A vertical slit opened.
The Fourth Eye.
Emily’s heart skipped a beat the instant it appeared.
At first, nothing dramatic happened. There was no explosion of power, no sudden attack.
Instead, something subtle but terrifying spread across the battlefield.
The equipment everyone was using began to weaken. Metal darkened and flaked. Edges dulled. Runes flickered and lost clarity.
"Equipment degradation detected," Catherine muttered, glancing at her failing whip-swords.
It wasn’t just weapons.
The platform beneath them groaned. Cracks spread through the massive cage of roots Isaac had created. The roots lost their firmness, fibers drying out and crumbling as if they had aged decades in seconds.
"It’s trying to fly up! Keep pressure on it! Attack the weakened parts!"
Althea’s voice cut through the noise and hesitation, steady and sharp.
What unfolded next looked almost unreal.
Isaac moved.
His sword was wrapped in a dense Dark Lightning Sword Elemental Aura, the energy crawling along the blade and jumping into the air around him.
He blurred.
One moment he was near the core of the battlefield, and the next he was carving a path through a swarm of imps.
Dark lightning flashed again and again.
Wherever Isaac passed, imps fell apart. Their numbers didn’t matter. Their attacks didn’t matter. He cut through them with clean, efficient movements, never wasting a step.
Even so, the Crimson Sky Wyrm was only being injured slowly.
Its massive body bore fresh wounds, scales cracked or half-peeled where different monster parts were still merging into its form. Blood and corrupted mana leaked from those joints, but not fast enough.
"We’re not doing enough damage," Emily said under her breath as she fired another command to her summons.
Vale was already pushing harder.
Dark sigils spread across the battlefield as he twisted his curses into the imps themselves.
One by one, the lesser monsters turned and charged the Crimson Sky Wyrm without hesitation. When they reached it, they exploded into clouds of cursed energy.
He was sacrificing the imps, using them to inflict stronger curses.
The curses sank into the Crimson Sky Wyrm’s flesh, poisoning it from the inside. The wyrm roared in irritation, but it didn’t stop fighting.
Catherine clenched her teeth as her earlier attempt failed.
"The Mirror Dimension won’t hold it. It has some kind of resistance skill," she said.
Several mirror clones formed around her instead, each attacking different vital points Althea had marked earlier. They struck in rhythm, not aiming to kill but to disrupt.
Emily focused on containment.
Escaping imps were intercepted and erased before they could scatter. Her summons moved efficiently, preventing the battlefield from collapsing into chaos.
Above them all, Lume appeared.
The Abyssal Jester danced through the air, its body splitting and reforming as layers of illusions spread outward. False roots, false attackers, phantom strikes. The Crimson Sky Wyrm reacted violently, snapping its jaws at empty air and swinging claws at nothing.
It saw through many of the illusions.
But not all.
That was enough.
Every time someone was injured, a soft glow spread from Alice.
Her healing magic pulsed steadily, keeping everyone on their feet even as exhaustion crept in.
For a moment, it almost looked perfect. It looked they would win.
Then the Crimson Sky Wyrm roared.
The sound was deep and furious, shaking the air itself. It lowered its massive head and began to devour the imps rushing toward it, swallowing them in large, greedy bites.
"It’s healing itself. It’s eating the imps," Emily said quickly.
She hesitated for a fraction of a second, then asked, "Should I use Lume to protect them? I can make it eat empty air instead."
Althea relayed the question without delay.
"No. Don’t stop it. Let it eat the imps," Isaac replied almost immediately.
Althea passed the order along.
Emily frowned.
She didn’t understand it. The Crimson Sky Wyrm was known to regenerate wings and damaged organs by consuming lesser monsters. Letting it eat freely felt like giving it exactly what it wanted.
But she didn’t argue.
If Isaac said that, then he had a reason.
And he did.
Morbus, his new summon, moved beneath the Crimson Sky Wyrm.
The plague-type Abyssal Monster released waves of contamination, infecting both the imps and the Crimson Sky Wyrm itself. The plague wasn’t lethal on its own. But it was slow, and insidious.
As the Crimson Sky Wyrm devoured the imps, it also absorbed the plague within them.
Its movements slowed slightly. Its regeneration stuttered, just for a moment.
"It’s working," Isaac whispered.
The effect was small.
Almost negligible.
But right now, even that mattered.
"Good. Everyone, keep doing what you are. Maintain pressure," Althea said after checking multiple readings.
Isaac’s voice came through again, quieter this time.
"This is taking too long. If it goes berserk, we’re done. Isn’t there a better way to kill it faster?" he said.
There was a pause.
Althea bit her lip.
"There is," she said finally. "But..."
"But?" Isaac prompted.
"The heart. That’s its weakness. All dragons and their subspecies share it. But the skin there is too thick. The heart is buried deep and heavily protected. We don’t have an attack strong enough to reach it," Althea said.
Isaac thought for a moment.
"What if Sword Empress uses her trump card?"
Althea shook her head, even though he couldn’t see it.
"If she could pour everything into a single stab, it might work. But if that were possible, she wouldn’t have used a slash earlier. Even her strongest slash isn’t enough to reach the heart," she said.
Before she could finish, the Crimson Sky Wyrm roared again.
This time, it lowered its head and bit into the roots binding it.
Althea’s eyes widened.
"It’s eating the roots," she said.
"Shit," Isaac muttered.
With every bite, he felt it clearly. The mana he was supplying to the roots was being drained violently, pulled into the Crimson Sky Wyrm’s body.
The wyrm’s wounds pulsed.
New wings began to form.
Wooden wings.
They were crude and uneven, but they were wings nonetheless.
Isaac tried to reinforce the bindings, summoning more roots and wrapping them around the Crimson Sky Wyrm’s body. The moment they formed, the wyrm tore into them again.
They were feeding it.
He knew it.
But he couldn’t stop.
If he released the bindings now, the Crimson Sky Wyrm would fly away.
And if it escaped into the clouds, it wouldn’t come back down.
"We’re running out of time," Catherine said, breathing hard.
Alice’s healing pulses slowed slightly. Her mana regeneration could not keep up.
The Fourth Eye pulsed again.
The weakening effect intensified.
The roots lost their strength rapidly, fibers breaking apart like ash under pressure.
Isaac felt the connection snap one by one.
And then it happened.
The final bindings broke.
The Crimson Sky Wyrm surged upward, wings beating hard as it tore free of the collapsing platform. The massive body rose into the air, shadow falling over everyone below.
"It’s flying!" Emily shouted.
No one needed the warning.
The Fourth Eye remained open, its presence suffocating. With the battlefield crumbling beneath them, this had only been a matter of time.
The Crimson Sky Wyrm gained altitude, its broken wings struggling but holding. It turned its massive head downward, eyes filled with cruel satisfaction.
Alice reacted instantly.
"Voice of Seraphim," she said, her voice clear as she spread her wings.
The sound that followed wasn’t loud, but it carried authority. A wave of divine resonance swept upward and struck the Crimson Sky Wyrm directly. For a brief moment, its body stiffened.
Then it shook itself.
The stun shattered as if it had never existed.
Alice’s eyes widened. "It resisted."
Isaac wasn’t surprised.
He had seen this before.
In Emily’s trial, the Sword God had shrugged off the same skill with nothing more than a frown. Compared to that, the Crimson Sky Wyrm’s resistance felt crude, but it was still enough.
"That’s bad. Our strongest control skill failed," Althea said quietly.
As the Crimson Sky Wyrm stabilized itself in the air, violent gusts spread outward. Anyone still clinging to its body or nearby structures was torn free and flung away.
Isaac caught one of Catherine’s clones with a root mid-fall, but then even he had to retreat.
The Crimson Sky Wyrm opened its mouth.
Flames gathered deep in its throat. The glow spread slowly, not rushed, as if it was enjoying the anticipation.
"Alice!" Althea shouted, her voice sharp. "Now!"
Alice closed her eyes and clasped her hands together.
"Divine Retribution," she murmured.
The moment the words left her lips, Isaac felt it.
A strange pressure brushed against his awareness.
It felt like a asking for a....
Permission.
His eyes widened slightly.
’So that’s how it works. This skill needs approval from a God,’ he realized.
There was no hesitation.
"Do it!" Isaac shouted.
The clouds above split apart.
Golden light poured down from the heavens, thick and overwhelming. The Crimson Sky Wyrm looked up, finally sensing something that made it uneasy.
Before it could react, a beam of golden light crashed down onto one of its newly regenerated wooden wings.
The effect was immediate.
The wing began to melt.
Not burn. Not crack.
It melted, dissolving under the divine light as if it had never belonged to the wyrm in the first place.
The Crimson Sky Wyrm froze in shock.
A divine skill.
Then it calmed.
Its eyes narrowed as it looked down at the figures below. In its mind, this was still nothing more than a desperate struggle from weak beings. Low-ranked awakeners could not truly harm it.
That belief lasted exactly one second longer.
The wing collapsed entirely, disintegrating into fragments of scorched wood and corrupted mana.
The Crimson Sky Wyrm roared.
Alice’s skill was simple in concept but terrifying in effect.
The more sins the target carried, the more devastating the judgment became. And the Crimson Sky Wyrm had slaughtered too many beings to count.
The only flaw of Divine Retribution was the requirement for divine permission.
Normally, no God would grant such power freely. They would demand hefty price.
But Alice didn’t look to the heavens.
She looked at Isaac.
The Crimson Sky Wyrm snapped its head downward, fury burning through its eyes.
Even so, it didn’t panic.
One wing lost meant nothing. It still had six.
Last time, it had fallen after losing three. This time was different.
That thought shattered when the clouds parted again.
Another golden beam descended.
This time, Isaac raised his hand.
"Divine Retribution," he said calmly.
There was no hesitation, no resistance.
As for permission? He gave it to himself!
The second beam struck another wooden wing. The divine light didn’t pierce the Crimson Sky Wyrm’s defenses directly, but it didn’t need to. The wing was new, unstable, and unprepared to endure divine judgment.
Cracks spread instantly.
The wing tore apart under its own weight.
The Crimson Sky Wyrm flailed violently, barely maintaining balance as its massive body tilted in the air.
It was flying now with difficulty.
Just then, Isaac spoke again.
"Ragnarok."
The third Abyssal Monster answered.
The sky darkened, and red lightning split the clouds.
For a brief moment, the Crimson Sky Wyrm mistook it for salvation.
Red Rain.
The Crimson Sky Wyrm though it was helping him.
Then the lightning struck.
One of its remaining wings exploded under the impact, torn clean off in a blast of crimson energy.
The wyrm screamed.
The divine light faded as the Retribution skills deactivated, but the damage had already been done.
Three wings gone.
Again.
The Crimson Sky Wyrm fell.
Its massive body slammed into the ground with earth-shaking force. Shockwaves rolled outward, tearing apart what little remained of the platform. Dust and broken roots filled the air.
Anger consumed it.
Hot, burning fury.
Twice now, it had been forced to the ground by the same insignificant beings. This time, it stopped caring about defense, positioning, or control.
It wanted everything in front of it gone.
As roots surged upward to restrain it again, walls forming instinctively under Isaac’s command, the Crimson Sky Wyrm drew in a deep breath.
Then it released everything.
It unleashed Heaven-Scorch Calamity Flame.
The fire wasn’t aimed.
It didn’t need to be.
A storm of crimson flames erupted outward, engulfing its own body and the roots restraining it. The roots burned instantly, mana evaporating under the heat.
The flames surged forward, chasing the figures who had dared to wound it.
"Everyone get back!" Althea shouted.
Roots burst from the ground beneath the team, wrapping around them and hurling them away from the center. The movement was abrupt and uncontrolled.
Too slow.
The flames spread faster than expected, rolling forward like a living tide. Even a brush from them would be fatal.
Isaac pushed harder, extending roots, dragging people with him, but the distance wasn’t enough.
They were going to be caught.
Then the temperature shifted.
A roar echoed from below.
Aeralis emerged.
The Abyssal Shark surged upward, and massive water tornadoes formed instantly around the battlefield. They collided with the flames, steam exploding outward as water and fire clashed violently.
The flames were stronger.
But the water was enough.
Enough to slow them.
Enough to carve a path.
Everyone was thrown clear of the enclosed area just as the flames consumed it entirely. They landed outside the collapsing structure of roots, scattered but alive.
For a split second, there was relief.
Then they looked back.
The entire enclosed battlefield burned. The flames showed no sign of fading. If anything, they burned hotter, feeding on corrupted mana and debris.
"Don’t let your guard down," Catherine said, her voice tight.
Isaac’s Sixth Sense screamed.
Danger.
Immediate.
"Everyone move!" he shouted.
Roots surged under his feet as he grabbed Althea by the arm and pulled Charlotta in with the other hand, forcing all three of them backward.
The others reacted just as fast, scattering away from the area that had moments ago felt relatively safe.
The timing was perfect.
The wall of roots in front of them began to melt.
A heartbeat later, a beam of fire punched through.
The flame was concentrated, compressed into a single line of destruction. The ground it touched was carved open, stone and metal evaporating instantly as the beam swept forward.