Cheat Awakening

BOOM...

A thunderous boom echoed across the land as a certain bone dragon who just stuck its head out of the space tunnel and hadn't even had a chance to grasp its new surroundings when a colossal hammer, wreathed in golden flames, descended on its head like a meteorite, smashing it into the ground.

The impact echoed through the earth, creating a spiderweb of fissures which soon turned into a crater of hundreds of meters deep at that place. All the trees near them were uprooted directly from the ground, along with a lot of soil, and flew away like flies in a storm.

Many towns and small villages, even the capital city of the Augusta kingdom far from the batterfilled, trembled with the shock as if hit hard by a 9-magnitude earthquake. It's fortunate that most houses and buildings are not too tall and have quite a good foundation; otherwise, only God knows how many people would be buried to death.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

A certain aloof old man who was arrogantly standing on the skull of the bone dragon also wasn't so fortunate as a citizen of the Augusta kingdom.

Although he managed to save his old life thanks to his magic item, which automatically cast a barrier around him sensing the danger, but clearly it was a big loss, after all, such a high-end magic prop is not easy to get, and most of them are consumable types. Once used, it requires significant resources to recharge.

Ymir, after smashing the bone dragon's head on the ground along with Stygian, nodded his head with a smug look on his stone-like face, sadly hidden under his helmet no one could see it. After finishing his task, he quickly distanced himself from the enemy since others were also waiting in line for their turn.

Soon, the dust settled down, and Stygian appeared in front of everyone. He was still surrounded by the green transparent barrier and stood on the bone dragon's poor skull, which not only disconnected from its bony neck but was now covered in dense cracks as if it would fall apart and turn into dust at any moment. Even its soul fire was extinguished; clearly, it is out of service temporarily.

Though physically unharmed, Stygian's ragged breaths, as if having an asthma attack betrayed his exertion. He locked eyes with Ymir, his gaze tinged with venomous hatred. If looks could kill, Ymir would have perished a thousand times over.

"You b..."

BOOM!!!

Stygian rasped, his voice laced with anger, but before he could bombard Ymir's entire family with foul words, a wave of dense magic materialized above him. He barely had time to cast a defensive spell on himself since the magic prop had already lost most of its energy when a torrent of blistering blue fire, akin to a gigantic waterfall of molten lava-like blue dragon breath, engulfed him.

Jormungandr, who was crazily shooting blue fire from his mouth, didn't stop until the hundreds of meters wide crater in which Stygian was having fun was filled completely with lava-like fire. This is a special spell he learned from an evil dragon who lives in a volcano and made his breath so dense that he literally started shooting lava at everyone.

Later, he perfected it and created this spell, which gave Jormungandr a lot of trouble in catching him and throwing him in prison.

Jormungandr barely finished admiring his handiwork, found himself startled by Maya's sudden appearance beside him and cast a spell similar to Myne's colossal water magic.

This time, a real 'Normal' waterfall fell on the volcanic crater transforming it into a steaming caldera, filling the surroundings with harmful acidic steam and a sizzling sound. As everyone could expect, the interaction of molten lava and cascading water resulted in a peculiar transformation.

As the heat subsided, a solidified, obsidian-like mass filled the crater, its origins obscured by the billowing steam.

Crack!

A tense silence hung heavy in the air, broken only by a series of ominous creaking sounds emanating from the depths of obsidian-like mass. Everyone's gaze remained fixed on the crater, anticipation mixed with apprehension.

Click!

BOOM!

The silence shattered with a deafening explosion. Stygian, a stubborn old geezer, seemingly unscathed blasted through the the molten remains. Let's not talk about him—even the bone dragon skull partially submerged in the obsidian formation, appeared remarkably intact without any additional damage.

"This old geezer is more difficult to kill than a cockroach," Maya remarked, a hint of disappointment in her voice, to which everyone nodded their heads, clearly agreeing with her statement.

Just then, the remaining body of the bone dragon, which had lost its navigator part midway, finally managed to get out of the space tunnel entrance. But now it was no different than a toy meant to scare children; after all, it couldn't bite anyone, nor could it release energy blasts. What was the point of its existence?

It couldn't even be used as a transport vehicle since it couldn't see the direction. If it were against humes or other normal species, it could at least kill them by trampling them underfoot with its huge size. However, the problem was that not only could all of its opponents fly, but three of them were as big as it, and one was even bigger. What was the point of summoning it?

Stygian also realized this problem and understood why Fenrir and others sneak attacked him. Their main target from start to finish clearly was the bone dragon, not him.

"Do you truly believe you killed my servant with those shameless puny tactics?" Stygian boomed, his voice laced with disdain. "I have witnessed far more cunning adversaries. Compared to them, your little tricks are just child's play. Let me show you what despair is," With a flourish of his staff, he began an intricate chant, dark energy swirling around him.

As Stygian's spell started taking effect, the cracks on the bone dragon skull started visibly recovering, and the soul fire, extinguished moments ago, reignited with an eerie glow, making everyone gasp in horror, which was clearly another way to fool Stygian.

Just when Stygian started laughing wildly, seeing everyone's ugly faces and the bone dragon's skull started floating toward its body, suddenly Fenrir materialized beside the skull with lightning speed. In a fluid motion, she grasped the dragon's horn with her powerful jaws and vanished in a flash of teleportation.

Explore more stories at empire

...?

An unnerving silence gripped the battlefield as Stygian stared at the empty space where his dragon skull vanished with a speechless expression. He couldn't believe that he had been tricked again, by a bunch of centuries-old brats.

But in the very next moment, his shocked expression quickly morphed into fury as if he'd swallowed the sourest lemon in the world. He brandished his staff, attempting to summon the skull back, but his efforts elicited only amused chuckles from his opponents

"Where the F*ck did you put my servant's head?!" Stygian, roared, his voice laced with impotent rage as he saw Fenrir returned with empty hands.

"A safe place, worry not. You will never see it again. No need to thank me; it is my duty to help the elderly clean garbage," Fenrir said casually, her playful demeanour pushed Stygian, who was on the verge of exploding with anger, directly into a berserk state.

"You bastards!" His enraged scream pierced the air. In a fit of blind fury, and do-or-die mood, Stygian stabbed his wooden staff into his own thigh, drawing gasps from the onlookers. All of them had a single thought in their minds: Has that guy finally gone crazy?

But obviously, that wasn't the case. After soaking half of his staff with his own blood, Stygian starts chanting his dark incantations. Suddenly, a gigantic 500-meter-tall black hexagram sigil appeared on the ground, emanating a suffocating aura of death that everyone couldn't help but be shocked.

Living creatures within a kilometre radius instantly returned to the afterworld without making a single sound.

The surroundings became deathly silent due to the death aura released by the hexagram sigil, which was no different than a super deadly poison for low-level life forms. Then, amidst the eerie stillness, a leg encased in unknown black metal armour emerged from the sigil, followed by another.

Slowly, a towering cool-looking skeleton knight in full-body armor, except for the helmet, holding a long metal chain materialized, its eyes burning with an eerie blue soul fire.

Its keen gaze swept across the surroundings with a thoughtful expression, its intelligence evident despite its lack of flesh, before flying toward Stygian with ease and bowing deeply in front of him with full respect and awe.

"Master..."

The skeleton knight rasped, his voice was very unpleasant, grating and mechanical. But this is normal since it didn't have any vocal cords, and no one really cared about his voice, at least Stygian didn't. He nodded at his general, whose strength was on par with Maya and the others, and who was his second-in-command right after the poor bone dragon, while still focused on the summoning gate.

Stygian was waiting for his most powerful general, his left hand. The only problem was, that guy was a bit too smart for his own good and occasionally ran away to have some fun, and when called for help, he took too much time to come to the summoning gate...