Chapter 889: The Clash of Dragons

Niddrog took some time to notice that two presences of comparable scale were approaching. Her head remained lowered over one of Yggdrasil’s roots, jaws crushing primordial wood with almost lazy slowness while bluish currents traveled across the black plates of her body. The tree itself reacted to every bite. Golden lines lit beneath the bark and vanished when they reached the regions already corrupted by the dragon’s teeth.

It was only when Crymsaria tore through a layer of dust clouds with her wings fully spread that Niddrog finally stopped chewing.

The enormous neck rose slowly, fragments of root still caught between her teeth, and two deep eyes opened beneath the crown of horns.

Crymsaria did not wait for a greeting.

Her mouth opened, and the inside of her throat turned white before becoming red. The fire that emerged did not spread like an ordinary flame; it came out compressed into a column so dense that the space around it seemed to bend away.

The blast crossed kilometers in an instant and struck Niddrog directly in the side of the face.

The explosion covered part of Yggdrasil’s trunk and raised a wave of heat that reached Vergil even from that distance. Ash, fragments of bark, and incandescent matter rained down from the upper regions while Niddrog’s head was forced sideways for the first time.

Vergil leaned slightly forward in his chair.

Mjölnir vibrated.

"I saw."

Crymsaria emerged from her own inferno without slowing down and slammed her shoulder into Niddrog.

The impact between the two bodies did not sound like flesh striking flesh.

It sounded like continents colliding.

The entire trunk in that region of Yggdrasil trembled, dunes of dead leaves collapsed dozens of kilometers away, and several of Niddrog’s offspring immediately abandoned their caves, flying in every direction.

The black dragon lost contact with the root she had been eating and was dragged sideways, her claws carving enormous furrows through the wood before finally finding purchase.

Niddrog roared.

This time, there was no pain in the sound.

There was indignation.

Crymsaria answered with another roar, almost satisfied.

"She liked that," Vergil commented.

Mjölnir trembled negatively.

"Not Crymsaria. Niddrog."

The Divine Weapon vibrated again, as though disagreeing with his interpretation.

In the sky, Nivara had still not attacked.

While Crymsaria turned the first exchange into a contest of brute force, the white dragon flew in a wide circle around the two, observing Niddrog from different angles.

Her blue eyes tracked the joints, the movement of the wings, the distribution of weight across the roots, and especially the currents of energy flowing through the black scales.

Nivara was less impulsive.

If Crymsaria needed to discover how much an enemy could endure by hitting it directly, Nivara preferred to first discover where she should strike.

Niddrog decided for her.

The black dragon opened her wings.

The change in pressure nearly tore Vergil out of his chair.

The monstrous membranes spread across an absurd distance, and a single motion pushed clouds, dust, and fragments of roots away as though the entire environment had been swept by a storm.

Crymsaria was thrown several kilometers backward and had to twist in the air to regain balance, while Niddrog launched herself toward Nivara at a speed incompatible with her own size.

Nivara simply closed her wings.

The white body dropped.

Niddrog’s claws passed directly above her, tearing away part of a gigantic root in their path.

Before the black dragon could correct her movement, Nivara twisted in midair, opened her wings again, and raised her head.

The cold appeared without warning.

Not as snow.

As the complete suppression of temperature across an entire region.

Moisture froze instantly, ambient energy slowed, and a white layer began growing over Niddrog’s front leg.

The ice reached the joint.

Then the shoulder.

In less than two seconds, nearly a quarter of her right wing was covered in crystal.

Nivara advanced.

Her tail struck precisely where the area had frozen.

The crystal exploded along with several black scales.

Niddrog roared again, whipping her head around so quickly that her horns nearly struck Nivara.

The white dragon dodged by centimeters, but one of the tips caught her wing and opened a long gash between the pale plates.

Light-blue blood scattered through the air.

Vergil narrowed his eyes.

Nivara looked at her injured wing.

Then at Niddrog.

Her draconic expression was not exactly easy to read, but Vergil knew that woman far too well.

She was irritated.

Crymsaria appeared above Niddrog before the black dragon could continue the attack.

Two red claws seized the base of one of the horns, and Crymsaria threw the full weight of her body downward, forcing the colossal head lower.

Niddrog resisted for an instant and then began twisting her neck, but Crymsaria had already gotten the answer she wanted.

Instead of insisting on a direct contest, she opened her mouth only a few meters from the scales and fired concentrated flame directly into the neck joint.

The black plates began turning red.

Then orange.

Crymsaria released a deep laugh.

"BURN!"

Niddrog twisted her entire body.

Crymsaria was hurled away.

She smashed through two roots before managing to open her wings again.

One of the structures broke completely and began falling toward the gray desert below.

Crymsaria emerged from the debris with several chest scales shattered, but she was still smiling as though she had just discovered a new game.

Vergil rested his chin on one hand.

"She really likes this."

Mjölnir vibrated in agreement this time.

The battle changed scale when Niddrog finally abandoned all interest in the root she had been eating.

The blue energy flowing through her body intensified and began leaking from the plates like luminous vapor.

The dragon’s eyes narrowed, and her mouth slowly opened.

Something gathered deep inside her throat.

Nivara noticed first.

"CRYMSARIA!"

The red dragon turned her head.

A blue-black sphere appeared between Niddrog’s teeth.

Vergil became serious.

The energy was not merely draconic.

There was matter from Yggdrasil inside it, compressed and corrupted within Niddrog’s body.

The dragon was taking part of the power she had just devoured and converting it into an attack of her own.

The shot fired.

There was no initial explosion.

There was a line.

A column of energy crossed space so quickly that for a fraction of a second it looked as though the environment itself had been divided in two.

Crymsaria tilted her body and managed to avoid the center of the attack, but the edge passed through her right wing.

Red scales vanished instantly.

They did not break.

They did not burn.

They simply ceased to exist.

The beam continued.

It struck one of Yggdrasil’s roots.

The root, large enough to be mistaken for a mountain range, was pierced from one side to the other.

Vergil stood from the chair.

"That would be bad."

Mjölnir vibrated violently.

"Yes, I noticed."

Niddrog began moving her head.

The beam followed.

Crymsaria dove, and the blue-black line chased her across the sky, cutting through roots and tearing enormous amounts of wood from the World Tree.

Nivara appeared above the dragon’s neck and beat both wings at once.

An ice storm crashed down over Niddrog’s head, not trying to freeze her entire body, but her snout and jaw.

The beam shifted.

Crymsaria escaped.

Nivara immediately advanced and drove her claws into the upper portion of Niddrog’s jaw.

The black dragon tried to open her mouth again, but crystals began growing between her teeth and across her tongue.

Crymsaria understood.

She climbed from below.

Both attacked almost simultaneously.

Nivara pulled the head upward.

Crymsaria struck the lower jaw with her skull.

Niddrog’s mouth slammed shut violently.

The energy still forming inside her throat detonated before it could escape.

The explosion happened inside her own mouth.

The next roar came distorted through smoke.

Vergil gave a small smile.

"Good."

Niddrog staggered backward, ripping Nivara’s claws from her face while black-blue blood leaked between her teeth.

Part of the plating around her snout had been destroyed, and one of the gigantic teeth slowly fell toward the ground.

When it struck a distant dune, the entire formation vanished beneath the object’s mass.

Crymsaria landed on a root and opened her wings, satisfied.

Nivara stood beside her.

The two exchanged a glance.

They did not need to speak.

Vergil immediately realized what it was.

Shared experience.

They could claim that they had spent lifetimes fighting each other, but precisely because of that, they knew every reaction, every pattern, every opening their rival created.

Crymsaria knew when Nivara was preparing ice before the energy even appeared.

Nivara recognized one of Crymsaria’s attacks from the position of her shoulders.

They were not merely fighting together.

They were using decades, centuries, perhaps ages of rivalry as a combat language.

Niddrog noticed too.

For the first time, the black dragon stopped attacking impulsively.

Her body lowered over the roots.

Her wings opened more slowly.

Her claws found purchase.

Vergil saw the muscles in her neck tense.

"Now she understands that you two are a problem."

Crymsaria released smoke through her nostrils.

"Took her long enough."

Nivara did not answer.

Niddrog disappeared.

Vergil frowned.

It was not speed.

Space had folded.

A blue fissure opened behind Crymsaria, and Niddrog’s colossal head emerged from it with jaws open.

The fangs closed around the side of the red dragon’s neck before Crymsaria could fully turn.

The impact made her entire body sink.

Niddrog pulled.

Crymsaria was dragged into the fissure.

"NIVARA!"

The white dragon immediately dove and grabbed Crymsaria’s left wing before she disappeared completely.

For several moments, all three were linked across two different regions: Niddrog pulling from one side, Nivara from the other, with Crymsaria trapped between the jaws.

Vergil placed a hand on Yamato.

But did not draw it.

Not yet.

Crymsaria opened one eye.

Her smile returned.

"Got you."

Her entire body exploded into fire.

Niddrog tried to release her.

Too late.

Crymsaria had allowed part of her energy to enter the dragon’s mouth during the bite.

Flames erupted beneath the scales on Niddrog’s neck, burst through cracks between the plates, and exploded around her head.

The dimensional fissure lost stability.

Nivara pulled with force.

Crymsaria was ripped from the jaws at the exact moment the portal closed over some of Niddrog’s teeth.

Two fangs were left behind.

Vergil moved his hand away from Yamato.

"She did that on purpose."

Mjölnir vibrated.

"I thought it was stupid too."

High above, Crymsaria turned her head toward him.

Even from kilometers away, she had apparently heard.

"I HEARD THAT!"

Vergil pretended not to hear.

Nivara released Crymsaria and looked at the wound on her neck.

The fang marks were deep, and several scales had been torn away.

"You almost lost your head."

"But I didn’t."

"That argument is still stupid."

"It worked."

Nivara remained silent for a second.

"Unfortunately."

Niddrog emerged fully from the fissure she had created and landed on another section of Yggdrasil.

The dragon was wounded now.

Blood ran from her snout.

Several scales had been torn away.

Part of her neck was burned.

A region of one wing remained covered in ice.

None of the damage looked fatal.

But something else mattered more.

Niddrog was looking at them.

Not at Yggdrasil.

Not at the roots.

At Nivara and Crymsaria.

The meal was over.

The real fight was beginning now.

Vergil watched the change in the creature’s posture and released a small sigh.

"She was playing."

Nivara answered without taking her eyes off the dragon.

"No."

Crymsaria lowered her body over the root.

"She was eating."

Vergil thought for a moment.

"...That’s worse."

Mjölnir vibrated in agreement.

Then Niddrog raised her head.

The sound that emerged from her throat was not merely a roar.

It was a draconic wave capable of passing through the body, space, and the very structure of the roots.

Niddrog’s offspring scattered throughout the entire region stopped moving at the same time.

Thousands of blue and black heads rose.

Nivara looked around.

Crymsaria did the same.

From inside the caves, the nests between the roots, and the regions hidden beneath the gray dust, dragons began to emerge.

Hundreds.

Then thousands.

Vergil remained seated for several seconds, watching the sky begin to fill with Niddrog’s descendants.

Mjölnir trembled in his hand.

Vergil tilted his head.

"Now you want to help?"

The hammer vibrated forcefully.

Vergil smiled.

"I knew it."

He slowly stood, holding Mjölnir in one hand while Yamato remained at his waist.

Ahead of him, Nivara and Crymsaria kept Niddrog occupied.

Around them, thousands of offspring began closing the circle.

Vergil spun the hammer once.

Black, red, and golden lightning began gathering around his body.

"We leave the mother to them."

His eyes moved across the swarm of dragons descending toward him.

"The children are ours."