Endless Path : Infinite Cosmos

Chapter 2162: Through the Frost and the Flames

With even her most casual attacks generating a wave of frost that impacted the arena like a ten-thousand-car freight train, Fenrir was more than a little surprised by her power. It felt like there was an infinite well of energy where the pit in her stomach used to be. The sometimes-dull, sometimes-agonizing hunger that had accompanied her throughout her entire life was completely absent. In its place, a feeling of satiety she had never known before caused an uncontainable giddiness to slowly swell without her chest.

Seeing the 'battle-hungry' expression on Fenrir's face, a wry smile developed across Nuuba's as she circulated her Heavenly Qi in an effort to dispel the frigid energy gradually pooling within her veins. She had never fought an opponent with such an extreme affinity with Yin before, and, after this, she resolved herself never to fight another.

"You're really something, you know that...?"

After evading a blast of energy more than ten meters in diameter, Nuuba attempted to buy a bit of time by making conversation. Fortunately, Fenrir wasn't in a particular hurry to deal with her, so, the moment she heard the white-haired dragoness's remark, her tempestuous assault gradually ceased as she replied, "Thanks. You're pretty strong yourself."

Adopting an even wrier smile in response to Fenrir's remark, the dragon heart within Nuuba's chest began to pump with ever-increasing vigor as frigid energy in the form of pure white vapor expelled from her pores.

"It pains me to admit but there's no way I can defeat you in my current form. I normally wouldn't do this during a friendly competition but I'd rather not lose my first match in sixty years..."

Punctuating her words, Nuuba's body pulsed as a tremendous volume of steam erupted from her body. The temperature in her surroundings began to increase at a phenomenal rate as a reddish-pink luminescence manifested in the center of her chest. Those with sharper eyesight would have been able to make out that this was Nuuba's heart beating within her chest, the energy contained without so dense and potent that it resembled the surface of a star.

Under normal circumstances, Fenrir would have interrupted Nuuba's very obvious transformation sequences. Instead, the smile on her face grew into a 'too large' grin as the snowy white fur on her forearms and legs began to spread up her arms and thighs. The wild and untamed hair that flowed from her head also began to elongate as two hazel-brown horns emerged a few centimeters above her brows. Then, as if a dam had broken in the back of her mind, Fenrir's body suddenly exploded into motes of bluish-white light that resembled snow.

Staring wide-eyed at the veritable avalanche of ice elemental energy sweeping towards her, Nuuba crossed her arms as the heart in her chest began to pulsate even faster. She ended up being swept up and slammed against the barrier surrounding the arena, but, instead of losing hope, an excited smile developed across her face as the light from her chest slowly climbed up her neck...

Just as it seemed like the entire arena was going to be buried in tens of meters of snow, a roar that shook the banquet hall sounded in the hearts and minds of everyone present. Nuuba's body, similar to Fenrir's, suddenly erupted, but, instead of producing ice and snow, her half of the arena began to fill with a hazy smoke that billowed outward like the pyroclastic flow of an erupting volcano.

From within the surging tode of smoke, a massive oriental dragon covered in dark green scales and fiery pink runes attempted to bite at something unseen within the center of the arena. Its maw was more than seven meters wide while the ivory white, extremely fierce-looking teeth lining its interior resembled the rock formations of a limestone cave. The canines, in particular, were larger than most adults, yet, in spite of this, Nuuba's head ended up reeling backward as a pristine white appendage smacked her in the lower jaw.

Though she managed to recover in an instant, her serpentine body coiling like a cobra preparing to strike, Nuuba ended up getting knocked even further back as a bluish-white meteor slammed into her chest. Immediately thereafter, a soul-shaking roar resonated throughout the banquet hall as the snowy-white figure revealed itself to be an inordinately large wolf with a majestic mane of fur, large horns, and features reminiscent of a western dragon. This included a pair of fur-covered wings, and, most prominently, a long, incredibly soft-looking tail...

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Seeing Fenrir transform into a dragon, the look on Vahn's face could best be described as ecstatic. There was a massive grin on his face, and, though he did his best to restrain it, his heart was beating fast enough to create small ripples in the surrounding space.

Though Vahn had once lamented the possibility of Fenrir transforming into a True Dragon, such sentiments were nowhere to be seen at the present moment. All he felt was happiness, excitement, and, most notably, infatuation with the fluffy white dragon currently sinking its teeth into Nuuba's neck. Fenrir's dragon form was everything he had expected it to be, and, were it not for the fact she was currently engaged in a brawl evocative of the end of the world, he would have buried himself into her veritable mountain of fur without hesitation...

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Sensing her Master's excitement, Fenrir's own was increasing at an exponential rate as she persisted in the face of Nuuba's struggles. It said quite a lot that the fiery Long's body was durable enough to resist her teeth and claws. There was also a potent Yang Elementa Energy contained within Nuuba's blood, so, despite the aura shrouding Fenrir's body decreasing her surroundings to a point nearing absolute zero, the serpentine dragon refused to go down...

In an effort to dislodge Fenrir from her body, Nuuba basically embraced the former with her four-taloned claws before ascending towards the barrier overhead with momentum reminiscent of an extinction-level event. The impact caused a cataclysmic pulse of energy, and, for a brief moment, the nearly indestructible barrier resembled shatterproof glass.

To Nuuba's surprise, Fenrir's much smaller body actually gave beneath the force of the blow. This would have been a cause for celebration in most other circumstances, but, as if she had no bones in her body, Fenrir's figure began to stretch and deform to surround Nuuba's torso. At the same time, several other heads protruded from her body before sinking their icy white teeth into her arms and neck.

Issuing a roar that caused the cracks in the barrier's surface to exacerbate, Nuuba attempted to pry Fenrir away only for her claws to pass through the latter's body as if it were a ferrofluid clinging to a magnetic surface. Panic quickly began to set in moments later as the frigid energy gathering within Nuuba's body caused the border between the affected and unaffected areas to scream out in pain. She was doing her best to expel the frigid energy, but, the longer Fenrir clung to her, the quicker it compounded.

Speaking out for the first time since her transformation, Nuuba bellowed, "GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME...!" as the fiery light between her ventral scales began to build in intensity. A similar light rose in the back of her throat before she released a veritable beam of fiery, reddish-pink energy against her own body. She didn't care if she ended up damaging herself in the process. She wanted Fenrir off of her.

Unable to react in time, Fenrir felt a dull sensation in the back of her mind as she lost feeling in a large part of her body. It was only when Nuuba's catastrophically powerful breath began to fade away that she realized the reason. Every part of her body affected by the blazing beam of energy had effectively been melted down and reduced to ash. The reason she felt a dull sensation in the back of her mind was because five of the seven heads she had grown were reduced to ashes along with the majority of her body...

Realizing the dangers of staying put, Fenrir's remaining mass took the form of puppy-sized versions of her previous self. One, borrowing from her experience in the Dungeon of Danmachi, snaked her way up Nuuba's body in an attempt to find a blind spot. This was a common tactic she had used to deal with large monsters, as, the moment you moved outside the scope of their range and abilities, they were powerless to protect themselves. As for her other self, she became a sacrificial pawn that leaped away from Nuuba's body before unleashing an abyssal-black beam of energy that radiated a bluish-white light along its edges. This was her own version of a dragon's breath, and, thanks to her mastery over Devouring Laws, it was capable of cutting through almost anything.

With Fenrir's breath leaving a shallow trail across her body, Nuuba writhed in rage and indignation as she attempted to swat the bear-sized pup out of the air. At the same time, she tried to scratch at the version of Fenrir attempting to bore into the back of her head, but, much like before, her claws simply phased through the seemingly immaterial form of the unreasonably determined wolf...

Seeing the skyscraper-sized tail descending towards her, Fenrir spontaneously relaxed her entire body. As a result, she ended up being splattered into innumerable tiny pieces, pieces that quickly coalesced into a locus-like cloud of insect-sized wolf-dragons. This caused a remarkably human expression of disbelief to appear across Nuuba's draconic visage as memories of a certain golden-haired monkey surfaced in the back of her mind...

Deciding she would rather avoid having to experience someone boring into her skull, Nuuba surprised the swarm of mini-fens by declaring, "I surrender...!" in an audibly stressed tone. Bluish-white light immediately enveloped her body before her human form promptly manifested outside the arena.

Not expecting her opponent to suddenly surrender, the swam of Fenrir's found themselves at a momentary loss. The battle had been much closer than she expected so she couldn't help feeling an inkling of disappointment now that things had ended in such an anticlimactic way...

Pulling herself together, quite literally, Fenrir returned to her human form only to deadpan when she realized how unusually close the ground was. Everything in her surroundings also appeared a lot bigger than usual, so, when she finally got a good look at herself, Fenrir was unsurprised to find out she had become a chibi. Far more troubling was the fact that she was completely naked.

Though her expression remained a deadpan, Fenrir covered her chest with her paws while curling up her tail between her legs. Her stupefaction caused her to completely forgot about her ability to transform, and, more notably, her ability to create clothes using magic. She had become a little too reliant on her [REquip] system, so, now that it had been destroyed, she ended up freezing in place as hundreds of gods eyed her with covetous gazes.

Baring her teeth, a blood-curdling aura began to exude from Fenrir's body until a thick and heavy fur coat spontaneously covered her body. At the same time, Vahn appeared right in front of her, his figure towering to the point she barely reached past his hips. Then, in a casual motion, he scooped her up in his arms, an affectionate smile on his face as he leaned in close to her and said, "You're so unbelievably amazing..."

Feeling her anger and bloodlust fade in an instant, an uncharacteristically bashful smile developed across Fenrir's face as she shrank in her Master's embrace. This elicited an amused laugh from Vahn, who, ignoring the resent-filled gazes of more than half the banquet hall, made his way down from the arena before turning to the stunned Nuuba and saying, "Thank you. Fenrir hasn't been able to cut loose like that in a long time. Once this is over with, I'll make sure to prepare a gift for you and your father."

Blinking in surprise, Nuuba opened her mouth, but, before she could find the words to speak, Vahn had already teleported back to his table. Shortly thereafter, Fenrir transformed into her puppy form, so, from the perspective of others, he was now surrounded by three inordinately adorable animals, each nestling close together as Vahn gently caressed their sleeping figures with a smile...

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(A/N: Alternate Titles: 'Plus Ultra','Never underestimate a Dragon's Breath Attack','I'm not jealous...I just have a habit of grinding my teeth...')