approaching at terrifying speed.

The thin blue lights burning within its eyes expanded instantly as Ian lowered his crouched body downward.

Rumble, boom, boom!

He raised the black sword overhead while slicing straight through the lingering shockwaves. The chaos-spewing blade slid smoothly down along the direction of his arm merely from the thought alone.

Boom, boom, boom!

Raising his left hand to grasp his right wrist, Ian thrust downward with all his strength toward Raskagin’s approaching head, straight into the center of one of its enormous, wide-open eyes.

Crunch!

The gigantic blade of chaos carved a straight line through the middle of the glowing blue eye and plunged deep inside.

Even gripping it with both hands, the recoil transmitted through his arms was overwhelming.

Falling directly into the exploding eyeball, Ian gritted his teeth hard enough to crack them and forced the blade down to the very end.

Fwoosh—

It felt as though he had crashed into a massive puddle. A chaotic shock surged through him, violently shaking his crimson-stained vision, but Ian was not thrown away.

He was not thrown away, not merely because of the sticky fluids or the chaos blade deeply embedded within Raskagin’s skull, but because the tentacles had all shot outward and buried themselves deep into the flesh surrounding the eye socket.

The sharp fangs of the deep sea protruding from them immediately began devouring both fluids and chaos.

—As expected, even in this miserable state, it still holds far more power than that dying dragon ever did.

Yog’s chuckling laughter followed.

An absolutely overwhelming quantity of chaos was pouring into him, shocking Ian as he physically felt strength returning almost instantly.

Crunch, crackle!

Even then, Ian remained on one knee while driving the Fangs of Heaven Defier deeper and deeper inward. He could clearly feel the chaos spreading through the blade, tearing apart the inside of Raskagin’s skull.

As Ian slowly pushed the blade forward like he was stirring through flesh, Raskagin’s entire body convulsed, and a scream overflowing with fury and agony rang through Ian’s mind.

He could not even tell whether it was psychic malice or an actual shriek.

At the same time, bluish light erupted everywhere and fog burst outward like steam.

However, that was not what startled Ian.

Whooom—

Static suddenly spread across his vision as the world became engulfed in blue light; his senses scattered, and the fog abruptly transformed into a raging ocean battered by enormous waves, followed immediately by gigantic islands appearing before him.

The archipelago?

It was far larger than the maps had shown, but Ian recognized it immediately. This was likely the archipelago from the distant past, when Raskagin had still ruled as a god.

He was clearly witnessing the creature’s memories.

Immediately afterward, rows of altars constructed from piled stone stretched across the sea like toys.

Of course, the blindfolded and bound sacrifices standing atop them, and the priests plunging blades into their hearts, looked nothing like toys.

Splash! Crash!

Bleeding from their chests, the sacrifices toppled one after another into the sea. Their souls drifted outward along the currents.

Every single one of them belonged to Raskagin. Savoring each soul as it absorbed them, Raskagin gazed down upon the sprawling archipelago beneath it.

Countless humans were prostrating themselves in worship.

Don’t tell me this thing considers that its happiest era.

A hollow laugh escaped Ian.

Then, in the next instant, he realized that was not all. The vast islands spread beneath them abruptly transformed into shattered remnants sinking beneath the sea.

Rumble…

The night sky overhead, covered in a sinister galaxy-like glow, was burning away from the edges inward. Flames covered even the distant heavens like rolling clouds.

Hundreds of shamans gathered across the fragmented islands, drawing spells with blood across the ground. Above them, warriors with blazing wings spread wide flew across the sky as though protecting them.

Whooom…

Then, a colossal shadow began falling over them all. Breaking through the clouds of fire, an immense being revealed itself with wings fully spread.

It was a dragon covered head to toe in dark-red scales.

That can’t possibly be?

The sight was enough to shock Ian completely.

Not because a dragon had truly aided the people of the archipelago, but because he thought he recognized exactly what that crimson dragon was.

—There is no place in the world I shall rule... for transcendent beings such as you....

A low voice blazing with unbearable heat spread across the heavens.

Only then did Ian finally gasp inwardly.

The Heaven Defier…

Its appearance was utterly different from the emaciated and ruined form he remembered, but it was unmistakably Rakhmah.

The words once spoken by the Platinum Dragon, that Rakhmah had once been called the greatest of the red dragons, resurfaced in Ian’s mind.

Perhaps this was what the creature had looked like at the height of its power.

—So sleep forever beneath the depths... ruler of the oceans....

The moment Rakhmah opened its blazing jaws wide, black-red flames exploded outward and consumed Ian’s entire vision.

—I still don’t understand why I can’t see these memories with you.

A whisper slipped into his mind at that instant. At the same time, Ian felt his consciousness violently yanked backward.

—This isn’t the time to lose yourself, my friend.

All of Ian’s senses returned in an instant.

Along with the sensation of tentacles wrapped tightly around him, he could feel himself being hurled endlessly upward through the air.

Boom, boom, boom!

The shockwave of exploding chaos had swept them away before Ian even realized it.

But the thought flashing through Ian’s mind now was something else entirely.

Even that thing couldn’t kill it?

He had just learned that even the Heaven Defier had only managed to seal Raskagin away.

As the pressure finally began subsiding, the tentacles tightly wrapped around Ian slowly unfolded.

Swoosh—

He was still spinning violently while soaring upward, having risen well over a hundred meters by his estimate.

But that was hardly what mattered now.

At some point, a gigantic hole had opened in the center of the storming cloud cover, churning like a raging ocean. Beyond it stretched a night sky rippling viscously like a sinister galaxy.

Whooom—

The sight felt strangely familiar. Not merely because of the vision he had just witnessed, but because it resembled the sky beyond the Black Wall—the sky of the Black Land.

Rumble! Boom!

Blue lightning endlessly crashed down from the surrounding storm clouds. It felt as though he had entered the eye of a typhoon filled with gigantic lightning storms.

—This is proof that this monster is truly a transcendent existence, my friend. Merely by existing, it’s rewriting the laws of this entire region....

Yog’s leisurely whisper followed.

It likely meant that a domain was forming.

Once it’s completed, escaping the seal becomes much easier for it, doesn’t it?

Leaving his body to the spin, Ian asked.

Yog let out a low chuckle.

—Perhaps the domain can only fully form after it escapes completely. But if it’s the other way around, then probably.

Below them, the vast archipelago spread out in full view. Towering tidal waves, like gigantic walls, were receding toward distant islands.

Those were likely the lands of Rimuta.

The other side was probably drifting farther into the great ocean. Either way, the islands themselves seemed to be slowly drawing closer.

The surrounding space was distorting as the domain expanded.

—Now you finally seem to understand what kind of thing we’re fighting, my friend. Looks like you glimpsed something rather extraordinary in there.

Ian gazed downward at Raskagin below as the creature once again became wrapped in blue fog while the surrounding sea twisted into a gigantic vortex.

Thanks to that, I’ve realized the bastard might actually be immortal. And also that the reason it had lashed out the instant the azure flame touched it was not merely because of pain.

Yog chuckled softly.

—Those transcendent beings you humans call gods cannot truly be killed within the material realm, my friend. At best, they can only be driven away. But....

As though noticing Ian’s gaze fixed upon the center of the gigantic whirlpool, Yog’s whisper grew quieter.

—As you already know, that thing still hasn’t broken the seal completely or escaped it fully. It’s even struggling just to reconstruct a proper vessel.

Meaning that if they continued attacking, they might force it back inside once more. In fact, ever since the battle began, it had not managed to drag even a single part of its body entirely outside.

No, that alone won’t be enough.

That was when Ian spread his wings wide, abruptly halting his body and rising into the air once more.

At this rate, it’ll finish forming its domain first. And once that happens, we won’t be able to kill it or seal it anymore. So....

Revealing the jagged fangs protruding like thorns, Ian looked up toward the ominous night sky.

Let’s interfere by forming a domain of our own.

The wings that had been about to flap suddenly froze.

—Don’t tell me you’re suggesting we fuse even further than last time, my friend?