Chapter 1284: Ion’s Confusion
Whoosh…!
In the whistling winds, an enormous black dragon appeared in the air. Erin had returned to her original form. The mighty, pitch-black Dark Dragon soared above the heaven, staring at Ion who was struck to the ground. Facing the Dark Dragon, Ion revealed a fanatical expression.
“I didn’t expect you to show up before me, Erin.”
“Big Brother…”
Upon hearing Ion’s words, Erin remained silent for a few seconds. She was speechless at the sight of the dragon that was entirely influenced by Chaos. She felt complicated as soon as she saw Ion. But eventually, she closed her eyes, let out a sigh, and opened her eyes again. The instant she widened her eyes, there wasn’t any hint of confusion in her golden eyes anymore. She stayed quiet as she lifted her head high. Shortly after, along with this action, the silver moon hanging in the night sky shone a silver-whitish light column that shrouded her completely. Her pitch-black body glowed in the shade of silver moonlight. In the blink of an eye, a beautiful, mesmerizing silver dragon emerged before everyone. Erin didn’t speak a word. She flapped her wings, extended her claws, and swooped down at Ion! Facing this attack from Erin, Ion had no intention of backing down either. They were no longer on the same page now; not even their kins.h.i.+p could stand between the fight of Chaos and Order. Right now, only one of them could exist in this world!
Without glancing at the players who were attacking him, Ion let out a fierce bellow, stood to his feet forcefully, and jumped on Erin. At the same time, he widened his mouth and aimed for her throat.
Boom!
The two enormous dragons crashed into each other in a powerful clash, causing the land to rumble uncontrollably. At that moment, the players who encircled Ion withdrew from the battlefield immediately. Erin and Ion had both restored their dragon forms. Besides, one of them was a Chaos Dragon, while the other was a newborn Dark Dragon; both of them had unprecedented strength. In this collision, one would definitely perish if one were swept into their battle!
“Everyone, get ready to aim your attacks at Ion and support Erin. You know the drill.”
Looking at this scene, Rhode twitched his brows. He knew what Erin was thinking deep down in her mind. Even though she agreed to fight alongside his group, as a matter of fact, she still wished to defeat Ion by herself. If not, she didn’t need to restore her dragon form and engage in a close fight because the fighting range between two dragons was so vast that ordinary people couldn’t intervene. Unless Rhode restored his dragon form, he would also have a hard time intercepting. However, he had no intention of being a bait for Ion’s attacks. Erin once told him about her big brother’s hatred toward him. Come to think of it, if it weren’t for Rhode who spoiled all of Ion’s plans all this while, would Ion end up like this? Rhode wouldn’t be afraid of Ion if he could show up in Void Dragon form. But now, he was only a level 85 peak player. If Ion were to come for him, he would be in real trouble. That was why Rhode stood by the rear of his party and gave commands instead.
Besides, he also wasn’t worried because players were beings who slaughtered BOSSes under all kinds of harsh environments. Would two dragons battling each other be enough to stop them from dealing damage to the BOSS?
Impossible.
At this thought, Rhode faced the dragons, extended his arm, and tapped his finger gently in midair. Then, he smiled.
Ring!
“You’ve entered the elite squad.”
The instant Rhode did that, a line of odd text appeared before Erin’s eyes. Upon witnessing the text, she was taken aback. She couldn’t understand why such a strange thing showed up in front of her. But now, she didn’t have the time to care about that. On the contrary, she flipped over to evade Ion’s bite, raised her claws, and slashed at Ion’s chest with force. But before she struck Ion, the latter turned around, swung his enormous tail, and slammed it onto her body. In a deafening collision, Erin was struck away. At the same time, Ion snapped his jaw open and spit a turbid dragon breath at her!
“Roar!”
Although Ion was stronger in physical combat, Erin wasn’t a weakling either. The instant she flew off upon impact, she retaliated swiftly. Facing Ion’s dragon breath, she let out a snarl and all of a sudden, eight silver-whitish runes spun before her, metamorphosing into a smooth, sleek mirror. Ion’s dragon breath blasted the mirror and scattered in all directions without hurting Erin one bit. Erin counterattacked. The golden radiance in her eyes grew more dazzling. No matter what, this was the territory of the Country of Darkness. Under the dragon soul protection, this was her kingdom!
All of a sudden, the surrounding darkness ‘brightened’.
Along with the golden radiance emanating from her eyes, the silver-whitish moonlight from the night sky became ever brighter. At the same time, patches of shadows over the land grew thicker. In an instant, the entire world became bizarre as though everything were slowly turning black and white!
“What the heck. She doesn’t need to go this far, right? Why do I have to suffer from this again after returning from Shadow Ravine?”
Looking at this scene, Mini Bubble Gum couldn’t help but cry out in grief. Of course, she knew what Erin was trying to do. As a ‘Dark Dragon’, Erin was also a dominator of the shadow realm. It was apparent that she was summoning the shadow realm into the main plane for this battle!
“…!”
Along with Erin’s snarl, everything changed all of a sudden. The shadows twisted, warped, and coalesced into a huge blade, shuttling out of the ground and slas.h.i.+ng Ion. Facing this attack from Erin, Ion reacted swiftly. He fluttered his wings forward and with this move, a burst of gales erupted, took up a physical shape, and ripped the shadowy blade into shreds. But it was a pity that… Erin wasn’t his only enemy.
Boom!
Just as Ion repulsed Erin’s attack, a loud explosion sounded all of a sudden. A fire elemental creature that was as tall as them rose from the ground. Its body was made up entirely of hot lava, donning a bright red armor and wielding a gigantic, translucent war hammer in its hand. The fire elemental creature roared and raised the war hammer in its hand, swinging down heavily at Ion. At that moment, Ion couldn’t react in time after successfully resisting Erin’s attack and was struck by the war hammer mercilessly. In an instant, sparks splashed all over the place. The scorching fire elements streamed down the war hammer and burned Ion. However, Ion possessed the power of Chaos, after all, and wasn’t afraid of the fire element at all. He turned around abruptly, and his wings spread out in a powerful ‘whoosh’ to form a barrier against the war hammer. Immediately after, Ion stretched out his right claw, lunged at the fire elemental creature before him, and punctured right through. Although he was no longer a dragon soul heir, the power he received from Chaos put him on par against the dragon soul heirs. Even though the fire elemental creature before him was high in level, it wasn’t an elemental lord, after all. Shortly after, it dissipated into smoke under this a.s.sault from Ion.
But this wasn’t the end yet.
The instant the fire elemental creature crumbled, bl.u.s.tering winds erupted from behind Ion. The strong airwaves spiraled into a ma.s.sive tornado that blotted out the sky with flashes of lightning bolts. Shortly after, the ma.s.sive wind elemental creature pounced on Ion without any consideration for itself. Ion, who had just repelled the fire elemental creature, was caught unprepared by this trouble behind him. He failed to dodge the attack and was captured immediately. The winds continued to gust, trapping his huge body in a death grip. The flas.h.i.+ng lightning linked up to form a prison of chains that bound him tightly. Even Ion, right now, was overwhelmed in the face of this wind elemental a.s.sault!
“Big Brother!”
Looking at this scene, Erin hesitated for a moment, but eventually continued her attack. Everything took less than a minute from Erin’s attack being stopped to the battle between Ion, the fire elemental creature, and the wind elemental creature. But it was this duration that caused Ion to fall in defeat. Erin pondered no more. Although she hoped to take on her big brother alone, there was no point in being indecisive since the situation had already turned out this way. She leaped and pounced on the Chaos Dragon before her.
At the same time, she was also prepared to be struck by the wind elemental creature. But what astonished her was that the moment she rushed into the body of that wind elemental creature, she wasn’t hurt at all. Although the powerful winds and dazzling lightning bolts were right beside her, she didn’t feel anything in the slightest. If it weren’t for her witnessing Ion being trapped in the tornado, perhaps she would have suspected if she were hallucinating!
“Everyone, let’s do it! Attack!”
As soon as Erin pounced on Ion, Rhode raised his eyebrows and gave his order straight away. Along with his order, all kinds of light around him, be it magical, spiritual, or holy, were unleashed at once, emanating over the pitch-black land like spots of starlight, heading for Erin and Ion from all directions like a wild storm.
These skills were the extraordinary, acc.u.mulated power from four to five squads of elite players. In an instant, flares and sacred brilliance almost shrouded the two ma.s.sive dragons altogether. The dazzling lights made even the moonlight seem dull in comparison. In the earlier clash between Erin and Ion, even though Rhode gave a few simple commands, all the players understood what he meant. As a matter of fact, Rhode was using Erin as the ‘main tanker’ in this scenario. And now that Erin was attracting the ‘vengeance’ from Ion, Rhode didn’t need to worry too much on his end and ordered his players to gather all attacks on Ion right away.
Logically speaking, Erin wouldn’t be able to withstand this extent of attack. However, the truth was otherwise. Even Erin was surprised to find out that the attacks that landed on her actually pa.s.sed through her and struck the helpless Ion instead!
If they were in the Dragon Soul Continent of the past, perhaps they wouldn’t be able to achieve this. But now, the Dragon Soul Continent had merged entirely with the rules of the gaming world. Since resurrection spells were already accepted, it wasn’t surprising that allies weren’t hurt by friendly fire. However, Rhode was ent.i.tled to this setting because he was the controller of the system interface. He was the only one who could invite others into his party and be free from friendly fire. Since Erin had joined his party, it went without saying that the attacks wouldn’t inflict any damage on her. When did one ever witness a party wiping out their very own main tanker when luring monsters?
“No… No…!”
Under the combined siege of Erin, Rhode, and the elite players, Ion couldn’t hold on much longer. He had a hard time escaping the void storm earlier and also took quite a bit of damage. Erin, on the other hand, was out of action all this time. She had plenty of power to unleash and in addition to Rhode’s unruliness in leading hundreds of peak players against Ion, Ion didn’t stand a chance. A tiger was no match for a pack of wolves, not to mention a paper tiger like Ion in this situation. More importantly, in this world of Order, he who became the Chaos Dragon was completely inhibited by the rules of Chaos, so he didn’t have much strength to retaliate with.
How is this possible? How is this possible?!
Facing the overwhelming attacks from all directions, the wrath burning deep inside Ion suddenly extinguished, only to be replaced by an ice-cold emotion like the deep, dark, bottomless abyss. He was once so ambitious, believing that he could lead the Chaos army in breaking through the Dragon Soul Continent to let the world see his very own power.
That was his only wish.
He needed power, power of his own. In fact, Ion was terrified after learning that the dragon soul heir would eventually be chosen between Erin and himself. He knew he was no match for his younger sister in any way. Although he tried really, really hard, it still wasn’t enough. However, he had to prove himself… Prove himself… Why? For what?
Why must I prove myself? Why must I prove that I’m stronger than my sister, the other dragon soul heirs, and everyone? It is for the sake of proving himself that he yearns to dominate the Dragon Soul Continent. But in the end, he failed… So why exactly did I fail?
At that moment, Ion’s head was in complete disorder.
For who exactly am I trying to prove myself to? Come to think of it, who am I? That’s right, I’m Ion, the dragon soul heir. No, am I not the Chaos Dragon now? No, he isn’t the Chaos Dragon; he doesn’t even have his own power. All his power comes from Chaos. He submitted himself to Chaos in exchange for power, but why is he still defeated?
Ion’s vision turned all blurry. The pain in his body made him fail to pull himself together. On the contrary, he felt like his consciousness was fading away, and he was becoming more dazed. His only thought was that he was about to fail. And why he failed…
At that moment, Ion heard a voice in his head. That voice sounded so vague, and yet so clear.
“… Because you don’t belong to true Chaos…”
The instant Ion heard that voice, his consciousness came to an end.
Erin swiped her razor-sharp claw forward, ripping apart Ion’s chest mercilessly. This was their biggest weakness, the backbone of the dragon race. Now, it became Ion’s point of death. Pitch-black blood gushed out of the deep, ghastly wound. Ion finally couldn’t hold on any longer as he collapsed to the ground.
“… It’s over, Big Brother…”
Gazing at the lifeless Ion, Erin pondered for some moments, widened her mouth, and took in a deep breath.
“Oh no! Cleric, shrink your defenses!”
But at the same time, Rhode suddenly gave an entirely different order. Upon hearing his command, Mini Bubble Gum sulked instantly. She extended her arm, made a gripping action on Erin, and pulled her arm back abruptly!
Along with this action, a gigantic right hand of light shone in midair, gripped Erin by her tail, and dragged her far away from Ion’s body.
At the same time, a turbid brilliance erupted from Ion’s body, coalescing into an enormous creature that snapped its jaws at Erin!