Chapter 325: Chapter 324 - The roar that split the sky.
The world was ending above their heads.
Every citizen in the capital looked up with broken hearts as the heavens burned.
The sight of Jake—no longer flesh, no longer boy, but a towering silhouette of shadow straining against a crack in the very sky—was both awe-inspiring and soul-crushing.
Each time a demon general unleashed their power, the shockwaves ripped through the streets.
Black firestorms fell like meteors, streaking across the sky before colliding against Jake’s vast shadow-body.
Lightning twisted with sickly violet flames, detonating in eruptions that shattered rooftops and sent tiles spinning like shrapnel.
The people below screamed as the ground itself quaked.
Mothers shielded children with their bodies. Fathers knelt, clutching their families as if the simple act of holding them would protect them from gods.
The shockwaves knocked many to their knees, faces pressed into the dirt, tears streaking down their cheeks as despair sank deep into their bones.
Duchess Elvarine, battered and pale, could only whisper, "This... this isn’t real..."
Her hands trembled, her mana long since bled away, powerless to aid or even shield the people she had sworn to protect.
Duke Astazin stood rooted in place, thunder humming along his arms, but his jaw was tight with helpless fury.
Every time he thought to leap skyward, another wave of power would crash down, hurling him back into the ground like an insect.
But none felt the agony sharper than Vairan.
His shadow surged, wings of midnight tearing from his back as he threw himself upward.
"Jake!" His roar cracked the night, desperate, guttural.
He didn’t make it far.
A single stray aftershock from a demon’s shriek of black flame caught him, and the duke—one of the strongest nobles alive—was swatted from the air like a leaf in a storm.
His body smashed into stone, coughing blood as his wings broke apart into dust.
The demons didn’t even glance at him. His struggle wasn’t worth their notice.
Vairan’s vision blurred.
Through the haze of pain, all he could see was his son—his boy—standing against gods and monsters.
His heart shredded itself in his chest.
He wanted to fight. He desired to protect him. He wanted to scream that no child should carry the weight of a kingdom. But he couldn’t move. He couldn’t reach him.
All he could do was watch Jake die.
Above, Jake’s hands of shadow pressed against the monstrous ones clawing through the crack.
His power bled like a river, but still the breach widened, inch by inch. His body was getting torn apart, his form unraveling.
Despair gnawed at him.
He had given everything. He had burned every drop of his life. Still... still, he couldn’t hold it back.
The entity beyond the crack wasn’t even fully here, and yet it was overpowering him.
Not with magic. Not with tricks. But with raw, physical strength.
If this was its hand, what was the rest of it?
The worst thing was that this entity was actually at a natural disadvantage, as tearing the space apart like this must already be an impossible task.
Jake, on the other hand, had a natural advantage as he was aiding nature’s healing, yet he was being pushed back.
His gray eyes flickered downward, toward the ground.
Toward his father, broken and crawling, clawing uselessly against rubble. Toward the nobles, battered and spent. Toward the citizens who had given up, weeping, waiting for the end.
’Is this it?’
Had he burned his life, only to fail?
Had he chosen to sacrifice everything... for nothing?
His eyes burned as he couldn’t think of anything else that could help the people below.
Once the entity was out, the capital would be erased from Velmoria’s map.
Jake’s chest tightened as his voice echoed silently in the void of his thoughts, ’Will it end like this? The way I feared most?’
Another wave crashed against him.
A horned demon laughed, his voice guttural and grating, as he hurled a spiral of obsidian lightning that shattered part of Jake’s titanic arm.
"You can’t hold it, boy!"
The flame demon followed, shrieking, "Fall already! Give us your corpse!" His inferno spread like a sea, devouring the sky in black flame.
The scaled demon grinned, vomiting a torrent of acid so potent it melted even the air. "Break for us, little shadow. Break!"
The generals’ laughter layered over one another, each voice unique, each cruel, each certain of victory.
The crack widened. The abyss pressed through.
But just then—
The air stilled.
Not the stillness of battle pausing, nor of a held breath.
This was the stillness before disaster, like the ocean pulling back before a tsunami.
Every man, woman, and child shivered without knowing why.
Even the demons paused, their attacks faltering mid-motion as something far greater pressed against the edges of existence.
Then it came.
A roar.
It tore the heavens open, splitting sky and soul alike.
The sound alone flattened the city’s walls, splintered glass, and drove the bravest to their knees.
It was a roar so ancient and absolute that it carried with it the weight of dominion.
Before the demons could even understand, a beam of black and red light howled across the night sky, tearing from the far east like the finger of God.
It struck the generals before they could turn their heads.
They vanished.
No screams. No resistance. They were erased, their bodies ripped from existence as if they had never stood there.
Only Jake remained untouched, his massive shadow-body trembling but unscathed.
The city gaped.
Then—
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The sound barrier shattered in rapid succession, one after another, like a hail of bullets streaking across the heavens. The night was lit with shockwaves as something vast streaked into view.
A dragon.
It was colossal and black- and crimson-scaled, its wings blotting out what little remained of the stars. (Image in the comments.)
Black smoke curled from the edges of its maw with each exhale, glowing faintly like coals in a dying forge.
It hovered above the capital, wings barely moving, as if gravity itself had surrendered to its will.
But that was not all, as on its back—sitting calm, pink hair dancing against the storm, pink eyes glowing faintly—was a girl.
She was barely visible to the terrified citizens below. Because to them, she was only a blur atop an impossible beast.
But Jake saw her.
Through the fire, through the blood, through the pain—he saw her.
"...Raven," he rasped. His massive shadow-head tilted upward, gray eyes softening for just a fraction of a second. "...Lia..."
The world trembled.
It was then, before anyone below could even understand the situation, that the stillness broke.
The pressure of Raven’s arrival—of that colossal dragon cutting through reality itself—finally caught up.
It slammed into the capital like a tidal wave, air compressing, exploding outward in a deafening shock that tore through stone and flesh alike.
The citizens screamed as they were lifted off their feet, bodies flung skyward like leaves in a storm.
Roofs peeled away. Towers groaned and snapped. Even nobles found their knees buckling under the sheer force.
But before the disaster could claim them, vines erupted from the cobblestones. Thick, gnarled, and impossibly fast, they coiled around walls, posts, and even each other, weaving into a living net.
Branches shot upward, arms of green wood catching men, women, and children before they could shatter against the earth.
At the heart of it all stood Lia.
The pink-haired girl had leapt from Raven’s back, landing lightly amidst chaos as if the storm itself bent around her.
Her hands moved, her eyes glowing brighter than the moon, and with each gesture, the roots obeyed. They cradled the weak, steadied the falling, and wrapped the broken in protective coils.
Gasps spread through the people.
For many, this was the first time they had truly seen her—not as a soldier in passing, but as a force of nature in her own right.
Above, Raven’s vast crimson form swept low, his claws glinting like black steel.
His shadow fell over Jake, whose titanic silhouette still pressed against the breach, holding back apocalypse with the last embers of his soul.
The dragon’s massive hand reached out—then smacked Jake across the head with a resounding crack.
"Oi." Raven’s voice thundered through the air, a low growl vibrating with both fury and relief. "You reckless bastard. I’ll deal with you later."
Jake’s glowing eyes flickered.
For a moment, that terrible shadow-void form hesitated. Then, slowly, he nodded.
His arms drew back from the crack. His towering body, bleeding shadow, and fire hovered away.
Then, it broke.
The moment he stopped fighting, the life he had burned caught up with him.
The silhouette shattered, threads of black and silver scattering into the wind like ash. His body—fragile, human once more—fell limp from the sky.
"Jake!"
A blur moved faster than sight.
Branches whipped upward, coiling and forming a cradle midair. One of Lia’s helpful trees, wrapped in her living vines, caught him before the earth could.
His unconscious form lay there, chest barely rising, skin pale as death.
But Raven’s eyes did not turn.
No, his gaze was locked on the wound in the heavens.
The crack pulsed. The jagged fingers clawing at its edges twitched, hooked, and tore again, widening it another fraction.
Each sound was a scream of the world itself, a reminder of what waited beyond.
Raven’s wings spread. With one beat, he rose, pulling back from the capital. His great chest swelled, black and crimson energy spiraling between his fangs.
The world held its breath.
Then, without a word, he unleashed it.
A dragon’s breath, not crimson, not flame—this time it was black. Pure voidfire, annihilation given shape. It roared outward like a flood, devouring starlight, devouring sound, and devouring everything in its path until only the crack remained before it.
The fingers clawing through recoiled.
The capital shook as night itself seemed to burn away.