If the previous one could wipe out the entire elven race with one hand, then what kind of attitude would this even stronger one have? Was it also coming for Luna?
If there had been a chance to escape before, then after Luna made her choice, everything now depended on the other party's intentions.
"Do not worry, Grandpa Grand Elder. I cannot hear much more, but I know it has no malice."
Luna shook her head and looked toward the distant Rift in the sky, her eyes filled with curiosity and expectation. Even if she could not sense specific emotions, the overall feeling was clear enough.
That feeling was also very familiar to her. It was just like when she first came to Elven Homeland and wandered everywhere, full of curiosity about everything around her.
In some strange way, the two reached a shared understanding. One was a real child, the other was like a big child, and both wanted to see what this thing was.
"Are you really sure…? Very well, Luna. Grandpa will trust you."
In the end, Grand Elder agreed. One reason was that he had no other choice, and the other was his trust in Luna. If this other one was truly not as bad as imagined, then maybe…
"Do we need to go out and greet it…"
"No need. It is already here."
Luna said calmly. Grand Elder instinctively looked up, toward the previously torn Rift, as the ground shook and a scorching breath descended.
The first thing they saw was a vertical dragon's eye.
The pupil was sharp, the sclera nearly pale white. Just a single eye and part of the face were enough. That utterly real presence and terrifying pitch-black form were instantly burned into Grand Elder's vision.
Fear, despair, destruction, decay, death. Countless such impressions radiated from it. Without even using the Lord to sense its aura, just glimpsing a fragment of it caused those dark emotions to cling to the mind.
It was as if endless darkness held the wailing of the dead, whispers, visions of ruin and war, all crushed together into this black, ferocious beast. It was itself a ruined world.
As someone who had reached crown rank, Grand Elder saw even more. Not just lightning falling from the sky, icy storms, and hellfire surging from the earth, but also a fleeting vision of the sun withering and dying.
"Luna, hide behind me. Run, now!!!"
Grand Elder roared with all his strength, instantly moving to block the little girl. His entire body released its last reserves of Magic, forcing his presence to rise and resist.
Yet his eyes were filled with unbelievable scenes, and with a feeling he had not experienced for countless years. Fear.
He instinctively compared this terrifying new existence to the polluted abomination that had descended earlier, and the answer came instantly. If the former had even a sliver of hope, then the latter was darkness that would erase even the last bit of light.
As for fighting back, it was a joke. Even at his peak, Grand Elder had no doubt that even self-destructing the Barrier along with all elven lives might not be enough to resist this monster.
"Do not worry… Grandpa Grand Elder. I will handle it."
The little girl quietly stepped out from behind the trembling elder and looked up at the giant above with the same curious gaze. Yes, it was curiosity.
Although she had been affected at first by the aura of fear and despair, as a World Tree Seed, Luna did not judge others based on presence alone. Otherwise, how could she have dared to make so many animal friends?
If that terrifying aura was stripped away, this big one was actually quite similar to some of her animal friends from before. It should be friendly.
"Hello, my name is Luna. I am almost nine years old. The person I like being close to the most is Vivian. I am still looking for my hobbies…" "May I ask what your name is?"
She spoke as if making a new friend, then turned back and tugged on Grand Elder's clothes to snap him out of it.
"Grandpa Grand Elder, why not come too? This big one seems very friendly."
Friendly?
Influenced by something about Luna's presence, Grand Elder barely endured the first wave of Fear Aura and then looked at the other's appearance. This face could not be called friendly, only that compared to an ogre it looked rather neat.
Only then did Grand Elder realize that judging from its appearance, it should be a Black Dragon.
"A dragon? Why is it a dragon… and is this size not a bit too much?"
Relying on his long experience, Grand Elder tried to assess it. In thousands of years, he had seen many things, but never this. Even Ancient Dragon usually topped out at around thirty or forty meters, and the largest Great Dragon he had ever seen was not even half as long as this Black Dragon.
Roughly estimating it, could it already be in the hundreds of meters?
What surprised him even more was that after Luna waved at the huge Black Dragon in the sky, it actually waved back in the same way.
"So there is another space inside. That is pretty rare."
Belial looked inside. The scenery did not look very nice, like it was not fully finished.
At first glance, he saw two small figures with golden hair and pointed ears ahead. One was a cute little girl, the other was a decrepit old man.
"Wow… that is one of Otherworld's classic elements, Elves. But what kind of Elves are these? Are they the Gold Rank type or the goblin slayer kind?" "Looking at them… at least they should not be the kind that worship Asuyan."
Seeing the little girl wave at him, Belial waved back and showed what he thought was a friendly smile. For some reason, she felt familiar to him, even though he had not been to many places. He kept running into things that felt familiar.
While he was thinking, a small Sky Island appeared behind him.
"Spatial jump complete. A bit dizzy, but we finally found it." "Still dizzy. There is room for improvement."
Bella was a machine and had no issues, but Lilith was different. Even though she was sickly, she was still a Gold, yet she could feel motion sickness. It was rare indeed.
"We clearly detected the previous signal… so where is everyone? I see the dragon ahead, but where is the Evil God? We should at least see its domain." "It should be over already. It ended so fast that coming here barely mattered."
Lilith looked around. The land was full of ravines and massive craters, a familiar sight. When a certain dragon played around near her home, it looked just like this.
"I remember it was not even five hours from when we prepared to teleport here. From traveling to ending the battle, it only took that long…"
She trailed off. Evil God were not vegetables you could buy anywhere. Why were there so many, and why were they dealt with in just a few hours?
"That dragon over there seems to be lying on some kind of Barrier. We need to hurry over and stop it from doing something stupid again."
She gave an order to Bella, then suddenly widened her eyes.
"That is… what?"
"Hm?"
While thinking about how to communicate, Luna also widened her eyes slightly. She felt something too, something very unpleasant.
Living in Elven Homeland, she rarely encountered things she disliked. She was not even picky about food, so what was this? Just the aura before it appeared made her feel deeply nauseous.
Belial turned his head and blinked. The Rift he had not dealt with had silently expanded, now large enough to cover the entire sky above him.
Layer upon layer of Magic Array descended from it. Black chains that reached from heaven to earth sealed off every corner, forming a cage.
Within that blood-red Rift, countless watching gazes, eyes full of malice, and various grotesque tentacles were now clearly visible.
"Luckily, siphoning off that part of Magic quietly did not alert it too much. The ritual finally succeeded." "Stop talking, you old bastard. Hurry up, before that dragon smashes my Spatial Barrier and shatters the Shard!"
On the mountain peak appeared Elfido, manifested as a blasphemous angel formed of piled black idols, alongside dragonfolk who had transformed into a five-headed Great Dragon, chanting eerie sacrilegious words.
The Rift expanded at extreme speed, instantly filling nearly a thousand meters around Belial. The power tentacles of those higher existences grabbed hold of the dragon's body and dragged hard.
The massive black Great Dragon let out a furious roar. The surrounding space shattered like a mirror into Shard, and it was forced to fall into a blood-red space.
"It really worked… but if possible, I would still prefer that previous, less clever one as a future ally." "You are worried about retaliation? Do not be. Since both of us did this, our future interests are aligned, at least until the gods squeeze all our value dry."