Chapter 2022: False Body, True God

'Dragon King... I knew I hadn't misjudged you.'

Blotting out the sky, it was perhaps the most absurdly massive form he had ever witnessed. Even so, Fu Qian easily recognized its resemblance to the Shadow that Proprietress Sunny had once manifested.

Not to mention the fangs covering it, which perfectly matched the classic shape of the Dimensional Poison.

The Warehouse's evaluation was entirely literal—the Dragon King wasn't a dragon at all. Its scales were nothing more than a gorgeous cloak it had woven for itself.

Because Sunny had only managed to manifest the scales back then, the distinction hadn't been as obvious.

Now, seeing the complete entity in the flesh and already knowing the truth, those dazzling scales covering its massive frame genuinely looked like a garment worn over its body.

Furthermore, if one imagined stripping those scales away, this higher entity's true form truly departed from the traditional image of a great dragon.

Its body was far more slender, its wing membranes long and sweeping. Its surface blurred the line between chitin and real flesh, to the point where picturing it as an insect wouldn't feel out of place.

These higher entities from the stars seemed a bit casual about their appearances.

Fu Qian mused to himself.

He remembered the Warehouse stating that the Dragon King hailed not from this land, but from the stars—and was perhaps the very first to be confirmed as such.

Of course, this was no time to judge its looks. The Dragon King hadn't shown up just to strike a pose.

Roar—

Almost instantly, a bizarre, explosive screech erupted from that massive frame.

It wasn't a roar in any standard physical sense. As it swept outward, the Abandoned Prison underwent a tremor nearly identical to the one that had shattered the darkness moments ago.

The architecture didn't collapse, and the bodies still groveling in the frost weren't torn apart.

Instead, it was as if everything had suddenly melted and instantly solidified again. Ripples bulged directly across their surfaces, forming an eerie sight.

Even Fu Qian wasn't immune. Under that concussive blast, the exterior of the Body of the Tyrant remained unchanged, but its internal workings stalled, suffering a disruption on a fundamental level.

Not only were his movements slowed, but the speed at which the Eye of Calamity expanded across the Dragon King decelerated as well.

What a move!

As for why it hadn't used such a formidable trick earlier?

First, it was uncertain whether the Dragon King could turn off friendly fire for this attack. Second, Fu Qian hadn't activated his halo for nothing.

He hadn't expected to inflict direct casualties on a pack of kingslayers. The key lay in the true nature of his Commandment Power.

They had originally aimed for the Tyrant who governed Calamity. Suddenly encountering this entirely different set of abilities must have been somewhat of a shock, right?

In a supposedly foolproof assassination, wouldn't finding out the target was entirely different from what they had imagined make them briefly hesitate to strike the rat for fear of breaking the vase?

To maximize the effect, Fu Qian had deliberately activated it in stages, delivering a new surprise every second.

The end result hadn't just delayed the second wave of attacks—it had bought him the time to shatter the darkness.

Of course, it still came.

Before the roar even faded, a massive claw ruptured through space and continued to shred into the Tyrant's body, despite the Dragon King itself still being far in the distance.

Crack!

The only pity was that the massive claw failed to retract as smoothly as it had before. Amid the brilliant glow, the Tyrant had seized it in a death grip.

...

The essence of fighting multiple opponents always boiled down to calculating the cost.

Facing at least three higher entities in perfect condition, all possessing clear goals and taking decisive action, Fu Qian had never expected to win this battle unscathed.

After all, compared to the Tyrant of the past, he possessed one massive advantage: he knew that the entity had ultimately died.

That meant whatever standard response the Tyrant could have made wouldn't win. Not to mention, his own Tyrant Form couldn't be maintained for much longer anyway.

As it turned out, the Dragon King's claw merely possessed a spatial attribute—it wasn't some disposable summoned construct.

After Fu Qian entangled it with his torn flesh and one hand, the claw wasn't discarded. Instead, it was violently yanked back.

Entangling it with a dense thicket of tentacles, Fu Qian was dragged along almost simultaneously—slamming headfirst into a torrential storm of attacks.

In an instant, all the identical scales covering the Dragon King peeled off, converging into a devastating torrent of blades.

It wasn't surprising at all. This was an act of god-slaying, after all. The moment the darkness retreated, the Dragon King had unhesitatingly manifested its true physical body, clearly taking on the role of the frontline attacker.

Under such circumstances, the secret of its scales hardly mattered. Shedding its armor to go all-out was completely normal.

Moreover, the sheer lethality of this barrage was far more absurd than the Soul Butterfly he had captured earlier.

Amidst the countless bouncing Reflections, even a higher entity on the level of the Tyrant experienced a brief lapse in consciousness as the scale dust struck its face.

To top it off, the destructive power attached to it was utterly overwhelming. The Armor that had enlarged along with Fu Qian couldn't deflect a single bit of it.

Sshk—

The good news was that his opponent couldn't block a single thing either.

At the exact same moment his flesh was being flayed from his bones, the Tyrant's fist smashed straight through the seemingly indestructible bone plates on the Dragon King's head. Simultaneously, he rang the Bell in his hand.

The effect of the Eternally Lucid Mind swept past, but at their current Rank, it was practically negligible.

The Dragon King, of course, was equally unaffected.

However, in that exact moment, a Shadow manifested out of thin air just adjacent to the battlefield.

It vanished in a flash, almost as if it had never been there at all. Yet, that split second was more than enough for the King of the Abandoned Prison to successfully lock onto something within His domain.

Boom—

From the Tyrant's hulking frame, the "mechanical" tentacles that had once ravaged the Mind World erupted once more, unleashing a storm that swept across every inch of the surroundings.

...

They ran fast. Both of them.

Under the Tyrant's might, a massive chunk was ripped straight off the nearby Great Hall.

Unfortunately, that appeared to be his only battle trophy.

That concealed figure was clearly on high alert. The instant they were exposed, they abandoned their original target and made no further attempt to attack.

The Dragon King was even more absurd. Despite the trauma, it had already pulled away at an unbelievable speed without even moving its wings.

Despite acting as the frontline attacker, it still had no intention of tanking the full brunt of the Tyrant's wrath.

Even if he had tried to execute a Visceral Attack at the first opportunity, he probably wouldn't have had the chance to land it.

Of course, the reason he hadn't even tried was simple—if he had truly done so, he most likely would have slain the dragon at the cost of taking another stab in the back.

When he was ambushed in the darkness, that slightly unfamiliar burst of chaos and curses immediately led Fu Qian to suspect that the Dragon King wasn't the assassin.

The Dimensional Poison on it felt more like a supplementary enchantment—icing on the cake.

As for who it could be if not the Dragon King, there were entirely too many possibilities.

Up to this point, Dark Moon was still hiding and hadn't even shown itself yet.

That figure clearly commanded formidable stealth capabilities and could even bestow them upon its allies.

As for why he had used that precious melee opening to ring the Handbell?

That was simple, too. If he had been the assassin lurking on the sidelines, he would have chosen that exact moment to strike.

Although the Eternally Lucid Mind couldn't accomplish much at this stage, timing it to meet the assassin halfway meant its fleeting influence just might help him catch a rat.