Bayle howled as its entire body, wings and all, was sent flying. Its crimson pupils reflected the spearlight of the Sunlight Spear.
Enduring the agony, it looked at the spear of light pinned into the rock wall, then dragged its ruined wing and pulled itself free from the war spear.
"Who are you, really?"
The Dread Dragon Bayle was indeed a legendary Lord of this world. A young upstart like Nolan had never once been worthy of its notice.
When Nolan entered the battlefield, Bayle had regarded him with the arrogance of a Lord looking down upon an ant.
A young Flying Dragon, full of vigor and untouched by the stench of decay, should have witnessed the power of the Lord of Flying Dragons, then knelt on the ground and followed at the side of the true Lord.
The Lord of Flying Dragons would still return to the skies, leading its kin and its army to tear those stubborn old relics to pieces.
But now, its understanding had no choice but to change.
"Time and space? Immortality... a god?" For reasons even it could not explain, Bayle spoke the name of the deity worshipped by the Ancient Dragons.
If he had been facing a dragon like Lansseax, Nolan probably would have patiently explained that he was not some god amusing himself in the mortal realm, then asked with genuine curiosity what kind of deity that Dragon God was.
He did not care about the noble status of gods, but being mistaken for one again and again was enough to stir his interest.
This time, however, he said nothing. He only stared coldly at Bayle.
"No answer?" Bayle roared. "Fine. The game is over, brat!"
"Whether you're that deity or not, it doesn't change how weak you are now!"
"I'll tear you apart! Just like I tore apart that old bastard Placidusax!"
"Roar!"
Bayle let out one final, wordless roar and strode forward.
A violent blast erupted from the Flying Dragon's body, and thick white steam poured out from beneath its Scale Armor, blurring Nolan's vision.
It was a sign that its temperature was rising sharply. Bayle was now no different from a walking furnace. The dragon breath a normal Flying Dragon would have spat outward was being suppressed inside its body, but the surrounding mountains had already begun to melt. Just standing there made it seem like a natural disaster.
Nolan heard a sharp sound of tearing air from below him. Flame and lightning had actually traced the shape of dragon wings behind Bayle.
Those bright crimson dragon wings kept beating without dispersing, and each beat immediately broke the sound barrier.
Everything was exactly as the man in midair had expected.
Bayle looked up in confusion toward the highest point of the aerial battlefield. The man stood there in silence, small yet upright.
There was nothing beneath his feet, yet standing there, he seemed like a solitary Lord looking down at it.
The crimson Flying Dragon shot straight upward. The sonic boom rang like a bell announcing the start of battle. Nolan drew in a deep breath of scorching air, then exhaled it in one steady breath.
His wings beat. His dragon scales opened and closed.
The warm-up was over.
He dropped straight from the air, passing through the field of thunder and fire and falling into the heart of the battlefield. He swung his Claymore with both hands, cleaving out a sharp blade of air.
Before the burly Bayle could adjust its posture, Nolan's ranged slash had already arrived. Even after warming up, Nolan still chose such a fierce opening attack.
The invisible slash made the interlocked dragon scales sink inward, but Bayle flipped back and narrowly avoided Nolan's storm slash. What followed in return was a surging tide of dark red lightning.
A storm of lightning swallowed Nolan, thousands upon thousands of currents scattering wildly all at once.
It was an attack with no blind spots, lightning spreading outward from the Flying Dragon as its center.
It was like when Nolan had once undergone an Incarnation into the sun in Bonny Village: a huge Fireball wrapped in lightning, expanding outward in a sphere. Only this was much cruder.
Nolan had not known Bayle possessed such a move, but even facing it for the first time, he did not panic. His armor began to melt, but his body vanished even faster.
He turned into a scatter of silver light, fading into nothing the instant the lightning swept over him, then reappeared the moment the flames went out.
Miriam's Vanishing!
Bayle nearly roared in triumph. It did not believe a fragile human without "immortality" could possibly survive an attack like that...
But the next moment, the Dark Moon Greatsword split the curtain of fire apart and shattered the Scale Armor it was so proud of right before its eyes.
The scorching dragon body burned the legendary greatsword red-hot, and new wounds appeared across the already broken Flying Dragon.
Bayle stared blankly at the figure wrapped in Scale Armor.
For one moment, the demon god beneath those great wings seemed in its mind like a savage, frenzied Flying Dragon. But the illusion had only just arisen when Nolan once again became a cold, ruthless Lord.
The next counterattack began. Countless crimson shadows seeped from the Flying Dragon's body, flashing out from every direction... enveloping Nolan from sky to earth.
Nolan swung his greatsword, driving every inch of muscle with all his strength. Light, death energy, thunder...
Whatever it was, he unleashed it all at once, until it finally became pure flame.
What was that?
For an instant, the entire Land of Shadow seemed to fall silent. Near dusk, the dim sky suddenly became clear, and a force like the world itself erupted above Jagged Peak Summit.
Bayle sensed the threat and poured in all its power. Heat erupted inside its body once more, like a furnace that could burn heaven and earth to ash, spewing dark red spheres of thunderfire.
Nolan also became a furnace. Strange flames drew inward and gathered inside his body. As the red light came at him head-on, he had no intention of dodging. He gripped his sword with both hands and brought it down hard.
Using formless force to clash against fire and lightning, he truly blasted open a gap, then vanished into the air like hollow light.
In the next instant, fists and sword blades rained down. Bayle's vision filled with afterimages. Nolan's body seemed forged from steel, and sparks burst again and again as his fists and blade struck the dragon scales.
The wind raised by fist and sword smashed the earth apart piece by piece, sending great sheets of molten lava splashing up.
Bayle had never felt such despair in its Flying Dragon body. Its immense frame had never seemed as clumsy as it did now. Its only defense was the Scale Armor on its body, burned until it glowed red.
Yet that Scale Armor, comparable to that of an immortal Ancient Dragon, seemed so fragile now.
It could only keep falling, watching iron fists and the greatsword tear apart every piece of Scale Armor on its body, listening to bones shatter from both itself and its opponent.
Nolan's Scale Armor was even more fragile than Bayle's, so after each punch, his fist was not only burned red-hot but partially melted away. Yet when he swung it again, it was completely restored.
His attack was madness itself, but Nolan's expression never changed in the slightest. Firelight shone on his face, warm as sunlight, reminding him of that distant world.
In that pitch-black world, there had been a tiny cluster of flame, flickering with the same warmth.
"There were clearly so many people... why am I the fire?"
Nolan had asked himself that question countless times, but he had never found an answer.
He did not think there was anything special about him that made him worthy of becoming fire.
Was Bayle not hot?
Nolan felt as if he had sat down beside that little bonfire again, surrounded by countless people.
But this time was different.
He was the fire. A selfish fire that had to keep burning.
Impossible!
Bayle's eyes widened in terror.
It was not merely shocked. It was horrified.
That figure burning like flame seemed like a Lord.
That clear silhouette of a Lord leapt up, the sword in his hand carving a heavy arc with unstoppable violence.
Just as in the past, the sword fell, and life faded.
The one who departed was Bayle.