AWB Chapter 616: Im's Actions!
Chapter 616: Im's Actions!
Dark clouds loomed over the city. Thunder rumbled through the clouds. The residual force of Loki's three hammer blows still lingered in the air. The impact tore open a brief vacuum, which was instantly filled with fresh air currents.
Blue and white arcs of electricity coursed across the dragon's scaly body. One. Two. A dozen. They circled the bronze scales, then slipped into the gaps between them. The lightning illuminated half his face, revealing his dark red, vertical pupils.
I am not tired.
Excitement. A deeper level of excitement.
His right arm hung limply at his side. After three blows, the dragon scales shattered. The crack ran from his wrist all the way to his shoulder. Bronze beads of blood rolled down the crack, hitting the ruins. One drop landed, scalding a shallow crater. Stone chips mixed with blood emitted wisps of smoke.
He didn't look at the injured arm.
He grinned. Blood stained his canines. Blood seeped between his teeth. His lips gleamed with a bronze sheen. His left hand clenched into a fist. A series of cracking sounds came from his knuckles. Crack. Crack. Thunder kneaded into his joints.
The cloak on her shoulders moved.
A brown figure emerged from the inside. Squirrel Ironhide crouched low, climbing up the arm and shoulder armor. Its bristles stood upright. It was less than half a meter tall. The moment it appeared, the air on the entire shoulder froze.
Ice crystals condensed at the tips of his brown fur. The ice crystals traveled down the tips of his fur, bounced off his shoulder armor, and wove into a mist around his body. The mist was very cold; even lightning bolts would avoid it by half an inch.
The ahoge (cowlick) trembled.
Stand even straighter.
The little eyes locked onto the other side, unblinking. The tiny claws scratched several shallow marks on the shoulder armor.
One hundred meters away. Im stood still.
The three hammer blows sent her flying a great distance. The hem of her long black robe was torn open by the shockwave. The tattered fabric fluttered in the wind. The fur collar and hem of her robe were covered in grayish-white dust, making her look like a crow that had just crawled out of a trench.
She didn't look up.
His gaze fell on his feet.
The black boots were covered in a layer of dust. The dust was stirred up by the shattered bricks of the royal city. The dust was mixed with stone chips, dried blood, and fragments of rusty, frozen earth.
Im looked down.
very slow.
The entire battlefield seemed to sink as she looked down.
He raised his hand. His pale knuckles bent. His fingertips brushed against the surface of his boot.
Dust settled.
His voice showed its first rise and fall. Hoarse. Deep. Carrying the scent of something dried up eight hundred years ago.
"The dust of Elbaf".
She paused.
"Dirtier than I remember."
The sentences are not repeated.
It hit the ground like a hammer.
The surviving soldiers outside the palace froze. Cold sweat soaked down their backs to the back of their necks. The flesh beneath their armor tightened. The tone was as calm as casual conversation, but the meaning behind the words could crush a person.
She said it was from her memory.
She came here.
She remembers this place.
Among the surviving soldiers, an old soldier gripped the hilt of his sword tightly. His knuckles turned white. His eyes were red-rimmed. His body reacted before his mind.
Im looked up.
Dark red eyes spanning eight hundred years. Never revealing anything to mortals. Contempt was fixed. Indifference was fixed. At this moment. Both of those qualities faded from the pupils.
It leaves behind something unfamiliar.
serious.
She considered Loki her rival.
Loki bit deeper with his canines. He got it. He got it right.
Raise your left index finger and place it in front of your lips.
He didn't say anything.
He gestured for silence to the iron thunderbolt on his shoulder. His canine teeth bared. Bloodstained corners of his mouth stretched down to his ears.
"alright."
The voice was kept very low.
"The old man is finally getting serious."
Iron Thunder's little paws clenched tightly. His ahoge (cowlick) trembled. He stood ramrod straight.
Loki stomped down, crushing the intact stone slab beneath his foot into powder. The powder exploded into a layer of gray mist, swirling around his ankle. A breath of dragon's breath blew, turning it into a blue-white icy mist.
Turn your left palm over.
Ice crystals emerged from the palm lines.
It shares the same lineage as Tie Lei's ahoge (cowlick). Fine, neat, and sharply defined. Extreme cold seeps from the palm lines, intertwining with the lightning around his body, forming an invisible net.
The fighting spirit surged upwards from my chest.
Like a volcano.
In the distance, the surviving giant warriors gazed up at the battlefield. Their faces were etched with something unreadable: anticipation and fear, two conflicting emotions intertwined.
The young soldier opened his mouth to shout. Shout for the prince. Shout for his homeland.
Only a hoarse sound came from his throat.
Shut your mouth. Clench your fists.
Im stopped looking at the dirty boots.
Raise both hands.
Ten pale fingers spread open, fingertips pointing downwards. Black substance gushed from the palm.
It's not fog.
It was a thick, almost liquid, magical energy.
Like two blobs of living ink, flowing from the palm of the hand, falling heavily, stopping halfway down.
Something contrary to common sense happened.
The demonic energy did not spread. It did not condense into an attack. It changed direction.
They poured it into her body.
Two clumps of black liquid crawled up my wrist. They crawled along the inside of my arm. They crawled past my elbow. They crawled into my shoulder. They crawled down my collarbone and into my chest. They spread up my spine vertebra by vertebra. Like insects in a hurry to return to their nest.
Beneath the thin black robe, the skin began to ripple.
Uneven.
Unpredictable wriggling.
Countless invisible hands push and shove beneath the skin. Living things move along the blood vessels, squeezing into every inch of space.
Both feet are firmly planted on the ground.
The stone beneath my feet, three meters in diameter, had been crushed into powder at some point.
It's not about crushing it.
It is compressed.
An invisible weight emanated from the body, only to be abruptly pulled back. A tiny spillage at the edges rendered the stones beneath the feet shapeless. Grayish-white dust rose from the soles of the boots, swirling around the calves.
Loki's pupils contracted.
Recognize this pressure.
I've seen it beside my father Harald's bones. I've seen it in the ancient shrine. I've seen it in the murals and in the whispers of old men.
The traces left by the true God on earth.
It shouldn't appear at the density of a humanoid body.
Tie Lei's ahoge trembled for the second time.
Im began to swell.
The body emitted a series of rapid cracking sounds.
A dull thud as bones dislocate. The sound grows increasingly sharp. More and more. An ancient behemoth turns over in its slumber. The entire spine is pried open and reassembled, vertebra by vertebra.
Height has changed.
A thin body less than two meters tall. In three breaths, it surged to five meters.
The black robe's belt was stretched taut, turning white. The loose fabric was held together by his bulging waist, digging into his skin.
Then ten meters.
A vertical tear appeared at the shoulder of the black robe, running from the nape of the neck to the side of the waist. The inner layer of the robe was forcibly stretched open, revealing skin that was no longer pale.
It's not a woman's skin.
Tight skin with a bronze sheen.
Twenty meters.
The black robe made a tearing sound. An invisible hand ripped the fabric from the inside. Shreds of cloth flew in all directions. The pieces swirled in the wind, and wherever they touched, the grass withered and turned yellow.
Thirty meters.
Forty meters.
The ground began to collapse.
Spiderweb-like cracks appeared beneath my feet, radiating outwards from the sole of my boot. Ten meters. Thirty meters. Eighty meters. I stopped at the edge of nearly a hundred meters.
The stone pillars standing in the ruins could no longer hold on. With a muffled thud, they all collapsed.
Fifty meters.
The expansion stopped.
From start to finish. No more than three seconds.
Loki's dark red vertical pupils contracted to pinpoints.
He stood at the height of a humanoid giant. A full fifty meters. Originally the tallest figure on the battlefield. From the moment he fell, he became accustomed to looking down on everything.
At this moment, the figure opposite him was level with him.
Shoulder to shoulder. Eye to eye.
There is not an inch of drop.
The iron thunderbolt on his shoulder could no longer hold.
The small, brown body clung tightly to Loki's neck. All the ahoge (cowlicks) on his head stood on end, each strand curling at an unbelievable angle. His round eyes were wide open, their sockets barely able to contain his pupils.
No sound was made.
It's shaking.
Very light. Very dense. Wave after wave. From the base of the tail to the neck.
Loki reacted almost instinctively. He raised his left hand, cupping the iron thunder in his palm and protecting it against his chest. He took a half-step back with his left foot, using this to stabilize his fifty-meter-tall body.
The ruins creaked underfoot.
He didn't turn to look at Tie Lei.
His gaze was fixed on the figure opposite him.
He was grinning. The blood at the corner of his mouth hadn't been wiped away.
I could hear my own heartbeat. It was twice as fast as before.
It's not fear.
It's excitement.
"This is hilarious!"
He squeezed out four words through his teeth.
Iron Thunder's little paws moved in the palm of his hand. He snapped out of his trembling and straightened his ahoge (cowlick).
Several thousand meters in the air.
The leaden-gray clouds churned extremely fast.
Chen Ye stood atop the ancient divine eagle, Vidvernir. The eagle spread its twenty-meter wingspan and hovered at the edge of the clouds. It subtly adjusted the angle of its wings to maintain a steady view.
The dark robe fluttered in the air currents. The gold thread embroidery reflected a faint light.
Looking down.
The golden pupils suddenly contracted.
The ancient divine eagle possessed a sharp vision. It could see dust a hundred miles away. It could even hear the breath of an ant. This vision was shared with the person on its back.
Chen Ye saw it.
Fifty meters.
Im is fifty meters away.
A massive body rose from the ruins, standing shoulder to shoulder with Loki in his prime. There wasn't an inch difference in height between them.
He placed his right hand on the hilt of the long sword at his waist.
The knuckles are turning white.
No words were spoken. Three seconds of silence followed.
The energy field below distorted the clouds. Blue and white lightning bolts emerged from the gaps, only to be swallowed by the black mist.
Chen Ye reviewed the intelligence in his mind. Intelligence delivered by the World Government over the past twenty years.
Everyone says Im is thin and small.
Every report says Im is thin.
Each drawing depicts a vulnerable body beneath a black robe.
They're all wrong.
They are all deliberately forged versions.
He exhaled. The breath condensed into an extremely fine white mist in the low temperature. It was dispersed by the wing-like wind. His lips moved silently.
"This is the card the World Government has been hiding."
The sound was extremely faint. It was swept away by the airflow.
"That Loki guy."
His gaze swept over the massive figures facing each other. Over the swirling dark clouds overhead.
"I'm afraid we're about to encounter a real monster."
The divine eagle emitted a sharp cry.
With the disgust and wariness of ancient creatures, the wingtips tilted upwards. With a flap of its massive wings, its colossal body soared a hundred meters, dodging the expanding energy storm below.
The clouds were sliced open by the wingtips. They closed in behind.
Below the clouds.
Im stood still, his fifty-meter-tall body motionless.
The last remaining piece of cloth on his head was pushed aside by the force overflowing from his body.
The piece of cloth hung in mid-air, refusing to fall.
Beneath the cloth.
Its true form will soon be revealed.