At first, Belial still used breaths or blasted things with Magic. Later, after killing too many, he seemed bored and merely curled a finger. Like a child smearing paint at random, yet the results were far beyond what Magic should be able to achieve.
Sharp mountain ranges rose like blades and cut entire cities into scattered Shard. He grabbed rivers and froze them into spears thousands of meters long, throwing them down to become glaciers in an instant. He also controlled massive storm clouds and hurled thunder and fire like divine punishment, leaving nothing alive as hundreds of thousands of Demonkind armies vanished without even bones.
The land itself was flipped around like building blocks, something Sylvia could also do, but this was different. If Belial froze a place into a glacier, it stayed that way forever. Even at the equator, the ice would never melt.
Even if a fire user melted it all out of spite, snow would fall again after some time. It could be explained as leftover Laws power, but at such an absurd scale, was this really something a dragon could do?
"Maybe my earlier guess was wrong. Could there be a lifeform that looks exactly like Dragonkin, reacts to dragon blood Magic, but is actually a different species?" She had only seen such myth-like scenes in ancient texts within Dragon Valley. They spoke of the Dragon God and the four original high-level Dragonkin, dragons close to gods.
Even after inheriting the Authority of a Silver Dragon, she was nowhere near that level, not even a fraction of it. That made her wonder if the other party was just wearing dragon skin. Perhaps his true form was that vast black shadow she once glimpsed.
"Still, this should be a good thing. With so many Demonkind gone, Ham and the others should be safer." Killing every enemy that could threaten Ham was a strange way to protect them. At this rate, Sylvia had no doubt the entire Demonkind territory would be wiped out.
Belial was enjoying himself as well. Tens of millions of lives meant nourishment and Magic on a massive scale, and chances to feast like this were rare. He could not help muttering about how their lack of limits exceeded his expectations.
He had set the bar so low that even murderers could have been spared, yet fewer than a thousand had qualified. That alone said enough. He had seen scenes even worse, enslaved victims of many races tortured beyond recognition, and wondered how such a race had survived at all.
He casually restored the survivors' original appearances using the memories of light and reorganized their bodies. There was no need to worry about danger, since he had killed almost everything dangerous already. Even so, out of nearly tens of millions, only a few thousand had been saved in time.
"Honestly, even without that light feeding me information, I would have wiped the map after seeing this." Belial still held to normal morals despite transmigrating long ago, and he simply could not tolerate it. Under his control, the mixed-element storm had devoured countless lives and Magic, growing into a boundless monster.
Under another force, the dying cries of Demonkind were crushed into the wind. When the black storm swept through, it looked as if countless shadows followed within it. Anyone filming this could pass it off as a horror movie, since Belial had turned the storm into a sustained large-scale Magic with his System fully active.
"I even warned myself not to do this back when I played around in the snow." "No, this is different. I am removing harm." "This is to protect my side, so eating more of the enemy is only normal." "…What are those people doing over there?"
"Run faster, put more strength into flying!" "Do not block my view!" Vera threw her stored supplies backward, poisons, alchemy bombs, and portable traps. Each one smashed Orcs and Troll riding flying beasts out of the sky.
Those small dark objects had power like aerial bombs, and every explosion scattered flesh and charred bodies. There were simply too many enemies. Shouts rang out to seize the Black Dragon ahead, cursing how fast the young one could fly.
Behind them surged crazed Demon Orcs, Troll, goblins, and more, throwing ropes and iron nets. Farther back were giant ballistae carried by monsters. There were at least a thousand of them, and even with Ham's speed, escape was nearly impossible because they were everywhere.
What she feared most were the ballistae thicker than her entire body and the binding Magic waiting to strike. She could not fly too high or slow down, or she would be riddled instantly. Their endurance was limited, so they circled the terrain, searching for a breakthrough.
This time, the numbers were far greater than ever before. Vera looked grim, seeing enemies on all sides as a full encirclement formed. There was truly nowhere left to run.
"Hahaha, stop running!" "Let me cut your head off!" As the Demonkind charged while shouting abuse, she leaned down and patted Ham on the face. "Ham! Can your Spatial Magic teleport us out of here?"
"No… only Sylvia can do that. I am just a half-trained amateur!" Ham regretted not studying harder. With her clumsy Magic, not getting stuck in a wall would already be luck.
"Then use Sylvia's kind of Spatial Magic and take us away!" "…Do you hear what you are saying?" Ham fell silent. If she had that level of Spatial Magic, these people would have been flattened hours ago.
"I have thought it through. I will buy you time." This was the second time Vera had treated a dead horse like a living one. She normally would not gamble her life on the so-called plot, but now there was no other choice.
In the original story, this clumsy young Black Dragon had a strange ability, Empathic Communion. It was somewhat like that of the Elves, but with a very different effect and much wider range. It could even use the abilities of the Dragonkin linked through Empathic Communion.
It was like borrowing another Dragonkin's account skill level for a short time. If Ham could use Empathic Communion on Sylvia, she could borrow higher-level Spatial Magic and escape. The premise was that Ham succeeded.
"What, I have this ability?" Ham was completely stunned. She had lived for decades and never heard of such a thing.
"With your brain, it is normal you did not notice. Stop thinking and try, or we get captured, you get beheaded." Vera threw out her remaining trump cards, high-level Magic defensive Barrier scrolls. They could hold off these Demonkind for a few minutes, and those minutes would decide life or death.
Ham could only comply. She forced herself to ignore the constant impacts on the barrier outside. After Vera's reminder, she felt something click.
No, it felt more like an outside hint. Had she truly never sensed this ability before? Her absurd learning speed might have had a source. Perhaps it had awakened long ago, letting her learn Sylvia's Magic so quickly.
Now, as Ham pushed it hard, her awareness drifted far away. Somewhere distant, sensing the old dragon's Empathic Communion, Edward smiled. Hidden between the gaps of Ham's scales, a dark scale twitched slightly.
"Hm?" Belial suddenly raised his head mid-flight. "…A friend application?"
Ham seemed to fall asleep in an instant. Her awareness sank into a boundless seabed where broken Shard floated everywhere, mixed with emotions she could not explain, sadness, anger, even pleading, yet she could not truly understand any of them. At the same time, she strangely understood a little.
So this was Empathic Communion? Turns out she had not been falling asleep while doing homework back then.
Ham opened her eyes, and it felt like many things were around her, yet also like there was nothing at all. It was stranger than a dream, but by instinct she seemed to know how to use it. How to use this thing called Authority?
She felt like she remembered something, but before the memory could surface, it was covered again by something unknown. Ham shook her head, confused, wondering if she had just spaced out. "To use Empathic Communion… hmm, should I go find Sylvia first?"
Just before Ham entered this place, Vera had said a lot. Things like how Empathic Communion usually depended on affinity with that dragon and bloodline density. In other words, you could not casually connect to a dragon you did not know at all, not even by name, which made Ham a bit regretful since she had wanted to try connecting to the big Black Dragon she met before who might have been one of her Ancestors.
"For now, I can only make do with Sylvia."
Ham moved around as if swimming, drifting toward a vaguely familiar silver light. She reached out her hand, somehow knowing how to use it, how to communicate and connect. As her fingers touched the special silver glow, golden threads extended from her fingertips.
"Wait a second." "Eh?"
Suddenly, pain struck the back of her head. It was not the familiar feeling of Sylvia pinning her down, but the dull pain of being hit with a club.