Conventional attacks were almost useless here. He had no choice but to unleash his strongest power.
He steadied himself, ignoring the searing pain and biting cold tearing through his body. Within his dragon maw, the familiar blazing golden Explosive Dragonfire Projectile began to condense once more.
This time, he held nothing back.
The dragonfire projectile didn't grow much larger, but the color of its core shifted, slowly transforming from blazing gold into a far more terrifying platinum white.
The surrounding space let out a silent wail under the pressure of the highly compressed energy. Even the distant starlight seemed to bend, distorted by its pull.
Sensing the mortal threat, the conjoined monster let out an even sharper shriek, trying once again to disrupt Lo Quen with a psychic assault.
At the same time, the fleshy tumor connecting their bodies pulsed violently. Dark crimson and icy blue energies crashed and fused within it, finally forming a magical sphere in front of them, half blood-red, half ice-blue.
The fluctuations radiating from that sphere were no weaker than Lo Quen's platinum Explosive Dragonfire Projectile.
Golden light flared violently in Lo Quen's dragon eyes as he fired the platinum Explosive Dragonfire Projectile, condensed to its absolute limit.
Almost simultaneously, the conjoined monster launched its own magical energy sphere, imbued with the fused powers of ice and fire.
Two destructive energies, each representing a different ultimate extreme, streaked across the silent cosmic void, carving blinding trails as they rushed toward each other.
BOOM!!!!!!!!!!!
An explosion beyond words erupted.
There was no sound, only overwhelming light.
A miniature artificial sun was born at the point of impact, instantly illuminating the endless starry expanse.
A terrifying shockwave expanded outward in a perfect sphere, vaporizing several nearby small asteroids on the spot.
At the heart of the blast, space itself shattered like glass, revealing an even deeper, multicolored void beyond.
Lo Quen was hurled away by the catastrophic shockwave. His massive dragon body tumbled through the vacuum, golden scales shattering and charring as dragonblood scattered into the void.
He felt his internal organs shift violently, as though even his soul had been cracked by the impact.
The conjoined monster fared no better.
Its fused body was torn apart by the explosion, dark red flesh and ice-blue tissue spraying in all directions. The connecting tumor was nearly obliterated, held together by only a few ragged strands of flesh.
Weak, agonized cries escaped them as their presence rapidly waned.
Lo Quen forced himself to endure the pain and dizziness, a trace of ruthless resolve flashing through his eyes.
He couldn't give the monster even a moment to recover, nor could he risk the disturbance here awakening that slumbering black shadow.
Squeezing out the last of his strength, he opened his dragon maw once more as another platinum-white Explosive Dragonfire Projectile began to form.
The conjoined monster struggled, attempting to gather its power again.
But the damage was too severe. The connection between them was nearly severed, and the energies inside their warped bodies clashed chaotically, spiraling out of control. They could no longer mount any meaningful defense.
Lo Quen's eyes flashed.
The second platinum Explosive Dragonfire Projectile, carrying a pale, deathly flame, crossed the void in an instant and slammed straight into the monster's nearly exposed core tumor.
BOOM!!!
Pale flames erupted from within the monster, raging through its body.
Dark red flesh was reduced to ash, while ice-blue tissue dissolved and vaporized as if meeting its natural bane.
The tumor binding them together let out one final shriek, like countless souls screaming at once, before exploding completely.
There was no energy dispersal. No remnants left behind.
The twin monster, embodiment of the ice-and-fire source and the embryo of the Old Gods, was erased from existence at the most fundamental level.
At the very moment the monster vanished, Lo Quen felt a vast, pure surge of primordial energy flood into his body.
A system notification rang out.
[Dragonblood Purity increased to 100%! Ultimate Skill: Second Form Unlocked!]
Lo Quen had barely registered the good news before the starry sky illusion changed once again.
Crack… crash…
The sound was like a mirror shattering.
With the death of the conjoined monster, the entire cosmic illusion began to convulse violently and collapse. Stars winked out, nebulae dispersed. The deep universe backdrop peeled away in fragments like a fading canvas.
The slumbering black shadow stretching across the distance blurred and warped amid the disintegration, then shattered along with the illusion itself.
A powerful sensation of spatial displacement struck once more.
When Lo Quen's vision finally stabilized, he realized he was no longer in the starry void, but at the bottom of a boundless ocean.
Immense water pressure bore down from every direction. The icy seawater swallowed both light and sound, leaving only eternal darkness and silence. From time to time, strange deep-sea creatures emitting a ghastly pale glow drifted through the distance, casting twisted, fleeting shadows.
Beneath his limbs lay soft, viscous silt, as though it had accumulated countless ages of death.
"Where… am I?"
A chill ran through Lo Quen's heart.
He had shattered the starry illusion, yet instead of returning to K'Dath, he had arrived in an even more oppressive deep-sea realm.
Lo Quen's golden dragon eyes pierced the layers of darkness as he surveyed this unknown domain. His gaze passed jagged deep-sea reefs, the enormous wreckage of sunken ships, and skeletal remains half-buried in the silt…
Suddenly—
His eyes locked onto a distant stretch of relatively flat seabed.
There were no grand structures there, no surging magical fluctuations. Only silence.
He saw it.
At the center of that still expanse, resting atop the silt, stood a chair carved from black stone.
And seated upon that chair was a figure.
A… dwarf.
Short in stature, dressed in simple robes of indiscernible material. His face was hidden within the shadows of the deep sea, impossible to make out clearly, save for a pair of eyes that seemed to reflect the entire abyss.
He sat there quietly, as though he had existed at the ocean's depths since time immemorial, perfectly fused with the surrounding stillness.
There was no imposing presence, no outward surge of magic.
Yet Lo Quen could see it clearly.
Centered on that dwarf, countless strands of magic, so fine they were nearly imperceptible, spread silently in all directions. They extended into the endless dark sea, pierced through the barriers of space itself, linking to the Bleeding Sea of K'Dath, to the Black Stones, to the struggle between ice and fire, to the countless branching streams of the river of fate.
Sudden realization struck Lo Quen like a bolt of lightning.
The dwarf by the sea!
The third prophecy of the House of the Undying, the image most easily overlooked.
It was not the Iron Islands. Not a symbolic dwarf.
It was literal. A dwarf hidden in the depths of the ocean, manipulating everything from the shadows.
In that instant, every clue connected.
The mastermind spoken of by the Bloodstone Emperor. The one pushing the conflict between the Lord of Light and the God of Cold. The distributor of the Black Stone. Even the slumbering black shadow within the starry illusion was likely bound to him.
This seemingly insignificant dwarf was the true conspirator lurking behind every catastrophe.
As if sensing Lo Quen's gaze piercing through space itself, the dwarf seated upon the stone chair slowly raised his head.
Across the endless darkness of the deep sea, across an unfathomable distance, Lo Quen felt as though he met those abyss-reflecting eyes.
Who… was he?