Chapter 854: The End and Emperor
With Philippe’s cry echoing through the air, Kazul merged with the towering Five-Colored Phantom high above, two terrifying figures gradually becoming one. The ancient Red Dragon’s colossal frame radiated an aura of divine majesty, as if born of the True God’s own will. Upon its head, a magnificent Five-Colored Crown seemed to coalesce from thin air, while behind it, the Phantom Image of Tiamat shimmered into existence.
"Roar—!" Kazul lifted its head, jaws splitting wide open, unleashing a thunderous roar that rippled outward with terrifying force, stirring up waves of dust in its wake.
In an instant, every Dragon-Worshiping Cultist and priest in Sunset City collapsed to their knees, their gazes hollow, mouths moving in silent prayer, chanting ancient verses in the Dragon Tongue:
> "When wings of twilight tear the dawn, the ancient Tyrant breaks free from its dungeon!"
> "The molten river in its throat shall burn the gods’ crowns to ash!"
> "From the heart of the Ashen Wasteland, a pulse stirs—new era stirs in the ashes!"
Kazul flared its wings, and the Ashen Cloud above its head expanded at an impossible speed, spreading across hundreds of miles within mere breaths. Like a monstrous beast of extinction, it consumed the world whole.
Not just the battlefield—across the entire thousand-mile stretch of the Seleucus region, disasters unfolded in terrifying succession.
"God…"
"The End has truly come."
In this suffocating darkness, cries of despair, wails, and desperate prayers were but whispers against the storm.
The earth groaned, roared, cracked open. Crimson magma erupted from deep fissures, roaring forth with searing fury, devouring everything in its path. Where the molten flow passed, homes melted like wax, stone towers collapsed like withered grass, and life forces vanished in an instant—reduced to charred silhouettes, swallowed by the scorching heat before even a cry could form.
Hundreds of miles away, the cities of Seleucus finally tore open. Scorching magma surged forth like a river of fire, consuming entire towns. Tall towers, once proud, bent and warped under the licking flames, collapsing like candles in a storm—dissolving into molten ruin.
Ash, endless and thick, wrapped the sky like a shroud. Daylight vanished, replaced by a darkness so dense it felt like liquid ink.
Then, the heavens split.
Countless burning meteors plummeted from the sky, tearing through the air with deafening roars, crashing into the earth and carving vast craters. Flames erupted instantly, thick smoke billowing into the sky.
The crimson glow was but the blood of the wounded earth—casting a hellish hue over the scene of total annihilation.
"Divine Punishment! It’s Divine Punishment!"
"The rumors were true! We’ve angered the gods! The old age is ending!"
"Kneel! Only faith in the Ennobled as the Five-Colored Dragon Queen can save you in this End!"
The once-proud square of Past Glory had become a vortex of despair.
People fled blindly through the streets, trampling over one another in the sulfur-laden mist and falling ash, desperate to escape this purgatory.
The air was searing hot—each breath felt like swallowing a red-hot blade, burning from throat to lungs.
Screams of agony, the dying wails, and the thunderous collapse of buildings wove together into a frenzied chorus of the End.
Amid the chaos, a mother clutched her child tightly, her body trembling. Volcanic ash fell like fire upon the child’s face, and she screamed in pain. The mother wiped frantically at the ash, her efforts useless.
In a ruined corner of the city, the ragged old priest Patrick knelt among the debris, his voice broken, hoarse with grief.
His once-pure clerical robe was now stained black with ash. Clutching the Sun Sacred Emblem at his chest, he raised it toward the sky—now utterly shrouded in thick smoke and ash, as if already dead.
"Why? Why is this happening?"
"The gods… have you truly abandoned us? Eternal Lord of Light, we were your faithful flock! Answer me! Even a single spark… just a flicker…"
No answer came—only another shriek of divine fire, a streak of flaming fury slicing across the sky. It struck far away, obliterating a towering bell tower in a blast of fire and black smoke.
The last light in Patrick’s eyes dimmed. His hand fell limp. The sacred emblem slipped from his fingers, sinking instantly into the ash—just as his entire faith had been buried beneath the weight of the world’s end.
Noble carriages, once adorned with their family emblems and gleaming with wealth, now moved like clumsy iron coffins through the chaos, utterly stuck.
A fat noble lord was shoved from his wagon, tumbling into filthy mud and ash. His golden-threaded formal attire ripped open, the ring set with a massive gemstone lost to the mire. He flailed wildly, screaming in a voice utterly unbecoming of his station:
"Scum! Get back! Don’t you know who I am? I’m the Duke’s son—"
"Get lost!"
But in the face of the End, order had collapsed. No one cared. Faces twisted with ash, suffocation, and terror, people simply stepped over him, fleeing forward in blind panic.
His symbol of power—once a mark of authority—was now crushed under a mud-stained boot, buried in the dust.
And at the edge of the plaza, beneath a crumbling wall, Anna curled into a tight ball.
She held her daughter Lia close, shielding her with her own body from falling stones and searing winds.
"We’ll survive," she whispered, over and over—words empty, hollow, like a lullaby to herself.
Lia’s pale face buried in her mother’s torn cloak, each shallow breath carried ash. Anna felt her child’s breath grow weaker, fainter.
She bent down, brushing her ragged sleeve across Lia’s face—useless, futile.
"Shh… don’t be afraid, Lia. Mother’s here…"
Her voice was a whisper.
"Look… the dawn is coming…"
She looked up at the sky—forever veiled in ash—yearning for a miracle that could never exist.
Ash fell silently, unrelenting.
The tiny life in her arms grew colder, stiffer.
Only ash continued to fall—settling on Lia’s face, now still and peaceful as if sleeping, yet utterly lifeless.
It fell upon Anna’s trembling arms, where silent sobs shook her frame.
And far beyond, the crowds were buried beneath ash—bodies piled like refuse across the city, the entire world drowned in black embers.
On the battlefield, Allied Forces officers and soldiers were consumed by despair.
Aerospace warships were struck down by meteors, dragging thick smoke as they tumbled from the sky, crashing into the ground in massive explosions that lit the horizon with fire.
Men shot arrows, cast spells—but nothing could reach Kazul, who hovered high above, wrapped in a storm of flame. The ancient Red Dragon was not a beast. It was a true cataclysm—unstoppable, unbeatable.
Hundreds of fire arrows launched from the ground, raining down like a storm—but at a distance of hundreds of meters, they were torn apart by the intense flame storm, never coming close.
The Empire’s Arcane Legion and Dragon Oath Mages unleashed grand Nine-Ring Spells—beams of light, meteor-sized projectiles, and pillars of extreme cold—but they were erased instantly by the divine radiance surrounding Kazul.
No matter how hard they tried, their efforts were mortal, futile. They could not harm an entity so close to divinity, so near to transcending the material plane.
In Sunset City, Philippe watched the End unfold, laughing and weeping.
"Give up, foolish mortals! Your struggle is pointless! The End has come—your world is doomed!"
Within him, two spiritual souls had torn apart. The soul of the Seleucus King mourned the end with sorrowful cries, while the soul transformed by Tiamat—now the supreme cult leader—cheered in ecstatic joy at the dawn of a new age.
"Amanata above…"
"Gods, how could mortals ever hope to match such an existence? One capable of ending an age?"
"Abandon resistance. We can only witness. The End has arrived."
The Allied soldiers’ voices were low, heavy with despair and sorrow. But the Empire’s elite still tried to counterattack.
High in the sky, several aerospace warships formed an unbreakable defensive formation, their shields overlapping to block falling meteors. The muzzles of their elemental heavy cannons turned toward the ancient Red Dragon.
"Firing!"
"Bring it down!"
"Boom—"
A hundred cannons fired massive beams of light—but they shattered against the divine radiance surrounding Kazul.
Kazul looked down upon the fleet with cold, unmasked contempt. With a flick of its claw, a pillar of flame—scorching to the point of oblivion—descended from the sky. Roaring through the air, it struck the fleet like divine punishment.
The shields shattered instantly. Dozens of warships exploded in midair, plummeting toward the ground.
"Kai Xiusu above!"
The Empire’s soldiers stared up in disbelief as warships fell one after another. These were war machines built at great cost—each worth tens of thousands of gold coins. To see them so easily destroyed… it was horrifying.
Deep in the sky, stars seemed to shatter under an invisible force, bursting into countless flaming meteors. They tore through the night, trailing fire, crashing into the dying earth, swallowing the Allied forces beneath.
Each impact shook the planet’s core. The ashes of burned earth—hot, bitter, endless—fell like a funeral shroud over all that remained.
Then, with a wave of searing pressure, a meteor the size of a hill hurtled toward the Allied command center.
"Watch out—!"
Misha reacted instantly. Her body shifted—wings of flame unfurled from her back—and she leapt into action. A vast red rune array formed in the air, blocking the meteor mid-flight.
The rune array trembled violently. The meteor exploded midair, scattering burning debris across the ground—killing hundreds of unprepared soldiers.
Wails and screams filled the battlefield. People could do nothing but watch helplessly as the catastrophe took their lives. They felt only despair, like prisoners awaiting execution.
This was Judgment Day.
"Kai Xiusu above!"
"Great Emperor of the Ashen Flame! Have mercy! Protect us!"
In desperation, Imperial soldiers fell to their knees, prayed, faced north in loyalty, or clasped their hands together—placing their last hope in the Supreme, divine Emperor of the Ashen Flame.
Luminous particles of faith rose from their bodies, flowing upward like a river of light toward the heavens.
And in the distance, where the faith converged—through the black veil of the sky—a single crimson light pierced the darkness, like a wound torn open by a spear.
Then, the wound widened—spreading like fire across the heavens, churning like waves in the sea. The black sky tore open, and from the far distance, a regiment of blazing fireballs erupted into the sky—shooting down beams of radiant light, illuminating the ash-covered world.
For a moment, the battlefield’s people looked up—eyes wide with shock and hope, like drowning men grasping at the last straw.
"Is that… the sun?"
"Could it be King Amanatara? It’s real! The gods haven’t abandoned us!"
"Praise the Eternal Lord of Light!"
The followers of Amanata in the Allied Forces erupted in cheers and prayers—believing they had seen their savior.
But Adrian, blessed by the Sun God, looked up with a solemn gaze. His pupils reflected the flames.
"No," he said slowly, "that is not the sun. That is the Emperor of the Ashen Flame."
"What? This warmth… this light… this divine presence—"
The bishop beside him protested—but was cut off.
"Roar—!"
A deafening dragon’s roar split the sky. The shockwave sent ash flying from the ground. Millions on the battlefield felt an overwhelming urge—deep in their hearts, in their souls—to kneel.
Was this a god?
An envoy from Heaven’s Mountain?
Or had the Eternal Lord of Light descended in person?
They stared upward. The “sun” grew larger, its heat burning through the black veil. The regiment of fireballs flared, and in front of them, a majestic figure emerged—etched in flame.
Another dragon. More sacred than Kazul, more terrifying in its aura. The Emperor of the Ashen Flame—Kai Xiusu.
(End of Chapter)
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