The Silver Comet tore through the gloom of the dragon temple, crashing brutally between the Emperor and Shen Luolin.
Moyin had arrived.
The dragon flames surrounding her were no longer a chaotic vortex. Instead, they had condensed into a physical silver fire so intense that the very air warped in its wake.
She didn’t spare a single glance for Shen Luolin, who lay coughing up blood against the stone wall. Her eyes, burning with blood-red flames, reflected only the hideous, half-human, half-dragon form of the Emperor.
There were no combat techniques, no calculated moves.
There was only the most primal, purest rage and power!
“ROAR!”
Moyin’s dragon roar was filled with bestial tyranny.
She transformed into a silver blur, throwing a single punch toward the Emperor’s face.
In his haste, the Emperor raised his dragon claws to block. The moment the golden and silver forces collided, a blinding radiance erupted alongside a deafening boom!
The Emperor’s mountain-like frame was actually blown back by the force of that single punch. The crisp sound of bones dislocating echoed from his blocking claws.
For the first time, pure horror surfaced in his molten, vertical pupils.
‘This power… how is this possible?!’
Before he could steady himself, Moyin’s attacks descended like a torrential storm.
Fists, palms, claws, and elbows — every part of her body had become a lethal weapon. Every strike carried the silver dragon flames that could incinerate all things, slamming frantically against the Emperor’s dragon scales.
*Clang! Clang! Clang!*
The dense sounds of metal clashing rang out incessantly.
The golden dragon scales that the Emperor took such pride in began to crack under the frenzied assault. Pieces shattered and peeled away, sending golden blood splashing everywhere.
He was completely suppressed, forced into a pathetic defense with no opportunity to strike back.
The entire dragon temple altar had become Moyin’s personal hunting ground.
Shen Luolin leaned against the cold stone wall, the agonizing pain in his chest making every breath smell of copper.
He watched the silver figure frantically venting her power, his pale face devoid of expression.
Moyin was strong — stronger than anyone could have anticipated.
But this strength came at the cost of burning her own life.
Shen Luolin could clearly feel that the majestic dragon flames surrounding her were depleting at an incredible speed.
She was like a falling star, exhausting everything she had just to trade it for this single moment of brilliant destruction.
He didn’t speak, nor did he even look at her.
His gaze bypassed the violent battlefield, landing on the humming, spinning crystal in the center of the altar before sweeping over his longsword, which had been tossed aside nearby.
With his hand hidden inside his sleeve, he precisely pierced several key meridians around his heart, forcibly triggering his pure life essence.
This was a gamble only a madman would take. The price was everything he possessed.
*Boom!*
Another heavy blow landed. Moyin kicked the Emperor square in the chest, sending him flying backward to collapse against a stone pillar. He scrambled out from the rubble, a claw mark so deep it exposed his bone running across his chest, nearly disemboweling him.
He panted heavily, watching the silver figure who was closing in with boiling killing intent. The shock in his eyes was slowly replaced by a venomous, mocking sneer.
He stopped trying to fight her head-on. Instead, he retreated abruptly, slamming both hands onto the crystal at the center of the altar.
“Ignorant beast! Do you think power is everything?!”
The Emperor roared, pulling a heart wrapped in countless golden runic chains from his robes. The heart was still beating faintly, and with every throb, it emitted a tragic and desolate dragon pressure.
It was the Heart of Reinside!
“Look, Reinside!” the Emperor whispered to the heart, his expression twisted. “Your daughter is even more exceptional than you… but she is just as foolish!”
As he finished speaking, he slammed the heart into the groove of the crystal and poured every ounce of his remaining dragon pressure into it!
*Hum — !*
The crystal erupted in light. The heart was instantly activated, and surging power flooded back into the Emperor’s body!
The Emperor greedily absorbed the final bits of power leaking from the dragon heart. His wounds healed at a rate visible to the naked eye, and his aura climbed steadily.
Anyone could see that the Emperor could not be allowed to complete the absorption.
Moyin condensed a mass of dragon flame and fired it from her fingertips. However, a blood-red barrier projected from the crystal at the center of the altar, cutting off Moyin’s attack.
The dragon temple was the holy land of the dragon-kin. Once a bloodline ascension began, it would be protected by the temple itself.
Moyin’s strength alone was clearly not enough to contend with a holy land that had been worshipped by the dragon-kin for countless years.
Watching the futile efforts of Moyin, the Emperor’s voice carried a morbid sense of pleasure.
“Look at this! This is your foolish father!”
“He was once so powerful, yet for the sake of so-called dignity, he refused my gift. In the end, he became nothing more than a stepping stone beneath my feet!”
The Emperor’s words stabbed precisely into Moyin’s heart.
For the first time, her movements faltered.
Seeing this, the Emperor’s smile grew even more cruel. He used his venomous words to launch a lethal psychological assault.
“And you are just as stupid as he was! You were played like a puppet by a traitor who killed his own friend for glory, yet here you are, fighting like a mad dog for him!”
He pointed his finger toward Shen Luolin, who was slumped against the stone wall.
“Guess what he’s thinking as he looks at you now? Is he laughing at your stupidity, or is he calculating… how to use your corpse to collect one last reward?!”
*Boom!*
Ella’s expression, looking worse than if she were crying — the calm profile of her master by the hearth in the Snow-Return Hut — those thoughts flashed through her mind like lightning, but they couldn’t linger for even a second.
The last string of her sanity snapped completely under the Emperor’s malicious, heart-piercing words!
The pain of her father’s death, the fury toward the enemy before her — every emotion exploded at this moment, transforming entirely into a madness that sought to destroy everything.
She even forgot why she was fighting. Only a single instinctive thought remained — make that voice disappear!
“SHUT UP!!”
Moyin let out a piercing shriek. Abandoning all defense, she gathered every remaining scrap of dragon flame into a single point. Her entire being transformed into a straight spear of silver light as she charged recklessly at the Emperor.
This was exactly what the Emperor wanted.
A cruel sneer of success appeared on his face as he easily stepped to the side.
The moment Moyin passed him, his dragon claws — already poised and ready — tore through the air with a whistling wind and slammed into her back!
*Pshhh — !*
The sound of flesh being torn was ear-piercing.
Five wounds deep enough to see bone stretched from Moyin’s shoulder blade down to her lower back.
“AH — !!”
The agonizing pain forced a scream from Moyin. Her body was swatted away by that irresistible, massive force, hitting the cold ground hard like a broken doll.
The brilliant silver dragon flames surrounding her withered instantly, finally turning into a few faint silver threads that dissipated into the air.
“It’s over. Just like your father.”
The Emperor walked step by step toward Moyin, who lay in a pool of blood, unable to even move a finger. He raised his dragon claws, which shimmered with a lethal golden light, preparing to end the life of the empire’s last dragon-kin.
However, the moment before he struck —
The entire dragon temple was suddenly illuminated by a completely different light!
That light was neither gold nor silver. It was a crystalline radiance, so pure and pristine that it felt as if it could wash away all the filth in the world.
The source of the light was neither the Emperor nor Moyin.
It came from the very center of the altar!
The Emperor and Moyin looked over simultaneously in shock.
In the center of the altar, the blood-red crystal the Emperor had used to absorb power was now covered in cracks, shattering piece by piece.
In its place, a fist-sized, transparent, diamond-shaped dragon crystal floated quietly in mid-air, emitting a gentle yet majestic aura of life.
By the stone wall, Shen Luolin’s face was as white as paper, as if every drop of blood had been drained from his body. But as he looked at the floating dragon crystal, his eyes held a look of resolute relief.
Under the Emperor’s greedy and suspicious gaze, Shen Luolin used the last of his strength to scream at the despairing figure on the ground:
“Moyin… catch!”