The silence that followed the incantation was more terrifying than the clash of steel. The Knight Captain, still trembling before Nameless's blade, watched as a sphere of absolute darkness struck the boy's back.
"FORCED AWAKENING!"
Nameless's scream tore through the sky—a plea that held nothing human left within it. Before the horrified eyes of the survivors, reality itself began to warp and distort around him.
The Forbidden Metamorphosis
The sickening sound of bones snapping and reforming echoed throughout the valley. His iron gloves, forged by Balthazar to contain his overwhelming power, did not break: they fused. The metal shrieked as it sank into his flesh, transforming his limbs into monstrous, ebony dragon claws, jagged and god-slaying in their strength.
His legs elongated, shattering his boots, as his stature grew until he towered over the buildings of Ignis. His face, once handsome and melancholic, tore open to reveal a scaled snout bristling with teeth like daggers. His wings unfurled—immense, blotting out the moon—while a second pair of wings, membranous and spectral, erupted from his back in a spray of black blood.
But his head was the true nightmare. A majestic horn pointed toward the heavens on the right, while on the left, a jagged, broken stump marked his skull—a war scar from an ancient eon. His eyes no longer reflected sapphire or even the crimson of rage. They had become violet abysses, centered by a blood-red pupil so dense it seemed to leak onto his scales.
The Awakening of Legend
Balthazar, pinned to the ground, felt his Drakonide heart skip a beat. His lips trembled as he whispered a name that even dragons no longer dared to utter:
"No... It's impossible... The Great Disaster."
It was him. The Absolute Dragon of lost legends. The one who had faced divine armies, whose broken horn was the symbol of a battle that had once redefined the borders of the world. This was no ordinary reincarnation; it was the return of the Original Scourge.
Breath of the Void
The monster Nameless had become let out a roar that shattered the windows of every remaining house. With a mere tilt of his head, he unleashed a breath of pure dark energy toward the mountain overlooking the village. In an instant, the rocky peak was pulverized—erased into a dust of nothingness, as if it had never existed.
The Knight Captain, losing all reason, screamed: "FIRE! KILL IT! OR THE WORLD ENDS TONIGHT!"
The remaining soldiers, driven by primal survival instinct, unleashed their most powerful spells. But fireballs and light spears evaporated upon contact with Nameless's aura. He didn't even look at them. To him, these elite soldiers were merely insects buzzing around a forest fire.
From the heights, the mysterious silhouette responsible for this chaos watched for a brief moment before melting into the shadows, an invisible smile hovering on his lips. His plan had worked. The catalyst was ready.
The Blacksmith's Despair
Milo, hidden in the debris, no longer recognized his friend. He saw only a mountain of scaled hatred. Balthazar wept tears of iron. He had spent his life waiting for the return of his people, but he had never wanted the return of this entity.
"Nameless... if you're still in there... stop!" the blacksmith pleaded in a choked voice.
But the Absolute Dragon raised a monstrous claw, ready to crush what remained of Ignis. Nameless's consciousness was drowned in an ocean of shadows, where only destruction made sense.
The Siege of the Apocalypse
The sky above Ignis was now a swirling vortex of ash and violet clouds. The Absolute Dragon—Nameless—throned amidst the ruins, his mere presence distorting the space around him. The Knight Captain and his survivors lay prostrate, unable to move under the gravitational pressure grinding their bones.
As the beast raised its iron-fused claws to finish the village, the horizon ignited with a constellation of magic circles.
The Arrival of the Coalition
"Mass Spatial Displacement!" The cry rang out like thunder. In a blinding flash, the Solis Royal Reserve appeared, surrounding the dragon. At the front was the white-haired Royal Mage, flanked by the six members of the High Council, each floating on platforms of mana. Beside them stood Elara, her face tight with tension, and the elite professors of the Academy.
Further down, Prince Alaric and Princess Isolde led the Paladin Guard, their armor shining with sacred light.
"Look at that horror..." Alaric murmured, his usual arrogance shattered by terror. "Is that... the boy we looked down upon?"
Battle of the Legends
The fight began without warning. The Royal Mage struck first. "Etheric Dimensional Chains!" Cables of translucent light surged from the void to bind Nameless's four wings. But the beast roared, and with a single pulse of his void aura, the chains shattered like glass.
"Our turn!" ordered the Dean of the Council. "Absolute Piercing Magic!" A spear of pure mana, designed to ignore all physical or scaled resistance, slammed into the dragon's chest. The explosion was colossal, but when the smoke cleared, Nameless had only a scratch. He retaliated with a tail swipe that pulverized an entire section of the mountain behind the mages.
The Academy's Assault
Elara lunged forward, her hands weaving complex seals. "Inverse Gravity Seal: Level 9!" She attempted to counter Nameless's own power to keep him from taking flight. Simultaneously, Isolde and Alaric combined their strength on the ground. "Absolute Zero Prison!" Isolde cried. "Strike of the Sun of Justice!" Alaric roared.
Isolde's ice froze the monster's hind legs while Alaric, bolstered by reinforcement magic, delivered a sword strike that tore the air. The combined assault made the Absolute Dragon stagger for the first time.
Chaos and Futility
But the beast was an infinite force of nature. Nameless opened his maw, and instead of fire, he released a Black Singularity. The area-of-effect spell sucked in the paladins' spells and began devouring the mages' vitality.
"Our most powerful magics only irritate him!" a councilor screamed, face bloodied. "He adapts his resistance to every attack! Even spatial magic slides off his scales like water!"
The battlefield was a chaos of lightning, explosions, and screams. Paladins fell by the dozens under the shockwaves produced by the dragon's every move. The Kingdom of Solis was throwing everything into the fray, using forbidden relics and physical bypass magics, but Nameless seemed to be a shadow that could not be wounded.
Final Despair
Balthazar, amidst the rubble, saw the Royal Mage collapse from exhaustion and Elara thrown against a boulder. The dragon raised its two pairs of wings, accumulating violet and red energy that was about to level not just the village, but the entire region.
"It's useless..." Milo stammered, hiding behind his master. "Even the Kingdom can't stop him."
Balthazar pulled himself up painfully, his eyes fixed on the black sword he had repaired, glowing on the sealed anvil. "No, Milo. There is one thing left to try. A thing only the creator can undo."
The blacksmith gripped the Ancient's sword. He no longer looked at the army, but at the heart of the monster—where Nameless's soul was still screaming beneath the darkness.