Eden's Lone Wolf Bite theoretically had no limit in potential, but it grew with him. Because of what he had sacrificed, he was able to catch the souls of those a Tier above his own. However, facing Tier III foes, who had two Tiers on him, the power difference started becoming a little too important, and so although it was not turned useless, their souls needed to be properly trapped, such as with a domain.
Tharizdun had been a pain to kill for exactly that reason, and Eden strongly suspected that even if he killed another deity, if they were not inside his domain, or specifically trapped with a spell, then they would be able to be reborn.
However, if Eden promoted to Tier II, then deploying his domain would presumably not be necessary anymore.
Meanwhile, the giant five-headed dragon goddess was visibly unhappy with his actions, and one of her heads opened its mouth wide, but as a sea of flames came out, Eden zoomed past her, agilely dodging past the other four head trying to take a bite out of him with the help of his Boon of Speed.
Flying up high above, Eden was given full view of Tiamat's body, and it was monstrous. She was easily fifty meters across, and her five heads moved chaotically, bumping into each other. It was like each of them had a will of its own.
She was powerful, but also highly specialized. 18 Agility for a Tier III? Eden did not believe he had even seen this in a Tier II. That also explained why he managed to fly past her.
But any lack of precision she had, she more than made up for with her sheer size, as well as her breath attacks. From what Eden remembered, each head belonged to an element, Cold, Lightning, Fire, Poison and Acid if her Immunity were to be trusted.
With a flap of her wings, Tiamat flew off the castle, though she was slow. Her five heads were advantageous in a lot of ways, but they also brought a lot of mass, which made it look like her wings struggled to hold all of it.
She could still fly, but now that she needed to go up, she struggled. As she left the Githyanki city's sphere of influence however, gravity disappeared, resulting in a sharp increase in speed. But that also applied to Eden.
Looking up at him, the five heads roared in unison, declaring, "Come to me, my children!"
Narrowing his eyes, Eden noticed the dragons from the Githyanki capital flying up their way, each of them much more agile than their Goddess. Not only that, as several portals also opened, with more dragons teleporting over.
Some were mere Adult Dragons, mostly those flying up from Tu'narath. Quite a few Ancient ones also teleported over however.
Dragons grew stronger with age, and were thus classified by it. From what Eden had seen, Adult Dragons were mid-Tier II, while Ancient Dragons were high or peak Tier II.
But leading these dragons were three more, each bigger and meaner than the rest, only under Tiamat. Their scales pulsed with their associated element, and they hovered between Tier II and Tier III. They had no domains, but their attributes and Perks likely put them near Tier III.
These were Great Wyrms. Moreover, as she flew up, Tiamat unleashed her domain. It did not look very strong, and what he saw told Eden that it was not even an attacking domain. She might not even have the sure-hit effect.
In exchange of that, it buffed every dragon inside its range, which was quite massive.
This was the difference between facing a deity in the Abyss and one from other realms. Hardly anyone wanted to be in the Abyss, it was a horrible place creatures were mostly banished to, rather than willingly lived there. That was why demons invaded other planes, to escape the nightmare that was the Abyss.
The same went for gods. Those living in the Abyss did so because they had been cast out from their pantheon, for the most part, and were thus loners.
But regular deities, like Tiamat, were not only immensely powerful, but also had countless powerful servants. Tiamat had dragons, but most other deities had Solars and other beings of similar power.
Tiamat and her dragons were simply a pretty bad match for Eden's fighting style. His best way to fight against a multitude of enemies was his Domain Expansion, and the dragons, with their high Physique, would be able to resist it for a time.
Of course, if they stayed too long, they would also die, but they could stay long enough inside to attack.
As for their means of attacks, they were pretty much all area of effects, meaning his ability to predict attacks was also countered. Even his main defensive spell, Shield, was targeted towards precise attacks, and would be useless against a breath attack.
One should also not forget Tiamat herself. She was an extremely dangerous element on her own, only held back by her low Agility, but even then, she was extremely tanky, and her attacks even harder to dodge.
Maybe the smartest response would be to flee. Eden had already gotten what he came here for, having killed Vlaakith, but thinking of the rewards he would get, his greed flared up. It was not like he did not have advantages of his own anyway.
Dragons were fast and agile in the air, even in the Astral Sea, having flown all their life. But Eden had also hundreds of years of experience, and the Boon of Speed.
Keeping the distance between them, Eden drew on the Bow of Darkness' string, and infused the shadow arrow with Cursed Energy, before releasing it.
The arrow traversed the mana-heavy space faster than sound, and nearly instantly reached an Adult Green Dragon. It did not even react to it as it made contact with its neck.
Dragons all boasted powerful natural defences, which was why they were so troubling to deal with for Eden. However, the Bow of Darkness was a divine artefact, and all its attacks ignored 100 defence.
Eden did not know how much defence Dragons had exactly, but the arrow punched cleanly through its scales, blowing a hole into its large neck.
The dragon tried to roar, only to release a gurgle as a second arrow followed, this one hitting between its eyes, making another hole, and killing the beast.
However, as it died and Eden prepared to attack another, several of the dragons teleported behind him, all unleashing their breath attacks at once, covering Eden's entire surroundings.
Eden tried to teleport away, but the spell circle was smashed apart by a counter-spell, the spell thus failing, and leaving Eden with no other option than to reinforce his body with Cursed Energy, and withstand the breath attacks.
This brought out an ironic shortcoming of Eden: he was not used to facing mages in combat.
Since the weave was not present in the Forgotten Layer of the Abyss, all beings there had lost all spells they had learned, and were only left with the innate ones, which were easy enough to play around since they were mostly bigger attacks.
But in reality, mages had many means of not only attacking, but also dodging, trapping, protecting themselves and others, and essentially everything. Eden himself was the best example. He was just not used to others doing it.
As the breath attacks receded, Eden was still mostly fine. He had Resistance to Fire, Lightning, Cold and Acid damage, while being immune to Poison damage, so the breath attacks dealt half damage at best, or even no damage for those Black Dragons.
Moreover, the breath attacks were not meant to be used together, and rather than empowering each other, they weakened themselves, since fire, lightning, cold, acid and poison hardly matched one another.
However, it had given the time the other dragons needed to approach, including Tiamat. As her domain covered him, Eden confirmed that her domain was not an offensive one in nature. It tried to debuff him, but he resisted that as well.
There was no more escaping though, so Eden put the Bow of Darkness back in his Inventory. Thankfully, the Robes of the Archmagi were left relatively intact, having been enchanted to resist damage, and Eden's Cursed Energy helped as well.
Taking a moment to think of the best course of action, Eden took out the Wand of Supreme Fear, and chanted, "I cast Shattering Darkness."
The area around Eden was suddenly covered in a large expanse of darkness, shielding him from the sight of every dragon present.
Several of the dragons instantly tried to cast spells that would create light, but they were all snuffed out by the darkness.
They did not enter either, but that was fine, Eden had not cast it to attack. Without seeing him, they could not stop his spells, or him from teleporting away. Of course, Eden could always still teleport away with a higher level spell, but they did not know that.
Hence, Tiamat rushed to the edge of the spell, in a bid to stop him from teleporting away, and opened her lightning and fire heads, her plan being to cover the whole area with her breath attack.
But before she could make her attack, Eden cast Starburst, and the spell flew right into her mouth.
Tiamat being a divine being, Eden's control over his spell vanished the moment it 'entered' her body, but that was just fine as it exploded into its maximum range.
All five of her heads faltered as Starburst exploded inside her, vomiting out grey flames. All spells were boosted while cast inside the Astral Plane, and adding onto that the boost from Eden's Silver Flame of 10%, and the Wand of Supreme Fear's 100%, it truly hurt Tiamat.
6th Tier was the peak of Tier II after all, and one so critically placed could hurt even powerful Tier III enemies. She might be immune to fire and poison, she had nothing on radiant damage.
Eden was not finished though as with a flap of his wings, he appeared at the base of Tiamat's heads, and slammed his hands against the side of her neck. Not only did each slap explode with grey flames, but they also came with a Maximum Output Cleave.
The radiant damage also stopped her from regenerating, and so, in a single second, one of Tiamat's five heads was severed at the base, the wound cauterized with Angelic Fire.
Tiamat's remaining heads roared, her scales pulsating with her different elements, while the dragons surrounding them prepared their breath attacks. Tiamat herself was immune to them, so it could only help.
Eden's instinct told him to use his Domain Expansion, as that would be the smartest way to counter them. Not only would it crush Tiamat's own rather weak domain, but it would also catch them off-guard, possibly throwing off their attacks.
However, Eden recognized this as an opportunity, and decided not to use it. Instead, he leapt at one of the three Great Wyrms who had gotten a little too close.
It did not get the time to react as Eden reached its side, and slammed his reinforced fist into its lower jaw, forcefully snapping its mouth shut while he bombarded its belly with punches.
Most of the dragons were thrown off by the sudden move, but Tiamat's four heads all fired their breath attacks at them. Eden used the Red Great Wyrm as a shield, getting it to tank most of the damage, while he finished it off in melee.
Eden's punches were already deadly, but adding onto that Tiamat's breath attacks, the Great Wyrm died in less than a second, but its body still acted as a shield.
Eden still took some damage, but he ignored it, flying to a second Great Wyrm.
The rest of the dragons bombarded him with spells and breath attacks, and despite his resistances, Eden's HP steadily went down. Moreover, as he approached the Blue Great Wyrm, it whole body started pulsating with lightning as it met Eden, swiping one of its claws down on him.
Its body was massive enough to make the attack unavoidable, so Eden clashed with its claw with his fist. The Great Wyrm, with its Strength of 99, easily won the contest, its claw rending Eden's body, cutting a large slash on his body.
Eden's output might be in Tier III, Cursed Energy was far more efficient when used through Innate Techniques, so while his Cleaves dealt Tier III damage, his body reinforcement only brought his Strength to somewhere in the upper 90s. Moreover, he did not have any Perks.
The radiant explosion that followed Eden's punch did deal a lot of damage to the Great Wyrm's claw, but that did not count in the strength clash.
But even though Eden lost a bunch more HP, he was more worried about his robes. They had repairing enchantments set in, but they had a limit.
While the Blue Great Wyrm retreated to let his regeneration kick in, Tiamat fell on Eden, slamming her massive talons at him and sending him flying.
This time dropping to critical health, yet not feeling himself particularly enlightened, Eden spit out some blood and cast the Necrotic version of Avatar of Wrath on himself.
His plan here was to use the pressure of this fight to learn Reverse Cursed Technique, since this was one of the rare instances where he truly met his match.
Ever since Eden had mastered Domain Expansion, which was such a powerful hax, most opponents were either too strong, forcing him to use Domain Expansion and cheese the fight, or too weak.
Tiamat and her dragons perfectly entered his ballpark however, so he wanted to use them. But since he did not feel himself getting any closer to it, he switched to necrotic energy, which healed him, and would thus prolong the fight.
"I cast Superior Teleportation."
The dragons tried to stop that one as well, but the 7th Circle spell was too powerful for them to do anything. Superior Teleportation was the name he had given to his ultimate expression of spatial magic, and which he had used to escape the Forbidden Layer of the Abyss.
He did not escape from the battlefield, but instead appeared above an Adult Black Dragon. Since he was critically low on HP, he could not take any risks, so he chose this method to take it by surprise, and drove his elbow into its spiked back.
Despite its powerful Physique, the dragon folded under his strike, the necrotic burst of energy digging into its lifeforce and transferring some over to Eden.
Tiamat and the other dragons, realizing Eden had not escaped but appeared behind them, turned to attack him.
Even as the surrounding dragons turned to attack him though, he ignored them, focusing solely on finishing the dragon under him. He only had 990 HP, and Eden recovered more than 200 HP with each punch, so he kept himself at nearly full HP despite the attacks.
When the dragon he was attacking died, he switched to another, while always paying attention to Tiamat and positioning himself so that she would not be able to attack, since he could not sustain himself while she attacked, due to how powerful she was.