Chapter 175: Full Transformation

"Monster... Monster... You are no child at all...!"

The voice was ragged, yet it remained disturbingly loud and resonant—piercing through the dense smoke hovering over the field to strike everyone’s ears. The fury embedded in his tone felt like an execution sentence already passed, one from which there was no longer any turning back.

From the heart of the thick smoke shrouding the area, something entirely different emerged compared to the man who had been standing there moments before.

He was no longer that drunken fool screaming and flailing haphazardly.

Instead, what stepped forth was a man clad in scorched rags, his body horrific and mutilated by the explosion. His left arm hung limply at his side in a gruesome manner—resembling little more than a shredded piece of useless meat that had entirely lost its mobility, nearly charred to the bone by the intensity of the assault.

The man groaned loudly in agony, every breath pulled from his chest sounding as though it were being ripped away by sheer force. The severe injuries marring his frame left him in a critical state, the kind of damage that defied easy healing.

Yet despite everything...

He remained standing.

Or rather, he was forcing himself to stay upright.

He gripped his dagger with his right hand with extreme tightness, exerting every last shred of strength remaining in his body against its hilt. His legs trembled under his weight, requiring an immense physical effort simply to prevent himself from collapsing onto the earth.

The man raised his eyes toward Amelia, his voice punctuated by laboured gasps:

"You monster... It seems you’ve reached your limit."

He peered down at her small frame, continuing with a strange tone of absolute conviction:

"Your tiny legs are beginning to give out... It appears you have no mana left."

The man wasn’t even capable of standing by any logical standard. Every cell in his body screamed at him to cease, to drop to the ground and salvage whatever remained of his life. Yet he fought through it all.

He forced his feet to move.

One step.

Then another.

He dragged his feet across the dirt rather than walking normally, each movement triggering a fresh wave of excruciating pain. Still, he pressed relentlessly toward Amelia.

As for Amelia, she was frozen in place.

Her eyes locked onto the man creeping slowly toward her, while her small body remained virtually incapable of movement—her remaining mana depleted to the point where her limbs felt numb and powerless.

She couldn’t retreat.

She couldn’t launch an attack.

And in that moment, she lacked sufficient strength to defend herself.

Amelia forced her hands to move swiftly, pulling out the artifact given to her by her father’s subordinate—the exact token he had instructed her to use if she ever needed to summon them.

Clutching it with every ounce of strength she had left, she activated it.

That was the absolute last reserve of power she could wring from her exhausted body. Meanwhile, the man continued his relentless advance, dragging his feet over the ground, bleeding continuously—each step leaving a trail of red behind him.

His body was collapsing.

Yet he cared not.

For in his mind, slaying that young girl had transformed into something akin to a sacred mission.

He had convinced himself that Amelia was no child.

She was no human.

She was a monster.

A monster that had yet to reach its true, terrifying potential.

If he permitted her to grow any further, no one would be capable of halting her in the future.

He had to end it now.

He had to protect the world from the calamity standing before him—a disaster still in its cradle.

Suddenly, the pain raging within his frame spiked dramatically.

This was bad.

Blood continued to pour from his wounds, the volume he had lost expanding until it soaked the grass beneath his feet. Still, he pressed forward.

Another step.

Then another.

Amelia was right in front of him.

All he needed was to reach her.

In his eyes, his advance was no longer a attempt to kill a young child, but an act of service to all of humanity—as if his deed were a heroic feat deserving of grand honor, as if the world would one day remember him as the man who saved mankind from a monster that would have brought ruin.

Though his body screamed at him to stop, though every fiber of his being told him he could go no further, he moved with absolute determination, tightening his grip on the dagger even more.

Amelia observed the entire scene, unable to step back.

Yet she remembered something.

Yes...

She was wearing the protective pendant granted to her by her father.

This man was simply incapable of harming her. Even if he reached her, he couldn’t possibly kill her. All she needed to do was wait until the members of her father’s organization arrived to settle the matter.

So she didn’t move.

She waited.

Until the man closed the distance.

Until he stood directly before her.

The man raised his dagger, his facial features contorted in rage and agony, elevating his arm high—preparing to deliver the final, decisive blow.

Amelia was ready.

She felt no fear of him.

She knew the dagger couldn’t touch her.

Yet Albert...

He didn’t know that.

He knew nothing about the pendant.

He saw only one thing:

Amelia, the sole friend he had ever managed to gain, standing motionless before his eyes while a man holding a dagger was about to end her life.

In that split second, his mind snapped.

Reason evaporated.

Composure vanished.

Nothing else mattered anymore.

His only friend was about to die...

Because of his failure.

No.

He couldn’t allow it.

He could never allow it.

In the very next instant, his emotions exploded completely.

His body began to transform.

Yet this was no partial shift.

It was a complete metamorphosis.

His face shifted, his features altered, and his frame expanded on a massive scale. His horns erupted prominently while his arms and jaw reshaped, his true draconic form unveiling itself before all present.

Then his size multiplied.

Once.

Then twice.

Until he grew nearly three times larger than his previous state.

"NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

A roar erupted from his throat with terrifying force—a bellow that shook the very ground, not merely a cry of rage, but an explosion of all the terror, helplessness, and pain that had accumulated within his soul.

In a single instant, Albert lunged toward his uncle with horrific speed.

He didn’t think.

He didn’t hesitate.

He didn’t pause.

He reached him in a heartbeat, descending upon him with his claws, limbs, and draconic jaws.

A strike.

A shredding force.

And in one single instant, everything was brought to an absolute end.

His uncle’s body tore apart under the assault of the young dragon, blood splashing across Amelia’s clothes, while Albert remained in his true draconic form atop the man’s remains—continuing to tear at him in unbridled fury until almost nothing was left of the man who, moments ago, had been screaming about monsters.

Yet in the end...

The true monster was not the young dragon standing before them.

It was the man who had forced him to become one.