Through the secure command frequency, a wave of profound, euphoric relief washed over the remaining command staff.

The Herald’s mental voice resonated with a confidence that was almost manic in its intensity.

’The human is contained. The Subterranean Vanguard will crush him in the depths where his evasion tactics are meaningless. We have demonstrated draconic superiority over an anomalous individual who threatened our supremacy.’

His lieutenants felt relief wash over them.

Saphira’s blue scales began to return to their normal coloration.

Skatha’s involuntary earth magic ripples began to stabilize as the panic that had driven them receded.

Even Boreas, the fastest dragon in the vanguard, finally relaxed his forward-leaning posture and allowed his muscles to decompress from the state of heightened tension they had been maintaining.

The Herald was already reconstructing the narrative of what had just occurred.

Yes, the human had demonstrated anomalous power, having neutralized over a thousand dragons. However, this outcome was largely attributable to a tactical miscalculation by the Herald. Relying too heavily on the advantages of dragons.

For a few glorious moments, the Herald basked in the certainty that his strategic genius had prevailed. That individual strength, no matter how anomalous, truly could not withstand the organized, multi-dimensional military force of the draconic empire.

He had already begun mentally constructing the report he would deliver to Typhoon. That he was wrong, and he had grown weak in his time.

He had secured his path to challenge the Dragon King himself.

The Herald’s conviction in his own inevitable victory had calcified. What had been panic moments before had transformed into absolute certainty that his adaptation had solved the problem entirely.

He was completely unaware that the predator he saw get eaten was nothing more than an afterimage.

-------

Jack Kaiser’s perspective was fundamentally different from the Herald’s triumphant certainty.

The moment the ground beneath him gave way and the subterranean dragon’s massive jaws began to close around his position, Jack activated [Dark Flash] without hesitation.

The skill activated instantly, creating a seamless transition from the collapsing underground space to the exact location Jack had preselected as his destination.

The nodes of darkness that Jack had established across the battlefield allowed him to blink across distances that would have taken minutes to traverse.

He navigated the dragon lines without leaving any discernible trajectory, sound, or displacement signature.

The aerial dragons that had been in a state of panic cascade didn’t even register his movement. From their perspective, he ceased to exist in one location and never appeared in another. He had vanished.

Jack materialized miles away, standing exactly in the center of the desolate, ash-choked dead zone where the 1,113 dragons had been slaughtered in the previous moment.

The ground beneath his feet was still warm from the impact of the Ruin Pulse detonation.

The air itself carried a faint ash taste. The corpses of the dead dragons were scattered across the clearing, their bodies partially decomposed, but most were just ash. Their essences are tethered to this location by the violence of their deaths.

The moment Jack’s boots touched the ash, he activated [Gloom Shroud].

A dense, light-devouring mist billowed outward from his position, instantly wrapping around his body and expanding in a sphere that encompassed the entire clearing.

Within the perimeter of the shroud, his life signature, mana ripples, thermal signature, and physical presence vanished from the magical spectrum of the battlefield.

The dragons’ full spectrum of sensory capabilities, including thermal tracking, mana detection, life signature identification, and even the nuanced pressure differentials of a substantial object’s movement through space, were unable to locate him.

Jack achieved a state of absolute sensory blackout. To any observer using any magical sensing technique, he might as well have ceased to exist entirely. The dead zone became his sanctuary, a space where he could operate without interference or observation.

Jack’s consciousness settled into a state of calm focus.

His breathing remained steady. His heartbeat remained controlled. The panic cascade that had engulfed the draconic forces had no corresponding echo in his own consciousness.

He had orchestrated this sequence. He had understood from the moment he stood in the dead zone and looked at the Herald that the human was facing a creature operating according to frameworks the dragon had not encountered in centuries.

The Herald had resources, numbers, and centuries of military experience, backed by the entire draconic empire.

But the Herald was reactive. He was adapting to circumstances that Jack had already calculated and prepared for.

The subterranean assault was exactly what Jack had anticipated. The activation of the hidden assets was precisely the move that Jack had positioned himself to counter.

He raised his right arm even though no observer could see him through the Gloom Shroud.

Jack’s consciousness expanded outward, reaching across the distance separating him from the graveyard of dragon corpses surrounding him.

The Chain of the Soul Warden extended outward like a living serpent of dark energy.

The Chain spread across the clearing, wrapping around each of the 1,113 dragon souls in turn.

The connection was not gentle. The Chain was designed to dominate, to enforce absolute obedience, to bind creatures’ very essence to Jack’s will.

As the Chain took hold of each corpse, it forged a tangible link between Jack’s consciousness and the dead dragons’ spiritual essence.

The Mask of the Soul Warden pulsed against Jack’s face, resonating with the power that the Chain was channeling.

Now, with the Chain establishing such comprehensive dominion over so many souls simultaneously, the Mask thrummed with power that was close to overwhelming in its intensity.

Jack’s hand opened his interface.

The decision had already been made. The death tokens that he had accumulated through conquest and power accumulation were going to be deployed in a single, massive expenditure. Jack began the process of spending the currency that transcended normal magical commerce.

[Confirm purchase of 166,950,000 Death Tokens?]

[YES] or [NO]

’Yes.’

[Resurrection Process Initiated: 1,113 Disaster-class Dragons.]

[Time Remaining: 5 Minutes]

[Death Tokens Remaining: 1,855,077,680]

The notification displayed across his interface, visible only to him.

The remaining death tokens still represented an incomprehensible fortune, enough wealth to upgrade his entire force to a higher rank/level.

But the expenditure of over 166 million tokens in a single transaction represented a commitment of resources that acknowledged the magnitude of what Jack was about to accomplish.

The five minutes of resurrection time stretched before him like a vast, empty canvas. Jack settled into a state of waiting that was neither impatience nor anxiety.

His consciousness remained tethered to the Chain, maintaining its grip on the 1,113 dragon corpses as their essences began the process of reformation.

Death was normally a permanent condition for unbound creatures. But Jack’s Soul Warden power transcended normal death. His death tokens and his absolute dominion over the souls of the fallen allowed him to drag them back into existence through sheer force of will.

His mind occupied itself during the waiting period.

The Herald’s only remaining advantage was numerical and environmental. He had access to creatures that had trained for subterranean warfare, and he believed that the underground environment would eliminate Jack’s most powerful tactical advantages.