NOVGO.NET Chapter 783: The Bomb Goes Off
Chapter 783: Chapter 783: The Bomb Goes Off
The moment the wooden dragon’s claw struck the ground, the arena began to change.
From the cracks between the arena stones, thin green tendrils slithered up like seeking fingers. Dust scattered as roots erupted from beneath, spiraling outward in complex patterns. The light above dimmed, not because of clouds, but because a canopy was forming—not real trees, but illusions given weight and shape by spiritual force.
The wooden dragon had activated its domain. Not one that belonged to the light dragon itself, but rather one inherited from the Verdara inheritance.
And unlike the Solar Dragon’s prior attempt, this one was much more powerful.
Aegis, mid-lunge, staggered. His arm raising to block an incoming blow slowed, the motion dragging unnaturally like he was moving through wet clay. Around him, the field thickened with invisible weight. Even his hardened form let out a low groan of strain from the invisible weight.
Queen flinched. Bea shivered. Chewy pressed himself into Kain’s sleeve with a distressed buzz.
“Domain activation,” the announcer murmured over the broadcast, trying to keep his voice even. “But… the readings are inconsistent. This shouldn’t be the strength of a blue-grade fledgling domain.”
He wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t blue-grade.
Not in feel. Not in scale.
Kain narrowed his eyes, trying to assess how much worse this made things.
Then, across the field, Cassian flinched.
It was subtle. Barely more than a jerk of his shoulders and a sharp inhale. Thankfully, nobody noticed.
Cassian’s hand pressed briefly to his side beneath his pristine uniform, and for a fraction of a second, something black traced the exposed skin on his throat just above his collar—like veins drawn in ink.
Sweat beaded on his forehead.
Unseen by the crowd, pain flared through Cassian’s core.
The black curse marks had bloomed across his ribs, shoulder, and back like an infection. They pulsed with heat, searing and aching in equal measure, and each second the domain remained active, the pain grew worse.
It took every ounce of his willpower not to fall to one knee.
Not here. Not now. Not while the entire Empire is watching.
But using all of his strength, he straightened. Expression blank. Poised. Regal.
The curse—if that’s what it was—had emerged not long after he returned from the Verdara relic. He’d initially ignored the pain, assuming it was a side effect of the inheritance syncing. But when it happened again. And again. And again—each time one of his contracts activated a domain—he’d started to suspect otherwise.
He had gone to the Eyeris Clan.
He had begged. Threatened. Offered wealth.
They’d claimed to know nothing. But Cassian wasn’t stupid.
Soreia, in her last moment inside the Verdara trial, had stared at him with pure hatred and whispered something as the vines dragged her away. He had assumed it was her ’cursing’ him using swear words.
Apparently not.
It was likely a real curse.
And now, every time one of his dragons activated a fledgling domain in battle or even in practice sessions, it was like a dagger from that moment burrowing deeper into his body trying to kill him.
The Eyeris Clan claimed ignorance, but Cassian knew better.
If I could erase your disgusting clan from this continent, I would, he thought venomously, the pain in his spine sharpening. But Father would never allow it. Too useful. Too influential. Too many allies.
He swallowed down the bile rising in his throat.
He had to hold it together.
Not just for the match. For the throne.
Unlike most people in the empire he was well aware that the future would only become more tumultuous. The last thing needed was for the future heir of the empire to appear weak, or even worse, ’crippled’ (because if he was stuck at 6-stars forever, his contracts unable to develop a complete domain without risk of killing him, he would be). He would likely have to give up his title as crown prince, if this weakness became known.
——————-
The wooden dragon was the indisputable king on the field. And Aegis was its main target.
The domain warped gravity, air, sound. Trees that didn’t exist felt like they did. Illusory roots curled around his feet, dragging him down. The Sovereign advanced with unnatural speed for its size, its bark creaking, joints grinding like ancient millstones.
Every step it took sounded and felt like an earthquake.
And its attention remained locked on Aegis.
Wow, Kain thought with a grim smile, it really doesn’t like him.
Which made sense. Aegis had been the one to inject abyssal energy.
He’d ’purified’ the inheritance from the Solar Dragon.
And from what Kain had seen so far, this wooden dragon likely came out in response to sensing abyssal energy.
Kain activated his Threads of Destiny.
Danger pulsed from the black thread stretching toward Aegis. A second black thread formed. Then a third.
Three sources of lethal danger? Kain blinked. No, it’s the same one. The Sovereign is that dangerous. Practically any action Aegis takes, if nothing changes, will end in us losing.
But perhaps its fixation on Abyssal energy could be used against it…
———————-
Bea, locked in her brutal mental stalemate with the Dream and Nightmare Dragons, could barely spare the attention to notice how badly the battlefield had shifted. She was sweating. Not physically, of course—her single-celled body doesn’t exactly have sweat glands—but in the mental battlefield, where it was currently 2v1, she was burning out.
The Dream Dragon weaved illusions into the mental world. The Nightmare Dragon twisted them into weapons. Even though Bea had blocked them from entering her allies’ minds directly, it was taking all her strength to defend and counteract them. Their coordination was far better than she’d anticipated.
Too many opponents at once, she hissed internally. She needed to remove one of them.
A glimmer of opportunity appeared. The Nightmare Dragon briefly overextended while weaving a reality-warping fear mirage toward Queen to get her out of the match.
Now.
Its own mental defenses briefly dropped, and with a subtle mental suggestion she got it to fly exactly where she wanted it to go while it wasn’t paying full attention.
To Aegis.
The massive defensive behemoth stood silent and unmoving beneath the crushing weight of the domain, his position static and pinned. But Bea trusted the strength of her ally and his ability to read her intentions and capitalize on every opportunity.
Aegis didn’t need to move.
The moment the Nightmare Dragon hovered above Aegis’ position, its attention split between weaving illusions and mental interference, Aegis shifted. Slowly. Deliberately.
His arm retracted.
Then with a whumph, Aegis launched it. His entire arm.
Since the ground in the range of the domain couldn’t be controlled by him due to the domain’s interference, his only means of attack is to terraform the stone composing his own body into a weapon.
A thick spear of layered spiritual alloy and stone spiraled upward, whistling through the domain-dampened air.
But this spear hid a secret.
The spear impaled the Nightmare Dragon just below the ribcage. And the abyssal energy contained within it injected into the dragon.
The effect was instantaneous.
Whereas, the Abyssal energy inside Aegis was usually like a tame kitten—its claws sheathed, quiet and almost undetectable; it wasn’t even dangerous unless it left his control.
In contrast, the abyssal energy hurled into the Nightmare Dragon was free from his control; it was more like a rabid wild cat unleashed after being caged. The energy flared violently, tearing through the dragon’s body unchecked and sending flickers of inky black across its spiritual core.
Naturally, it would logically be a far bigger target to the wooden dragon sensitive to abyssal energy.
Its head snapped toward the Nightmare Dragon, vines cracking around its bark-scaled neck. Its gaze locked not on Aegis but on the now-twitching form of the Nightmare Dragon.
Cassian frowned seeing the change.
“Wait…!”
But it was too late.
The wooden dragon lunged.
Its body moved at lightning speed, barreling toward the Nightmare Dragon with no hesitation. The Dream Dragon, sensing the danger, screamed a warning into their shared mental link, but the Nightmare Dragon was not able to respond due to it fighting off the abyssal contamination trying to take it over.
The massive bark-scaled beast slammed into it.
Vines lashed. Teeth snapped.
The Nightmare Dragon shrieked, shadows moving around it as it tried to phase into them—only to find its mind so disrupted that its abilities stuttered.
Kain, meanwhile, couldn’t help but allow a small smirk to cross his lips.
“Maybe I can make it take down all of Cassian’s contracts just like this” he muttered. The gamble had been risky, and Aegis still needed to find a time to ’clean up after himself’ and get rid of the abyssal energy. But the risk had paid off so far.
But unfortunately for Kain…naturally a fight against the heir of an empire wouldn’t be turned around so easily.
Cassian’s aura erupted in a sudden golden flare. His eyes ignited with radiant light, and his chin-length golden hair lifted into the air, swaying and writhing as if caught in a nonexistent wind. Energy surged around him in visible waves, distorting the air with raw power. Kain’s expression tightened.
Cassian was activating his Gift—possibly for the first time in front of someone not in his immediate family. Whatever it was, whatever it could do, they were about to find out.
And it didn’t bode well.