Reincarnated Lord: I can upgrade everything! - Chapter 501: Battle Of Dura [4]

Chapter 501: Battle Of Dura [4]

Aaron’s lips curled into a smirk as his dragon arched its colossal neck, muscles coiling with lethal intent, preparing to unleash its infernal breath. But at that very moment, Asher turned his head.

The angle was perfect, Aaron saw the side of Asher’s face, and what struck him most was that eye. That glowing white eye.

It lacked pupils, lacked irises, no expression should have been possible. And yet, Aaron felt it. A flood of emotions seemed to emanate from that hollow gaze. Disappointment. Sadness. Regret.

And finally, anger.

Not just Asher’s, but the silent fury of dozens, the spirits of those who had pledged their lives in loyalty to House Nethaneel, only to be betrayed. A betrayal that led to their ruin. Their legacy crushed.

“You.”

The word came from Asher’s lips, but it carried the weight of many voices, like a chorus of the fallen speaking through one vessel.

At that instant, the dragon’s head lunged, jaws parted, and a storm of flames burst forth, untamed, furious, and immense.

Fire roared like a living beast, engulfing the spot where Asher stood. The blaze lit the sky in hues of molten gold and violent orange, the heat rippling outward like shockwaves.

As the flames receded and the smoke parted, Aaron squinted and froze.

There stood a wall of ice. Jagged and thick, glistening under the light, crackling faintly in defiance of the fire that had sought to consume it. Asher was no longer behind it.

Aaron’s eyes darted side to side. He had made this mistake before. He would not believe Asher dead until he saw the body cold and broken.

“Your Majesty!” Garen’s voice rang out across the battlefield. He was racing forward, his sword drawn, eyes wide in warning as they locked on something, someone, just behind the dragon’s right wing.

Silent. Steady. Unseen until that moment.

The Kingsword came down with brutal grace, carving a massive tear through the dragon’s leathery wing. The beast roared in pain, the torn membrane flapping uselessly as it faltered, struggling to maintain lift.

But Asher was already gone, flying across to the other side in a blur of motion so fast even Garen, a knight of unmatched experience, was momentarily stunned. Asher closed the gap toward Aaron with terrifying speed.

The dragon whipped its head around with unnatural speed, its snake-like neck bending to bring its enormous skull around. Just past Aaron’s position, it let out another torrent of flames aimed directly at Asher.

A tidal wave of fire lit the sky once more.

But when the fire cleared into a gust of white smoke, Asher was nowhere to be seen.

“You are fast, great beast,” came Asher’s voice, calm and cutting, from above, hovering just inches over the dragon’s massive head. He floated, weightless, spectral almost.

His ghostly white mantle danced around him in the breeze, ethereal and untamed. His broadsword rested on his shoulder.

“But we are many that you battle against.”

In the next instant, the Kingsword drove downward, sinking into the dragon’s skull. Not grazing. Not cracking. It pierced, deep, cleaving through hardened scales, through bony ridges, through horn and hide.

Ice erupted outward from the point of impact. It spread rapidly, a crystalline web covering the dragon’s head like a second skull. The beast roared, a deafening, primal wail that shook the skies.

Tens of thousands on the battlefield clutched their ears, some dropping to their knees, others collapsing outright as the raw force of that roar battered their senses.

Garen could only watch in stunned disbelief as the black dragon, the great black dragon, ancient and iconic, the personal warbeast of House Nethaneel, spiralled downward in a thunderous crash, smashing into the battlefield and crushing everything beneath it. Earth split. Dust and fire rose like a funeral pyre.

Asher stood atop the dragon’s corpse, calmly withdrawing his Kingsword.

Suddenly, blur slammed into him with violent force.

It was Aaron.

Eyes blazing with rage, teeth clenched in hatred, his own Kingsword already mid-swing.

“I will leave nothing of you. Nothing!” he screamed.

Clang!

The clash rang out like a bell from the heavens, and ripples of power spread outward, shaking the air. The force pushed both men apart. Asher frowned, tightening his grip.

From above, Garen descended.

His sword came down like a falling star, dragging an inferno behind it. Fire roared around the blade as he aimed straight for Asher.

In response, Asher carved a circle through the air with his Kingsword and used the force to pivot upward. Their swords met mid-air.

Boom!

A massive explosion erupted between them. The earth beneath imploded, cracks spreading like lightning bolts across the plains. The land could not hold their fury.

Aaron came again, surging in from behind. His Kingsword thrust forward, the mental image of Asher’s body run through consuming him. He saw it, he wanted it.

But Asher moved without looking.

He simply leaned. The blade grazed his armoured back, leaving behind a white gash in its wake. Aaron stumbled forward, unbalanced.

Then, ice struck.

A spear of glistening frost burst from the shattered ground, impaling Aaron cleanly through the throat. The tip jutted from the back of his neck, and he gasped, frozen in that moment.

But his lips curled into a smile.

Fwoosh!

Garen’s sword lit from its tip and unleashed a fiery blast that engulfed Asher entirely. The flames were searing, unnatural in heat, so intense that one side of Aaron’s body began to melt, dripping flesh like wax.

Aaron wrenched his throat free from the spear, blood and frost spraying into the air. His skin knit rapidly, muscle growing back over bone.

“You simply can’t kill me,” he rasped, chuckling darkly.

He turned, eyes on Asher who had raised an ice wall just in time to block the inferno. But the blast had been so immense, the force so overpowering, it hurled him backward.

Asher’s body tore through the sky, sent hurtling almost a hundred meters away.

“None of my ancestors could be killed,” Aaron rasped, blood still slicking his throat, “not even by a Kingsword.”

Asher simply floated upward, his body rising with eerie calm through the drifting smoke and embers. His white mantle flared behind him like torn spirit wings, and his glowing eye, devoid of pupils, glared down in measured stillness.

“It was foolish of me,” he said, voice low but resonant, “to swing swords with you… when you could be killed with nothing but a breath.”

He stretched out his hand, fingers splayed.

The effect was immediate. Aaron’s eyes widened in panic as the breath left his lungs, not pushed, but drawn, pulled by unseen force into Asher’s waiting palm. His chest convulsed, desperate for air, but no relief came.

Around his head, air condensed and sealed into a cocoon, airtight, absolute.

Aaron dropped to his knees, gasping soundlessly, clawing at his throat. His face reddened, veins bulged at his temples. He collapsed to the scorched ground, writhing helplessly, the last wisps of his breath trapped in Asher’s unseen grip.

Then, Garen roared.

It wasn’t a cry of anger, it was war incarnate. His voice ripped through the battlefield like a thunderclap.

He took a massive step forward, slamming his armored foot into the earth, and with both hands raised his sword high.

With a mighty upward swing, Garen unleashed his fury.

A massive, concentrated blade of fire exploded from his weapon, a narrow, razor-sharp line of pure flame, burning hotter than dragonfire. It sliced the very sky as it surged upward, a blazing scar carved across the stormy heavens.

Asher veered aside just in time, darting through the air like a phantom. But even as he moved, the flaming arc seared the clouds above, leaving behind a permanent mark in the sky, an infernal gash in the heart of the storm.

“Your head is mine.”

Garen turned, eyes blazing with fury, ready to answer with steel but before he could even move…

“Your loyalty reminds me of a friend… a friend the treachery of your lord and his allies took.”

The voice came from behind him. Garen’s eyes widened in stunned disbelief and pain.

He looked down, Asher’s Kingsword had already been thrust through his chest, the blade jutting out from his sternum, gleaming with frost and stained with blood.

He staggered, mouth parted in silent shock.

He couldn’t believe it. How?

No sound. No shadow. No warning.

The only man ever spoken of with such impossible speed was the legendary Flame Knight himself; Lord Torah Ashbourne.

And now, Asher stood behind him… echoing that same speed, that same myth, but wielding it as a ghost of vengeance.

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