In the end, this formed the disaster known as the Dragon Calamity, when dozens of enraged Great Dragon ravaged cities like unstoppable natural disasters. It was during that time that the ancestors of the Edward Family first emerged. It was said their ancestor carried dragon blood, wielding the power of a Great Dragon in a human body and using Bloodline Sense to track and hunt those gone mad.
Because of this, they were granted a special noble title, with the duty of hunting rampaging Great Dragon across the empires. All of that was background, though, because what really mattered was the current family head's child: Lyles Edward's daughter. She filled the Warrior role among the four-member Hero Party.
"A member of the Hero Party? How did her father end up here, and you even picked him up?" "I don't know."
Fei'er Li looked stunned, then let out a sigh. Well, it must have been fate. He was already gone, and there was no way she could catch up. If she had known earlier, maybe she could have met a future member of the Hero Party and tried to change that terrible future, but fate had its own sense of humor.
"Is that future world-saving Hero Party really that necessary? They all seem kind of useless." Icelis asked casually. Over the past decade, Fei'er Li had already told her some of these things, which was why the name sounded familiar.
"…If I had to say, maybe you're right. But if even one of them saves something, then together they might matter." As she said this, Fei'er Li sighed again, because that really was how it went in the original story. One reason the Chosen Hero suffered so badly was that she was alone most of the time.
In theory, the team should have had four other members, forming a classic warrior, mage, healer, and archer setup. But in the story, every one of them ended badly. The mage, a crystallized Witch, died years before the the Lord arc began, supposedly from a kind of tuberculosis from the Otherworld. When the Chosen Hero finally entered the Barrier, all she found was a massive crystal that no longer even looked human.
The archer was a half-Elves, but when the world tree within the Elves reversed and polluted the land, all contact was cut off. He only appeared much later in the the Lord arc. The priest, the Dawn Saintess, was even worse. She vanished entirely, dying in some cultist plot, and the Dawn lineage ended with her.
As for the only Warrior role that appeared in the the Lord arc, he was the orphan of a dragon-hunting clan. He was framed by internal imperial corruption, lost everything, and his father died fighting a dragon. His own body was heavily corroded by dragon blood, driving him mad as he hunted Great Dragon without caring about teamwork, practically covered in death flags.
Fei'er Li felt that if she were the Chosen Hero and saw teammates like that, she would freeze up too. Four teammates tied to four major enemies, wiped out before they even really fought. What was there left to play? On top of that, some companion tied to the Demon King would keep showing up like a ghost, using illusions and riddles to apply pressure.
Along the way, there was no real respect given to the Chosen Hero, not even at the start. It was misery from beginning to end. That was why, now that she had some ability, she wanted to help if she could.
"By the way, if Icelis hadn't saved Lyles Edward, would he have died early? Or is this some senior's butterfly effect?" There were too many things she could not understand, especially the Edward Family. That future Hero Party member, who might not even be eight years old yet, was deeply tied to one of the major enemies, and she did not know how to help.
"Seriously, why am I stressing myself out again? This wasn't even my problem to begin with, right?" "…"
——
"My target, number three! Don't run!"
A Corona Beam fell from the sky, using heat nearing a million degrees to cleanse every inch of polluted soil. The monster's moving city screamed as it was erased. With a sweep of wings, freezing winds carved scars of snow and ice into the land, while extreme cold sank into the ground and shut down even nanomachines.
Massive fireballs spread like nuclear blasts, their radiation destroying infected nanomachines even in the air. High above, clouds were sucked into towering cyclones filled with fire, frost, and lightning, all crushed together and tightly bound by Gravity Tornado so that not a single grain of Nanometal could escape.
Standing on ground crystallized by heat, Lilith looked into the distance. There, in rolling magma and black smoke, a massive Black Dragon spread its wings and roared. At its command, disasters erased everything in sight, and from its mouth poured sulfurous fire brighter than the sun itself.
The earth was torn open into miserable Rift by Rend, and blood-red magma surged out to swallow all life. Even the gray-white infected monsters, already burned to charcoal, died screaming. "…This is excessive."
If she did not know this dragon was fundamentally unreliable and a bit foolish, Lilith might have thought this was some world-ending demon. The sheer amount of Magic was easily controlled and released with shocking efficiency.
After Lilith's lessons, Belial's use of Magic had improved by more than one level in both power and efficiency. Before, he was like a brute using a gun as a club. Now that brute wore powered armor and knew where the grip and trigger were.
It looked overwhelming, but every strike was aimed at places where nanomachines still remained. Under this mix of fire and ice, the extermination was extremely effective. In Lilith's hands was a radar-like screen, a detector built by Bella to sense Nanometal.
According to her, every piece of Nanometal could act as a medium for Evil God's pollution, so it was best to destroy them all. Any red spot left on the screen meant remnants remained, and all Lilith had to do was send the coordinates and wait for Belial's orbital strike.
"You can follow this map to reach where your other forces have gathered." Lilith handed a freshly printed map from Bella to an Officer from the survivors, also to help any remaining troops. This was a request from both Louis and Bella.
The Officer swallowed and accepted it with shaking hands, then saluted her. "Th… thank you for your help. I will go."
Even with a destination, fear lingered in his heart. To him, the one riding this terrifying Black Dragon, casually unleashing disaster-level attacks, was simply too powerful. He was grateful, but he could not stop being afraid.
Lilith did not mind. After seeing it so often, she realized this dragon seemed to carry a kind of fear aura, like a field of despair. With that appearance, even she had panicked the first time and fired Magic Cannon. Even Bella had been scared, so it was impressive this Officer held himself together.
"Hmm… from preparing to move until now, it's been almost an hour, right? And the third one is already dead?" "And most of that hour was cleanup. Actual travel time was less than half an hour."
Hearing Bella, Lilith felt a bit heavy inside, yet it also felt like a picnic. She just had to sit and direct strikes. There were no real obstacles at all. Anything that even troubled her slightly was slapped once by the dragon and vanished.
She had no real sense of facing large-scale Evil God pollution at all. Floating in Belial's palm, the massive Great Dragon flapped its wings and tore through the sky, boosted by the new engine of Magic to speeds beyond Mach fifteen.
Having Lilith move with Belial was partly to guard against Ludwig, but she also served as support. Crystals now orbited Belial in flight, controlled by Lilith to assist with Magic output.
For elemental fusion that Belial was still mastering, Lilith had decades of experience. By resonating through his back spines, she could tap into his Magic and take control of the wing-reactor structure of Magic herself.
This allowed them to maintain extreme speed in the air, now exceeding Mach twenty. "The fourth red dot is ahead… So am I basically the machine now, and the Witch I'm holding is my pilot?"
Protecting Lilith with Gravity Tornado, Belial let his thoughts wander. A long-missed feast and the soon-to-unlock planetary Godzilla template put him in a very good mood.
Most of the power from Ludwig's node cities had been swallowed by Belial. With both Bella's core energy and this feast, his strength and size grew further. Beyond constantly refreshing the worldviews of Bella and Lilith, the most shocking thing was how directly Belial consumed Magic.
He probably did not realize how absurd it was. He forcibly absorbed lingering Magic from freshly dead entities, stripping away the original the Lord's traits and mental imprints and making it his own.
If it had stopped there, Lilith might have accepted it. The problem was that, according to Bella, this power was fundamentally part of a being like Evil God. Below Gold Rank, infection was easy. Even Ascendant Hall and crowned ranks could not fully avoid pollution. Only higher levels could resist.