[Chapter 213. The Fall of Fortissax]

The colossal bone wing of the dragon detached from its rotting torso with a sickening crunch of grinding gristle and tearing necrotic tissue. The severed appendage plummeted toward the ground, striking the ancient stone of the ziggurat with a cataclysmic impact that sent violent tremors through the entire subterranean structure. The wing shattered upon impact. Massive fragments of bone and slabs of desiccated flesh exploded outward like deadly shrapnel. A crater tens of meters long formed where it landed, its jagged edges glowing with the residual, venomous purple energy from the dragon's malevolent fire.

Daichi maintained his precarious balance on the creature's back for a mere heartbeat as the dragon reared up in horrific, thrashing agony. Then, he began to slide uncontrollably down the steep incline of the beast's spine. His boots sank deep into the necrotic flesh, but the putrid tissue gave way beneath his immense weight. He tumbled violently over the hardened ground, covered in the vile, viscous substance that bled from the beast. It clung to his ornate armor like a foul, burning tar.

"I fucking hate this part," he grunted. He rolled to his feet and desperately wiped away the foul ichor that coated his face, the stench of decay invading his nostrils.

From deeper within the ziggurat's plateau, a voice strained with raw urgency cut through the chaotic cacophony of battle.

"All men! Fall back!"

The command came from OniByte, the battle-hardened leader who directed their grueling strategy. It carried a note of pure desperation that sent a chill through even the most seasoned warriors among them. They scrambled backward, boots slipping on blood-slicked stone.

"Byte. Will she make it?" Sakura asked from the backline. Her ceremonial robes were heavily stained with dust, sweat. Her hands trembled violently as she clutched her staff. Her gaze remained fixed on the distant, battered figure of CrimsonPanda, who stood alone and defiant against the undead horror.

OniByte turned towards the magic user. His weather-beaten features etched with profound concern. "She wears the ring of fire resistance. She should survive," he replied, though his hollow eyes betrayed a desperate flicker of doubt. "Keep your healing ready. This will test the absolute limits of her and the ring."

Once again, the psychic shockwave from Panda erupted across the platform. The taunt washed over the battlefield and forcibly seized the beast's undivided, hateful attention. Its massive head snapped toward her with a grotesque crack of grinding vertebrae. Its hollow eye sockets burned with renewed, focused malice.

Its enormous maw opened wide, revealing rows of jagged, yellowed teeth and a throat entirely consumed by the same green hellfire that burned within its exposed chest. A devastating torrent of otherworldly flame erupted, bathing the Guardian in its searing, suffocating embrace. Panda held her heavy shield high, buffed to the absolute maximum by the desperate magic of their supporters.

The necrotic flame licked her shield and armor. The intense heat turned her shield a blazing, blinding white that threatened to melt straight through the enchanted metal. She counted seconds in her mind while the flesh of her fingers blistered and burned beneath her gauntlets, overwhelming the ring's magical protection. The unnatural heat intensified, becoming an almost physical pressure that threatened to crush her into ash.

`Two.`

She dropped the molten shield with a desperate, agonizing cry. She absorbed the last second of the inferno fully with her heavy armor, which glowed cherry red under the brutal assault.

The other two tanks, though untouched by the physical flames, fell to their knees. Their lifeforce linked directly with Panda's through the Shared Essence enchantment. Their faces contorted in horrific pain as they experienced a fraction of the searing agony she endured. The healers focused every bit of their remaining energy into the Guardian right in front of them. Their hands glowed with brilliant light that streamed toward her scorched, smoking form like rivers of liquid life.

As the green flames finally died out, the entire section of the ziggurat stood blackened and crackling with residual, dark energy. The air shimmered violently with heat distortion, and the very stone beneath Panda's feet glowed like dying coals in a hellish forge.

Panda stood her ground on the blackened stone. Her movements were incredibly stiff but fueled by pure determination as she pulled a secondary shield from her spatial storage ring.

The dragon roared, its fury echoing through the vast cavern. It lashed its segmented tail at her with terrifying, whip-like speed. The bony appendage struck with the kinetic force of a siege battering ram, launching her straight back into the ruined wall with a bone-shattering impact. The previous spiderweb cracks instantly turned to deep, structural fissures in the thick stone, collapsing a massive portion of the wall entirely.

"All men attack! Without its wing, you no longer need to fear it flying above us!"

OniByte's voice boomed across the ziggurat's summit. It was raw with adrenaline and the grim, bloody satisfaction of a tactical advantage finally seized. His weathered hands, slick with sweat and grime, traced complex, glowing patterns in the air as he prepared his own volatile spells. The muscles in his forearms bulged, veins standing out like thick ropes beneath skin as he gathered immense mana. His concentration remained absolute despite the chaos erupting around him.

Within seconds, the air turned once again into a devastating hailstorm of armor-piercing arrows and destructive magic, while the melee fighters struck violently from below. Arrows rained down upon the dragon's exposed, rotting flank with the fury of divine punishment. Spells of various volatile elements converged on the beast in a dazzling, deadly display. Fireballs blossomed like dying suns, bolts of lightning crackled with untamed energy, and jagged shards of ice glittered before shattering against the dragon's necrotic hide, carving deep gouges into its dead flesh.

One of the other Guardians used their taunt skill to forcefully draw the dragon's focus. Their voice cut through the cacophony like a finely honed blade, dragging the beast's hateful attention away from the critically wounded Panda and granting her precious moments to recover in the rubble.

The middle-aged woman slapped the flank of the lesser drake. Her gloved hand left a faint, dusty mark on the drake's crimson scales.

"Go get him, boy," she commanded. Her voice held steady despite the violent tremor of the earth beneath their feet. Her dark eyes tracked the unfolding bloodbath with the practiced gaze of a seasoned tactician, cataloging every weakness in the colossal undead dragon.

In response, the lesser Wyrmling launched into the air. Its powerful wings beat aggressively against the thick, foul air of the cavern. With a guttural, primal hiss that reverberated through the tomb, it blasted the colossal undead dragon with its pure orange fire. The natural flames provided a stark, cleansing contrast to the malevolent green energy that still pulsed within the larger beast.

As it drew close enough, the drake began to brutally tear into the undead dragon's back with razor fangs and rending claws. Its smaller size and superior agility allowed it to inflict deep damage in places the human warriors could not reach. The sickening sound of rending necrotic flesh and cracking ancient bone filled the air, providing a grim counterpoint to the deafening roars of the battling behemoths.

While the others fought tooth and nail, Panda pulled herself out of the crushing rubble of the fallen wall. She threw away another empty potion bottle. Her movements were agonizingly stiff. Each shift of her weight sent sharp, blinding bolts of agony through her broken, bruised body. The air around her still shimmered with intense heat from the dragon's earlier breath assault, and the ground beneath her boots glowed with residual necrotic energy. She wiped a thick smear of dark blood from her chin with the back of her dented gauntlet. Her breath came in ragged, painful gasps as she surveyed the brutal melee. The discarded potion bottle rolled across the cracked stone.

The slaughter dragged on through what felt like an eternity. Each brutal minute stretched into hours as the combatants pushed themselves far past the absolute limits of human endurance.

Then, as if a dam had violently broken somewhere deep within the creature's ancient, ruined corpse, the green flame in its chest sputtered violently. The malevolent light flickered erratically like a dying star before collapsing in on itself with a sickening, hollow inward rush. The vile necrotic energy that had animated the abomination was finally, entirely spent.

Without the dark magical energy keeping the massive dragon alive, it simply fell in on itself. There was no final, defiant death roar, no desperate final strike. Nothing. Only an eerie, sudden silence descended upon the blood-soaked battlefield as the creature's massive form began to crumble.

The ancient bones that had withstood the desperate assaults of countless warriors now surrendered to gravity. They cracked and snapped with sounds like heavy thunder in a distant, rolling storm. The immense impact of its final fall sent shockwaves through the already fractured stone of the ziggurat, shattering the ancient steps beneath it even further and sending thick, choking clouds of bone dust and debris billowing into the foul air.

Before they could even fully process what had happened, before the dense dust had even begun to settle over the carnage, a system announcement flashed through the collective vision of every surviving human all around the earth. The text stood stark against the backdrop of their exhausted, traumatized minds.

[Global Announcement]

— The second Special Boss has been slain.

— Participants: Akira Tanaka, Chen Yuxin, CrimsonPanda, Daichi Watanabe, DragonPing, HandofGod, Haruka Sato, JadePhoenix, Ji-Hoon Park, Mei Lin, Min-Jun Lee, NeonRonin, OniByte, Ren Nakamura, Ryu, Sakura404, ShadowKitsune, Wei Zhang, Yuna Kim.

[System Notification]

─ Congratulations! You are the second to defeat a Special Boss: Fortissax, Terror of Avalin

─ The party will receive 30% of the experience required to advance to the next level.

─ [+38,491 Exp]

─ Reward: +3 All Stats

─ Bing. Level Up. You are now Level 19.

The entire battlefield descended into chaotic relief. Some warriors collapsed to their knees in exhausted tears, their weapons clattering uselessly to the stone. Others hugged their battered comrades, their armored bodies shaking violently with the overwhelming intensity of their emotions. But most just stared blindly at the massive, crumbling corpse in utter disbelief, their soot-stained faces etched with bone-deep exhaustion and the raw shock of their unlikely survival.

OniByte stared at the massive pile of bones and then at the glowing blue vortex that stood at the end of the ziggurat. Its ethereal light cast long, eerie shadows across the devastated, blood-soaked battlefield. He raised a trembling hand—a gesture of both profound triumph and utter exhaustion. His fingers shook with fatigue and the lingering adrenaline that still pumped fiercely through his veins.

"We did it," he whispered. The words sounded completely foreign in the sudden silence of the tomb, as if he spoke a language he had long forgotten. "We actually butchered it."

But internally, his mind raced with the terrifying implications of their bloody victory. He could not fathom how someone could have slain a horror of this magnitude a week ago. Not only that, but they did it alone. The thought sent a cold, creeping chill down his spine that had nothing to do with the damp air of the cavern.

`What kind of absolute monster exists out there? One that could single-handedly annihilate a horror that took nineteen of us hours and nearly all our resources to overcome?`

The exhaustion that had been held at bay by pure adrenaline now crashed down upon them like a physical, crushing wave. CrimsonPanda leaned heavily against her scorched, warped shield. Her shoulders slumped as the immense weight of her horrific injuries and the brutal battle settled upon her like a lead mantle. Her armor was deeply dented and heavily scorched. Her face was smeared thick with black soot and dried blood, her eyes half-closed with absolute fatigue.

The others quickly followed suit. Their battered bodies sagged with fatigue as they stared at the ruined corpse of the beast they had finally slain, their minds struggling to comprehend the true magnitude of the bloodbath they had just survived.

The lesser dragon flew back towards its master, its wings beating the foul air with heavy, tired strokes. It nuzzled into her side like a massive, scaly kitten seeking comfort. Its large head pressed heavily against her shoulder as it purred, the deep sound rumbling through the silence like distant thunder. "One day you will be just as big and strong."

Daichi stumbled up to OniByte and slapped a heavy hand on his shoulder. Daichi's ornate armor was completely slick with the foul, reeking ichor of the dead dragon.

"You know, I am incredibly glad that I do not have to be covered in its rotting filth anymore," he said. His voice sounded rough, akin to grinding sandpaper, as he wiped another thick smear of the foul substance from his cheek with the back of his dirty gauntlet.

OniByte quickly pulled back and held his hand over his mouth, his face contorting in genuine disgust at the horrific sight and overpowering smell of the dragon's bodily fluids.

"Come on, man, that is vile. Get away from me," he said. There was no real heat in his words, only the weary, bone-deep resignation of a man who had seen too much slaughter and was ready for the nightmare to be over.