“Not a slow reaction,” the Frostdrake hissed, amusement curling around every word. Its jaws gaped. A breath of condensed, law-woven ice poured forth—not flame, but pure, merciless cold so dense it bent the surrounding light. That breath carved a warped cerulean corridor through the air and slammed toward Jared’s chest in a blink.
“Golem Body!” Golden scales blossomed across Jared’s frame as he forced every drop of chaotic essence outward, turning flesh and bone into living armor that shimmered like minted coins.
Across the ice, the unicorn roared and coughed up a beam of molten gold. Fire met frost with a vicious hiss, billowing white steam high as fortress walls. Yet the creature’s holy flame faltered first. Inch by hard-won inch, the blue breath buried the fire, snuffed it, and kept advancing.
The advance ended against Jared’s chaos-forged shield with a brutal crack. Spiderweb fractures raced across the barrier, then the whole shield exploded. An irresistible force hammered his ribs; he felt as though an ancient mountain had chosen him for target practice.
Jared careened backward hundreds of feet before slamming into the ice. Blood sprayed from his lips—bright, steaming, and flecked with glittering shards of frost. The unicorn fared little better, tumbling across the frozen plain, scales splintering, its once-resplendent fire nearly out.
Two exchanges, no more, and both man and beast lay battered, perilously close to defeat. Such was the might of a Top Level Nine Heavenly Immortal, terrible beyond words.
“Pathetic…” The Frostdrake’s voice carried the bored sigh of a predator denied decent sport. Shaking its horned head, it studied the wounded pair with open contempt. “I thought I could at least stretch my muscles. Seems I overestimated you. Let’s end this quickly…”
Slowly, almost lazily, the colossal creature lifted one glacial claw. At its tips, five razor talons gleamed like sculpted ice, poised to descend and erase Jared from the frozen world. One swipe from the monster’s ice-blue talon would mash Jared Chance into a smear of torn flesh and shattered bone.
Outside the shimmering walls of the arcane array, Vermilion and Clara stared until their eyes burned. They flung themselves at the barrier, fists hammering uselessly against light that refused to yield, forced to watch in raw, helpless terror. Lady Aurora’s brow tightened, the faintest shadow of concern sliding across her otherwise impassive face, yet she said nothing and let the moment hang like a sword above them all.
Cornered between life and death, a bright, manic glint burst in Jared’s eyes—the look of a man willing to torch his own soul for a single breath more.
I will not die here! Not today, not ever!
He bit through his tongue. A hot jet of blood splashed across the Dragonslayer Sword as his hands blurred through desperate seals. Within him, chaotic immortal force, the Chaotic Fire Lotus, and true dragon blood ignited, fusing into a single wild blaze.
“By my lifeblood, I summon my true name! By my very soul, I summon my true form! Chaos Dragonization! Golden Dragon Form!” Jared’s scream tore from his throat with an ancient, regal cadence that did not belong to any mortal tongue.
Roar!
A roar older, prouder, and more soul-shattering than the Frostdrake’s own exploded from deep inside him, shaking the frozen basin to its roots. This was no ghostly mirage; it was the raw bellow of a primeval dragon echoing straight out of his blazing bloodline.
As the roar rolled outward, blinding gold light burst around Jared, bright enough to carve new dawns in the air. That radiance was pure, holy, and commanding—an aura that stood above every beast ever born. Within the glare, his body began to change. Scales, minute, gold, and flawless, crawled across his skin in glittering waves. His hands stretched into talons, each claw gleaming like a newly forged blade.
Two small yet impossibly dignified horns pushed through his brow, announcing a sovereign’s birth. A thick, powerful tail lashed from his spine and slapped the ice hard enough to spider-web the frozen ground. His pupils narrowed into molten-gold slits—cold, imperious, and utterly dismissive of everything before them.
A dragon’s might, older, purer, and nobler than the Frostdrake’s, rolled off him in tidal waves, flooding the basin in an instant. Caught beneath that surge, the Frostdrake’s once-overwhelming pressure melted like fresh snow beneath mid-summer sun.
The creature’s raised claw froze in mid-air, unable or unwilling to fall. Inside its vast, icy-blue eyes flickered disbelief, horror, and, far beneath, ancestral fear it could not name.
“T-That… That’s true draconic pressure!” The Frostdrake’s granite-deep roar cracked into a shuddering stammer. “Impossible! A mere human, yet your blood carries the unblemished lineage of a true dragon… Who… Who are you?!”
Jared, scale-armored and wreathed in molten-gold light, said nothing. Power surged through every vein in his altered body, a tidal force that could rip mountains from their roots. Yet that same tide threatened to split flesh from bone and tear at the edges of his soul.
He had invoked Chaos Dragonization, a forbidden art that mimicked a sovereign dragon’s form and roused the ancient blood sleeping inside him. The technique made him a living weapon, but only for a heartbeat in cosmic terms. He had to end this quickly or be consumed by his own awakening.
“Tell me…” he rasped, each word scraping like steel across stone, the austere majesty of a dragon echoing behind the syllables, “Am I now qualified to take the Blood Lotus?”
The Frostdrake’s colossal frame quivered. The feral gleam in its vertical pupils guttered into naked dread. Even with a thread of Frost-Drake ancestry, it could not lift its gaze beneath the crushing edict of a purer king. Like a vassal before his sovereign, like a mouse cornered by a flame-eyed cat, the beast’s instinct overrode pride.
“You… You…” The words collapsed into a low, strangled whine. Slowly, the ice-plated leviathan lowered its mountain-long body, sprawled across the frozen lake, and pressed its horned head against the glassy floor in absolute submission.
Beyond the great array, Vermilion Demon Lord and Clara stared, spellbound. Even Lady Aurora, mistress of the palace, let awe flicker in her cool eyes. She whispered, “Such unadulterated draconic pressure… Maxwell, what sort of disciple have you chosen?”
Relief stirred in Jared’s chest, but he strangled it before it could soften his focus.
Not yet… Hold the form, finish the task…
Maintaining the radiant Golden Dragon Form, he advanced, each step deliberate, taloned feet ringing softly against ancient ice. Behind him, the Frostdrake stayed flattened, muscles locked, too terrified even to breathe openly.
At the rim of the subterranean pool, he beheld the prize: a Thousand-Year Frostblood Lotus. The bud was half-unfurled, crimson petals moist as fresh wounds, an intoxicating perfume drifting above the black-green water. He extended a clawed hand, severed root and stem in a single, reverent motion, and slipped the living treasure into a waiting jade-cold casket before sealing the lid.
The Frostdrake watched in silence, sorrow flickering through its gaze, reverence eclipsing all else.
Task complete…
Jared turned toward the basin’s edge. A small fire-unicorn, limping yet unbowed, hobbled after him, awe shining in its ember eyes. Not until he stepped through the breached segment of the array did the Frostdrake dare raise its head. Its vast pupils followed the departing figure with a turmoil no tongue could frame.
