Primordial Awakening: Rise of the Legendary Dragon God-Chapter 78 - Kael’s Dragon Breath.

The forest wind stilled. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Mana thickened like honey.

Kael’s lips curved in a lazy half-smile as he stepped away from the wall, rolling his neck again.

CRACK.

A ripple of draconic energy burst outward.

Vaelen flinched, stumbling back with a strangled inhale as black scales shimmered across Kael’s skin—not growing, but multiplying, expanding, spreading like molten obsidian armor.

His silhouette warped.

His spine elongated with a deep, resonant thrum.

Wings unfurled—not the small ones he had seen earlier, but titanic, cathedral-sized membranes of ink and gold, erupting upward with a sound like tearing storms.

"W-W-Wait—" Vaelen choked.

Too late.

Kael’s body surged higher and higher, bones rearranging with controlled precision. Golden horns spiraled from his skull—long, regal, and glowing faintly like dusk falling over a mountain peak.

His eyes—

No longer human.

They became twin suns.

Then his body grew again.

And again.

And again.

Vaelen’s knees nearly buckled as a shadow swallowed him completely. He staggered back until his spine hit a root wall.

In front of him stood a dragon.

A real dragon.

Fifty meters tall—easily.

Black as a starless void.

Horns glowing like molten gold.

Eyes that stared down with the calm curiosity of a god examining a bug.

Kael flexed his colossal wings once.

BOOM.

A shockwave blasted outward.

Marketplace banners snapped. Dust spiraled. The air itself vibrated.

Vaelen’s mouth hung open, trembling.

"This... this can’t be..." he whispered, his voice barely a breath. "A... a dragon... A real one... but... that silhouette... this is bigger... this is... this..."

His voice devolved into pure gibberish because even though he hadn’t seen a dragon until now, he could instinctively tell what it was.

He was even comparing Kael’s size to the creature Alenia’s illusion had shown him (something he still thought was real).

Kael, on the other hand, lowered his massive head until one golden eye—larger than Vaelen’s entire body—stared directly at him.

"Still need proof?"

His voice reverberated through the air like thunder rolling inside Vaelen’s skull.

"I—uh—I—wha—drag—real—no—yes—help—what—" Vaelen squeaked, not making any sense, as the pressure he felt from Kael wasn’t something he was prepared for.

Evethra burst out laughing.

Selene covered her mouth.

Alenia sighed, rubbing her temple.

Darian, however, looked furious.

"How dare you act like an idiot?" Darian snapped, mana flaring sharply. "Lord Kael is going so far—descending into his true form—to prove himself to YOU, and yet you dare to act like this?!"

For the first time since he could remember, Darian had lost his smile.

Because now, he didn’t need to keep smiling. He could get angry now, and the only reason he would ever get angry was for his lord, his god.

Kael’s massive draconic head shifted slightly toward him as he heard Darian’s words, and he smiled.

"No need to scold him, Darian." A low hum vibrated the roots beneath them. "It wasn’t for him. This just happened to be... timely."

Alenia’s eyes narrowed sharply.

"...Then why did you transform?"

Evethra straightened.

Selene stiffened.

They all knew what this meant.

Kael never transformed unless he needed to do something big.

Kael inhaled slowly, turning his enormous gaze toward the forest, where dark spots—so tiny from here, but numerous in his eyes—moved through the trees.

He yawned.

Which, in dragon form, echoed like an ancient cavern collapsing.

"Nothing serious," he said in a casual rumble. "Just some slightly strong insects. One of them’s a bit sturdier than the rest."

Evethra frowned. "Insects?"

Kael’s tail flicked lazily.

"Assassins."

The word dropped like a meteor.

Vaelen jerked. "As—WHAT?!"

Evethra folded her arms, frowning. "My lord... You became a fifty-meter dragon to deal with insects?"

Kael’s golden eyes half-closed.

If a dragon could look sleepy, he did. "I want to nap."

Another deep exhale. "They’re spread far. If I kill them one by one, it’ll take slightly longer. In this form, it’s easier to... hm... sweep them off the map at once."

Dead silence.

Alenia stared.

Selene blinked.

Evethra put a hand over her face.

Vaelen wished he could pass out again.

After a long, painful pause—

"...You’re lazy," Selene muttered.

Kael’s tail gave a single, unapologetic thump.

"I won’t deny that."

He stretched his wings, each movement stirring a growing storm.

Then—

Slowly...

Dangerously...

Excitedly...

"So." His golden eyes began to glow brighter. "Shall I try my dragon breath for the first time?"

He had always felt like he could use his dragon breath, but he hadn’t used it until now because he never had to deal with more than one opponent at once.

Right now, it was different.

He wanted to eliminate every ’insect’ in one go.

And he wanted to see how strong his breath attack was.

After all, from what he learned about dragons, their breath attacks are stronger than what any other creature could perform, and they were said to be the strongest attack one could execute.

If you are an S-ranked entity, then there would be no attack in S-rank that was stronger than a dragon breath of an S-rank dragon.

Of course, no one could claim to be the strongest, so if the dragon’s breath were to be defeated by something, then it would be another dragon’s breath.

Now, one must know that when a dragon’s breath was said to be the strongest attack, one was talking about the breath of normal dragons.

After all, even dragons have hierarchy.

Kael, for one, was a primordial dragon.

He didn’t know it yet, but there was no rank higher than that.

Above all, he was an SS-rank dragon, and even S-rank dragons, which are supposed to be the lowest rank for dragons, could level cities.

So, how strong would a breath attack of a being such as Kael be?

Well, the world would know in less than a few seconds, because Kael was already inhaling.

As he did so, the entire forest dimmed.

Mana swirled like a hurricane around his chest, condensing, compressing, and becoming something ancient and catastrophic.

Vaelen fell backward, landing hard on the roots, eyes enormous.

A sound left him that might have been a prayer... or a scream.

Kael’s chest expanded wide—

Wider—

WIDER—

The air itself trembled, vibrating as if reality braced for what was coming.

Evethra whispered reverently, "...My lord is finally going to erase something."

Alenia muttered, "He’d better not destroy the forest."

Selene whispered, "I need to write this down."

Darian bowed his head. "May the insects die honorably."

And Kael—

Kael smiled.

A dragon’s smile.

"Let’s begin."

He opened his jaws.

Time stopped.

Not metaphorically.

Not poetically.

Stopped.

The second Kael inhaled, the world bent, the roots froze mid-sway, the dust hung in the air like suspended stars, and even Vaelen’s panicked gasp halted in his throat.

And in that impossible stillness—

BOOM.

A shockwave tore from Kael’s expanding chest.

The roots beneath him cracked like brittle bone.

Walls shattered outward in splintering sprays.

Evethra’s hair froze mid-flight.

Alenia’s quill hung suspended above her notebook.

Darian’s cloak whipped behind him but never settled.

Kael felt everything.

Every particle.

Every thread of mana.

Every vibration in the air, moving in slow motion across the shattered ground.

His draconic pupils thinned, glowing molten gold as he stared down at the crawling wave of destruction spreading outwards from his own power.

’...This is too much. Too wide.’

’If this spreads... the village... the children... the girls...’

A single pulse of instinct cut through his thrill.

And the dragon vanished.

FWOOM—

Kael appeared high above the sky—so high the clouds coiled beneath him like a blanket of fog.

Below, the shockwave he left behind rushed outward in slow-motion ripples.

From above, it looked like the world was breaking.

He lifted a clawed hand and sliced open the air.

Telekinesis. Wind manipulation. Barrier expansion—full output.

Invisible walls burst outward in a massive dome around the town.

The barrier vibrated violently, straining, humming, and cracking with pressure as the shockwave approached it.

Inside the dome, villagers froze—caught in the half-second between safety and annihilation.

The air around Kael rippled red.

Then black.

Then red again.

He felt the temperature rise.

Watched the clouds evaporate around him.

Saw the sky distort as if pulled by invisible hands.

He opened his jaws.

Fire was born.

But not red.

Not orange.

Black.

Black fire swirled in spirals, forming a growing sphere of light that sucked in all surrounding mana like a starving star.

The sphere grew—and reality bent around its edges.

Lightning crawled across Kael’s horns.

The air screamed.

’...Beautiful,’ Kael thought distantly.

’Terrifying... but beautiful.’

Below him, the shockwave slammed into the town’s barrier.

TTHHHHOOOOOM—

The massive dome shimmered and groaned, and every villager felt the ground quake beneath their feet.

Evethra’s eyes widened.

Selene’s quill snapped in her grip.

Darian’s knees buckled for the first time in his life.

Vaelen fell onto his back and could only whisper, "W-What is he...?"

Alenia merely whispered, shaken, "...God."

Kael ignored the world.

He scanned the forest.

There—clusters of demihumans.

Hunters. Gatherers. Lyra’s fighter group.

A kilometer away, bracing themselves against the shockwave.

His eyes locked.

’Teleport.’

A flash—

And suddenly all those outside the walls reappeared inside the town square, stumbling, gasping, alive.

Only then did Kael release a slow exhale of relief.

Good. No one was left outside.

His eyes dropped back toward the forest.

The "insects"—the assassins—were sprinting, their bodies tiny specs against the vast green, legs moving in a frantic blur.

Even from this distance, Kael saw their terror.

He felt their fear.

And—

He didn’t care.

The sphere of destruction cracked, a hairline rupture down one side, and the black fire inside convulsed like a living star.

Kael inhaled once more.

Time resumed.

KRRRRRSHAAAAAAAA—

A beam erupted.

Not fire.

Not lightning.

Not energy.

Annihilation.

A pillar of black-white obliteration ripped forward, tearing through the sky so fast the world couldn’t keep up.

From the ground, all anyone saw was—

Light.

Blinding.

White.

Black.

Layered like an eclipse tearing itself apart.

It struck the forest.

And erased everything in its path.

Trees disintegrated into glittering ash.

Earth boiled.

Wind vaporized.

Space distorted around the beam’s edges.

There was no explosion yet.

Just silent erasure.

Then—

A heartbeat later—

SOUND CAME.

KAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOMMMMM—

Even with the barrier, even muffled, even restrained—

Everyone in the town felt their eardrums tremble.

Some dropped to their knees.

Some grabbed their heads.

Some screamed.

And at the center of the sky—

Kael hovered, bathed in divine light like a god releasing his wrath for the first time.