The Dragon Lord Neo, now in the appearance of a withered old man, caused evident unrest among the dragons following him. They couldn't hide their agitation.
"Ha..."
The Ancient Dragon, Eruhaben, let out a disheartened laugh. Although he was over a thousand years old, he had always maintained a youthful appearance, even at the brink of death. His polymorphic form also aged, but in a controlled manner through magic, unlike Neo.
"It seems he really is at death's door."
When a dragon reaches the true end of its natural life, its body rapidly ages. The dragon heart, or the Dragon Heart, is crucial. When it reaches its natural end, a dragon rapidly ages.
"I've never seen anything like this before."
Eruhaben looked at Neo, whose limbs were bound with the chains he and Mila had created.
When a dragon dies naturally, its body disappears into nature. There are many theories about this.
"The Dragon Heart, which contains a large amount of mana, disperses into nature, taking the dragon's body with it."
Eruhaben pondered this truth as he looked at Neo, whose heart was losing its function.
"You once said a wound to the heart would be enough, didn't you?"
The Dragon Lord Neo, a being who aspired to become a god, had a surprisingly simple weakness: his heart. Though some might consider this trivial, Eruhaben couldn't help but feel discouraged seeing the reality.
"In the end..."
Neo wanted to be a god but couldn't escape his mortal life.
Eruhaben looked around, noticing the disbelief on the faces of the enemy dragons observing Neo.
"He's dying without us having to do anything."
Just as Mila had said, the Dragon Lord Neo was dying without the need for intervention. If left alone, he would perish.
Cale understood why Neo had done everything he did.
"Now I understand after seeing this."
Cale stood in front of Neo and looked him in the eyes.
"You needed to enter virtual reality quickly."
That would guarantee his survival.
"Gasp, gasp."
Neo was breathing heavily.
-97%.
Cale's aura remained focused solely on Neo, exhausting and fatiguing him, making it difficult for Neo to see Cale clearly.
"I'll end this quickly."
Cale fixed his gaze on Neo's heart.
Sss—
Water formed in his hand, slowly taking the shape of a spear. The voice of the Dominating Aura resonated.
"With a dragon in this state, you don't need a strong blow. A direct strike to the heart will be enough."
"Nothing is more fragile than a heart on the verge of death. But be wary of the concentrated mana in a weakened heart."
The Dragon Heart is precious due to the concentrated mana it contains, but a misstep could trigger a devastating magical explosion.
That's why Cale was using the power of water sparingly. However, he didn't let his guard down. There was no room for doubt or complacency in his actions. Everything moved with the fluidity of water.
Sss—
The short water spear formed in Cale's hand. Just then...
"Damn it!"
An angry voice resounded. Cale tried to ignore the noise, trusting that his companions would handle any distraction. But the commotion didn't cease.
"Did I put everything in an old man like that?"
The enemy dragons began to speak, and it wasn't just one of them.
"Damn it! What can an old man at death's door do? This is madness!"
"Ha! So it was just the delusion of an old man who wanted to be a god. Did I give up everything I had for this?"
The dragons voiced their fury.
"Damn it all! Everything is ruined!"
Especially the red dragon with the gluttony attribute raised his voice.
"I was deceived!"
He was furious—no, indignant.
"I thought he was a true god, one who could become one! A god who could wield time freely!"
His face twisted in rage.
"But what is this?"
As a dragon, he quickly realized the state Neo was in.
"Did he recklessly use time until he aged like this? Damn it! I thought a Great Dragon had emerged! But what kind of dragon weakens like this?"
"Me too! This is a scam! We were tricked!"
They thought someone who could wield the absolute power of time was from another dimension.
"What is this? In the end, he's as miserable as we are—no, more miserable than we are."
That pitiful figure.
"How can that be a god?"
The Red Dragon couldn't contain his rage.
"Damn it! If I had known this..."
"If you had known what?"
He stopped when a voice interrupted him. Rasheel, standing with an arrogant posture, looked at him with contempt.
"Why did you stop? Continue."
Rasheel couldn't help but laugh.
"What? Would you have preferred to be treated like a god here and rule the world and humans comfortably?"
Rasheel was baffled.
"This is really ridiculous."
The Dragon Lord Neo had been captured more easily than expected.
"No, it wasn't easy."
It was only easy because Cale was there; without him, it would have been very difficult.
"But how can they change their attitude so quickly now that Neo has been captured?"
Those dragons really...
"Don't you remember what you did?"
Those dragons really had no pride.
Deep hatred was reflected on Rasheel's face.
"And now what?"
The Red Dragon shrugged.
"What?"
Rasheel repeated the question, and the Red Dragon answered with a bitter smile.
"And now what are we going to do?"
The Red Dragon looked around and continued.
"It seems Exion has joined you, but even if you eliminate Neo and resolve the cataclysm, are you going to kill all the dragons who joined Neo, leaving only Exion and a few others?"
He pointed at himself.
"Are you going to eliminate dragons like me who joined Neo? Do you think this world can sustain itself like that?"
Rasheel was about to respond in disbelief when something strange happened.
"What nonsense...?"
A roar resounded just as he was speaking.
"That nonsense..."
As his words were drowned out by the roar, he continued speaking.
It was an instant.
"!"
There was nothing.
Slash.
The head of the Red Dragon he was talking to was gone. It fell to the ground.
'What?'
He hadn't seen anything.
Rasheel felt a chill run down his spine. He quickly turned his head.
Boom!
"Ugh!"
Another dragon screamed as his body exploded.
The only trace left was...
'Purple...'
The purple aura that covered the severed neck and side of the dragon that exploded.
"!"
Finally, he remembered someone.
'Cale!'
Rasheel turned to see what had happened to Cale, who was attacking the Dragon Lord Neo, and was left speechless.
Snap—
Neo was suspended in the air, chained. A spear pierced his chest.
His chest was pierced by a spear.
Sss—
The water spear pointed directly at the heart. Cale was shocked.
"Ha!"
Ignoring the conversations of others, Cale had pierced the chest of the Dragon Lord Neo with the spear. He felt no compassion for Neo's elderly appearance, as the atrocities he planned were too horrific to deserve pity.
Sluurp—
The chest was pierced.
"It's done."
Just as Sky Eating Water had said, the tip of the spear reached the heart. At that moment, Cale saw Neo's eyes for the first time.
"!"
And he realized something was wrong.
No, it wasn't Cale's fault. Nor was it something Neo had prepared.
"Hehehe..."
Neo laughed. And the moment he laughed,
"Human, he's using his ability!"
Raon's shout echoed. What Cale saw was,
Sluurp.
Boom!
The deaths of the two dragons who cursed Neo.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The sound of a heartbeat. Cale looked at Neo and spoke.
"You, you..."
It was the first time Cale asked this question.
"What are you?"
What kind of existence are you?
"Hehehe..."
And then,
"Hehehe... hehe..."
The old man, coughing blood, couldn't stop laughing. He looked at his chest. The chest pierced by the spear. The heart visible through the wound.
"Human!"
As Raon's trembling voice reached his ears, Cale swallowed.
"Why, why is his heart like that?"
Neo's heart wasn't red. All dragon hearts were red. Neo's heart was purple. And it was enormous. As if it had devoured other organs, his heart was twice the normal size. Moreover,
"It's growing!"
The heart kept growing. As if it had devoured several hearts.
"Who am I, who am I?"
Neo's body trembled uncontrollably. He still felt the terror of Cale's aura. Especially the sticky desire to hunt and crave dragons made Neo feel suffocated.
"I don't know."
Because he wasn't the only one reacting to that terror. The time bomb in his body. No, the heart. The heart inherited from many dragons. A heart that had inherited the lives of many. The numerous dragons in that heart feared that aura.
That's why Neo had to feel the terror of many dragons.
He couldn't endure Cale's aura alone. If Cale had known, he would have admired Neo's mental strength for resisting, speaking, and standing. And he would have been more cautious. But who could know without seeing Neo's heart?
Neo stared into the void and spoke.
"I don't know who I am."
A fragment of memory appeared in his mind.
"We have found a way to transfer abilities."
"Absorb the heart of the previous dragon with the same ability into the descendant dragon's heart."
The Wanderers of the Purple Blood Family had sought out Neo for a reason. Only a dragon with the same ability could inherit the heart of the previous dragon. No, absorb it into their heart.
"Ah, of course, you can reject this offer. In fact, not all dragons with the time ability have accepted this offer."
Neo had laughed at those words. There was an extremely easy way to become stronger right in front of him—why would he refuse it?
"So, will he accept the inheritance?"
And so, Neo absorbed the hearts that contained the abilities of previous dragons.
"He can use the power contained within this to rule as the highest of dragons, doing as he pleases. But his role is inheritance."
"That means his heart must be fully inherited by the next generation."
"Hehe."
Neo laughed. Then he asked Cale,
"How many am I?"
Ten thousand years. The power of this "time" had been inherited for longer than that.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Neo heard the beating of his heart. A heart that thumped louder and louder.
"I'll give you some information."
He said to Cale.
"Because I'm grateful to you for something."
"His role is inheritance. His heart must be fully inherited by the next generation."
That's what they told him.
"Even if my heart dies, the numerous hearts within it still live. And my heart has been controlling the power of those numerous hearts. That's my role."
Precisely, his heart also blends with this mass of power to strengthen the inheritance power.
"But now it has failed."
The control has failed. Cale, with a hardened expression, spoke. Now, all that remains is a mass of power.
"...Runaway."
What follows is the uncontrollable power of numerous dragons without control.
"Yes. Thank you."
That's why Neo smiled. Even though his heart was dying, the mass of power contained within the heart remained.
"Even if I don't become a god, thanks to you, I can use all the power I wanted to use before dying."
Sss—
The chains trembled weakly, like leaves in the wind.
"Human."
The moment Cale saw Raon fly towards him and cling to his clothes,
Crack—
The chains broke.
"Kuh!"
Eruhaben groaned, but Cale couldn't turn his head.
Sss—
Like the sound of a snake slithering. No, like a sound both familiar and unknown, a chill ran down his spine.
Sss—
Cale couldn't take his eyes off the purple aura that enveloped Neo's body.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The heartbeat was heard. It wasn't his heart. It was Neo's. The other heart inside Neo's heart. A strange, purple heart thumped.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
That heartbeat resonated through the entire area, piercing even the abnormal weather conditions of the cataclysm. Like the birth of a god.
Boom.
And at the moment the heart beat strongly,
"Damn it!"
Cale barely managed to see. Neo was moving within the stopped time. He truly looked like a god. The god of time.
The power of "Time" from the dragons that had been inherited for more than ten thousand years. That power itself was divine.
And at that moment. In that frozen instant.
Boom. Boom.
Cale heard his own heart's beat. Very slow. Very sluggish. Like a heart that is dying. Like a heart that is about to stop.
It was then.
"Ha."
Super Rock let out a disheartened laugh.
"Really, your talent is terrifying too. Cale Henituse—or rather, Kim Rok Soo's growth potential is quite high."
Boom.
Cale heard his heart beat and realized.
This isn't a heart that's dying. It's quite the opposite.
His heart was beating within the stopped time. Like Neo's.
In an instant. That power was undeniably growing.
-