Chapter 143

It was a single clash. The princess still couldn’t fully grasp Yanid’s abilities.

From the start, Yanid wasn’t a knight like her. They didn’t walk the same path, so she couldn’t even begin to guess the extent of her strength.

That’s why a probing battle was necessary. Since Ardein was a swordsman, she had some leeway.

If a mage had stood before this girl, even if it were the Oldman Tower Master of the Magic Tower or the genius mage Parnell, they wouldn’t have lasted a second. Dragons are the masters of magic.

“The Song of the Explosive Dragon… so easily…”

The princess made a bewildered expression, then suddenly swung her sword. A hand jutted out from the smoke. Even though she struck it with her sword, all she heard was the clang of metal against metal. Yanid wasn’t hurt at all.

The sword wrapped around Yanid’s hand was made of dragon scales, similar in strength to the dragon teeth that make up the Dragon’s Sword. It was more than enough to defend against the attack.

Right now, Yanid had covered her entire body with dragon scales. Her defense was so high it was almost embarrassing to call her a living being.

*Clang!*

Even when she poured all her magical power into the Dragon’s Sword and struck down, it only pushed Yanid back momentarily. The blade couldn’t cut through her. It just made a light sound as it bounced off.

And now, even the Dragon Vein wasn’t on her side. The Dragon Vein was no longer just lending her power—it was actively siding with Yanid.

“Haah.”

With just a simple inhale, Yanid replenished all her spent magical power and charged again, her eyes glowing.

Her martial arts were crude, almost nonexistent. She had no special techniques or secrets. In terms of skill, she was as low as someone who had never fought before.

But she was tough, fast, and strong. Her speed was so fast that even Ardein’s eyes could barely keep up.

Her movements were clearly crude, but they were so fast that they didn’t seem crude anymore! Her basic physical abilities were on a completely different level. Just by looking, it was clear her racial stats were far higher than the princess’s.

“Wh-what kind of monster is this…?”

There was no time to use any fancy techniques. Yanid appeared like the wind, clenching and thrusting her hands. Even without a weapon, Yanid’s body itself was a human weapon.

Her simple hands could easily pierce through human flesh. Whether protective techniques could block that was a question best left unanswered, lest the result be a resounding “no.”

In the end, the only way to counter an attack was with another attack. Without time to properly accumulate magical power, the Dragon’s Sword had to use whatever power it could gather on the spot.

‘Th-this is insane…’

Ardein was shocked. This was a fight worth trying. It was tough, and she was slightly overwhelmed, but it was still doable. And that made it even scarier.

The current Yanid wasn’t in her right mind. She was almost purely instinctual. Her techniques were no different from an orangutan’s, and the only thing she could rely on was her body.

And yet, with just that body, she was pushing Ardein, a master, to her limits! If this were a real dragon, magic and draconic language would have been added to the mix. And if you considered the dragon’s most powerful weapon, the breath, it was enough to make anyone break out in a cold sweat.

Now she understood why scholars called dragons transcendent species. This was a fundamentally different level of existence.

But just as she was barely holding on, Ardein’s gaze suddenly shifted to Yanid’s mouth.

She didn’t know why she looked there. Maybe she sensed the flow of magical power, or maybe her master’s sense of danger kicked in. For some reason, the girl’s mouth seemed darker than the rest of her.

A chill ran down her spine. Her instincts screamed a warning.

Her mind didn’t understand why this was dangerous, but it didn’t matter. It was dangerous, and that was reason enough. Ardein hastily retreated, leaping high into the air toward the ceiling.

“Kyaak!”

A storm of darkness, shaped and tangible, burst forth with Yanid’s exhale. Even though she wasn’t in her right mind and couldn’t use magic, her breath, connected to her instincts, was still usable.

The dragon’s most powerful weapon. The evolution chosen by the overwhelmingly powerful dragons to kill each other. The most certain dragon-slaying technique, capable of piercing through each other’s scales.

The Dragon’s Breath erupted from that small mouth. If Ardein, a human and not a dragon, were to be hit directly by that, not even a single bone would remain.

The dragon’s breath shot through the ceiling, easily piercing the Imperial Palace and shooting into the sky. Just being grazed by it was enough to send the princess crashing to the ground.

*Boom!*

“Kuhuk!”

Ardein tried to stand but fell again. Black blood spilled from her mouth.

The Black Dragon’s Breath was also the most potent poison. The breath of the Black Dragon stripped away the target’s outer layer while seeping inside, annihilating them from within and without. Even though she had fully activated her Dragon Form Technique, her skin was charred black.

“Haah… haah…”

But Yanid, who had unleashed this, wasn’t unscathed either. She wasn’t a real dragon. She still had human parts.

The evolution dragons adopted to kill each other, the breath, was a heavy burden even for real dragons. Yanid staggered and fell.

But she soon got up again. With a twisted smile, the girl whose mouth was torn up to her cheeks slowly rose and looked around at her body.

“It’s a truly perfect body, isn’t it?”

Ardein didn’t answer. Slowly, the princess reached into her pocket.

A shabby jar was in her hand. It was something Kyle had given her before she reunited with her father.

The Beacon of the Sanctuary. The Baptismal Flask. The Firefly Meringue. The Salt Mill.

That man had packed all four of these and sent her to her father. In the end, only the Beacon of the Sanctuary was needed to save the Emperor.

After that, the Firefly Meringue also went into the Emperor’s mouth. So, two items were still left. Ardein tightly gripped the Baptismal Flask. She didn’t have the strength to open the lid, so she simply crushed the bottle with her grip.

*Crack!*

The bottle shattered, and water spilled out. Holy Water didn’t need to be drunk—just contact was enough.

Though her body was drenched, getting wet was a trivial matter in the face of life and death. Ardein let out a sigh of relief. That man, even from so far away, had protected her once again.

“Beautiful. Truly beautiful. Yes, I knew you’d hold out. I knew you could contain my divinity.”

The girl now had no interest in Ardein. The moment she had long awaited had finally arrived.

The god who had taken over Yanid’s body now had nothing to fear. Along with the immense magical power a dragon should possess, the divine power of the Evil God faintly flowed. The divine power’s momentum far surpassed that of a saint.

One of the Five Great Deities of the continent. The Evil God Oberta.

There was no longer any doubt about the opponent’s identity. She had descended into this reality with a body. That alone made her an opponent who couldn’t be defeated.

If a single master could kill a god, why would the continent worship such a god and enshrine them as one of the Five Great Deities? And was that body just any ordinary body? It was the body of a Dragon Chimera.

A hybrid possessing both the power of a god and a dragon had been born.

“Oh my. You’re still not dead. No, you seem even more intact now.”

That being looked at Ardein and spoke. The princess slowly stepped back.

No matter how she thought about it, she couldn’t see a way to win this fight.

“I didn’t know one of the Five Great Deities of the continent would stoop to stealing the body of a poor child.”

If the sword couldn’t provide an answer, she had to use her mouth. Ardein threw out whatever words came to mind. She had never paid attention to Oberta before, so she knew nothing about her.

“Oh my, thank you for the compliment.”

What came back was laughter. Yanid—no, the being that had taken over her body—laughed brightly.

Ardein had a feeling. Words wouldn’t work here. Honestly, if words could reach her, Oberta wouldn’t be called an Evil God, would she?

“Then, will you die now? Don’t worry. Compared to a master, how strong I am now—you can be the test subject. You probably won’t have any regrets even in death.”

The moment she saw that grinning face, Ardein let out a sigh. She closed her eyes but didn’t give up.

Oberta spread her palm. Even without opening her eyes, Ardein could sense the immense power gathering there through her energy sense.

A purple sphere of light, created by drawing out the maximum power of the Dragon Vein. It far surpassed her own power. The fact that such power could be gathered just by spreading a palm was, of course, because this was the Dragon Vein.

But she couldn’t forget that it was also because that woman’s power far exceeded her current self. She was no match.

‘Dragon Form Technique can’t block that. What’s left is…’

The emptiness that Leyman had shown. The ultimate void that couldn’t be reached by filling.

Could she imitate it? Even for just a moment, could she embody that emptiness?

If she could, she might at least buy some time to scatter the salt.

The princess took out a millstone from the shabby jar and planted it in the ground.

“Suddenly a millstone? Are you asking me to grind your corpse and scatter it? Even if there’s no corpse left, just ashes, would that be necessary?”

Ignoring the Evil God’s taunts, she turned the millstone to make salt. Even she thought it was pathetic, but this was all she had left to rely on. Ardein recalled Kyle’s words.

-“Saint, what is that millstone? I’ve never seen it before.”

-“It’s a millstone that creates salt to repel impurity, ward off calamity, and exorcise evil spirits. If His Majesty’s collapse is due to a curse or evil spirits, just scattering the salt should be effective.”

She wasn’t sure if that thing could be called an evil spirit, but she could only hope that the so-called God of Hope would think so. She clasped her hands together and prayed fervently.

If you steal someone’s body, that makes you an evil spirit, right? Please, just agree with me. Please.

She prayed and prayed, but no answer came. With the most devout heart, she grabbed a handful of salt.

The Evil God stared at Ardein with a blank expression. Today, she witnessed yet another proof that extreme fear drives people mad.

“Hey, have you lost your mind? I’m sorry about this.”

Oberta scratched her head, then suddenly turned serious.

“But dying is still inevitable.”

She fired the sphere of light, its power amplified several times by the fusion of magical and divine power. With salt in her left hand, a sword in her right, and her pockets stuffed with salt, the princess leaped into the air.

In any case, this was the only way.