Chapter 130: Twelve Years (Part 2)

Muria watched as the giant claw, formed from black flames, reached towards him. His golden eyes, calm and detached with a hint of mockery, reflected his disdain. After all, he had lost count of how many second-tier soul-intent demons he had killed in the abyssal training ground over the last twelve years.

The golden dragon extended a claw, wrapped in swirling thunder and dragon flame, completely enveloping his paw. From afar, it appeared to grow several times thicker in that instant.

"Boom!" Black sparks scattered, falling to the ground and corroding it with a sizzling noise. Muria crushed the ram-horned demon's attack with one swipe of his claw, and in the demon's shocked gaze, the golden claw struck its grotesque head. A loud crash of breaking bones and the sound of something heavy tearing through the air filled the area.

"How is this possible?" Black-grey demonic blood sprayed into the air as the ram-horned demon described a beautiful parabola through the sky before crashing heavily to the ground. It carved a trench hundreds of meters long upon landing, with bits of black flame clinging to it, pockmarking the once-smooth trench.

"Cough! Cough!" The ram-horned demon staggered to its feet, its neck twisted at an unnatural angle after Muria's powerful swipe had nearly rotated its head one hundred eighty degrees.

While coughing up blood, the demon reached up with its scaled and hairy paws to adjust its head back into place with a loud "crack!"

"That hurts like hell." The demon hissed in pain. One of its horns was broken, and the side of its head was severely indented and deformed, with an eyeball protruding grotesquely as if ready to burst, adding to its already repulsive appearance.

"It won't hurt for much longer." A cold, emotionless voice spoke from behind it, accompanied by the booming sound of air being forced apart.

Though the demon was wreathed in flames, it felt not a hint of warmth but rather an icy chill that swept through its body—an instinctual response to a lethal threat.

Six pure black rings of soul intent appeared behind it, each ring containing the faces of tiny beings in torment, their wails echoing from within, spreading an aura of fear. The black flames grew more intense, corroding the air with a sizzling noise.

Muria, having just slapped the ram-horned demon into the air, lit up with spiritual light and entered a massive portal that formed beneath him. As he flapped his wings and descended, a similar portal opened right behind the demon.

Muria's majestic and elongated dragon body emerged from the portal, occupying half his length. His tail, sharp as a lance, whipped through the air charged with wind and thunder, targeting the severely twisted head of the ram-horned demon.

"Final struggle!" Muria noted the rings of tortured souls behind the demon, flames of anger rising. The souls in the demon's rings were not mere illusions; they were drawn from living beings and trapped there.

With a resounding "snap," accompanied by a burst of intense cracking and a sound like bursting fruit, bone, and viscera splattered in a gruesome display. Then, the ram-horned demon's headless body staggered and fell.

At the jagged break in its neck, muscles and blood vessels twitched and began to regrow, trying to reconstruct its most vital component.

With a swift flick, Muria's lance-like tail, wrapped in dragon flame, swept across the headless body, slicing it into countless pieces. The dragon flame consumed all life, reducing the demon to ash.

Muria, in his draconic form, regarded the soul-intent demon's defenses as nothing. His tail whip decapitated the ram-horned demon with ease, his tail proving even more effective than his claws for unleashing the dragon's brute physical strength.

Muria's three strikes turned a soul-intent level demon to dust, signaling the start of a larger battle. Dragons from the sky swooped down, engaging in melee with the surviving demons.

Compared to magical attacks, the chromatic dragons preferred close-quarters combat, especially the younger ones who relished the simplicity of using their innate advantages to utterly dominate their foes.

Roars and cries echoed, fire, frost, lightning, and acid flew in all directions. As the dragons landed to fight, the area instantly turned into a battlefield filled with shouts of combat.

As the dragons descended, this area had already been bombarded with a heavy barrage of magical attacks, killing most of the weaker demons, leaving only some elite silver-tier and gold-tier demons alive.

Thus, when the chromatic dragon horde descended, these surviving demons, although fierce, were overwhelmingly outnumbered and outclassed by Muria's carefully trained dragons. The battle began with the demons at a significant disadvantage.

One after another, demons were torn apart by the dragons, their deaths gruesome. Muria even saw a particularly unlucky demon targeted by five dragons at once, its limbs, wings, and tail each grasped by a relentless dragon.

"Rip!" The body of the gold-tier demon was torn apart like cheap fabric, without a chance to struggle. For this unfortunate demon, it was not a battle but a high-grade execution, dismembered by five dragons.

However, the intense battle and the cacophony of combat attracted the attention of wandering demons from other areas. Several soul-intent level demons began moving toward this region, and as the great demons stirred, numerous gold-tier demons followed, and then the entire area became more chaotic.

Following the strong is the instinct of the weak.

As the demons drawn by the battle saw the carnage below—a landscape covered in corpses where dragons and demons clashed amid the stench of blood—they joined the fray without hesitation, ensuring the battle raged on.

"Muria, soul-intent level demons are approaching." Amidst directing the dragons to handle the incoming foes, a dire dragon roar reached Muria.

Looking in the direction of the roar, he saw a Barlowe demon, standing on ten rings of soul intent, laughing menacingly as it clashed with a muscular red dragon. The red dragon was clearly losing, one of its wings already torn off, spewing hot dragon blood.

Nearby, two slightly smaller red dragons were desperately interfering, preventing their elder from being killed on the spot.

"Cassio!" At this sight, a flash of brilliant light passed over Muria as the golden dragon transformed into a black-haired, golden-eyed Titan. As he called out, a teleportation circle appeared beside him, and a massive bow emerged from it.

Muria grasped the metal bow, drew back the string, and the forces of wind, thunder, and flame wildly surged into the bow, condensing into a dazzling golden arrow.