Chapter 903: Who won?

Dragonflame Island. The great battle was not over.

Orion stared down with an icy expression as the dragon’s body beneath him disintegrated bit by bit. The Ghost Dragon summon had been a success, sealing everything in its path. Forget a dragon; even a demigod would likely have been devoured.

Orion collected the survivor’s loot box, but there was no joy in his eyes.

Because after the dragon’s body dissipated and the Ghost Dragon vanished, a smaller version of the dragon, wreathed in flames, appeared. It opened its mouth and spewed torrents of fire at him.

This was the dragon’s body of faith. And what it spat was not true fire, but countless motes of faith energy.

Orion’s form flickered, and he used Instant Impact to teleport to a higher altitude. The lightning storm in the heavens had not yet ceased, and the demigods’ lightning magic was something the body of faith dared not approach.

In truth, this kill had revealed a weakness in his Ghost Dragon summoning skill: it couldn’t annihilate special entities like a body of faith.

At first, Orion had thought the Ghost Dragon’s sealing power was absolute; it was just that effective. But after being tested by one arch lord after another, he had come to understand that there was no such thing as an unbeatable skill in this world. If you thought a skill was unbeatable, it just meant your own toolkit wasn’t big enough yet.

Orion stared at the body of faith. Without a physical form to anchor it, it couldn’t exist for long. He had understood this ever since he had advanced to arch lord himself. It was why his own body of faith never strayed far from his physical body, for fear of it destabilizing and collapsing.

Seeing that it had no way to harm Orion, the fire dragon’s body of faith gave up and flew back toward one of the Dragon Nests on the island.

Orion frowned. He wanted to give chase, but a glance at Leonidas and the ancient giant-horned whale made him reconsider. The Dragon Nests were the dragons’ foundation, just like his own base of operations. There were certainly defensive measures hidden within.

Without hesitation, Orion raised his trident and charged the dragon that was still tangled up with the ancient giant-horned whale. As for why he didn’t go to help Leonidas—it was because Leonidas had already beaten the dragon in his grasp to a bloody pulp.

SQUELCH!

Orion’s trident stabbed into the dragon that was tearing at the whale with its massive jaws and claws. Before the dragon could even react, he flashed onto the whale’s back, preparing to smash the dragon’s head from the front and free his beleaguered mount.

But just then, Deputy Commander Edward’s urgent voice came from the heavens.

"There are violent void energy fluctuations on Dragonflame Island! You all need to withdraw now!"

The Deputy Commander had barely finished speaking before Orion had already pulled out his urn and sealed the ancient giant-horned whale inside. He then activated the fixed-point teleportation function on his legendary equipment, the Boots of the War-Tyrant, and vanished from sight, leaving behind a dragon whose expression was a mixture of shock and savagery.

Before he left, Orion glanced over at the area where Leonidas and Alexander had been.

Not a soul in sight.

They sure were damn fast on their feet.

Orion, Leonidas, and Alexander had successfully withdrawn, but the battle between the demigods in the sky still raged on. Three seconds later, two more dragon demigod phantoms shot out from the Dragon Nests on the island, soaring into the heavens to join the fray.

Dusk Continent, Irisgarde.

The return of Orion, Leonidas, and Alexander didn’t attract much attention. Because aside from Kraken, who seemed normal, both Makareth and Isabella were in a foul mood, looking like they had the weight of the world on their shoulders.

"Squiddy, what’s up with them?" Leonidas asked, walking over to Kraken’s fishbowl and collapsing into a lounge chair. He took a tough cut of meat Orion handed him and began to tear into it. "We were only gone for two days. How’d they become completely different people?"

The Behemoth was certainly powerful. He had even managed to kill an arch lord dragon during their little welcoming party. But after every battle, Leonidas had to eat ravenously. If he didn’t consume energy-rich food, his Behemoth body would suffer from energy depletion, leading to mental confusion and even madness. It was a side effect of the transformation.

"The three of us had a little sparring session," Kraken explained, using one of his tentacles to operate a wine keg and pour drinks for Leonidas and Orion. "And this is the result."

"Where’s Alexander?" Kraken asked after pouring the wine.

"It’s wartime. He’s got stuff to do. He’s busy."

Kraken nodded.

That made sense. Even if Alexander wasn’t personally gathering intelligence, the amount of information that crossed his desk every day was terrifying. He had to review a lot of it.

"A sparring session? Who won?" Both Leonidas and Orion, who had been focused on their food, looked up, their eyes filled with gossipy curiosity. "Squiddy, don’t tell me you brought shame upon your big brother."

"Of course not! The Squiddy of today is not the Squiddy of the past!" Kraken said, raising his goblet in a toast to Orion and Leonidas.

"Then what about those two?"

Orion had expected Kraken to be stronger than Makareth and Isabella. After all, the current Kraken could go toe-to-toe with a lower arch lord. Facing Makareth and Isabella should have been a walk in the park.

"I won both my matches," Kraken stated. "Isabella won one and lost one. Makareth lost both."

That was the result of their three-way spar. One was happy, two were miserable.

"I can understand why Makareth would be in a bad mood after losing twice," Orion said, swallowing a mouthful of roasted meat. "But Isabella went one-and-one. With her strength, she should be happy. Is there something I’m missing?"

"Isabella brought out her peak Legendary level colossal dragon," Kraken said, downing his drink in one gulp, his tone perfectly deadpan, "and she almost fought Makareth to a draw."

"Garbage!"

"Pathetic!"

The insults came from Orion and Leonidas, completely unfiltered.

Although Isabella and Makareth were not actively participating in the conversation, they were still secretly listening in on the trio’s discussion. Besides, this was Isabella’s palace, and she herself was a Legendary level powerhouse. Of course she heard every word Orion and Leonidas said.

"Argh... you bastards!"

A loud crash echoed from deep within the palace, followed by the sound of splintering wood and shattering glass. Isabella was apparently destroying everything in her bedroom.

"You loud-mouthed assholes! Get out of my palace!" she screamed.

Faced with this level of verbal abuse, the two brutes, Orion and Leonidas, couldn’t have cared less. In fact, the more pissed off Isabella got, the wider their smirks of schadenfreude became.