"Could this guy have obtained divine blood like me? Or is it a spatial attribute?" Thorn couldn't help but think to himself, suspicion rising toward the Black Dragon Lord's insane abilities.
With suspicion came greed.
"If I could obtain this ability to traverse the void…" A flash of greed appeared in Thorn's eyes.
This was a supreme life-saving ability. Not only could it save lives, but in pursuit, he could completely crush an enemy's will.
High in the sky, I finally stopped exhaling void breath and stared at the still-solid energy shield below with a headache.
"This is basically a battle between my energy reserves and those of a floating island," I muttered, frowning.
The energy contained within my massive dragon body is more than a hundred—no, a thousand—times greater than a being of the same level, but the Floating Island is an enormous 'machine,' and its stored energy is measured in years. It's not about how much, but how long.
No one knows how many years of energy a Floating Island stores. Is it one hundred years? A thousand? Ten thousand?
The gray-white dragon stopped its breath attack and looked again at the still-unchanging energy shield with a headache.
The Frost Floating Island seized the opportunity to fire another energy cannon at me, but I easily dodged it.
The energy attack speed of the Floating Island is indeed very fast, fast enough that most legendary powerhouses can't evade it. However, at my level, my danger detection ability is terrifying, and I can sense the energy cannon even before it is fired.
"This won't work if it continues like this." I traversed the void again, reappearing at a distance from the Floating Island.
My immense mental power felt the various prying gazes surrounding me, and I snorted coldly to show my displeasure.
"Everyone, haven't you watched enough of the show?"
The gray-white dragon scanned the surroundings coldly, and the strong individuals spying on the battle felt an intense pressure descend upon them.
After a moment of silence, hearty laughter echoed from a distance. Accompanying the laughter was another floating island, nearly the same size as the Frost Floating Island.
The ancient gold dragon 'Ignis' stood atop it, with a group of legendary metalliclic dragons behind him.
As the metalliclic dragons arrived on their floating island, the expression on the Dark Frost Giant Lord's face in the Frost Floating Island's hall turned increasingly grim.
He hadn't expected that a second floating island could exist within a mere medium-sized material plane.
Now things were getting complicated.
When Thorne was thinking about how to deal with Dragon Island and the Black Dragon Lord, a red dragon whose body was burning with golden flames emerged from the space and looked toward the Frost Floating Island. There was strong malice in the huge dragon eyes.
The Crimson Mother, Alexrilla, had also arrived.
"Black Dragon Lord." The ancient gold dragon Ignis nodded slightly to me, with a hint of surprise and curiosity in his eyes.
Alexrilla also retracted her gaze from the Frost Floating Island and looked at the gray-white dragon quietly floating in the air not far away. The lava-like dragon eyes were filled with scrutiny and wariness.
It could be clearly seen that the two high-level legendary dragons had strong curiosity about me.
If the situation weren't what it was now, I'm afraid the two dragon clan experts would have asked a lot of questions.
"How do you plan to deal with this guy?" I asked via voice transmission.
"Drive it away," Ancient Gold Dragon Ignis replied via voice transmission. "This dark frost giant possesses the divine blood of the fallen Titan. If we really push it, the only one who will be traumatized is our Tal plane, so we can't kill it. Only drive it away."
Alexrilla, the Crimson Mother, did not speak, but her silence implied agreement.
Although she truly wanted to keep this dark frost giant, she knew clearly that it was impossible.
"What about you, Black Dragon King, do you have any better way?" the Gold Dragon asked.
Although I'm not yet a high-level legendary powerhouse, my explosive strength has reached the threshold of high-level legend. Ancient Gold Dragon Ignis already regards me as a powerhouse of the same level, so his tone is very polite.
I glanced at the silent Frost Floating Island below, and thoughts flashed through my mind.
Is driving away the Dark Frost Giant Lord good or bad for it?
The answer is obviously no.
Driving away the Dark Frost Giant Lord would do me no good and would even slow down my own development.
When I was weak, it was naturally best to drive away the Dark Frost Giant Lord. After all, when this guy is around, one must always be vigilant, fearing that the floating island may approach and an energy cannon might annihilate me.
But now, after gathering the power of tens of millions of Void Familiars, my strength has soared to the point where I'm no longer afraid of the Dark Frost Giant Lord.
In this case, the invasion of the Dark Frost Giant Lord is nothing more than a granary for Black Wing Lair. It is a granary that continuously provides food and also an arsenal that continuously provides companions.
If the Dark Frost Giant Lord is really driven away, then in the Tal plane, if the Black Wing Nest wants to develop, it can only attack and kill other races to satisfy its own huge appetite.
At that time, the Black Wing Lair would become the great villain of the Tal plane, and its superior status—respected by many races—would also undergo a huge reversal.
'This is not acceptable,' I thought to myself.
After the Dark Frost Giant Lord was driven away, the external conflicts would be resolved, and then the Black Wing Lair would become an internal conflict. When the spearhead was redirected inward, the trouble would not be worth mentioning, and the development would be slowed down.
But on the surface, I still agreed with the words of the ancient gold dragon Ignis.
"I have no objection. Let's drive him away."
The three colossal dragons—each a sovereign force at the peak of the Tal plane—barely needed a breath to reach a consensus. In a flash of silent understanding, they surged into motion, descending like judgment from the heavens upon the Frost Floating Island below, their wings blotting out the sun, their presence suffocating the skies.
Within the grand crystal-glass hall of the Frost Floating Island, the towering Dark Frost Giant Lord—Thorn, the last of his dread bloodline—watched them approach. His expression tensed for only a heartbeat. Then he exhaled through his nose, cold mist wreathing his pale face like a crown of winter.
"Hmph," he rumbled, his voice a glacial tremor. "Even united, let's see if your arrogance holds."
With a flick of his massive hand, elemental runes blazed to life across the island's surface. A maelstrom of ancient frost gathered in an instant, converging upon the heavy turrets and crystal cannons embedded into the island's bone-white hull. With a blinding surge of magic, dozens of energy cannons—each charged with concentrated frost potent enough to annihilate a fourth-level legendary being—fired in unison. Arcs of frozen death streaked toward the black dragon, the burning red dragoness Alexrilla, and the radiant ancient gold dragon Ignis.
In the high sky above, another island stirred. The Dragon Island—an ancient relic of the Metallic Dragons—glided alongside the three attackers like a silent guardian. Controlled by a wise fourth-level gold dragon, it lent its power to bolster the assault.
The clash that followed shook the very bones of the world.
Beams of frost collided with blazing torrents of flame. Void breath met elemental cannon. Golden shields clashed with soul-chilling blizzards. The battle spiraled across the skies, rending the atmosphere with blasts so intense they shattered distant mountain ranges. Lightning storms formed around the aerial battlefield as torrents of wild magic spilled in every direction.
And yet... the battle grew no closer to resolution.
The dragons and the floating islands wielded energy reserves that bordered on the infinite. Each devastating blow was answered by a recovery siphoned directly from the void. It became a war not of strength—but of endurance. A brutal, soul-draining war of attrition where gods might fall from exhaustion before a victor was declared.
But Thorn, that cunning frost giant, fought with more than brute strength.
He began to steer the Frost Floating Island directly toward population centers.
He knew what would shackle the hands of the righteous.
Time and again, he veered the Floating Island toward the ancient cities and dense homelands of lesser races—beastkin, elves, dwarves, humans, dryads, centaurs, even the underground lairs of dark creatures and insectoid villages. Wherever life gathered, wherever cultures had flourished for millennia—he made that his battleground.
Black King and Alexrilla did not flinch. To them, the death of mortals meant little. They were dragons, forces of nature born of chaos and will. But Ignis… Ignis faltered.
The ancient gold dragon—the paragon of virtue among their kind—hesitated with every maneuver, shielding entire valleys with his wings, deflecting cannon blasts away from towns, and pouring his breath to extinguish falling debris before it touched the surface. The dragons of Dragon Island followed his lead, doing their best to preserve life amidst the chaos.
But for every life they saved, thousands more were lost in the crossfire.
---
Half a month passed—
Fifteen days of uninterrupted combat.
Energy cannons rained destruction from the sky, scorching oceans into boiling geysers or freezing them into glacial tombs. With a single volley, the Frost Floating Island turned vast regions of sea into frozen graveyards. Entire coral kingdoms died beneath the ice. Leviathans, sea serpents, and ancient krakens—beasts older than mortal history—were exterminated in moments.
On land, cities of elves were reduced to ash. The songwoods of the sylvan races were silenced forever. Mountains were split open, dwarven strongholds buried beneath avalanches of magical ice. Centaur herds, minotaur clans, insectoid hives, even flying creatures—all were crushed, displaced, or simply erased.
The Tal plane groaned under the weight of such destruction. The elements rebelled. Storms howled with no source. Rivers dried, redirected by craters from the battle above. Mana streams ruptured and began twisting into unstable wild magic zones. Entire landscapes mutated, becoming uninhabitable wastelands. The ley lines were bleeding.
The cost of this war was catastrophic.
---
Hovering over a shattered ocean, I finally pulled back.
Another barrage of frost beams had missed us and instead struck the sea below. In an instant, thousands of square kilometers were sealed in crystalline ice, trapping and killing millions of sea creatures—great and small. The waters screamed with the silence of extinction.
I stopped mid-air, wings folding slowly. Behind me, Ignis and Alexrilla came to the same realization.
"This is pointless," I said, voice grim as I stared at the aftermath. "If this continues, there'll be nothing left of the Tal plane but ruin and echoes. Before that frost giant falls, half the life on this world will vanish."
I turned to look at them. "I won't be part of that. Farewell."
And with that, the immense black dragon—my form—vanished into space, folding away like a dream lost to dawn.
Alexrilla, the crimson queen of fire, stared at the devastation. Even she, who bore no love for mortals, knew the cost had far exceeded the reward.
"…I'm leaving too."
With a flick of her wings, she disappeared into the clouds.
Only Ignis remained, the golden titan drifting in silence as the surviving metallic dragons of Dragon Island floated nearby. They all stared into the frozen, corpse-littered sea, where the dead floated like silent judgment.
Ignis sighed—a sound that seemed to age the sky.
"Let's return. There's nothing more to win here."
---
Thus ended the legendary half-month pursuit—a campaign where god-like beings battled, but only the innocent paid the price.
Hundreds of lands were obliterated. The main continents were scarred and fractured, many left as smoking wastelands. Once-prosperous empires had fallen without a sound. Of the hundreds of kingdoms that once ruled the Tal plane, only a dozen remained—and they were little more than scattered ruins guarded by frightened remnants.
The Crimson Disaster had torn open the skies. The Demonic Calamity had flooded the lands with madness. And now this—the War of the Skies—had reduced the world to rubble.
The Tal plane was no longer a realm of light, culture, or civilization.
It was now a broken world, limping into twilight.
And high above, the Frost Floating Island still drifted—untouched, undefeated—but cursed with the knowledge that even in survival, it had cost everything.
"No more pursuit?"
In the main hall of the Frost Floating Island, the Dark Frost Giant Lord saw the three giant dragons finally stopping their pursuit, with a sneer and mockery on his face.
This scene had been anticipated.
But soon, Thorne's face showed a trace of physical pain.
"Island Spirit, how much reserve energy does the floating island have left?"
"Answer, Master. Frost Floating Island still has 65% energy left."
Sixty-five percent.
It looked like a lot and most of it was still remaining, but Thorne's face couldn't help but twitch a few times.
It would take at least a thousand years for a small yet extremely large floating island to plunder and gather full energy. When it arrived in the Tal plane, the Frost Floating Island still had more than 95% of its energy reserves. In other words, this pursuit battle had consumed more than 30% of the floating island's energy.
Of course, since it is energy, it can naturally be replenished in various ways without having to plunder energy from the void space for a long time.
However, the conventional method of replenishing energy—to restore a floating island with only 65% of its reserves to 100%—would consume enough energy to make Thorne, a high-level legendary powerhouse, extremely pained.
"Damn it." Thorne was a little depressed.
Although the Ancient Gold Dragon and the others couldn't do anything to him, Thorne himself actually also had very little he could do against them.
And once the Frost Floating Island runs out of energy, judging from the current situation, Thorne will also be in some danger.
The three giant dragons can give up chasing it today, but Thorne himself also understands that this is a warning and a concession they have offered to him.
Once Thorne refuses to accept this concession and continues to let the demons wreak havoc in Tal and pollute it without hesitation, then the former will definitely pursue him again—and by then, neither party will benefit.
Thinking of this, Thorne snorted coldly, and the Frost Floating Island turned around and headed toward the main continent. Finally, under the eyes of countless prying gazes, the Frost Floating Island hovered over the eastern region of the main continent, in the boundless forest of ancient trees. The sky above fell silent.
The elite demons ravaging the mainland were also called back to guard the Frost Floating Island.
However, Tal did not calm down but remained in chaos.
This was because Thorne only recalled the elite demons of Frost City; it was too lazy to spend a lot of energy recalling the demon soldiers it had summoned from the Abyss.
Thorne could not be kind enough to recall them. Instead, he expected these demons to further pollute the main continent of Tal.
"Wait. Time is the cheapest commodity for me," the towering Dark Frost Giant sat on the throne of the floating island hall and said calmly.
Ordinary creatures who advance to the legendary level have lifespans of thousands of years, and those who reach the advanced stage of the legendary level have lifespans exceeding hundred thousand years. As a high-level legend of an advanced race, the Dark Frost Giant Lord has a lifespan of at least a few million of years.
However, if one includes the fallen Titan blood possessed by the Dark Frost Giant Lord Thorne, then how many "a few million of years" will that become?
Titans are not gods, but god-like creatures, created in images of primordial. So the effect of their divine blood is rarer and more powerful than that of divine creatures. It contains the original power of Titans.
To be more specific, the essence and blood of god-like creatures can be equated with the divine origin of gods.
Once ordinary mortal creatures gain divinity, they attain eternal life. As a high-level legendary Dark Frost Giant Lord, if he has obtained the essence and blood of a fallen Titan—which is comparable to the divinity of a god—can he also gain eternal life?
The answer is yes.
As long as divinity is involved, it can almost be equated with immortality.
---
The eastern part of the Dark Forest is where the original Monster City was established.
The Monster City, which originally spanned thousands of miles, was majestic and could house tens of millions of creatures. It was frozen by the explosion of the Seven Frost Stars during the battle with the Frost Floating Island. When their power was exhausted, the frozen city also seemed to rot. Like withered trees, it collapsed and became a pile of ruins.
After I returned here, I stood speechless, staring at the desolate and silent Monster City and the Dark Forest, now without a single tree.
"Rebuild or move to another place?" I was thinking.
*****
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