Chapter 1361: What Angered the Mountain

The moment the stone beneath them split, Seraphina shifted back into her dragon form.

Her massive body filled the limited space above the summit, and the wind from her wings swept away a storm of shattered rock. There was no time for everyone to find somewhere safe to stand. She simply reached out with one claw, grabbed the nearest people one by one, and dropped them onto her back.

She wasn’t particularly gentle about it.

Several of them landed in a tangled heap, then scrambled to grab the surrounding scales before the shaking mountain threw them off.

Ethan was still dangling from Seraphina’s other claw. He held Idra tightly in both arms and looked down at the crumbling mountain, his confusion giving way to alarm.

An unpleasant possibility occurred to him.

Was this mountain alive?

Auri stared down in surprise from Seraphina’s back.

Kneeling between two dragon scales, she stretched both hands toward the mountain. Green Fairy energy streamed from her fingertips and reached through the air toward the stone below.

The instant her energy touched the mountain, a tremendous force surged back through it.

Auri’s arms were thrown apart, knocking her backward. She hurriedly grabbed a nearby scale before she could tumble off Seraphina’s back.

"Someone made the mountain angry."

She sat up again and rubbed her numb wrists.

"I don’t know how to calm it down."

Ethan considered her words.

Someone had made it angry?

It had to be that bird hiding inside the mountain.

Nothing about that thing—from its looks to its behavior—said it was any kind of good bird.

Idra suddenly twisted free of Ethan’s arms.

She jumped from Seraphina’s claw and began transforming as she fell. Scales spread across her skin, and a pair of dragon wings unfolded from her back. In the blink of an eye, she had become a small dragon.

Idra adjusted her course in midair, folded her wings, and dove toward the mountain below.

The mountain shook even harder.

Every stone in its body trembled. The gaps between the boulders rapidly widened as the peak broke apart into countless pieces, though some remained joined by narrow sections of rock.

The stones began converging toward the center.

The mountain’s original shape disappeared. The rocks at its summit gathered into the beginnings of a round head, its middle bulged outward, and two thick stone arms began extending from either side.

Before the transformation could finish, Idra skimmed over the top of the incomplete stone head. She found a wide gap between two boulders, folded her wings, and slipped inside.

"Auri!"

Ethan had barely opened his mouth to stop her when Auri jumped from Seraphina’s back.

Green Fairy energy bloomed around her.

A verdant branch grew out in front of Auri and attached itself to the shifting stones. More branches spread across the rock, forcing their way into the gap between two massive boulders.

Auri spread her hands apart.

The branches pulled taut and pushed the closing stones away from each other, forcibly holding open a narrow passage. She turned sideways and slipped through.

Ethan stared helplessly at where the two girls had disappeared.

Each one was faster than the last.

There was no way he could let them go in alone. He released Seraphina’s claw and jumped toward the mountain. Before the gap closed completely, Ethan squeezed through as well.

Once the last of them was inside, the transformation finished.

The towering mountain was gone.

In its place stood a round, bulky stone giant.

Its body was pieced together from boulders of every size. Its thick legs sank into the gray-white forest, and its shoulders rose several times higher than the surrounding canopy. The giant lifted its round head toward the sky as its stone eyes flickered between red and green.

Green tried several times to take over.

But each time, the red grew stronger.

It wasn’t long before dark crimson light completely filled both stone eyes.

The stone giant awakened.

It raised one enormous arm and swung at Seraphina in the air. As the arm swept over the forest, it stirred up a gale that flattened entire swaths of the gray-white canopy.

Ataneya stood at the edge of Seraphina’s back and spread all twelve of her fox tails.

The long tails hovered in the air, each tip turning toward the incoming stone arm. The moment it entered range, all twelve shot forward from different directions and wrapped around its wrist, elbow, and forearm.

The giant’s arm stopped just short of Seraphina.

It kept pushing, forcing the massive limb forward inch by inch. Ataneya’s tails were pulled completely taut, and hairline cracks formed in the dragon scales beneath her feet.

Realizing its arm had been restrained, the stone giant opened its enormous hand.

Brilliant red light flared deep within its palm.

The light compressed inward, shrinking from a hazy mass into a sharply defined point. The surrounding air was driven outward as a straight firing channel formed in the center of the stone palm.

A red laser erupted from its hand.

Andona moved past the others and positioned herself directly in the beam’s path.

Dense Divine Power radiated from the blade in her hand, golden light flowing along its length. Before the red beam even reached her, the two opposing forces had already squeezed the air around the sword into tightly packed ripples.

Andona didn’t swing her blade to block the attack.

She released the hilt and let the sword fall. As it passed beside her, she twisted and kicked the flat of the blade.

The golden sword changed direction and spun high into the air.

Andona stepped forward, raised a hand, and caught the hilt as it came back down. Using the momentum from its rotation, she hurled the blade at the red laser.

The sword point struck the beam head-on.

Its golden edge cut straight through the center, splitting the entire beam in half. The divided streams passed on either side of the group and slammed into the distant forest, carving two long, deep trenches through the ground.

Energy continued pouring from the stone giant’s palm.

The red laser pressed relentlessly against the blade, but it couldn’t break through the Divine Power coating the sword.

The golden blade forced its way upstream through the beam.

As it drew closer to the stone palm, its golden radiance grew increasingly brilliant. The moment it reached the laser’s point of origin, Divine Power spread outward from the blade, suppressing the surrounding red energy by force.

Andona thrust her hand forward.

A new surge of power drove the blade into the stone giant’s palm, blocking the laser’s firing channel.

With nowhere to escape, the red energy expanded inside the giant’s hand. Blinding crimson light shone through the cracks between the stones, and the entire arm began to shake violently.

Ataneya seized the opportunity.

All twelve fox tails tightened at once.

The phantom of the Shadow Vixen Deity slowly appeared behind her. The colossal fox hovered high in the sky, its gaze fixed on the stone giant below as crushing pressure descended from above.

Every nearby tree was flattened against the ground.

Even the earth beneath the stone giant caved inward.