'Huh...?'
Raon stopped abruptly just as he was about to cut through the Dragon Lord's neck where the Dragon Heart was hidden with his Divine Sword.
'What's happening?'
His hand wouldn't move. The fingertips of his right hand that had been swinging the Divine Sword to cut the Dragon Lord's neck suddenly stiffened, and then his wrist, arm, and his entire upper body began to freeze in an instant.
'Did the Dragon Lord do something to me?'
Raon bit his lip deeply. He had been so focused on attacking that he hadn't noticed, but it seemed the Dragon Lord had countered with some unusual magic.
'Then I should retreat and assess the situation... Hmm?'
When he tried to use his footwork to step back and assess the Dragon Lord's magic, his legs wouldn't listen either. His entire body, not just his upper half, was beyond his control.
'Did such magic even exist in this world?'
It seemed similar to petrification magic, but it definitely wasn't that. Petrification magic wouldn't work on him, so this had to be some new magic he'd never encountered before.
'As expected of the Dragon Lord.'
Raon gritted his teeth as he looked up at the Dragon Lord with its cold, gleaming eyes.
'It won't die easily, I see.'
He had thought he could end the fight by using the demon kings' authority, but he hadn't expected this kind of counterattack. Breaking free from this situation wouldn't be easy.
'Where should I start...'
-Raon Zieghart!
Wrath flashed his blue eyes toward him.
-Wake up right now...
It seemed like he was trying to say something, but Raon couldn't hear him properly. Now even his ears seemed to be blocked.
'Ah!'
Raon felt the strength completely drain from his grip as he watched Wrath struggling.
'The swords...'
The Divine Sword and the Demonic Sword that he had been forcefully gripping began to slip from his hands and fall to the bottom of the dark dimension.
'I need to make one last attack.'
He tried to use Sword Control to lift at least one of the two swords to attack the Dragon Lord, but now even his head had stiffened, making it impossible to move the swords. His entire body felt like it had turned to stone. A rumbling noise echoed!
Strangely, the Dragon Lord didn't touch him despite his defenseless state, but merely observed him with cold eyes. It seemed as if the Dragon Lord couldn't move either.
Haaa... Raon felt the strange sensation of both his body and soul stiffening as he slowly sank into darkness. With a whooshing sound, when he opened his eyes again, he saw a golden shimmering desert that resembled the Dragon Lord's scales.
'This place...'
It was a desert he had never seen before, a strange place where nothing existed except for the fine golden sand.
'Is this some kind of mental world? How strange... Hmm?'
Raon frowned as he tried to lift his foot.
'My feet won't move.'
His feet were stuck in the desert sand and wouldn't budge.
'No, it's not that I can't move them...'
There's no sensation at all! He couldn't feel anything from his feet buried in the sand. It wasn't painful or itchy; it literally felt as if he had been born without feet.
'Is this mental magic?'
His sturdy body wouldn't be damaged just by being stuck in sand, so it seemed he had fallen victim to the Dragon Lord's mental magic to end up in this state.
'What kind of mental magic could this be... Huh?'
Raon urgently looked down as he recalled the Dragon Lord's gaze.
'It's not just my feet...'
The sensation in his legs is gone too. As the sand that had been covering only his feet rose above his ankles, the feeling below also disappeared. There was still no pain. It felt as if he never had feet or ankles to begin with.
'What is this...'
Raon bit his lip as he watched the sand slowly rising.
'My sensations are being erased continuously.'
As the sand rose higher, the sensation of his body parts buried underneath melted away.
'Damn it!'
Raon frowned as he tried to lift his thighs and waist to escape the sand. A hissing sound emerged as the surrounding sand cascaded down, burying his body even faster.
'No. I was wrong. It's not my body...'
His soul was being erased. This place wasn't reality, but a temporarily created mental world. And what was disappearing wasn't his body, but his very soul.
'Is such magic even possible?'
Raon clenched his fist with a hand that seemed to be losing strength.
'Destroying my soul without even a clash of souls should be impossible even for the Dragon Lord... Ah!'
Thinking about the Dragon Lord, he vaguely remembered the words it had spoken at the end.
'It called my name and commanded me to die.'
The Dragon Lord had shouted his name and commanded him to die just before being struck by the Divine and Demonic Swords. At the time, he thought it was just a desperate act, but now he realized it was magic.
'Dragon Language!'
Raon's jaw trembled as sweat rolled down his face.
'It wished for my death using Dragon's Speech!'
Now he understood. The Dragon Lord had sentenced him to death using Dragon Language. It was literally a magic of absolute authority.
'However, even the Dragon Language isn't omnipotent.'
Even for the Dragon Lord, Dragon Language is a special power that cannot be used freely. Especially since he had demonstrated martial prowess that overwhelmed the Dragon Lord, a death sentence shouldn't be possible even with Dragon Language.
'Could it have borrowed power from another being?'
Come to think of it, he remembered that the Dragon Lord's eyes had flashed with a strange color rather than their original golden hue.
'After saying all humans were rotten, this so-called mediator went and borrowed someone else's power.'
Raon raised his chin, mocking the Dragon Lord.
'I want to kill it right now...'
He bit his lip as he looked at the sand that had risen to his knees.
'What should I do about this.'
The sensation of his senses disappearing and his very existence fading was chilling to the bone.
'Death, huh...'
Raon slowly steadied his breathing as he felt his soul melting in the golden sand.
'This is certainly a terrifying magic. An ordinary person would be paralyzed with fear from this sensation alone. They would have struggled and sunk deeper into the sand. But...'
He had already experienced death. He curled his lips into a smile, imagining the Dragon Lord watching him.
'This will never go as you planned.'
***
"Huh...?"
Bartius gulped dryly as he looked at Raon and the Dragon Lord who had both frozen simultaneously.
"He sentenced him to death using Dragon Language?"
He clutched his ears with his hands as if he had heard something unbelievable.
[That's impossible!]
Black Dragon Dariauran shook his head vigorously.
[Raon Zieghart pushed back the Lord! With such a power difference, how could he exercise absolute authority!]
He lashed out with his tail at a charging Gold Dragon, shouting that such a thing was impossible.
[Raon Zieghart!]
Red Dragon Valasiur called out Raon's name desperately.
[Don't lose to such filthy magic!]
He shook his head vigorously, insisting that it was absolutely impossible with the Dragon Lord's power alone.
[A death sentence...]
Blue Dragon Sirtiren pushed back two dragons with her cold breath as she looked back.
[Disgustingly underhanded till the end.]
She glared at the Dragon Lord, grinding her teeth audibly.
"H-he sentenced him to death with the Dragon Language?"
Dorian's jaw trembled.
"But you just said it was impossible!"
He turned to Bartius, crying out why something supposedly impossible had happened.
"It seems the Lord borrowed power from another being."
Bartius shook his head, saying it wasn't the Lord's power alone.
"The Lord borrowed power from another being?"
Martha bit her lip as she deflected a dragon's magic with her sword.
"Disgusting doesn't even begin to describe it. He called us insects, but he's the parasite!"
She brought her sword down on the neck of a flying dragon as if to release her boiling anger.
"Stay calm"
Burren shook his head as he deflected a dragon's tail that was aiming for Martha's back.
"Just have faith in Raon!"
Though anxious, he focused only on the battle, showing his trust in Raon.
[The situation isn't good.]
White Dragon Bursiarabi narrowed his eyes as he blocked the oncoming dragons with his body.
[It might be better to abandon defense and attack the Dragon Lord.]
He took a deep breath while glaring at the Dragon Lord who had frozen along with Raon.
"That won't work."
"That's not possible."
Evelyn and Bartius shook their heads simultaneously. The two looked at each other, making eye contact for a moment.
"W-what do you mean it won't work?"
Dorian asked, panting after dodging a dragon's breath.
"Their souls are connected right now."
Evelyn frowned deeply.
"If we try to kill the Dragon Lord, Raon could be harmed too."
Because Raon was in danger, she was keeping her head especially cool and assessing the situation.
"She's right."
Bartius nodded with a sigh.
"We can't touch either of them right now."
"T-then what do we..."
Dorian bit his lip as if desperate to find a solution.
"There's only one way."
Bartius narrowed his eyes deeply as he looked at the frozen Raon, pausing mid-thrust with his sword.
"Raon Zieghart must overcome that absolute magic with his power, without relying on anyone else."
***
'Hmm...'
Raon stroked his chin as he looked at the sand that had now risen to his waist.
'Come to think of it, the Dragon Language is no different from martial arts imbued with dragon willpower.'
The Dragon Language wasn't simple magic, but rather seemed like martial arts that manifested dragon willpower through language.
'Then this desert that has sentenced me to death is no different from a sword of the soul imbued with the Dragon Lord's willpower.'
At first, he was confused because the Dragon Lord wasn't visible, but watching the sand erasing him, he could feel that the creature's soul was dwelling within this desert.
'If that's the case, the answer is simple.'
Raon curled his lips into a smile and opened the Ring of Fire. The burning rings that rose behind his back resonated clearly as the realm of his soul began to amplify rapidly. The golden sand that had risen to his waist and was threatening his chest began to recede like an ebbing tide, as if frightened by his soul.
'And to that...'
Raon bit his lip and awakened the demon kings' authority hidden within his soul. Rather than just borrowing their power as before, he brought forth their very emotions. A rumbling sound reverberated!
Wrath, Sloth, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Greed. The emotions of the six demon kings erupted simultaneously, shaking the mental world as if it would collapse. As the heavy sand covering his waist fell away, sensation began to return to the areas where it had disappeared.
'As I thought, this was the right answer.'
Raon felt the Dragon Lord's mental construct shaking as he unleashed all the remaining power of his soul's realm. A deep humming sound resonated!
The Ring of Fire, as if embracing everything, amplified even the demon kings' emotions and began to devour all the sand in the golden desert. It was as if the Demon King of Gluttony herself had descended upon this world.
As the golden sand was swallowed by his soul, black cracks appeared in the void and the mental world shattered into eight pieces.
"Haah..."
When Raon opened his eyes again, the desert was gone and the black cosmos where he had met the Dragon Lord reappeared.
[I-impossible!]
The Dragon Lord gaped, seemingly unable to have anticipated this situation.
[How could a human withstand absolute magic... Kraaaaaaah!]
It trembled violently throughout its body as if experiencing backlash from the death sentence it had proclaimed through the Dragon Language, and let out a scream.
-Y-you're back!
Wrath approached with reddened eyes.
-I was worried, but I should have known!
He lifted his head as if he had believed in Raon all along.
'Of course I came back. Who do you think taught me?'
Raon smiled faintly at Wrath, who had engaged in countless soul battles with him since childhood. He stretched out both hands and grasped the Heavenly Drive and Wooden Ring Sword that had fallen to the bottom of the dimension. Since the Divine-Demonic Harmony had ended, both swords had lost their flame and frost, returning to their original state.
"Thank you."
Raon nodded to the Dragon Lord as he sheathed the Heavenly Drive and Wooden Ring Sword.
"Thanks to you, I remembered what I had forgotten."
He possessed a special experience that no one else in this world had. Death. The experience of living a new life after facing death was something neither Glenn nor Derus had gone through. He summoned a sharper Soul Sword by melting that unique experience into his mental image.
Raon Zieghart-style Swordsmanship. The 9th Form: Life Beyond Death.
The Soul Sword imbued with the willpower of death and life pierced through space-time and embedded itself in the Dragon Lord's soul.