The Devil’s Cage

A breath’s time later, Kieran went into the dead silent darkness.

Amidst Calamity Dragon’s evil laughter, the darkness opened up and blanketed Kieran into a giant black sphere.

Death accompanied the plague aura as it was released into the sky.

Kaboom!

Countless skeleton figures surrounded the black sphere, wailing loudly.

They twisted their bodies like they were struggling away from death.

They raised their arms like they were waiting for salvation.

Yet, none came! Their struggle and anticipation were fruitless, nothing happened!

They fell into further despair!

Calamity Dragon, which was stuck in the void breach, skillfully controlled the despair. It didn’t hold back and poured every single bit of it into the Plague Sphere at once.

It would teach those who tried to stop its plan how to reevaluate their strength and know their limits.

Calamity Dragon’s power was released into the sphere smoothly, everything happening within a single motion, but when its power got close to the core, something happened to the target—which should be struggling.

Calamity Dragon sensed a tenacious energy in the core. It wasn’t just tenacious, it was warm and keen, the kind of power that it hated the most!

“You remind me of those damned knights! You smell like them but you are still too far away from what they displayed!”

Calamity Dragon’s voice echoed in the night sky, like thunder. That giant Plague Sphere started to spin rapidly, as though it was a weird millstone, grinding Kieran into dust.

From the beginning to the grinding, Kieran kept quiet in the Plague Sphere, as though he acknowledged it and was unable to resist.

The scene made the civilians of Alkender panic.

“I-Is the Glutton Emperor going to lose?”

Drexton was more anxious than everyone, he wanted to go save his friend, but he could not open the shelter!

Once opened, those things that he worried about would gush in like the flood and civilian casualties would skyrocket.

“Damn it!”

Being sandwiched in the middle, his dilemma made him clench his fist hard.

The other superheroes were nervous too, not just about Kieran but also the Calamity Dragon.

Kieran’s strength was well-known, and if he wasn’t a match for Calamity Dragon, how would they face such a powerful enemy?

All shared the same thought, except for Kat Lady.

Selina seemed to be sensing something with her feline instinct and a while later, she chuckled.

“He is going to be fine meow! Meow’s instinct is always accurate!” said Selina confidently.

However, no one was paying attention to Selina because they were captivated by Emma Eddie.

The petite punkish girl walked to the monitors, knelt down on one knee and placed her left hand on her left knee while her right hand on her chest.

Her soft prayers entered many ears.

The crowd froze for a second before they joined her in the prayers, including the superheroes.

They too wished Kieran would be alright.

Goran was prepared for this, he quickly connecting the cameras in the other shelters to show the praying.

Soon, many more civilians in the other shelters joined them.

Humans tend to follow blindly, especially during life and death situations, helplessness baffled them a lot.

A rich Power of Faith rose up from myriads of civilians and they all flew towards Kieran inside the Plague Sphere.

The divine fire in his mind was jumping actively, and Kieran felt all that clearly.

He did not accept the Power of Faith, instead going along with his original plan and directing all the power into [Lionheart].

[Detected compatible energy, Lionheart’s King’s Potential acquired temporal enhancement!]

[King’s Step activated]

[King’s Praise activated]

[King’s Prestige activated]

[King’s Shattering Rage activated]

[Insufficient energy, King’s Slaughter unable to activate]

….

[King’s Shattering Rage: All attributes increase by rank I (only below rank V), set a target to inflict a 50% ignore defense attack, 1 time per day]

…

Lines of words piled up in front of Kieran’s vision.

The familiar attribute [King’s Step], [King’s Praise], and [King’s Prestige] appeared one after another, but when the new [King’s Shattering Rage] appeared for the first time, Kieran was astonished.

Ignore defense?

True damage!

While he was soaking in surprising joy, the changes from the pendant continued. The golden radiance emanated brightly from [Lionheart], enveloping his body completely, not even the dead silent darkness could suppress it.

The radiance shone brighter, a golden lion walking out from the path of light.

It stoped on top of the Plague Sphere, roaring majestically at the Calamity Dragon.

Although compared to Calamity Dragon in size, the golden lion looked very small, its majestic roar was on par with Calamity Dragon, shaking heaven and earth!

Calamity Dragon was stunned for a moment, looking down at that golden lion, its giant eyes showing a little shock.

“You are really related to those damned knights! Are you their disciple? Or descendant? They found a high-tier devil descendant as an heir? Seems like they are really forced into a desperate situation!”

Calamity Dragon took pleasure in the unfortunate knights, it wasn’t really bothered though.

Those knights were absurdly powerful, no mortal could even rival them, but Calamity Dragon was no mortal!

It was the Calamity Dragon! Mortals were vermin in its eyes, likewise the knights!

The only difference would be the size of the vermins!

Mortals were smaller, the knights were bigger, but they were all the same! Vermin! They’d die in a powerful stomp!

However, just when Calamity Dragon was about to make its move, the golden radiance emanating from the Plague Sphere vanished, including the golden lion on top.

The golden lion reappeared on Calamity Dragon’s neck.

Calamity Dragon didn’t turn around but it felt something was happening at the back of its neck, and when it truly reacted to the situation, its giant eyes were covered in red lines caused by rage.

“You bastard! Get down!” screamed the Calamity Dragon.

No one had ever stood on its body before!

It was created to destroy all existence, anyone and anything bowed before its destructive presence, but now something was standing on its body.

It was infuriated! Rage like never before erupted.

It wasn’t as insulted as when its enormous body was stuck in the void breach, not even 1% like now!

“Death is forgiving; suffering worse than death is punishment! I’ll make you watch how I destroy the city that you tried so hard to protect! Not just this city, but all the cities you know!”

The plague aura erupted from the infuriated Calamity Dragon.

Unlike how it was holding back before, the new wave of plague aura was like a tidal wave, rumbling endlessly and violently.

This time, the plague aura didn’t form the dead silent darkness anymore. Instead, they flew towards the sky and formed a black object which looked exactly like the Calamity Dragon after a while.

Another Calamity Dragon formed by plague aura appeared higher up in the sky.

The original Calamity Dragon was still breathing but its eyes were shut, like it had fallen asleep.

It seemed like this process wasn’t just as simple cloning of itself, but some kind of substitute.

“Do you really think the void breach can trap me?”

The Plague Calamity Dragon flew under the night sky, roaring at Kieran loudly. It then sprayed out a wide area of Plague Breath at Kieran.

“Of course I don’t! I just want to trap your body!”

Kieran spoke to himself in his heart and stood on the spot without moving.

He was drowned by the falling Plague Breath in an instant but despite being drowned, it didn’t inflict any damage to his body. His body was slowly absorbing the plague energy.

The Plague Calamity Dragon squinted its eyes in doubts. Regardless of how angry it was, it still knew something wasn’t right.

It knew perfectly well that Plague Breath and Plague Sphere were formed using the same energy, but in terms of power level, Plague Breath was much more powerful than Plague Sphere. If Kieran could absorb the power of Plague Breath slowly, he should have been able to do the same with Plague Sphere.

Then, Plague Calamity Dragon widened its eyes out of anger.

What did it see?

It saw two figures around the softest part of its neck on its original body.

These two figures looked like Kieran, which it was glaring at, but one looked lazy, the other one looked… hungry.

The lazy one was drawing something in the air, like it was calculating; the hungry one pried open one of the scales on its original body and stuffed its head inside, testing the hardness of the meat in between the scales with its teeth.

“Our elder brother has bought us enough time, I’m finding the best spot for you to bite in and the rest is up to you.”

“O-okay!”

The little conversation was carried into the Plague Calamity Dragon’s ears by the night breeze.

Then… it felt pain from its original body.

“Stop it!”

Plague Calamity Dragon screamed, firing its Plague Breath repeatedly but the attacks were useless against Kieran.

All the breaths were absorbed again, and the absorbing speed got faster and faster, like a whale swallowing food or hungry wolves gobbling prey.

[Knights of Plague Body Tempering Art] inside Kieran was released to its fullest after suppressing it for some time. Plague Force grew substantial in exponential speed. Dawn, Devil, Cardinal Sins and Saint Thorns did not fall back too, because they acquired the nutrients from Gluttony’s eating.

The balance of all 5 of his Origin Force has always been his ultimate goal!

Therefore, he did not absorb the Plague Sphere’s energy and was suppressing [Knights of Plague Body Tempering Art].

Calamity Dragon was unlike any other opponent he faced before in the past.

Based on his perception alone, he knew how absurdly powerful the power of the plague from Calamity Dragon was ,and should he allowed [Knights of Plague Body Tempering Art] to absorb all of it without restraints, the Origin Forces would lose balance.

He must increase all of them at once, like how he did it with Saint Thorns Force earlier.

“Aaaaargh!”

Plague Calamity Dragon screamed in pain repeatedly.

It clearly felt that flea-like being biting open its neck and sneak into its body, eating his way to the core slowly.

Pain! Excruciating pain!

With every inch of meat Gluttony ate, the excruciating pain would pain Plague Calamity Dragon’s heart.

“I’ll kill you!”

Plague Calamity Dragon had forgotten what it said early, that it wanted Kieran to suffer, it was anxious to kill Kieran right away.

It didn’t attack with its Plague Breath again because it knew the plague was ineffective against Kieran.

Kieran was very cunning, digging a trap for it to fall in just to devour its energy.

Now, it had to kill Kieran at its own pace, smashing him into a million pieces.

Huuaa!

The enormous Calamity Plague Dragon jumped down from the sky, raising its gigantic claws at Kieran but a black two-handed greatsword jumped into its trajectory and blocked its claw attack.

Chang!

The blade chimed and buzzed.

Pride looked at the enormous monster with its cold, arrogant eyes.

The pressure from his blade was so powerful that it pained his body, which lingered in between material and illusory realm, yet he did not step back, his pride forbade him to step back.

“What is this? Go away!”

After its first claw attack was blocked, Plague Calamity Dragon dished out the other without a second thought.

It didn’t care anymore, it had to return to its body, otherwise things would turn bad, really bad!

The other claw was coming at Pride, but he turned the greatsword in his hand around, moving his body swiftly, not to retreat, but to attack!

Pride slipped through the second claw attack by the seams. After that, the black greatsword in his hand was raised up high, performing an upward vertical slash!

[Sword Skill, Rising Dragon]!

Fuung!

Amid the loud whistle, a gray image of a dragon formed by powerful gale crashed onto Plague Calamity Dragon’s lower chin.

BANG!

Plague Calamity Dragon’s head was pushed upwards by the powerful impact.

Although its plague clone had quite the difference from its original body, the plague form still retained a lot of characteristics. The attack that struck its lower chin wouldn’t have inflicted any damage on its original body, it wouldn’t even slow it down.

Yet when the attack landed on its plague form, it didn’t inflict any damage but its attack was forced to slow down uncontrollably.

This little delay was enough for Pride!

The wind from his greatsword exploded and it ignited the black flames.

The black flames burned and wreaked havoc on the lower chin.

Plague Calamity Dragon was astonished when the unbelievable black flames burned.

It had understood what was Kieran’s forte, therefore it had purposely set up a No-fire Zone around itself beforehand. No matter how powerful the Devil Flame was, as long as its level wasn’t higher than itself, the flames wouldn’t burn, yet another black flame managed to ignite.

The black flames weren’t the Devil Flame, it was another kind of flame, fueled by wicked energy.

Plague Calamity Dragon ought to devour fresh lives and listen to their dying wails, yet there was an ignorant bastard standing before it, infuriating it like never before.

It was jealous of its ancestors in the primordial era who could do whatever they wanted without consequences and had many mating partners.

Why?

Why?

Why was it so unfair?

The wicked flames were tickling the unusual feeling in its heart and it ought to burn its soul to cinders!

Then, Plague Calamity Dragon saw 4 more bastards with the same face, but they looked greedy, angry, jealous, and lustful respectively.

“GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!”

A thunderous roar from Plague Calamity Dragon destroyed Greed, Wrath, Lust and Jealous easily but Pride seized the chance and jumped up to its eyes.

The black greatsword was somehow glimmering a bewitching purple.

The arrogant and untamed rampant aura matched his pride perfectly.

The purple glimmer turned into a radiance, shining like a small sun, shedding purple like over the night sky.

“FURY SLASH!”

Pride gripped his hilt tightly, yelling loudly before his blade was swung down at Plague Calamity Dragon’s left eye.