Chapter 76: The White Dragon
The chamber rattled as Asriel’s violet rage tore through the air. Stone walls groaned under the pressure, spiderweb cracks racing across their surfaces like veins of destruction. Dust poured down in choking waves, and the ceiling shuddered with each thunderous pulse of her soul energy.
Her eyes blazed with spectral violet light, burning brighter with each heartbeat. Her flesh warped, reshaping into something ancient and terrifying, white scales glimmered as they burst through her skin, catching the dim light like polished ivory. Her fingers twisted into claws that scraped against the trembling floor, and her body surged upward, expanding in size, wings tearing into existence with a violent unfurling.
"Shit, she’s gonna crush me inside here..." Stephan’s eyes widened, panic cutting through his battle focus. Jagged shards of ceiling rained down around him. His instincts screamed at him to run, but the chamber was collapsing too fast.
Asriel roared, it was more than a roar. It was a cataclysm given sound, a sound that split stone and tore through bone. Violet soul energy exploded from her body in a blinding light.
"Shit...!" Stephan cursed, raising his sword as the world detonated around him.
The chamber didn’t simply collapse, it was annihilated. Stone walls ripped apart, flying outward in molten fragments. Pillars snapped like twigs, and entire corridors were reduced to rubble in the blink of an eye. The shockwave surged like a hurricane, shredding through the earth and sky, blasting the ceiling into nothingness.
The ground gave way.
And then, silence.
The aftermath was chaos. The once-proud fortress was gone, erased from existence. Where walls and halls had once stood, there was only ruin, an open scar carved into the mountain. Jagged boulders lay strewn across a barren wasteland of shattered stone. Smoke and dust hung thick in the air, veiling the sky in a gray haze. The mountain peak itself looked cleaved in half, with fresh cliffs and broken ridges stretching into the distance.
Stephan groaned, his body half-buried beneath a slab of rock. Blood mixed with sweat as it ran down his torn face. His clothes were shredded, and his chest heaved with labored breaths. With a grunt, he shoved the boulder off him, coughing violently as smoke filled his lungs.
He staggered to his feet, disoriented, every bone in his body aching from the blast. He looked around, blinking through the haze at the devastation that surrounded him. Nothing remained of the chamber, no walls, no roof, no trace of the battlefield they had just fought in.
"It’s a good thing I channeled those souls for regeneration... if I hadn’t, I’d be a corpse right now." He exhaled shakily, running a hand through his blood-matted hair. Relief flickered across his face, but only for a moment.
Something pressed against his senses.
Heavy. Dangerous. Alive.
The air thickened as Asriel’s soul energy rolled over him like an ocean tide. His heart sank. He turned his gaze upward, through the clearing smoke and fractured mountain peaks.
And then he saw it.
High above, perched on the jagged edge of what remained of the mountain, was a dragon.
Her scales gleamed pure white under the darknessn, pristine yet terrifying. Her wings stretched wide, casting a massive shadow over the ruined land. Violet light still pulsed faintly within her eyes, but now she was something more than human, something ancient and primal.
Asriel had become a dragon.
She looked even more terrifying than before. Her massive white-scaled body gleamed against the fractured sky, violet eyes locked onto him with a predatory stillness.
"So this is your final form, huh?" Stephan spat blood from his lip, but his grin was sharp, mocking. "That supposed to scare me? Bitch, please."
His grip tightened on his sword, and a dangerous gleam lit his eyes. Things just got interesting.
"Let’s see what you’ve got, witch."
The dragon didn’t charge. Instead, its maw spread wide, revealing rows of jagged ivory fangs. At the back of its throat, violet light churned like molten stars.
Stephan’s instincts screamed.
The beam surged forward, bursting free as a colossal fireball of violet flame. The air warped around it, shrieking as stone and steel melted in its wake.
"Shit....!" He twisted, rolling clear in a burst of speed, the blast smashing into the ground where he had stood. The impact scorched the earth black, reducing solid stone to ash in an instant.
His eyes widened. That’s... that’s a terrifying power.
But then, movement, a flash of white scales in the corner of his vision. She was already upon him.
The dragon closed the distance in a blink, her massive body casting a shadow that swallowed him whole. A claw, almost the size of his leg, came crashing down in a sweeping arc.
Stephan barely managed to raise his blade.
The clash was thunder. His teeth clenched as the sheer weight of her strike pressed against him, the claws forcing him backward. His boots dug trenches into the shattered ground as he skidded meters from his original stance.
He sucked in a sharp breath, veins straining against his neck. If not for the ten souls he was currently burning, his body would have been crushed like brittle glass.
The reality of it all hit him, harsh and unrelenting. This wasn’t a fight he could drag out. Against this monster, survival meant sacrifice.
If I want to win... I’ll need more. Maybe all of them. Even if it burns me from the inside out.
His gaze flicked toward the scorched crater where the fireball had struck moments ago. The stone there had dissolved into dust and molten sludge.
"If that had hit me... I’d be nothing but ash."
Another violet blaze cut across his thoughts.
He bolted aside, body blurring with speed as a second inferno tore through the battlefield. The heat licked at his skin as it passed, close enough to sting.
His chest heaved. The souls I’m burning now won’t last. Maybe a minute, maybe less. I’ll have to feed in more before she notices. If I run dry when she strikes... I’m dead.
No time to breathe. The dragon lunged again.
This time, he was ready. He read the angle of her wings, the twist of her massive shoulders, the flash of her talons.
"Not this time!"
He wove between the strikes, dodging each claw by mere inches, sparks flying as her nails ripped trenches into stone where he had just been.
But even as he danced between death, one thought seared his mind:
I wonder... if she can use Soul Phasing in this form.
Because if she could, then this fight was about to become something far worse.
The dragon’s attacks came in a rhythm Stephan was beginning to read, first the violet flames, then the charge, claws sweeping wide like the blades of a guillotine. It was a deadly dance, but one he was slowly adapting to. Every dodge was razor-close, his body twisting with desperation as her talons shredded the earth where he had just stood.
But Asriel was no mindless beast.
She shifted, changing her pace mid-strike. As Stephan ducked beneath a scything claw, ready to counter, the dragon’s massive body twisted with terrifying speed. Her tail, thick and long like a whip of steel, cut through the air with a shriek.
"....What?!"
The impact landed square across his chest.
The blow was catastrophic. His ribs crumpled under the force, air exploding from his lungs. In the blink of an eye, he was flung like a ragdoll across the battlefield, a blur of flesh and steel crashing into the broken ruins. The sound was thunder, stone shattering, earth caving as his body struck.
Dust erupted in a violent cloud, rolling upward in choking waves. The ground itself shook from the force, as if struck by a meteor.
For a moment, silence.
Then the debris began to settle, revealing the aftermath.
A crater, massive and jagged, lay carved into the earth where Stephan’s body had smashed down. Fractured stone crumbled from its edges, still tumbling in fragments. Smoke curled upward from molten cracks, glowing faintly where the dragon’s violet flames had scorched the impact zone.
At the bottom of the crater there was movement.
Stephan pushed against the rubble, his hand trembling as it found purchase on a slab of stone. He dragged himself upward, broken but not yet beaten. His armor was torn to ribbons, his chest bleeding freely where the tail had struck, dark bruises spreading like wildfire beneath his skin. Each breath was ragged, wheezing, every inhale a battle in itself.
"D...damn..." He spat blood, his voice hoarse. His body screamed in agony, but his eyes burned with defiance.
Slowly, shakily, Stephan rose to his feet inside the crater, chest heaving, sweat and blood mingling as they dripped to the scorched ground.
High above, the white dragon loomed, violet eyes glowing with ruthless satisfaction.
And yet, despite the devastation, Stephan tightened his grip on his sword. His body was breaking, but his will was unyielding.
"Alright then, it’s time to put everything I have on the line."