"It's Lady Kanna!" Emilia exclaimed in delight.
The little dragon heard her name and gave a slow, dazed nod, then began to toddle towards the center of the clearing. She opened her mouth, aiming it directly at Cardinal Otto.
A bright light began to glow from within. The dragon's most basic ability, a breath attack, was something Kanna naturally possessed. It was a racial talent, its power varying from dragon to dragon.
But in that instant, Cardinal Otto, and every single heretic in the forest, felt a primal, overwhelming sense of impending doom.
"Watch out!"
Just as Otto screamed his warning, Kanna's breath attack was unleashed. An immense beam of pure energy, a pillar of light, tore through the landscape.
It ripped through the earth, the forest, the mountains… stretching all the way to the horizon.
Any heretic caught in its path, even if they were only grazed by the very edge of the beam, instantly detonated, their bodies, already primed like barrels of dynamite, exploding violently.
A chain reaction of explosions echoed through the forest.
The beam of light passed clean through the Cardinal's chest, leaving a hole the size of a dinner plate.
The edges of the wound were perfectly smooth, as if cauterized by a laser, solidifying before they could even bleed.
Cardinal Otto's face was a mask of pure horror. He had clearly raised a defensive spell to block the attack, but his barrier had been as effective as wet paper, disintegrating instantly.
His magic was linked to the [Crimson Rite] domain, drawing on the life force of all the zealots burning their lives away.
His defenses should have been unbreakable. Even a monster with ten thousand attack power, Otto was confident he could have blocked a single blow.
For his defenses to be shattered in an instant could only mean one thing.
This cute-looking little dragon… possessed a terrifying attack power of at least twenty thousand.
Impossible! A monster with twenty thousand attack power was a mythical-level beast!
Take the great whale of the far north, for example a legendary monster that had wiped out thousands of adventurers.
But even that great whale, Cybele, only had an attack power of fifteen thousand. And this little loli's attack power was over twenty thousand.
Otto was completely and utterly dumbfounded.
Behind him, the dragon's breath attack had spread out, incinerating huge swathes of the heretic zealots.
Many of the Word of God's Deathguards were caught in the blast as well. Beyond them, a massive section of the forest was simply gone, and an entire mountain peak had vanished from the skyline.
Even the distant clouds were tinged with the faint, terrifying outline of the dragon's roar… The sheer destructive power was beyond comprehension.
At this moment, hidden within the mists, the Pontiff's elite ninjas stared in disbelief at the little dragon Elliot had summoned, rendered completely speechless.
"This…"
The Pontiff himself was at a loss for words for a long moment. Finally, he let out a slow breath. "As expected of the dragon race," he murmured, a new level of awe in his voice.
"Even as a child, she possesses such magnificent destructive power." His assessment of the dragon race had just been elevated to an entirely new level.
At the same time, a thought flickered in his mind: If such a young dragon could be tamed by humanity, our strength would rise to an unimaginable height.
But it was just a fleeting thought. He knew better. If humanity truly tried to tame a pure-blooded dragon, the first thing they would have to face was the wrath of Administrator Güliedistodiez.
Gülie had always maintained a hands-off approach to the world, never meddling in mortal affairs.
He didn't even care when adult dragons were killed. But if anyone dared to harbor designs on a young dragon, or worse, a dragon egg, his response would be swift and absolute.
So, the Pontiff only dared to entertain the thought in the privacy of his own mind, never to be acted upon.
The power of that single blast was breathtaking.
And yet Kanna, the one who had fired it, simply stood there with a blank, "matter-of-fact" expression, calmly observing the devastation she had wrought.
….
"Well," Cardinal Otto said, his voice strained, "that was certainly an eye-opener."
He swiped a hand across his abdomen, and the gaping, plate-sized hole in his chest instantly sealed, leaving his robes pristine.
But as he did, his expression shifted slightly. He could feel it. The energy required to heal that wound was far greater than before.
This meant the little dragon's attack had some kind of anti-healing effect, forcing the [Crimson Rite]to expend much more power to repair the damage.
This was a problem. A big one.
The domain drew its power from life force, but that resource was finite. Once the life force of all the surrounding creatures was depleted, his regeneration would fail.
He had to end this fight, and he had to end it now. And with a huge portion of the forest vaporized by Kanna's attack, the available life force had already been drastically reduced.
The trees at the center of the domain, having been drained relentlessly, were already beginning to wither, their leaves turning brown and falling to the ground.
He had to act now!
The heretics no longer bothered with subtlety. At a silent hand signal from their Cardinal, they assumed an attack formation.
The life force burning around them flared violently, their previously average stats soaring past the three-thousand mark. If they self-destructed now, the power would be immense.
And Otto wouldn't be idle either. As his zealots prepared to charge, he began to construct a new spell.
"Hear my lament and despair!"
It was a rare and sinister form of magic. Not even Ronandt, humanity's supposed foremost mage, nor the elite mages of the Word of God, would have recognized it.
Magic that manipulated emotions had always been condemned by the world.
It was a form of brainwashing, capable of influencing a person's personality and actions, and in its most twisted form, completely breaking their will.
Simply put, this was a magic that amplified the side effects of the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues, bringing the ugliest parts of a person's soul to the surface.
The spell Otto was casting, [Mourner's Grief], was one such ability, designed to manipulate the consciousness of all who heard it.
A low, sorrowful sound wave rippled through the air.
And instantly, everyone in the vicinity, on both sides of the conflict, burst into tears.
Emilia was immediately thrown back into her darkest memories.
The pain of her past, the loneliness, the hunger, the cruelty of the other elves, it all came flooding back.
She collapsed to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably, her tears impossible to stop.
The Deathguards, the mages, even the hidden ninjas, all were struck by their own inner demons, their deepest sorrows and regrets. They wept openly, their fighting spirit completely shattered.
Everyone has their own pain, their own secret grief.
….
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