Sand Mage of the Burnt Desert-Chapter 516

Chapter 516

Zeon turned around.

The cross section of Tesserina’s corpse was slowly being corroded.

Dantal’s overwhelming authority was affecting even a dragon’s body.

Then Tesserina’s voice rang out again.

—Hurry! The authority of corrosion is affecting my heart as well. At this rate, it’ll be contaminated and the mana will scatter completely.

Even in that moment, the bombardment of Aura Blades imbued with the authority of corrosion continued.

There was no time left to think.

After firing Fire Spears in rapid succession to briefly hold back the Aura Blade assault, Zeon rushed toward Tesserina’s corpse.

‘What do I do?’

—Place your hand on the area where my heart is. I’ll take care of the rest.

‘Got it.’

Zeon did exactly as she said.

The moment he placed his hand on the dragon’s chest, a chilling energy suddenly invaded his body through his palm.

‘Kgh!’

Zeon let out a groan as pain like freezing his entire body tore through him.

—Endure it! If you open your mouth, the mana will scatter.

‘Don’t worry. Enduring is what I’m best at.’

Zeon clenched his teeth.

Sensing the ominous change, Dantal shouted loudly.

“You’re doing something pointless. A mere human trying to absorb a dragon heart.”

It was impossible for a human to absorb a dragon heart.

The same was true for elves.

The immense mana accumulated in a dragon’s heart over thousands of years was something no lifeform other than a dragon could possibly withstand.

It was impossible even for Dantal.

Red dragons were born with the ability to govern flame from the very beginning. Because of that, their mana was heavily imbued with the fire attribute.

Even an awakened who wielded flame could not absorb a red dragon’s fire attribute.

It was like a firefly trying to devour the sun.

The same applied to other dragons.

Those of different attributes could not even attempt it, and even if the attribute matched, accepting mana as vast as the sun into a tiny human body was impossible.

The Tesserina currently in contact with Zeon was a silver dragon—her attribute didn’t match Zeon’s at all.

Dantal believed Zeon would explode on the spot.

Still, considering the slim possibility of a variable, Dantal intended to end Zeon’s life for good.

“Chaaaa!”

As he raised his greatsword high into the sky, black aura flowed into the front of the blade—the tip.

The black aura gathered at the sword tip, coalescing like a sphere.

The condensed orb of black aura floated above the blade, spinning.

Goooo!

The black sphere continued to grow as it absorbed Dantal’s aura.

The sight of the black orb hovering and rotating above the sword tip was terrifying beyond words.

Dantal compressed aura imbued with the authority of corrosion into the black sphere.

It held enough power to erase everything within a hundred-meter radius.

Sweat glistened across Dantal’s face, and his eyes were bloodshot.

He was pushing himself so hard that the blood vessels in his eyes had all burst.

At last, Dantal hurled the black sphere at Zeon.

“Disappear!”

Shuwaaak!

Even as he watched the black sphere fly toward him at a horrifying speed, Zeon did not move.

No—he could not move.

His palm was stuck to the dragon’s chest as if glued there.

Even now, an immense amount of mana was pouring into his body from the dragon heart.

The dragon heart’s mana surged through his body at a terrifying speed.

Zeon felt pain as if his entire body were being torn apart.

In fact, cracks were forming all over his body.

At that moment, the dragon eye embedded in the Inferno Gauntlet awakened.

The dragon eye began to interfere with Tesserina’s mana that had invaded Zeon’s body.

As flame and wind intertwined and swirled violently inside him, the black sphere Dantal had thrown detonated.

Kwaaaang!

With a deafening explosion, black aura completely engulfed the surrounding hundred meters.

Darkness swallowed the area, making it impossible to see even an inch ahead, as if night had fallen.

Pussss!

The surrounding sand corroded and scattered, and the air churned ominously.

Zeon’s figure was hidden within the darkness.

Dantal naturally assumed Zeon was dead.

Even now, the authority of corrosion was spinning like a storm, devouring the area.

The authority of corrosion possessed power similar to radiation.

Those exposed to it could never escape death.

After taking a direct hit from such an extremely condensed force, there was no chance Zeon had survived.

“Heh heh.”

Dantal looked down at his greatsword.

Just yesterday, he couldn’t have used a skill like this.

After absorbing the crystal imbued with Krasias’s will, he could wield it immediately.

If he absorbed more crystals, his power would grow exponentially.

He had no vain ambition to rule or conquer the world. He simply wanted to become the strongest existence in the world.

Like dragons in Kurayan, he wanted to reign as an absolute powerhouse.

To do that, he would need to absorb many more crystals.

He didn’t know how many crystals of will Krasias had scattered across the world, but the day he absorbed them all, he would stand as Earth’s strongest.

Chijik!

At that moment, a noise like static echoed through his head.

It was a phenomenon that had occasionally occurred ever since he absorbed Krasias’s crystal.

Dantal frowned.

It left him with an unpleasant feeling.

Still, aside from the occasional noise, everything was fine.

As Dantal shook his head to dispel the noise and turned to leave—

Kuuu!

An ominous change occurred within the domain ruled by the authority of corrosion.

“What is it?”

Dantal scowled and looked toward where Zeon had been.

Instinctively, he realized the center of the disturbance was there.

Just as he tightened his grip on the greatsword and drew up his depleted authority—

Kwaaang!

Suddenly, the sand beneath his feet rose into a pillar and shot up into the sky.

Dantal was struck by the sand pillar and flung far away.

“Kgh!”

He groaned and quickly forced himself upright.

Bang!

Once again, a sand pillar erupted from the ground and slammed into him.

“You think I’ll fall for that again?”

With a furious roar, Dantal hurled himself aside to evade the sand pillar. But even where he was about to land, a massive sand pillar surged upward at terrifying speed.

Scrrk!

Dantal cleaved the rising sand pillar with his greatsword.

He landed on the ground, barely managing to catch his breath.

But then, something felt off beneath his feet.

In an instant, the sand began to sizzle and boil, transforming into magma.

“Kgh!”

Dantal flinched at the intense heat that felt like it would melt his entire body.

Fortunately, the armor he wore perfectly blocked the extreme heat, sparing him from injury. Still, it was enough to disrupt his focus.

Gaaaang!

The sand, transformed into magma, began spinning violently and engulfed him.

Even so, Dantal was not worried.

He knew the armor he wore would protect him perfectly from the dreadful heat.

This armor, a treasure of the elves, possessed truly flawless defensive power—ordinary attacks couldn’t even scratch it.

Because of that, Dantal could calmly observe the situation.

Pussss!

The corroding energy that had covered Zeon and the dragon was being scattered by the wind.

Time had passed, and it had weakened.

As the darkness receded, the silhouettes of Zeon and the dragon gradually came into view.

What was revealed was horrific.

The dragon’s corpse had been contaminated by the authority of corrosion, turning pitch-black, with muscles and internal organs completely melted into a grotesque sludge.

Even the relatively intact scales and horns were stained black, far from their original form.

Even more horrific was Zeon.

The robe made of Leviathan hide had melted away by more than half, its original shape no longer recognizable.

The robe had originally been enchanted with a self-repair function.

Ordinary damage would be restored without a trace. Yet this robe had rotted away without repairing itself.

It had been damaged beyond what even self-repair could restore.

It would never return to its original state again.

But more dreadful than the robe was Zeon himself.

His hair and eyebrows had completely melted away, and large portions of his body—his shoulders, abdomen, and more—had dissolved, exposing raw, crimson muscle.

His body had been eaten away by the authority of corrosion.

If he had been an ordinary person, his entire body would have melted away without a trace long ago.

The fact that he was still alive after sustaining such injuries was shocking enough. But even more astonishing was his gaze and expression.

Despite such wounds, his eyes showed no sign of being extinguished.

And there was no trace of pain on his face.

Seeing Zeon like that sent a chill through Dantal’s chest.

Then something even more unbelievable happened.

Zeon’s horrific wounds began to regenerate at an astonishing speed.

The authority of ultra-regeneration was overpowering the authority of corrosion.

Flesh rapidly filled in where his body had melted away, and skin reformed.

Not only that—his hair and eyebrows, which had vanished without a trace, grew back, restoring his original appearance.

Dantal stammered in shock.

“You—how? Don’t tell me you absorbed the dragon’s mana?”

There was no other way to explain what had just happened to Zeon.

In the end, Dantal’s guess was half right and half wrong.

It was true that Zeon had absorbed mana from Tesserina’s dragon heart. But it was only an extremely small portion.

As Dantal believed, it was impossible for a human to fully absorb a dragon heart’s mana.

More importantly, Tesserina was a silver dragon.

Her attribute did not match Zeon’s authority of sand or the red dragon attribute enchanted into the Inferno Gauntlet.

If he had absorbed it recklessly, the two forces would have clashed, causing a massive internal explosion within Zeon.

In fact, Zeon had been pushed right to that brink.

When a completely foreign energy entered his body, a backlash occurred, and the shock nearly ruptured all his blood vessels and muscles.

On top of that, the authority of corrosion Dantal had unleashed invaded his body and attacked from within.

Zeon’s body was collapsing from the inside.

Just as everything within him was about to fall apart, a dramatic change occurred.

A portion of the silver dragon’s energy he had absorbed began to merge with the red dragon’s energy residing in the Inferno Gauntlet.

Naturally, the red dragon’s mana resisted.

But the silver dragon’s energy gently embraced it, and in the end, a miraculous harmony was achieved.

That fused energy did not settle in the Inferno Gauntlet, but in Zeon’s heart.

Compared to the vast mana once held by a red dragon or by Tesserina as a silver dragon, it was insignificant.

Still, a portion of a dragon’s mana had taken root within Zeon’s body.

The Inferno Gauntlet was now nothing more than decoration—the red dragon’s authority was no longer housed within them.

The proof was the sand beneath Dantal’s feet, bubbling violently.

The melted sand was forming bubbles like magma.

Zeon had unleashed Sand Gehenna through his will alone, not through the Inferno Gauntlet.

It was stronger and covered a wider area than when he used the gauntlets.

Crack!

At that moment, fractures spread across the surface of the Inferno Gauntlet that Zeon had worn for so long.

With all authority and mana transferred to Zeon, the gauntlets could no longer withstand the accumulated strain and shattered.

Zeon looked at the Inferno Gauntlet with a trace of regret.

He had worn them for so long that they felt like a part of his own body.

Seeing such an item break could not leave his heart untouched. But he had to let them go.

It was time for the Inferno Gauntlet to rest.

Pashsss!

Cracks spread like a spiderweb, and the Inferno Gauntlet finally crumbled apart.

Zeon flexed the fist where the gauntlet had disappeared.

The sensation felt oddly empty. But he would have to get used to it.

From now on, he wouldn’t be wearing items like the Inferno Gauntlet again.

Zeon looked at Dantal.

Now was the time to face him.

Zeon raised his hand.

Chwahahk!

From within the magma, massive serpents surged upward.

Sand Vipers imbued with the authority of flame.

Dozens of lava serpents lunged straight at Dantal.