Chapter 952: Burning Skies and a Boiling Sea

Seven days later, the cry of dragons echoed through the sky.

Glacial Dragon Jorik arrived at the border of the human kingdom, accompanied by the dragon lords Zephyros and Bloodscale and a massive host of dragon beasts.

Three days after that, Lireesa arrived with the newly ascended blood elf race lord, Saelen, and an army of elven archers.

With that, all the forces of the Five-Race Alliance, save for the dwarves, were in position.

“Warriors!” King Harold’s voice boomed from the highest watchtower in the military camp, flanked by Delilah, Jorik, and Lireesa. “This war is not merely to resist the invasion of the northern tribes! It is to defend the very faith of our Five-Race Alliance!”

“Our families and our people live on this fertile southern land! For their sake, we must become its guardians!”

“Soldiers! Every charge you make, every enemy you strike down, will be another line in the epic legend of our glory!”

His voice was deep, commanding, and filled with a power that inspired the roaring cheers of the assembled armies.

After the mobilization, the war began.

The southern allied forces launched a preemptive strike. Their goal was not just to kill the enemy, but to conquer the territories further north. This was for the collective benefit of the alliance—what was now the Four-Race Alliance.

Emerald Dream Realm, Kasenna Sea

There was only one way to describe the scene: burning skies and a boiling sea.

In the depths, Merfolk warriors and sea beasts tore each other apart, the water flashing with the constant detonation of countless low-level magic spells.

The surface was a floating graveyard of dismembered bodies: maimed Merfolk, Ocean Hunters missing their lower halves, massive octopuses stripped of all their tentacles, Whale-Riders floating belly-up… and headless Giant-Fin Crocs. The field of corpses stretched to the horizon.

Below the waves, the slaughter continued unabated as schools of fish-like warriors weaved spells. From the abyssal depths, enormous bubbles and the titanic corpses of even larger sea beasts constantly rose to the surface.

The entire Kasenna Sea, with the battlefield as its epicenter, had been stained the color of a spreading plague.

In the sky, dragon beasts and flying exotic beasts collided in a chaotic swarm. Every clash sent bodies raining down into the bloody sea.

But the most intense part of the battlefield was the firefight between the Legendary level powerhouses.

“Dammit, we have to pull back! The bastards are switching targets!” Demon Makareth roared, decapitating a wounded green dragon with a final slash of his scimitar before quickly stashing the corpse.

“Fall back,” Gustalon’s voice whispered on the wind. “We need to protect the undead lords at the rear. Their summoning is the key to winning this war.”

He had fought alongside the undead armies many times and knew the importance of necromancers like Vexis and Rumbold.

“Withdraw!” Isabella seethed with frustration.

The three of them had been an unstoppable kill squad, slaughtering every dragon that came their way. But the dragons weren’t stupid. After losing several of their own, they’d changed tactics, bypassing the trio to attack the undead lords maintaining the summoning formations at the back line.

“I wonder how Barnacle and the others are doing,” Demon Makareth muttered on the way back, his gaze turning to the horizon. A hurricane that occupied half the sky was raging there, its vortex sucking up the sea itself.

“A storm of that magnitude would tear any Legendary level being to shreds,” Gustalon said, materializing to look at the distant storm. No one there understood its terrible power better than he did.

“Hurry!” Isabella’s voice, sharp with anxiety, came from up ahead. “Vexis’s position is being overrun!”

Makareth and Gustalon stopped staring and immediately gave chase.

Inside the terrifying hurricane, the battle between arch lords was brutally visceral.

The bone dragon mount had its wings torn off and was now tumbling through the cyclone, using the wind to try and escape. But the dragon pursuing it was a master of the storm, easily keeping pace.

Higher up, Kraken’s Admiral was also fleeing, desperately trying to draw aggro. The massive octopus on its back now had only two tentacles left.

“Dammit, there are too many of them! I can’t hold them off!” Kraken screamed into the gale. “Deputy Commander, is your ultimate ready yet?! Shit!”

A blast of dragon fire erupted behind him. He didn’t dare get distracted again, continuing to lead his pursuers on a deadly chase through the hurricane.

At the eye of the storm, the Deputy Commander’s storm avatar was doing two things at once: maintaining the crowd-controlling hurricane while simultaneously inscribing an offensive magical formation. This was their ace in the hole.

Thankfully, he had prepared a base array ahead of time; he just needed to finish the supporting formations to stabilize the situation.

Just outside the storm’s eye, the ancient giant-horned whale was guarding the avatar, locked in a wrestling match with another dragon. In fact, the whale had already been the MVP of this fight; a second dragon was still struggling inside its digestive dimensional space.

Normally, being attacked from both inside and out would have torn it to pieces, but the storm avatar had cast several support spells on it. The whale was now larger, encased in a suit of bestial armor woven from wind and water. It was even tougher than when it had first fought Orion.

ROAR!

The storm avatar glanced at the whale, which was now gaining the upper hand, before returning to its inscriptions.

This team fight raged from the sky to the sea, a top-to-bottom war of annihilation. No one knew where, or when, it would end. Transcendent power ran rampant, elements churned, and the roars of beasts and the dying never ceased. The slaughter continued.

Slaughter Space

The heavy fog was layered, thick and oppressive.

“You are defeated,” a voice whispered through the mist.

“You are tired. You are exhausted. You feel your strength leaving you.”

“You want to give up. You close your eyes.”

For an arch lord to kill a demigod—even a mere phantom—was an incredibly difficult task.

How difficult? Orion was learning firsthand. Even with the immense power granted by Blood Sacrifice, he couldn’t just one-shot the phantom. He had to painstakingly chip away at the power of Law that protected it. The power of Law and supernatural power were two completely different things.

And that process gave the brass dragon, Latychrenber, an opportunity to fight back.

The heavy fog in the Slaughter Space began to transform, shifting into a soporific mist.

While weaving hypnotic verbal suggestions, Latychrenber breathed the Sleep-Fog towards Orion, trying to lull him into unconsciousness.