Chapter 471: Dragon Slayer

Alice stood atop the shattered rooftop, her violet eyes fixed on the pillar of blue-white fire still raging in the distance. The flames curled around a single figure at its center, her hair whipping in the wind, each strand catching the light like molten gold. She looked less like a dragon and more like something divine.

Alice let out a long sigh and crossed her arms.

"Honestly. Always making people worry."

Azrynn landed beside her, bow still in hand, a small smile tugging at the corner of her lips.

"She’s certainly... hard to miss."

Below, in the ruined plaza, Ignis lowered her gaze to Wincent’s broken form. The God Hand sparked weakly, its crimson veins flickering like a dying ember. Frost and fire warred across its surface, and the golden aura that had once wrapped around him was gone.

Ignis’s voice was calm, cold, and absolute.

"This is the price for challenging a dragon."

Wincent coughed, blood spilling between his fingers. His mechanical arm trembled, joints grinding as he forced himself to look up at her. Despite everything, a faint laugh escaped his cracked lips.

"Haha... so this is the true strength of a dragon."

Ignis didn’t answer. She raised her fist, flames gathering around her knuckles until they burned white-hot, a compressed star waiting to be released.

"It was never possible for a human to defeat a dragon."

She swung her fist toward Wincent’s head.

Wincent’s eyes tracked the incoming fist. His God Hand sparked, the fractures in space flickering weakly around him. And yet, he only smiled.

"With this, everything is in place."

Ignis’s fist stopped an inch from his face.

Her eyes widened. The flames around her knuckles flickered, then sputtered.

A red light bloomed across the city.

It started as a faint glow at the edge of the plaza then spread, racing along invisible lines etched into the ground. The lines connected, one to another, forming a massive web of crimson energy. The light climbed the walls of the buildings, wrapped around the rooftops, and converged on a single point in the center of the city.

Ignis’s head snapped toward the glow. Her flames dimmed, then surged, then dimmed again, as if something was interfering with them.

"What... what is that?"

Wincent’s voice was quiet, almost gentle.

"Do you know what happens when mana is compressed into a single form, then released as a wide field?"

Ignis looked down at him, her expression shifting from confusion to alarm.

Wincent’s smile widened, blood staining his teeth.

"It creates a disturbance. A ripple in the mana that flows through every living body." He coughed, then forced the words out. "And right now... that ripple is tearing through every mana in this city."

Ignis’s flames guttered. Her knees buckled. She caught herself on one hand, the ground cracking beneath her palm.

"You... you planned this from the start?"

Wincent didn’t answer. He just watched her struggle, his eyes calm, almost peaceful.

"God Hand... was never meant to beat you in a fight. It was meant to keep you busy." He let his head fall back against the stone. "Long enough for the real trap to spring."

The red light descended from the sky like a falling star. It struck Wincent’s God Hand, and for a moment, the entire plaza was drowned in crimson. The mechanical arm convulsed, plates shifting and unfolding, the crimson veins burning brighter and brighter until they turned white at the edges.

Then the light settled. The God Hand had changed again.

The arm was larger now, each finger tipped with a curved, red-hot talon. The joints pulsed with a heartbeat rhythm, veins of molten light running through the metal like blood through living flesh. Steam poured from the seams in thick, hissing jets. It looked like something carved from the depths of a nightmare.

Wincent flexed the fingers once. The joints clicked into place with a sound like a blade being drawn from its sheath.

"This has more power than usual," he murmured, almost to himself. "I’ll have to thank Gill later."

Ignis took a step back. Her flames flickered weakly, the blue-white light guttering like a candle in the wind. The mana ripple had done its work, her fire was still there, but it was distant, muted, as if something was pressing down on it.

She had never felt anything like it before.

She took another step back.

Nearby, Giorno stood frozen, his eyes fixed on the transformed God Hand. His voice came out low, almost a whisper.

"What is that arm? What is its actual power?"

Behind him, one of his subordinates answered, his voice uneasy.

"It’s likely some kind of artifact that absorbs anything and converts it into power. But to be that strong..." He paused, his gaze drifting toward the still-glowing lines etched into the ground. "Lord Wincent must have done something with that red light. But this mana... it feels like the corpses of mages."

Giorno’s head snapped toward him.

"What do you mean? Are you saying Wincent sacrificed the mages?"

The subordinate hesitated, then nodded slowly.

"It’s possible. Power like that always has a price. And a price that steep... it wouldn’t be paid with gold."

Wincent, meanwhile, raised the God Hand and watched the crimson light pulse along its length. For the first time in years, he felt truly alive.

He looked at Ignis, and a slow smile spread across his lips.

"Maybe this time," he said quietly, "I’ll earn the title of Dragon Slayer."

Ignis steadied herself, forcing her flames to burn despite the pressure pressing down on her mana. She looked at Wincent—at the transformed arm, at the crimson light pulsing through it—and her eyes narrowed.

"You surprised me," she said. "I thought that light was meant to attack me."

Wincent tilted his head slightly, the God Hand humming in his grip.

"It was simply a matter of efficiency. If I had gathered the energy in one place, any competent opponent would have noticed immediately." He flexed the fingers of the God Hand, watching the crimson veins pulse. "But I doubt you would understand what I’m saying."

Ignis’s flames flared, weak but defiant.

"Don’t take me for a fool." She took a step forward, her wings spreading wide, each feather still burning with that stubborn blue-white light. "Even if you’ve gained more power, you still can’t defeat a dragon."

Wincent smiled. It wasn’t a mocking smile—it was calm, almost patient, like a man who had already seen the end of the story.

"Then let’s find out."