The City Center.There was the wind blowing in the framework of buildings. The smell of the air smelled like ozone and rot.Alex passed down the middle of the avenue destroyed. His feet were crushing on glass and debris. He didn't wear armor. He put on his ragged grey coat, and the Dragon Slayer Sword was vibrating on his back, with a low, lamenting tone.Cain was seated in the centre of the cross-roads on a throne of twisted rebar and concrete.He looked bored.Hundreds of soon-to-be monsters, formerly humans, were prowling around him like nervous dogs. But they didn't attack Alex. They separated, crying with terror at the Dragon Aura blazing in him."You came alone," Cain said. He didn't stand up. He was playing with a toy of purple energy in his palm. I assumed you would carry your fresh pets. The Ice Dragon. The Phoenix girl."It is not their fight, said Alex, who halted ten paces off. "It's ours."Cain laughed. It was a dry, cracking sound. "Ours? There is no 'us', little brother

The Bunker Lab."Impossible," Old Ghost muttered, adjusting his spectacles for the tenth time. "Simply impossible."What he was looking at was a holograph of the Black Key that Alex had brought back to the surface. The key was in a containment field, which was slowly rotating. It had quenched the light that surrounded it, and appeared to be a fragment of solid night."What is it?" Alex asked. In front of the wall, he was leaning with his arms crossed. His arm was bandaged and the place where the Void Sword had pierced was already healing because of his Dragon Blood. His mood, however, was dark.It is older than dirt, Old Ghost said, tapping the screen. "Carbon dating is useless. Spectrometry is useless. It is no vibration of this metal... No frequency at all. It's not from Earth. It's not even from the Void."Glacia stepped forward. Still in her human shape, she had a coldness in her that had chilled the through-glass of the lab. It is Primordial metal, she said. "From the Age of Chao

YOU have the nerve to come to my doorstep, Sister.The voice did not merely reverberate in the heads of them; it literally shook the strengthened Black Iron hull of the Leviathan.Beyond the window of the bridge the huge Sea Dragon stretched out of the flaming marble columns of the submerged city. Her scales were the color of emerald-green, and her eyes two yellow suns flaming in the abyssal dark. It was easy to make her as large as Glacia in actual proportions, a snake-like nightmare of strength, teeth and deep sea sorcery.Glacia went as near to the thick glasteel window as he could get. Her face was a cold mask of pale ice but her fists were closed.With the words "Aquaria" Glacia threw her thoughts out of the window. The surface has been violated by The Void. The barrier is broken. I must access the Origin.""The Origin?" The laugh of Aquaria was like grating tectonic plates. You betrayed your position a decade ago! And you abandoned us to stagnation in your squashing dark as you

"Let us see if your spine is made of iron... or glass."The First Emperor didn't walk. He didn't run.He simply ceased to be on the dais and appeared directly in front of Alex.Under one hundred times normal gravity, where even a Primordial Ice Dragon was forced to her knees, the mummified corpse moved faster than a sniper’s bullet.The jagged black sword descended, aiming to cleave Alex in two from the crown of his head to his boots.Alex barely had time to react. He didn't swing; he just threw the golden blade of the Dragon Slayer Sword upward in a desperate horizontal block.CLANG!The impact was apocalyptic.A shockwave of pure force exploded outward, shattering the pristine marble pillars nearest to them.Alex felt like he had just been hit by a freight train traveling at the speed of sound. His arms went numb instantly. The bones in his wrists groaned, mere millimeters away from splintering.He couldn't hold his ground.SKRRRRRRT!Alex was thrown backward. His boots dug into the

"Sacrifice the Phoenix."The utterance of the First Emperor was suspended in the silent, cavernous Throne Room, more massive than the force of 100x gravity field that he had flung in a few moments past.He even indicated Sarah with his sticky, withered, mummified finger.It is to this meteor iron throne that the old seals of the Origin fasten the World Core, rasped the Emperor with his eyes made of gold-red. It has made its seat here ten thousand years. The bindings are absolute. In order to shatter them, the Core must be infused with pure Yang energy in vast quantities and continuously. It has to scald the seals inward.The Emperor dropped his hand and turned his eyes on Alex.thou art disordered in thy Dual-Elements. It takes only the pure and pure fire of the Phoenix. But the Core is greedy. It will not just take her fire. It will take her life force. It will burn her soul to ash."The Emperor was bending over his throne.One death to save billions, Dragon King. That is the math of