Chapter 2302: Great Sword and Great Sword

Chapter 2302: Chapter 2302: Great Sword and Great Sword

The massive Half-Blood Dragon Beast pinned at the center of the Ritual Site could not break free from its restraints no matter how desperately it struggled.

Dozens of grooves ran from the gray stone center of the Ritual Site out toward the towering Dragon Statues surrounding it, and with the start of the Dragon Feast Ceremony, the rapidly extracted Life Force—and even the Spirit, liquefied into a flowing substance—ran along those grooves into the Dragon Statues, then were respectively absorbed by the people seated upon the dragon egg thrones cradled in each Dragon’s arms.

In that ancient Ritual Site, the Dragon Beast’s despairing roar and the scene of its soul being carved up and devoured instinctively sickened Iluna.

Precisely because of this, when the battle formally erupted and the ball of Light Mr. Joshua Brooklyn threw with his right hand almost shattered the giant Defensive Ritual surrounding the village in a single strike, Iluna joined the fray without holding back.

For this operation, the True God Church had dispatched more than forty Circle Sorcerers, and even more Low Ring logistical personnel. That was why Shard, flying in from afar, was still carefully breaking through the defensive Barrier within the Black Forest at this moment.

Iluna had originally questioned the necessity of dispatching a Thirteen-Ring Sorcerer, but once the battle truly began and five genuine Pureblood Great Dragons burst forth from the running Dragon Feast Sacrificial Ground, she realized this arrangement was in fact rather conservative.

Under the Sun, the Sunlight Gun flashed with dazzling golden Glimmer. Planting both feet on the Earth, Iluna hurled Thunder toward the sky with all her might; even among the red, black, green, blue, and white dragons, the largest Red Dragon did not dare take it head-on.

As that beam from the Sunlight Gun detonated in midair and hundreds of fine arcs of lightning veiled the sky over the village, Mr. Joshua Brooklyn took the lead in intercepting the five Dragons, allowing the others to enter the village to hunt down the Cultists.

Iluna did not summon her own mount to follow into the sky, but instead advanced with the ground troops into the village.

The Church’s High Ring Sorcerers followed close behind Mr. Brooklyn, engaging those Cultists who had flown from the Sacrificial Ground after absorbing Dragon Strength through the Dragon Feast Ceremony. Yet immediately thereafter, with a single Dragon Roar, the highest-Level Cultist—an Eleven-Ring Sorcerer—actually transformed into a Black Dragon, only to be forced from the sky back toward the ground by dozens of Arcane Techniques.

The black Flame jetting from the Dragon’s maw swept across the village entrance, but was absorbed by the Relic in the hand of a Priest of the Dawn Church.

Right after that, a black Light Pillar rose from within the village, and in that bizarre Dragon Feast Sacrificial Ground, a great number of ash-gray Dragon Statues used as decorations came to life. At the same time, more and more Circle Sorcerers riding Dragon Beasts flew out from inside the village.

Aerial and ground contact battles erupted at once. Reaching the village entrance alongside the ground forces, Iluna raised her own Dark Golden Balance high; as its Glimmer lit the sky, the Power of "Balance" held by The Chosen One was gradually strengthening their side and weakening the enemy.

The intensity of the resistance the Church encountered did indeed exceed the preparations made before the operation, but still had not reached the point where it could contend with the combined forces of the Dawn Church and the Sun Church.

The only danger at this moment did not lie in people, but in the ever-increasing number of Pureblood Great Dragons taking flight from the Dragon Feast Sacrificial Ground. In fact, over these years, the True God Church had always puzzled over one question: where exactly did the Dragon Feast Cult obtain so many Dragons?

Suddenly, three more figures took off from the Sacrificial Ground. With the help of their companions, they evaded the Church’s High Ring Sorcerers and flew straight from outside the village to the sky above it. Iluna, who had been trailing the main force while casually tossing Sunlight Guns without much seriousness, finally turned to look at the southwestern sky, then blew the Bone Whistle on her chest:

"Our turn to move!"

She leaped onto her mount and shouted loudly, flying into the air alongside the three High Ring Sorcerers who had come with her from Tobesk.

Among the three Cultists, one cradled a golden box, while another held a Dragon Horn.

After the Golden Thunder Iluna hurled blasted apart a Dragon Beast attempting to approach, the Circle Sorcerer holding the Dragon Horn directly flung the black horn toward the four of them.

The Dragon Horn was neither an explosive nor a Weapon; it traced a black fissure through the air. With a sound that set one’s teeth on edge, Space tore open, and a thick arm like that of a Giant, wielding a bizarrely shaped colossal bronze Great Sword, thrust out from the rift.

The huge arm was sheathed in blue-green Dragon Scales, and even that Great Sword was studded with Dragon Scales. Perhaps because the limb was too massive, when it swept the Sword across the air, it almost looked as if it were moving in slow motion.

But in truth, the speed of that swing left most people unable to react.

The sound of the Great Sword ripping through the air was nearly a Dragon Roar, and before it struck the people fighting above the village, it first collided with the Power of the Earth: Solar Energy Cannon Iluna had thrown.

The enormous Light Orb, bright as the Sun, held the Great Sword at bay in midair for a brief instant, before the ensuing explosion and blinding radiance forced everyone to avert their gaze.

The rumbling once more set the Black Forest quaking, yet as the warm Glimmer scattered like motes of light, people knew that Iluna had not been on the losing end.

The nearby clouds in the sky were completely blown apart by that strike, and once the smoke of the blast dispersed, the gigantic hand reaching from the Space rift cleaved open by the Dragon Horn had already half withdrawn behind the fissure.

But Iluna knew it absolutely wasn’t because it couldn’t defeat her; the reason that giant hand withdrew was simply that, among the other two Ten-Ring Sorcerers in the sky, one of them had opened that metal box forged from pure gold.

A pure-white Light Orb, smaller than a chicken egg, then flew out of that box and shot toward the sky. It deftly avoided the Fireballs and Shadow Orbs that Iluna’s companions behind her hurled.

When that Light Orb, almost fused into the sky itself, reached the point directly above the village, a pure, flawless, alien Glimmer—Light potent enough to melt anything—blossomed beneath the clear blue heavens.

The True God Church had long known of the cooperative ties between the Dragon Feast Cult and the Light Worshipper Training Association, so when drafting this plan, they had already anticipated this most dangerous scenario.

Thus, as the Light Orb rose, nearly everyone in the sky began to drop altitude, while Spell Words were being rapidly chanted from the ground teams, quickly constructing a Temple-shaped Phantom above the village.

The Church had yet to figure out how to counter this kind of Light that had appeared due to the World’s abnormality, but fortunately, Divine Power could almost resist all danger. The Arcane Technique "Temple Arts," jointly unleashed by six High Ring Priests of the Dawn Church, could temporarily protect the entire group as they withdrew from this dangerous area.

Though they had no idea how long it could hold, it should at least be enough time to retrieve most of the valuable information from the village.

Meanwhile, the Cultists of the Dragon Feast Cult also tacitly descended from the sky once that Light Orb took off. The Circle Sorcerers fled in all directions, while the Dragon Beasts launched even fiercer attacks on the Church’s ground troops, as if determined to perish together with them.

Mr. Joshua Brooklyn had already fallen with those Dragons toward the Dragon Feast Sacrificial Ground, and the Giant Hand beyond the spatial rift used that bizarre Great Sword to block the rift, preventing the Glimmer from seeping through.

Everyone was waiting and watching to see whether the Church could withstand this special Light from the Light Worshipper Training Association. The outcome of this clash would determine many things to come.

But they never saw the white Light pouring down from the sky touch the Temple Phantom, because another Dragon Roar came from the Black Forest.

Roar~

This Dragon Roar was unlike any of the previous ones; that instinctive awe and crushing oppression absolutely did not come from a normal Dragon.

Iluna even vaguely recalled last Sunday, above the Belindel Big Bell, when that Dragon Roar accompanied the Golden Thunder and shattered countless panes of glass.

And in fact, she wasn’t wrong, because this was precisely the effect of Shard’s Dragon Roar.

The pure-white Glimmer spreading over the village actually stopped expanding after that Dragon Roar; instead, it rapidly condensed into a pure-white Light Sword and fell into the forest outside the village.

Thus, the danger was resolved so easily. While everyone hesitated at this strange development, that massive arm clad in green Dragon Scales again stretched out from the crack in the sky, its Great Sword sweeping toward the place where the Light Sword had descended.

Clang!

The sonic boom of the two swords clashing swept across the entire forest. The Great Sword did not touch the trees, for a gigantic white Light Sword had risen from the forest to point at the heavens, blocking that bronze-like Great Sword.

When they collided, the fragments scattered from the Light Sword alone "melted" dozens of trees in the forest, yet that Relic Great Sword was unaffected by the Light Sword. The two Great Swords then broke apart, only to collide dozens more times in quick succession over the forest, until the Bronze Great Sword was finally forced, due to the changing battle, to be seized by that Giant Hand and pulled back into the rift, vanishing from sight.

The massive white Light Sword also disappeared quickly, not because Shard was unwilling to press the attack, but because he simply could not control a Great Sword formed from such concentrated abnormal Glimmer.

As he vanished within the forest, Iluna and her companions shot down the two Circle Sorcerers in midair who had opened the golden boxes. The battle at Elven Village ended not long after; large numbers of Dragon Beasts were slain by the Church, and the colossal Dragon Beast hatching nest hidden beneath the village chief’s house was discovered.

However, many Cultists escaped amid the Dragon Beasts’ final mass self-detonation, and that strange Dragon Feast Ritual Site had already faded away like a Phantom before the fighting ended.

Mr. Joshua Brooklyn severely wounded four Pureblood Great Dragons, and the Church’s follow-up reinforcement teams succeeded in bringing them under control.

When this Thirteen-Ring Sorcerer and Iluna went together to the site in the forest outside the village where the Light Sword had fallen, all they saw were petals, brokenly trailing off into the depths of the woods.

Following the petal tracks, Shard never appeared; in the end, they only found a Dragon Beast that had died with an Arrow through its body and a fainted Five Rings Cultist.