It turned out Aila had seized the opportunity when it turned its head. She had imbued her blade with War God Battle Qi and severed one of its wings in a single strike.
Lacking a sense of pain, the elemental dragon failed to notice the lightning-fast blow at first, still struggling to pull its fragmented parts back together.
However, the War God Battle Qi, which possessed a natural suppression over elements, proved its worth. Once the severed wing was separated from the main body, it immediately transformed into a pool of uncontrolled water, splashing across the ground.
By the time it tried to mobilize its remaining mana to stop Midir, it was already too late. One moment, Midir was in the distance; the next, he vanished from its sight and reappeared beside Starflame, which was still frozen into the dragon's spine. In his hand, he held the fireball that filled the creature with dread.
“Let’s see what you do about this,” Midir said nonchalantly as he pulled Starflame free. Without mercy, he hurled the sphere of concentrated Flame of Destruction into the crater on the dragon’s back.
With a light leap, he grabbed Aila’s hand again. The moment the fireball was triggered, the two fled the area like arrows released from a bowstring.
In an instant, a massive explosion of fire swallowed everything within a hundred meters. The water scattered across the ground was vaporized into thick white steam in a heartbeat.
As the rampaging flames spread, the suffocating heat not only submerged the elemental dragon’s massive frame but also ruthlessly battered the already scarred stone walls.
Under the extreme transition from freezing cold to searing heat, the stone wall finally reached its limit. With a series of deafening cracks, a massive rift was torn open, sending shattered stone and dust flying everywhere.
Before long, the flames in their sight began to fade. Aila peered through the scattered embers and rising steam, searching for any sign of the elemental being.
“Do you think that finished it? That last hit should have been a direct strike on its core.” After watching from a distance for a while and seeing no movement from the blast site, Aila seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
Midir, however, did not lower his guard. He maintained his mana detection across the entire hall. Although the thick steam had almost filled the cavern, who was to say the elemental creature hadn't vaporized its own body to hide from Aila’s eyes?
Sure enough, he soon detected something unusual in a corner of the cavern. As the steam gradually dissipated, a small figure suddenly crawled out from under a pile of scattered rocks.
Aila and Midir caught the movement almost simultaneously. Their figures blurred like two bolts of lightning as they gave chase. Realizing it was in danger, the small beast quickly changed direction and bolted toward the newly formed rift in the stone wall.
Only then did Midir finally see its true form.
It was a hound-like creature condensed from Nirvana Ice, radiating a faint, eerie blue light. The black core was embedded in its head like a gemstone, making it exceptionally prominent.
Evidently, at the brink of death, it had used Nirvana Ice to protect its core. Though it had lost most of the water that made up its body, it had miraculously survived.
Having lost the majority of its mass, its combat strength was significantly diminished. Facing the approaching enemies, it was driven only by its primal survival instinct to choose the nearest exit and flee in a panic.
In the end, the two were unable to catch the elemental hound. They watched as its figure disappeared completely into the depths of the rift, leaving only the sound of footsteps echoing through the empty cavern.
Midir carefully examined the dark, bottomless rift before them. The earlier attack seemed to have blasted a crack through the mountain, and it was now large enough for a human to pass through.
“Should we go in and follow it?” Midir’s voice carried a hint of uncertainty as he turned to Aila, seeking her opinion.
Aila crouched at the entrance, sensing the air for a moment before pointing inside. “I can feel a faint airflow. This might actually be a path to the outside world. It’s worth a try.”
“Then I’ll lead the way. Watch my back.” After receiving Aila’s confirmation, Midir gave a brief instruction and was the first to jump into the rift.
The rift, created by chance, was exceptionally steep and wound its way downward. Midir cast several light orbs for illumination as usual and slid down the rock walls, with Aila following close behind the light source.
The tunnel was far longer than they had imagined. Along the way, they found nothing but surrounding rock, with no other branching paths. After descending for several minutes, Midir finally felt the breeze Aila had mentioned.
The terrain in the passage had leveled out considerably, and a cool draft was blowing toward them from ahead.
Just as they were joyfully thinking they had found the exit, the light orbs beside them suddenly extinguished, plunging the tunnel back into pitch-black darkness.
“Midir, why did you turn off the light?” The sudden loss of light nearly caused Aila to crash into Midir. She managed to steady herself by grabbing a protrusion on the wall.
Midir was equally confused as to why the light orbs had vanished. Logically, he hadn't cut off the flow of light elements at all; it shouldn't have been possible for them to simply disappear.
A moment later, he realized something was wrong. It wasn't just light elements—he couldn't condense any other elements either. He could feel that the mana within his body still existed, but he simply couldn't manifest it into magic.
The sudden loss of power triggered a sense of crisis in his heart, and he immediately explained the situation to Aila.
Aila was stunned by the news. She immediately tried to release her flame battle qi to provide a brief moment of light, but to her shock, she discovered her battle qi could not leave her body. Or rather, any battle qi that reached the surface of her skin could not be sustained and simply dissipated into the air.
At the same time, the two felt an inexplicable sense of oppression. Though it wasn't very obvious, the surrounding air seemed to be gently squeezing their bodies, as if trying to force all the power out of them.
“This is problematic. We’re not going to have to climb back up, are we?”
Midir looked back at the steep tunnel they had come from. Without the use of magic or battle qi, it would be a significant challenge for them to navigate back to the cavern in the dark using only physical strength.
“It might not be that bad. Look behind you—I can already see a bit of light. The exit should be that way. Whatever the case, let’s go take a look.”
Aila pointed behind him. Sure enough, once their eyes adjusted to the darkness, they could see points of fluorescence coming from further ahead.
No longer hesitating, the two quickly moved toward the faint light source. After some difficult maneuvering, they finally emerged from the long, narrow rift and stepped into a brand-new world.
What met their eyes was no longer a dark and damp underground cavern, but a magnificent rift valley. On the mountain walls flanking the valley, countless spots of fluorescence shimmered, looking very much like a beautiful tapestry woven from the starry sky.
Rate on N.U.
