Chapter 1227: 214. Domain and Divine Kingdom

Vast magical power surged. The dragon skeleton floated upward in a manner that completely defied physical common sense. Its wings spread, its dragon head raised high, and in midair it transformed into a solemn cross of white bone.

Around its body, one magical array after another suddenly lit up. Flames, violent winds, frost, plague—magic of every form overwhelmed the radiance of the Illumination in the blink of an eye, while also illuminating Muen’s face until it looked incomparably pale.

“Holy shit...”

Muen’s cheek twitched violently.

“You’re fucking cheating!”

What did it mean that compound instantaneous chantless magical arrays, which only Truth-Rank mages could skillfully master, were an innate talent dragons possessed from birth?

Could the natural difference between them possibly be any greater?

Although there truly was a slight disparity among the living beings of this world, it still should not have been this enormous!

He was using cheats!

Referee, someone here was cheating!

“Cheating? How exactly am I cheating?”

Harris asked mockingly.

“What kind of man uses someone else’s body? If you have the guts, bring out your own body and let us have a confrontation between real men.”

“I only have a face left now. How am I supposed to use my own body?”

“It would not be impossible to compete using only our faces.”

Muen said seriously:

“In that regard, I’m also very—”

“Hmph.”

Harris snorted coldly. He could not be bothered to continue communicating with this fellow whose skin was thicker than a city wall. With a sweep of his skeletal wings, several spells enveloped Muen.

“Although I know it must be truly humiliating that even your last remaining face cannot compare to someone else’s, there is no need to be... so impatient!”

Muen’s figure flashed. While avoiding the attacks, he pushed himself into a state of full-speed mobility.

No matter what, when facing magic—and such an enormous quantity of magic at that—standing still and exchanging attacks was completely equivalent to seeking death. After all, there was nothing in this world simpler or more brutally effective than saturating an area with firepower.

At the same time, Muen lightly touched the twin blades together, causing arcs of electricity that stirred metallic fragments to flicker around him. For the first time in a long while, he activated the Alchemical Domain that came with Elizabeth.

Ever since he had learned to use black flames to devour his own presence, the Alchemical Domain’s ability to conceal his aura had basically been replaced. However, its ability to repel foreign objects and block negative effects was still effective.

Who knew whether that bastard with a human face might insidiously mix some strange magic into these offensive spells?

He had to guard against it.

After finishing all of this, what he needed to consider was...

“How am I supposed to get close to that bastard?” 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

Muen’s expression darkened slightly.

That sudden magical attack earlier had not merely caused him a minor injury. More troublesome was the fact that it had knocked him back, allowing Harris to take the opportunity to rise into the air and create distance between them.

A martial artist had to close the distance when facing a mage in order to gain an advantage. Otherwise, he would only be beaten from one side. Even a three-year-old child understood that principle.

Much less when the opponent he faced now was not an ordinary mage, but a dragon skeleton capable of using compound instantaneous chantless magical arrays!

The only good news was that talent was talent, while strength was strength. The power of the magic Harris controlled through this dragon skeleton had clearly not reached the Truth Rank.

Otherwise, fighting on the home ground of a Truth-Rank mage, Muen would not have enough lives no matter how many he possessed. He would have long since been completely blasted into scraps.

“What are you thinking about? Don’t tell me you still believe you have a chance of winning!”

Harris’s sinister mocking laughter echoed throughout the entire space, interrupting Muen’s thoughts.

Boom!

Just as Muen’s figure flashed past a certain location, an enormously powerful explosive spell detonated directly in that area. The scorching wave from the explosion almost brushed across the hem of his clothes.

In the direction he intended to advance, ice froze the ground. Large amounts of soil and stone also continuously gathered and changed shape under the control of magic. The once-flat path became difficult to traverse, forcing Muen to constantly clear it by hand.

Above and below, pursuit and interception, an inescapable net!

“Damn it.”

Muen felt that evasion was becoming increasingly difficult.

Even while inside Time Delay, allowing him to calculate the attack trajectories of many spells, he was still gradually being overwhelmed when faced with such an excessive number of them.

His speed was very fast, but Harris had indeed constructed more than offensive magic.

At this moment, several eye-like patterns of light had appeared above his head, encompassing the entire hollow space.

Those were detection spells.

As long as those things were watching, it would be impossible for Muen to use his speed to escape Harris’s sight and then use Illumination midway to conceal his figure and launch a surprise attack.

It did not matter how thick the walls of dust raised by the relentless bombardment around him became.

He could not outrun him.

He could not get close enough to fight.

He could not compete in endurance with a dragon skeleton capable of drawing magical power from the outside world...

This was simply...

A dead end?

No.

How could there be such a thing as an absolute dead end in this world?

Muen suddenly raised his head and looked toward a certain place...

“Give up, Muen Campbell.”

Harris spoke from above:

“Blindly running away will only make your coming death appear even more pathetic.”

“Who the fuck said I was running?”

Muen slashed apart the stone mountain blocking his path. His feet stepped repeatedly, activating Shadow Step. His body maneuvered in reverse through a posture that similarly defied common sense, avoiding several predictive magical attacks.

“Thunderclap.”

The twin blades collided at that moment and trembled!

Buzz!

A terrifying vibration spread outward with Muen at its center. The sound of heavenly thunder echoed throughout the hollow space. The incoming magic was affected, forced to deviate from its direction or directly collapse.

The color rapidly drained from Muen’s face, and a trace of metallic sweetness rose in his throat.

Although Thunderclap, activated at full power through Elizabeth, had become considerably stronger, this vibration was an indiscriminate method of attack. Naturally, Muen himself would also be harmed.

However, at a moment like this, he obviously could no longer care about so much.

What mattered was that he had successfully used this method to artificially create a gap in the opponent’s magical offensive!

Even though that gap was extremely brief.

“I’m not going to run. I’m still waiting for a certain damned dragon to apologize and admit she was wrong.”

Muen came to a stop.

“As for you... I’ve already seen through your weakness. The one who should welcome death is also you.”

“Heh.”

Harris was completely disdainful.

“I have no weakness. That is the confidence this perfect body gives me.”

“Then let us wait and see!”

Muen tightened his grip on the twin blades.

Then black flames surged.

The pitch-black fire leaped like spirits, enveloping the two pure-white short blades. White and black intertwined, holiness and strangeness perfectly merging together.

“With blades that short, are you planning to peel fruit?”

Harris sneered from high above.

“No. Of course they are for...

“Killing you!”

Clang—

The sound of steel rang out, but it was not a slash unleashed by Muen.

A slash would be easily blocked by magic. Muen had already casually tested that during his earlier escape.

However...

Two streaks of black-and-white interwoven light, trailing dreamlike, hazy flames, suddenly shot toward the pale face atop the dragon skeleton’s head.

Their speed was so fast that they crossed the vast distance almost in the blink of an eye.

“Ridiculous!”

Harris had long since prepared himself. Defensive magic already protected him perfectly.

But...

Pshk.

The black flames swayed.

The defensive magic was easily devoured, creating an opening. The twin blades did not slow in the slightest and continued aiming directly at that face.

“What?”

Harris was incomparably horrified.

From those two short blades he had previously mocked, he finally sensed the threat of death.

He no longer dared to be careless.

At the same time, he also realized that beneath the pitch-black flames and pure-white blades, the magic he was so proud of could not protect him.

Thus...

The enormous skeletal wings suddenly closed, shielding the dragon skeleton’s head...

Or rather, shielding that face.

The twin blades easily pierced into the skeletal wings. However, without Muen personally swinging them, no matter how the living spirits within them urged themselves forward, they could only rely on their sharpness to penetrate all the way to the hilts. They could not advance even another fraction.

“You think this is enough to defeat me? Ridiculous!”

Harris became furious.

The skeletal wings spread, stirring up a violent wind.

That action had caused him to lose sight of his opponent for an instant, but it had only been an instant.

With the assistance of the detection magic, Harris quickly locked onto Muen again and discovered that he was rapidly moving upward along the wall, soon reaching the bottom of the hollow space.

“You intend to use that as a foothold to attack me? How naive!”

Whether it was the ground below or the ceiling above...

For him, floating at the center of the hollow space, there was no difference in distance whatsoever.

Muen had not closed the distance at all, much less posed any threat to him!

“Die.”

Magic gathered once again, directly locking onto Muen as he ran wildly across the top of the hollow space.

Buzz—

The top of the hollow space was not the ground.

Muen was hanging upside down from it and still had to run across it. The strength required far exceeded what was needed on the ground, causing even his speed to slow considerably.

Under normal circumstances, this was completely an act of courting death.

His speed earlier had already barely been enough.

At his current speed...

How was he supposed to evade?

But...

At that very moment, the magic around Harris continued gathering...

Gathering...

Then unexpectedly began to gradually dissipate.

The offensive stopped.

“Why did you stop blasting?”

Muen sneered.

“Despicable!”

Harris’s expression became incomparably ugly.

“Then it seems I guessed correctly.”

In that period of less than a minute, Harris had activated at least a hundred spells.

He had wantonly displayed the powerful talent of this body. With the enhancement of the dragon skeleton, he had poured all kinds of terrifying offensive magic toward Muen without the slightest restraint...

And toward the ground beneath Muen’s feet.

Everywhere Muen had fled, enormous craters appeared one after another. The entire ground seemed to have been thoroughly plowed. The originally solid rock layer had completely turned into loose sand and gravel, and even the entire foundation had collapsed downward by more than ten meters.

Harris had not cared in the slightest.

He was not some environmentalist who would worry about accidentally injuring pitiful rats.

But above his head...

He did not dare to recklessly bombard it with magic.

Because above it...

Was New Tars.

The hunt had now reached its crucial moment!

“I cannot disturb what is happening over there yet...”

Harris’s gaze flickered.

“Although according to the calculations, she should already have fallen into a weakened state.”

“What... You don’t dare gamble?”

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Muen rapidly approached across the top of the hollow space.

“Are you afraid? Don’t you people regard that damned dragon as prey? How can you still be afraid of her?”

“Shut up!”

Harris shouted angrily:

“I am not afraid! I am merely ensuring that everything proceeds according to the script! Muen Campbell, do you believe that people like us, who no longer even fear death, would be afraid of such a trivial matter?”

“Who knows? There are many things in this world more frightening than death, aren’t there?”

Muen arrived directly above Harris.

His legs gradually bent, his entire body tensed, and dense cracks began spreading outward with the soles of his feet at their center!

“However... there is one thing I know very clearly. Even with this dragon skeleton, it is useless. In the end, you are not a real dragon!”

Relying on a skeleton that had been dead for no one knew how many years, he dared call himself a dragon?

How ridiculous.

Muen had personally witnessed Hamreign using magic.

That dance-like elegance and beauty still remained deeply engraved in his memory.

As for the fellow before him...

He was merely releasing magic.

A monkey wearing a crown!

Boom!

Muen shot toward the top of Harris’s head.

“Shut up!”

Harris had clearly been completely enraged.

The moment Muen left the top of the hollow space, several magical torrents that had long since been prepared completely sealed off every path of advance from different directions!

Against this, Muen had only one response.

He placed a jade bead into his mouth, and then...

“Stagnation.”

Two simple words softly left his lips.

What rang out with them was the solemn and ancient tolling of a bell, as though it came from the very end of the river of time...

Dong—

Eternal Clock activated.

Time Stagnation.

One second.

Harris was frozen in place.

Even the magic he had unleashed appeared like an old image suddenly paused, temporarily losing all color.

Muen easily passed through the gaps between those spells, leaped onto the dragon skeleton’s head, aimed at that pale and ugly face—

And smashed his fist into it!

“Ah!”

The fist made intimate contact with that face.

The instant Time Stagnation ended, the other party’s scream already echoed throughout the hollow space, its reverberations continuing without end.

The magic lost its target and collapsed in midair.

The dragon skeleton swayed and fell from the sky.

“What an awful sound!”

Muen struck with another fist.

Half of Harris’s face instantly caved inward, forcibly stuffing the rest of his scream back into his throat.

“Calling you a monkey wearing a crown would already be flattering you. You are nothing more than a ridiculous parasite!”

Muen grabbed the ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) edge of the face and attempted to peel it away from the dragon skeleton.

After trying once and failing, he simply summoned black flames, intending to devour the face together with the entire dragon skeleton.

He needed to finish this as quickly as possible.

He still had to go make that damned dragon...

“Shut—

“Up!”

However, just as the black flames swayed and were about to touch Harris, they were unexpectedly repelled by an invisible force.

“What?”

Muen lowered his head in disbelief.

After roaring, Harris suddenly opened his strange mouth wide. His tongue curled, and he spat something out.

Muen focused his gaze.

The moment he clearly saw what it was, his eyelid suddenly twitched violently.

A premonition of death ten times stronger than when he had been ambushed earlier directly exploded within his mind.

A crown!

It was actually a crown stained with flesh and blood!

“Get lost!”

The crown spun rapidly and floated upward.

Illusory images of the sun, moon, stars, heaven, earth, and all living things appeared across it, but they were covered by a vague layer of flesh and blood, making it appear exceptionally strange.

Yet the power it carried remained real.

Muen had no ability to resist and was directly sent flying, smashing into the distant cliff wall.

Dust filled the air, only to be instantly blown away by a violent wind.

Muen coughed painfully twice and spat out bloody foam before finally struggling free from the rock with difficulty.

He raised his head and watched the crown float above Harris, scattering clear radiance downward.

Harris’s face returned to normal in the blink of an eye.

Only his rage had not diminished in the slightest.

“You’re actually a Crowned One too?”

Muen spat and smiled somewhat miserably.

“What is going on? Can rats like you really receive recognition from heaven one after another?”

“That is merely because your experience is too limited.”

Harris’s tone was sinister and terrifying, as though he wished to devour Muen alive.

“If you could live as long as I have, you would know that this is nothing particularly unusual. Unfortunately... you probably will not live that long. You will die here right now!”

“Ha... A genuine Crowned One. It seems I truly have no chance of winning.”

Muen covered his chest.

A dragon skeleton capable of freely using compound instantaneous chantless magical arrays was already troublesome enough.

If he had not seized upon the opponent’s apprehension, even closing the distance would have been extremely difficult, much less killing Harris through a brief one-second time stop.

And now, Harris was unexpectedly also a genuine Crowned One.

The difference between the Crowned and the uncrowned was like heaven and earth.

Forget a dragon skeleton that could merely serve as a rapid-fire magical platform. Even if a true Truth-Rank Grand Sorcerer were here, it would still be difficult to deal with a Crowned One of the same rank.

No wonder his full-powered Time Stagnation had only stopped Harris for a brief second.

If Harris had directly lowered the crown from the very beginning, he might not even have managed one second.

“You finally know fear, you little brat who does not know the immensity of heaven and earth!”

“Fear?”

Muen smiled and shook his head.

He supported himself against the wall with both hands, completely pulling himself free from the rock layer, and breathed forcefully.

“I’m already pathetic enough to come this far. Do you think I would be afraid? Ah... Of course I’m afraid. But if I cannot make a certain damned dragon apologize to me, I will not close my eyes even in death.”

“You still intend to struggle?”

“I would not call it struggling. I cannot simply wait for death. And also... you seem to talk a little too much.”

Muen raised his head and suddenly said:

“Harris, you are not a complete Crowned One, are you?”

“...”

Harris’s face suddenly froze.

“The way your crown appeared was somewhat strange. A Heaven-Bestowed Crown, a Heaven-Bestowed Crown. Naturally, that thing descends from the sky. Most Crowned Ones I have seen use their crowns that way.”

Muen drew a circle above his own head.

“But your crown was spat out of your mouth. The last person whose entrance method was equally strange was Priscilla, who possessed only half a crown.”

Sometimes, Muen felt that constantly being dragged into extraordinary incidents was not necessarily a bad thing.

At the very least, in terms of experience, he would not lose to anyone.

Did not know the immensity of heaven and earth?

How many Evil Gods had that bastard seen, to dare speak with him about the immensity of heaven and earth?

“So... in truth, you are like her. Both of you can only be considered half a Crowned One. She divided her crown into two halves, while you... because you have no physical body, cannot properly display the might of a Crowned One at all. Otherwise, you would not need to go through all this trouble and control this dragon skeleton. Would it not have been enough to simply come out and crush me to death?”

“...So what?”

After a moment of silence, Harris sneered:

“Even without a physical body, I can still use the [Domain] bestowed by the crown. Your power cannot touch me. You can only be blasted into scraps by my magic!”

“[Domain]... That truly is a troublesome thing.”

Muen sighed.

Heaven-Bestowed Crown.

Physical Ascension.

These were the two most prominent differences between Crowned Ones and martial artists of the other ranks.

Physical Ascension was naturally easy to understand. The elevation of one’s level of life caused Crowned Ones to eternally surpass the physical strength and vitality of the previous ranks. Their combat power itself would rise by an entire level.

As for the Heaven-Bestowed Crown...

It was not merely a symbol.

What the crown brought was another extremely troublesome ability possessed by Crowned Ones.

[Domain].

Its own self-contained laws.

Impervious to all magic.

Why did a Truth-Rank Grand Sorcerer suddenly become incapable of easily dealing with a Crowned One of the same Sixth Rank?

Because this [Domain] alone could resist the overwhelming majority of magic.

It was even said that, a very long time ago, Crowned Ones had another title:

[Mage Killers].

“With the dragon skeleton on the outside and the crown within, under normal circumstances, I truly would not be your opponent. However...”

Muen patted his cheeks and softly said:

“I have already touched you, haven’t I?”

“What?”

Harris recovered from an inexplicable daze and suddenly discovered that everything around him had somehow become pitch-black.

The hollow space had also been dark, but it had long since been illuminated by all kinds of magic, dazzling like several suns simultaneously emitting light and heat.

But here, there was only pure darkness.

Pure loneliness.

“What is going on?”

Harris looked left and right.

He discovered that, without knowing when, he had become unable to control the dragon skeleton...

No.

More accurately, he had been separated from the dragon skeleton.

Now only a single face remained, floating in midair.

“This place is...”

Harris truly deserved to be someone who had lived for several centuries.

He quickly realized his situation.

“A mental space? This is your mental space?”

Harris found it unbelievable.

He froze for a moment, then burst into loud laughter.

“Little brat, you actually dared to allow my [Domain] to enter your mental space? Do you wish to die that badly?”

The crown covered in flesh and blood floated upward, spinning rapidly and scattering radiance that symbolized the [Domain].

Although he had lost his physical body, part of the might of the Crowned remained.

A mental space was the most vulnerable place within a person.

He could easily crush it and turn the owner of the mental space into an idiot.

He could even...

“This body of yours seems rather good.”

Harris licked his lips, greed flashing through his eyes.

“There are countless people in this world who covet my body. You are nowhere near high enough on the list.”

Muen’s voice echoed throughout this ethereal space.

“Besides, who told you...

“That this was merely an ordinary mental space?”

“What?”

Harris frowned.

If it was not a mental space, what else could it be?

“This place...

“Is my [Divine Kingdom]!”

Dong!

An ancient bell rang.

No one knew how many figures knelt in the distance.

The teachings whose ink had not yet dried upon the holy scripture, the stories of salvation passed from mouth to mouth, and the hastily gathered hymns and songs surged forward like a tide amid devout prayers.

Harris suddenly felt his entire body turn cold.

He realized that someone...

No.

Some terrifying existence was watching him.

He searched in every direction, yet saw nothing.

Until...

He looked upward.

Only then did he discover that a pitch-black blazing sun was hanging above his head.

“H-How can this be?”

The crown continued spinning rapidly.

The illusory images of the sun, moon, stars, heaven, earth, and all living things appeared even clearer within this pitch-black space.

But compared with the terrifying sight Harris now witnessed...

How insignificant was a single crown?

A pure-white corona surrounded the pitch-black solar disk.

Holiness and demonic strangeness reflected one another.

Endless black flames burned fiercely, covering the entire sky.

That pitch-black solar disk slowly descended, carrying supreme majesty and indifference, intending to reduce this irreverent heretic to ashes.

“Ah!”

Harris was finally struck down by fear.

Without regard for anything else, he activated the crown with all his strength, attempting to stop the descent of that black sun.

At the same time...

Ignoring the blood flowing from his nose, Muen once again placed a jade bead into his mouth.

“Before this, I lost to that damned dragon.”

He murmured softly:

“This time, let us see whether your half-baked [Domain] is stronger...

“Or whether my false [Divine Kingdom] is more formidable...”