However, what followed behind that hideous dragon head was not merely a dragon's body.
With a series of deafening ruptures, over a dozen figures shot up from the depths of the earth, hovering around the insectified Black Dragon. They varied in form—men and women, all appearing human—but the terrifying, palpable mana fluctuations radiating from them, enough to set the very air ablaze, revealed their true nature. Every single one of them had once been a proud dragon of the five flights. Or rather, they were clones, birthed from dragon blood and spliced with Zerg-like genetic sequences.
Upon closer inspection, their faces were nearly identical—mass-produced biological weapons.
A woman in crimson leather armor sprouted six pairs of insectoid wings as sharp as blades; every flutter sent out a searing wave of heat. This was the Red Dragon.
A burly man with metallic blue skin had arms that had mutated into two massive, hooked bone scythes crackling with blinding electricity. This was the Blue Dragon.
A seductive woman with pale skin and green hair exhaled a thick, emerald mist of highly corrosive venom, her fingernails elongated into jagged bone needles designed to inject lethal toxins. This was the Green Dragon.
White dragons, Bronze dragons, Metallic dragons... it looked as if an entire Dragon Isle had been systematically slaughtered and harvested.
Facing a lineup terrifying enough to topple any kingdom, Jerry merely raised an eyebrow.
"Nice roster," he commented casually. "Planning on starting a band? I know a decent talent agent."
The battle erupted in an instant.
The fully insectified Black Dragon swung her massive head, opening her maw to unleash a devastating torrent—a mixture of dragon breath and insectoid corrosive fluid—a black flood of annihilation. Simultaneously, the Red Dragon woman blurred, appearing above Jerry at supersonic speeds. She crossed her arms, her fingers stiffened like knives, and lunged downward, her fingertips trailing long tails of molten flame.
The Blue Dragon brute roared, swinging his bone scythes. Two hundred-meter-long arcs of pure lightning sliced toward Jerry from both sides like a pair of celestial shears. From every direction, the other dragons unleashed their peak powers: solidified acid icicles, shadow bolts designed to wither the soul, and gravity fields heavy enough to flatten steel into foil.
In that heartbeat, the vast black cavern was saturated with the violent energy of the elements.
Faced with this world-ending combined assault, Jerry made a single, simple movement. He raised his right hand. Then, he clenched his fist.
BOOM!
An indescribable, pure physical force exploded outward from his fist like a Big Bang! There was no light, no heat—only the absolute, raw essence of "Force."
The black flood of destruction was shoved back the moment it touched this power, surging backward even faster to swallow the Black Dragon's head, vaporizing it before it could even let out a whimper.
The diving Red Dragon woman found her mountain-piercing finger-knives frozen a meter above Jerry's head. Her mask of apathy cracked for the first time. The next second, an irresistible force surged upward. Her body, starting from her fingertips, began to shatter like ceramic under a steamroller, crumbling into a red powder that drifted into the air.
The twin lightning strikes hit the barrier of force and shattered like waves against a reef, turning into tiny electric snakes that flickered and died. Every spell, every elemental strike, was brutally neutralized and pulverized by the sheer, unga-munga arrogance of Jerry's physical strength.
With one clench of his fist, Jerry had dismantled the dragons' saturated first strike.
Jerry slowly opened his hand, glancing at his glowing magical jewelry. On his right index finger, a simple ring of unknown black metal had flickered briefly and now sat covered in fine cracks.
He gave them no room to breathe.
He moved. His silhouette vanished, reappearing instantly in front of the Blue Dragon brute. The brute's vacant eyes finally registered shock. He crossed his bone scythes in a desperate block.
Jerry delivered a simple straight punch. No flashy effects, no grand gestures. Just a punch.
The moment fist met bone, there was no sound. The scythes—stronger than diamond—simply ceased to exist. Then followed the brute's arms, shoulders, and chest. His massive frame was erased by Jerry's fist like a pencil drawing under an eraser, leaving not a single atom behind. He was conceptually wiped from the world.
After that punch, Jerry vanished again. He was a ghost strolling through a graveyard. Every time he flickered into view, another insectified dragon met a permanent end.
He appeared behind the Green Dragon woman. Before her lethal mist could touch his sleeve, he pinched her neck with two fingers. No matter how she thrashed or spat venom, she couldn't budge his grip. With a light crack, her spine—capable of withstanding a battering ram—snapped, and Jerry tore her head clean off, tossing it aside like trash.
Next, he stood before the White Dragon youth. Facing a breath of absolute zero that could freeze lava, Jerry simply exhaled. His breath, like a category-twelve hurricane, blew the freezing mist back, turning the youth and everything for hundreds of meters behind him into a crystal-clear, lifeless ice sculpture.
He flickered like a phantom and stood firm as a mountain. He flicked his finger to shatter the Gold Dragon's alloy skin, kicked the Bronze Dragon's hourglass into dust, and used a single glance to drive a Brass Dragon illusionist into eternal madness until the creature tore itself apart.
It was an absolute slaughter. Against such a gap in power, technique and tactics were laughable. Jerry's jewelry, buffed by his Synthesis skill—granting a 400% crit rate, 1600% crit damage, and six times the usual magic penetration—made him a god. They weren't artifacts of legend, but they were more than enough to exterminate bugs wearing dragon skin.
When the last dragon was grabbed by the ankle and slammed into the floor like a hammer until it was nothing but unidentifiable mush, silence returned.
In less than a minute, thousands of "survivors" and a dozen dragons had been liquidated.
Jerry dusted off his shoulder and looked at the massive black heart in the air. The organ had stopped beating out of sheer terror and was beginning to shrivel.
"Warm-up's over," he said calmly. "Now, let's talk business."
"Fine, let us talk."
The black heart swelled back to its full size. More cocoons began to emerge from the writhing fungal carpet. The voice that spoke was that of a clear, melodic child—a jarring contrast to the bloodbath that had just occurred.
Jerry's smile widened. "I knew something was off from the start. But do you know where you truly messed up?"
The black heart paused. "Was it the Black Dragon who didn't care for diamonds? Did she deviate too much from the 'Greed' template in my database?"
"No," Jerry replied. "Black Dragons don't actually care for treasure; they only care about killing. That part was fine."
"Then... did you sense my omnipresent psychic surveillance?"
"Nope." Jerry slowly unlatched a jingling bracelet from his wrist, adorned with miniature book charms. He took one tiny book and held it in his palm. "I'm a man who likes to read. And I discovered that the history of this world is... incomplete. Every text, no matter how ancient, becomes a blurry mess of contradictions once you go back five hundred years. It's as if the entire history of this world was 'created' out of thin air five centuries ago."
Jerry looked at the pulsating heart. "I've made my guess. Five hundred years ago, you were wounded—fatally so—and you crashed into this world. The natives were likely those flower-fairies and plant life outside. They were too weak, providing nowhere near enough life energy to heal you."
"More importantly, your enemies were still hunting you. A powerful civilization powered by 'Steam Dynamics,' right? So you played a clever game of 'The Substitute.' You took the genes of every race you had ever consumed in your long life and cloned them. You replicated their memories and social structures and sowed them across the world like seeds."
"You used these clones from different worlds and planes to mask this planet. You turned a primitive plant world into a 'Standard Fantasy World' with dwarves, elves, humans, and dragons to trick your pursuers. And then you realized that this camouflage made you stronger. You became a god to them, feeding on their faith, fear, and life force. When you saw 'Steam Dynamics'—the tech of your enemies—sprouting here, you got nervous. You wanted to study it, to find its weaknesses in your own little sandbox."
"So, you directed a war that lasted centuries. You watched your creations kill each other, worship you, and rebel against you... performing a monologue for an audience of one. Don't you find it boring?"
The heart didn't panic. Instead, it let out a light, innocent laugh. "Why would it be boring? Their souls are real. I simply... released them from my memory to let them live again."
Suddenly, the black fungal carpet on the floor writhed violently. A massive, slime-covered black tentacle shot up and wrapped around the petrified statue of Erica, hoisting her into the air.
"Take this centaur," the child's voice bragged. "In the world I consumed, she was a demigod warrior, a 'Warlord' who led all the tribes of the plains. She was incredible, nearly immortal. It cost me dearly to kill and devour her. But now, I can mass-produce an army of her whenever I wish."
On the other side, another figure "grew" out of the black muck. It was Kaelia. She opened her eyes, her gaze calm as a deep pool. She was naked, her obsidian wings fluttering as she hovered before Jerry—a perfect, silent piece of art. The insectoid corruption was gone; she was back to her pure, beautiful harpy form.
"And another thing," the child continued playfully. "You guessed right, but the truth is slightly different. I didn't 'evade' his pursuit. He simply couldn't be bothered to finish me off. He was too powerful to fear a dying ember like me. At the time, he had four enemies far more important than I. I was, at best, a 'stinking fish that escaped the net'—a phrase I learned from your clone's memories. Quite fitting."
"Who is he?" Jerry asked, unable to contain his curiosity.
The child giggled. "He... is an Eternal. But his world cluster is far from here; you needn't worry. I don't know his name, only that according to the last memory fragment I swallowed, he started as a tanned little boy on the plains of Armenia... he took part in the world's first murder... a compassionate, foolishly kind bastard with the social intelligence of a brick. Anyway, let's not talk about him; he ruins the mood."
The child's tone turned cold and serious. "I know how dangerous you Wizards are. Travelers between worlds, looters of knowledge. In fact, the moment you entered this world, I was ready to abandon ship. But now... I've changed my mind. I'm going to eat you, and then I'll leave! Because you are powerful enough to be a feast, and I have found your weakness."
Jerry's body suddenly locked. An unprecedented, irresistible sense of imprisonment surged from the depths of his soul. He couldn't move—not just his muscles, but his very thoughts began to lag. He was being locked down by an omnipresent "Rule."
He looked into his mental world. His sea of mana and psychic power, once a brilliant galaxy, was being eclipsed by a colossal, pure black shadow. His power was being cut off by a "Signal Jammer" of cosmic proportions.
His hundreds of jewelry pieces flashed frantically, trying to activate their protections. But against this shadow of "Erasure" and "Nothingness," their efforts were useless. It was absolute suppression on a conceptual level. For the first time, Jerry felt "Powerless."
"...How?" Jerry forced the word out of his throat, the effort draining his remaining energy.
"I didn't do anything," the child's voice echoed. "I simply... let the Warp infect you."
"The Warp?" Jerry's mind struggled with the term. He knew of the Astral Plane, the Shadow Realm, the Elemental Planes—but not this.
"Yes, the Warp." The voice was seductive. "A space filled with negative energy—or rather, infinite, pure emotional energy. A chaotic sea formed by the souls and emotions of countless worlds and eras—regret, ecstasy, despair. You Wizards are blessed. Your power comes from 'understanding' rules and 'controlling' elements. Your system is rational and clean. Most of you will never touch the sweet, chaotic essence of the Warp."
"But not all casters are so lucky." The voice was mocking now. "In many worlds, there are those too untalented to draw from the elements. To gain power, they mortgage their souls to the Warp. They endure eternal agony as the emotional storm warps their minds, just to gain the right to cast a spell. And now, I have leaked your 'coordinates' to the Warp. Your massive, pure soul is a lighthouse in the dark, a lush oasis in the desert. It has sensed you. It craves you. It has locked onto you."
"But that isn't why you can't fight back," the child added, the playfulness replaced by an absolute decree. "As for the real reason... you'll find out when we become one."
As Jerry was suppressed, his control over the environment snapped. The petrification on Erica began to peel away like weathered stone. Her amber eyes were dull at first, then filled with a deep realization. She saw Jerry being wrapped in writhing black tentacles, about to be swallowed by the fungal carpet.
Suddenly, her confusion vanished, replaced by a terrifying, absolute clarity.
Whirrr!
A halo of soft, holy white light erupted from inside Erica. It was so pure that the black carpet hissed and sizzled where the light touched it, recoiling in fear.
"What?" The child's voice was filled with genuine shock. Enraged, more tentacles rose like a black tsunami to drown her.
But Erica changed. Her bronze skin turned ivory white. A pair of massive wings made of pure light extended from her back. In her hand, a grand, ancient war-blade of light materialized. In this moment, Erica was no longer a centaur; she was a War Angel descending to earth.
She moved faster than the eye could see. Before the tentacles could reach her, she was a streak of white light, ignoring the laws of space to appear before the black heart. The heart shriveled, trying to tear space to flee, but she was faster.
"You're insane!" the child screamed in terror. "You're burning your very soul!"
Erica didn't answer. She poured every ounce of her will and power into the blade of light and swung. There was no explosion, only a pure silence that swallowed all sound. The massive heart and the space around it were sliced in two.
Yet, the child's voice still echoed; the heart was just a vessel. Erica didn't wait. She turned into a blur again, diving toward Jerry. Her blade carved through the encroaching tentacles and black rot, purifying the space around him.
With the last of her strength, she grabbed Jerry's paralyzed body and hurled him toward the only exit of the hive.
"Jerry, RUN! Its mental projection can suppress the Warp directly! You are infected, so it can suppress you!"
Her warning echoed as Jerry was launched like a stone from a catapult. The moment he flew out of the hole, a sensation like a diver breaching the surface hit him. The black shadow over his mind receded. The connection was restored. His sea of mana boiled over.
His jewelry erupted in blinding light. Jerry flipped in mid-air and landed firmly on the ground. He didn't look back at the collapsing hole or dwell on Erica's words. His face was a mask of cold, cosmic fury.
He raised his hand toward the star-filled sky.
"Meteor... FALL!"
As he spoke, the night sky was filled with thousands of massive, flaming boulders. They didn't come from space; Jerry used his raw, arrogant mana to "create" them directly within the atmosphere.
In the next heartbeat, the apocalyptic disaster orchestrated by a single man descended.
Thousands of flaming meteors, trailing long, air-shredding tails of fire, fell like a rain of divine punishment. They shrieked through the atmosphere, slamming into the continuous, mountain-like expanse of the massive hive below.
BOOM—CRACK-BOOM-BOOM!!
The violent explosions merged into a single, continuous roar. The entire earth shuddered, groaned, and fractured under the relentless bombardment. Those once-impregnable hive structures were as fragile as sandcastles before this pure, world-ending power. They were effortlessly pierced, detonated, and torn asunder. Soaring flames and explosive shockwaves tossed countless insectoid remains and black fungal carpets high into the sky, forming one ugly, death-filled mushroom cloud after another, bridging heaven and earth.
In the midst of this purgatory, the largest structure—the "Main Hive" at the very center—burst open from within. A massive, twisted figure, nearly eight meters tall, slowly unfurled its body amidst a spray of viscous green ichor.
It possessed a slender, feminine upper torso, but the skin was a deep purple chitin shimmering with a metallic luster. From its back grew four pairs of huge, ornate, semi-transparent insect wings that looked like stained glass. Its lower half, however, was a bloated and hideous abdomen, resembling a giant queen ant. At the tip of this abdomen was a sharp stinger over ten meters long, crackling with eerie blue electricity.
This was the Hive Queen. Her true form!
At this moment, a streak of pure white light circled the behemoth like a tireless hummingbird, launching a desperate and frenzied assault. It was Erica!
She was shrouded in holy white flames. Every swing of her blade of light left a deep, scorched gash on the Queen's hardened shell. But the Queen's sheer bulk and impossibly fast reflexes allowed her to parry every strike using her scythe-like forelimbs or that ghost-like stinger.
It was an utterly lopsided battle. Every attack Erica made was fueled by the burning of her own life force. Though her light was brilliant, it was dimming at a visible rate. The Queen, meanwhile, moved with effortless grace.
Jerry noticed this immediately. His eyes turned cold as he conjured a ten-meter-long spear of pure arcane energy before him.
"Go!"
He pointed, and the massive arcane spear transformed into a bolt of blue lightning, shrieking toward the Queen's head. However, the moment the spear entered a radius of about a hundred meters around the Queen, the violent energy at its tip began to decay rapidly. The runes began to crumble and vanish. By the time it actually reached the Queen, the world-ending spear had withered into a harmless "glowstick," which the Queen swatted away impatiently with a forelimb.
Simultaneously, Jerry felt that familiar sensation again—the feeling of his soul being throttled. While it wasn't nearly as intense as it had been at the core, the shielding of his magic and the imprisonment of his mind were still vividly apparent.
Jerry understood instantly. This Queen carried a mobile "Psychic Projection Field" with a radius of roughly one hundred meters. The moment he or his spells entered this domain, they were subjected to that absolute suppression rooted in his Warp infection.
"How the hell is this thing generated?"