Chapter 356

Chapter 356
## Chapter 356

The Aerial Fiend of the Skies (2)

In the realm of Ganghwange, the apex predators known as the dragons were split into two primary factions.

First were the Five Dragons, who inherited their lofty status by right of birth. Second were the Ascended Dragons, who forged their path through grueling self-improvement and relentless cultivation.

Yet, when it came to sheer capability, the gap between them was negligible.

The Five Dragons possessed the deep reservoir of ancestral power and wisdom passed down through generations. Conversely, those who successfully navigated the Dragon Gate—a trial so brutal that a mere one in a thousand emerged victorious—beheld an equal measure of might.

It was akin to comparing nobility who inherited vast fortunes to self-made magnates who constructed empires through sheer grit and willpower.

The core issue lay in the deeply ingrained prejudice that followed.

Revered as the direct lineage of the Dragon God, the Five Dragons wielded unmatched authority and claimed the highest privileges. Meanwhile, the Ascended Dragons, despite achieving an identical pinnacle of strength, found themselves relegated to the same standing as ordinary mythical beasts.

This disparity was starkly visible in the leadership hierarchy of the Golden Island Sect.

As a grand coalition of various mythical entities and fiends, the sect’s governing council was fluid, shifting its roster over time, though it generally maintained a count of ten to twelve rulers.

Of those seats, five were permanently occupied by the Five Dragons.

Because it functioned as a cooperative alliance, the Five Dragons refrained from seizing every single position, meaning only a solitary Ascended Dragon—the Winged Dragon—was typically granted entry into the high council.

The remaining authority was divided among the other prominent mythical species, such as the Nine-Tailed Fox, the Black Tortoise, and the Kirin.

Understandably, this arrangement bred quiet animosity.

However, because the Ascended Dragons had shattered their personal limitations through agonizing discipline, they rarely voiced discontent. The vast majority chose to focus on expanding their own boundaries rather than entangling themselves in political struggles.

Yet, uniformity is a myth.

There existed a singular anomaly.

‘Are they utterly brainwashed? How can they passively endure such blatant inequity?’

He found the status quo completely intolerable.

They dared suggest he should remain satisfied with his lot simply because his veins lacked the pure, unadulterated blood of the Dragon God?

He, too, carried that divine heritage, even if it was a distant, diluted branch—he was a forgotten offspring of the same deity.

Despite his draconic nature, he had been relegated to the status of a common fiend until the day he conquered the Dragon Gate and forced them to acknowledge his existence!

‘The agonizing effort I poured into reaching this summit…!’

Millennia of punishing meditation, shattering his own limits time and again…

And for what? To still be deemed inferior to them?

A searing fury and a profound sense of victimization clawed at him whenever he endured their casual arrogance and the insidious favoritism woven into their society.

He had once taken his grievances directly to the Winged Dragon on the high council, but his pleas fell on deaf ears.

He was merely waved away, instructed to return to his training, his valid concerns dismissed as trivial.

‘Is the flaw in my own mind? Are they the ones walking the righteous path?’

He parsed that dilemma thousands of times, yet his logic remained unassailable to him.

As he wallowed in his bitter isolation, his thirst for dominance and craving for validation metastasized. A dark defiance began to take root in his soul, warping and poisoning what had once been a pure pursuit of power.

‘No, they are the ones trapped in error. The blood of the Dragon God flows in me as well. I belong at the apex.’

He harbored deep hatred for a hierarchy he lacked the leverage to dismantle through conventional means.

He felt venomous envy toward those who effortlessly enjoyed the luxuries he could only envision.

He was consumed by avarice for the status he lacked and could never legitimately claim.

‘This… is a painful but vital cost for fundamental change.’

Ensnared by his internal malice, his intellect became warped and tainted.

Yet, he chose not to fight the corruption. Welcoming the creeping shadows…

…he executed an atrocious, unforgivable crime.

Snap— Crunch—!

If the throne was denied to him, he would simply seize it by force.

Deceiving the young, gullible Red Dragon—who had just crystallized his Dragon Orb and was actively honoring his transition to adulthood—proved trivially simple.

The youth had never conceived that a brother of his own species would strike him down within the sanctuary of the secluded domain.

‘Pathetic.’

Securing a second head, he persisted in his horrific harvest, his capabilities multiplying exponentially with the stolen prize.

The process unfolded far more smoothly than he had anticipated.

[W-what is the meaning of this?! Argh!]

He claimed a third head.

His power was magnifying at a staggering velocity.

He realized he should have initiated this purge much earlier.

He bitterly regretted the centuries squandered in hesitation.

[Do you truly believe you will escape retribution…?!]

He claimed a fourth head.

The outcomes were undeniably magnificent.

With his escalated might, he could target far more formidable quarry, drastically broadening his hunting grounds.

‘A perfect loop of ascension.’

Four distinct heads—crimson, ebony, ivory, and his native jade—each clamping a stolen Dragon Orb between their jaws, thrashed and contorted, their voices merging into a horrific symphony of roars and agonized wails.

They remained… rebellious.

He required time to harmonize his stolen vitality.

‘…Or so I believed.’

The situation rapidly spiraled out of control.

Even if the victims were mere adolescents fresh from their adulthood rituals, the sudden, total vanishing of three purebred dragons could not remain uninvestigated.

He was forced to accelerate his plans.

‘Curses.’

He managed to claim a fifth head, yet the net continued to tighten around him.

The specialized tracking division of the Golden Island Sect was rapidly closing the distance.

Though he had operated with extreme discretion, their counteractions were swifter than he had calculated.

‘They are hot on my trail! The Yellow Dragon is the sole remaining target…!’

His identity remained unmasked for the moment, but exposure was an absolute certainty if he lingered.

He had no alternative.

He needed to strike swiftly and flee before their dragnet became completely inescapable.

Stalking the youths had become an unacceptable risk.

He required a far more… audacious target.

He ambushed a fully matured Yellow Dragon who belonged to the investigative party, drawing him into a trap.

[How… From where did you usurp such monstrous vitality…?!]

Perhaps the investigator had grown complacent, underestimating him under the assumption that the culprit only preyed upon fledglings… or perhaps his skyrocketing power had already surpassed his own estimations.

The duel concluded far more effortlessly than anticipated, and he successfully consumed the Yellow Dragon, grafting a sixth head onto his torso.

[…You have mutated into an abomination. Why… What drove you to this depravity…?]

[Madness has entirely eroded his sanity. It is an absolute wonder he cloaked it for this long. We allowed ourselves to grow far too complacent.]

[Hmph, it stems from his substandard… pedigree. This illustrates precisely why we should never permit outsiders into our ranks.]

His monstrous actions were laid bare, and he found himself completely cornered by the elite military strength of the Golden Island Sect.

They viewed his transgressions with ultimate gravity.

Three of the absolute pinnacle authorities of the high council—the Azure Dragon, the Black Dragon, and the Red Dragon—had mobilized in person to eliminate him.

They harbored no doubt that they would terminate this horror, destroy the aberrant beast, and restore equilibrium to their world.

[Bwahaha! Pedigree? You dare speak of pedigree to me? How arrogant! How dare you utter such filth in my presence!]

Yet, reality defied their expectations.

Voom—

An apocalyptic pressure, utterly eclipsing his previous limitations, exploded outward from the Six-Headed Dragon.

This was no mere mathematical accumulation of six draconic entities; it was a fundamental evolution of his being, a complete shattering of mortal boundaries.

[Five specimens were merely the prelude. I shall consume every last one of the Five Dragons!]

Under ordinary circumstances, even after devouring five of his kinsmen, he should have been incapable of assimilating their essence so flawlessly.

An inherent dissipation of energy always occurred during such violent transfers, and Dragon Orbs—the absolute nuclei of a dragon’s life force—functioned with maximum efficacy when operating solo, their utility plummeting drastically when forced to coexist.

[This is the path to destiny! Once the Five Dragons are entirely erased from the face of this earth, once I have digested and integrated every single ‘lineage of the Dragon God’…!]

However, an anomalous factor existed.

He, too, possessed the bloodline of the Dragon God, regardless of his illegitimate status.

Furthermore, he had not merely gambled on his ancestry. He had validated his existence through millennia of brutal cultivation, violently triggering the dormant divinity within his own cells by feasting upon his kin.

[…I alone shall stand as the authentic successor to the Dragon God!]

His fundamental essence was defined by ‘Avarice’.

He was the living incarnation of the mythological glutton, destined to feed upon everything in existence, including his own form.

—

“And then? How did the battle conclude?”

“…They grievously miscalculated his strength. Countless lives were extinguished, including the Red Dragon of that particular era, while the Azure Dragon and Black Dragon sustained such catastrophic trauma that they were forced into permanent isolation. Naturally, the Six-Headed Dragon did not emerge unscathed; he surrendered multiple heads in the clash and barely managed to slip away into hiding.”

The Azure Dragon, her tone gentle and reassuring, recounted the ancient chronicle as though reciting a whimsical myth to a toddler, replying to the fervent inquiries of Horus, whose eyes gleamed with unbridled fascination.

It was, after all, a tale from a bygone age.

A minimum of five or six decades had passed since those cataclysmic events.

“Though, Horus, what prompts this sudden fascination? It is quite uncharacteristic of you to pry into historical matters.”

She cocked her head slightly, her expression painted with mild bewilderment.

Granted, it remained a monumental turning point in the history of the Golden Island Sect.

The tragedy had catalyzed a wave of systemic overhauls, systematically dismantling the institutional prejudice and imbalance within their culture.

…Yet those structural adjustments had lost their urgency in the modern era.

Their current predicament, facing the literal brink of annihilation, had forced total unification, rendering old internal friction irrelevant.

“Hehe… Reconstructing the Dragon Heart doesn’t mean the danger has passed, right? We must remain vigilant. That treacherous serpent is undoubtedly weaving some malevolent conspiracy in the shadows!”

“…Your deduction is entirely valid. Though he remains concealed for now, we dare not grow negligent.”

The Azure Dragon offered a somber nod, as if struck by a sudden realization.

She tenderly ran her fingers through Horus’s silky, flaxen hair.

“You have offered me profound insight, Horus. I have been so preoccupied with the immediate crisis that I overlooked the dormant perils on the horizon. I must formulate countermeasures for his eventual return as well.”

“Hmph!”

“Haha… Our resources are stretched incredibly thin, but… it is far preferable to be buried under administrative duties than to invite a worse catastrophe down the line.”

The Azure Dragon closed her eyes, drifting into deep contemplation while continuing to stroke Horus’s head, a flicker of anxiety crossing her features.

Horus, basking in a wave of self-satisfied accomplishment, puffed out his chest and shifted his gaze away.

‘…So that is the background of this world? It seems every single reality is plagued by aberrations. In Auterica, it was that self-proclaimed human deity, and in this realm, it is a degenerate bastard of the Dragon God.’

Naturally, it was the architect of the Heaven’s Turn Society who had delivered the devastating strike to Ganghwange… yet Yalu Huan, the brilliant mastermind of the Demonic Cult, had played an equally pivotal role.

Based on the intelligence gathered, that entity possessed the capacity to morph into a disaster matching the severity of the Undead Sovereign of Auterica.

‘The severed heads he lost have completely manifested anew. I detected zero draconic remains at the citadel of the Demonic Cult… Did he incinerate and digest them entirely?’

The Sovereign and the Heavenly Demon were fully aware of his monstrous nature, meaning they would have permitted his consumption of vital essence.

Naturally, he would have been unable to extract the maximum possible power compared to harvesting them with his own hands, owing to the restrictions governing indirect karmic transference.

He considered that a stroke of immense fortune.

‘Given his present parameters, he remains within a manageable threshold of threat.’

Horus signaled his approval with a contented smirk, his vision locking onto a specific point…

…not the tranquil, harmonious sanctuary of the Golden Island Sect’s hidden domain…

…but rather a distant, chaotic theater of war, where absolute pandemonium was ravaging the center of a corrupted territory.

—

[“Aaaaagh—! You wretched parasites! You dare irritate me!”]

An earth-shattering bellow, a primal, monstrous shriek, ripped through the heavens, accompanied by a tempestuous gale that tore across the theater of conflict.

Boom—!

Soldiers possessing fragile constitutions coughed up crimson mist and dropped to their knees, their physical forms vibrating from the raw malice laced within the shockwave.

Yet the legions of the damned, cloaked in a suffocating shroud of abyssal energy, merely hesitated for a split second before pressing forward with their unyielding siege, their steps rhythmic and devoid of fear.

The legions of the Demonic Cult were the sole casualties of this friendly fire… yet even with that realization, the Six-Headed Dragon found it impossible to regain composure.

For you see…

[“Roaaar—!”]

…a separate, far more primordial shriek, eclipsing his own ferocity, boomed from the vanguard of the assault.

A piercing, frozen wail saturated with the stench of the grave—a sound that could never be produced by a warm-blooded creature.

Crash—!

Instantly following the sound, a cataclysmic wave of annihilation, a terrifyingly familiar phenomenon, plummeted directly toward him.

[“Gah! Insolent wretch…!”]

The six Dragon Orbs ignited with brilliant light, causing the oncoming strike to lose its momentum, warp, and fracture against his barrier, ultimately dissolving into absolute vacuum.

It was a routine sequence, a monotonous rhythm of offensive and defensive maneuvers.

Yet the tactical situation was far more perilous than a simple stalemate.

‘What manner of sorcery is this?! What is he plotting?!’

The Six-Headed Dragon’s half-dozen visages bayed simultaneously, their eyes scanning the terrain frantically to pinpoint the origin of the bombardment.

The standard infantry of the Demonic Cult had rapidly fallen back the moment he descended, leaving behind only the armies of the deceased.

Furthermore, these were no ordinary corpses; they were high-tier aberrations, their physical forms radiating an oppressive miasma of death.

‘Had this been a solitary duel, I would have ground him to dust long ago…!’

The most prominent target among the horde was a colossally proportioned, skeletal dragon equipped with decaying wings.

Its mass practically rivaled his own, and it was the source of the apocalyptic assault he had just deflected.

It was a terrifying adversary, its titanic frame and ceaseless streams of Death Breath presenting a perpetual hazard.

Worse, it did not fight in isolation.

Not only were there bizarre, ink-black jiangshi that defied his past experiences, but the legendary demon jiangshi were also hovering along his periphery, waiting to exploit the slightest lapse in his guard.

Every single combatant was bathed in a freezing aura of mortality.

And that represented his greatest obstacle.

‘This blasphemous vitality… it flows without limit!’

The malevolent, midnight-colored embers dancing across their skeletal frames acted as an absolute toxin to living tissue… yet functioned as an inexhaustible battery for the deceased.

It supercharged their muscular output, their durability, and every physical metric; even if their anatomy was blown to splinters, they would stitch themselves back together in the blink of an eye, their very touch transferring a terminal hex.

It was a flawless instrument of war, serving simultaneously as an impenetrable shield and an absolute weapon.

‘Feh, I should have refrained from digesting them!’

He was experiencing the consequences of his gluttony firsthand.

Exasperated by their constant reconstruction, he had snapped up and swallowed several of the ink-black jiangshi along with a portion of the skeletal dragon’s flank…

Squelch—

…and currently, a bizarre, agonizing vibration was rumbling within his massive internal cavity.

He had never once endured gastrointestinal distress throughout his long existence… yet here he was, experiencing it for the very first time.

‘Ugh!’

His unique anatomy lacked an excretory system entirely, designed as it was to perfectly liquidate and assimilate everything he took in…

This development was a total nightmare.

“Hehe… You appear to be suffering from severe cramps. That is the inevitable penalty for shoveling garbage into your throat.”

[“Rrrgh… You miserable piece of filth…!”]

Regrettably, he lacked the leisure to nurse his aching gut.

The mocking tone of the individual pulling the strings behind this entire operation drifted into his auditory canals, and—.

Boom—!

Rumble—

…a catastrophic deluge of mystical force, bursting from the arcane geometric arrays that had manifested in the airspace surrounding him, crashed violently into his body.

Restraining lines, primordial plasma, searing magma, spiked briars, spectral jaws, apex carnivores, executioner blades…

An infinite manifestation of mortality, their unified power reaching cosmic proportions.