Ashen Dragon-Chapter 146 - 75 Voice of the Night (III)

At this critical moment, a strange light suddenly flickered in Cassius’s golden pupils.

"No."

"It seems... there is another way."

Even if it was a living shadow, even if separated by different planes, the shadow dragon could not be immune to psychic attacks. This was the only means by which Cassius could affect it.

Thinking of this, Cassius shouted without hesitation:

"Despicable shadow dragon!"

"Her Majesty Tiamat is watching all this!"

Mortifael laughed openly: "The Dragon Queen’s darling? Every red dragon claims so. It seems arrogance and conceit are universal traits of red dragons. Even you... are no exception."

His voice suddenly turned cold.

"Put down your pathetic pride of the living, accept the great transformation, and throw yourself into the endless shadows!"

"I will grant you... eternal life."

Mortifael did not stop the transformation for a moment.

The surrounding space emitted a violent rumbling sound, the wailing of the plane space trembling, and the Prime Material World’s instincts fiercely rejected the invasion of the shadows. But under Mortifael’s powerful spell, even the rules of space had to temporarily give way.

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Cassius stared intently at the shadow dragon’s phantom, instantly unlocking the psychic barriers in his mind and constructing the horrifying illusion of that five-headed dragon.

He did not avoid Mortifael’s gray eyes, the golden pupils flashing with intense magical aurora.

"Whoosh—"

The illusion pierced through the plane’s barrier, traversed the Prime Material Plane, and reached Mortifael’s true form located in the Nether Shadow Realm.

[Tiamat’s Terrifying Illusion]

"Roar—"

In Mortifael’s eyes, a colossal dragon nearly a hundred meters tall suddenly appeared. The monster’s wings blotted out the sky; even the shadow dragon could only look up at it in awe.

It was a nightmare amalgamation, the thick and short legs of a colored giant dragon supporting its monstrous body. The dragon’s body writhed with five necks and five heads, each head corresponding to a different colored dragon, and each head’s color covered the corresponding neck, embedded in the front of the dragon’s torso like bands.

Her back and hindquarters gradually merged into three stripes of gray, blue-green, and purple, then converged into a murky dark brown tail. Her abdomen and legs transitioned from light green to the color of her upper body.

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This terrifying image was all too familiar to Mortifael.

—That was the Mother of Evil Dragons, the Five-Colored Dragon Queen, the enemy of the gods, Tiamat!

"How is this possible..."

Mortifael looked up in a daze, muttering to himself.

Seven hundred years ago, when he was just an ordinary black dragon, Mortifael built a makeshift altar in his dark swamp nest, offering his precious iron coins to the Dragon Queen. As a member of the five-colored evil dragons, Mortifael had countless times fantasized about gaining the Dragon Queen’s gaze, or even the personal favor of the Mother of Evil Dragons, experiencing supreme pleasure.

But the Dragon Queen never responded.

At that time, he was just a scrawny black dragon, his status among the five-colored dragons only slightly higher than that of a white dragon.

Ultimately, he couldn’t resist the allure of power and chose to embrace the Nether Shadow Realm, transforming into an undying shadow dragon.

At this moment, Mortifael trembled all over.

It was unclear whether it was from fear or excitement.

The five-colored, five-headed dragon coldly gazed down at the earth, with fire, ice, acid, lightning, and poison gas spewing from the mouths of those five ferocious heads, wantonly unleashing her fury.

"No, no, this can’t be real!"

"Damn it, this is an illusion!"

Mortifael, after studying spells for a thousand years and able to cast ninth-tier spells as a legendary spellcaster, even in his unsettled state, still saw through the intricacies within the Dragon Queen’s illusion.

The multi-layered illusory damage of fire, ice, and acid hitting his body, the power of the sixth-tier spell was insignificant to his soul, steeped in desolate darkness for a thousand years.

But another worry arose in Mortifael’s mind.

"An ordinary young red dragon, even a True Dragon Sorcerer, how could he know such a spell?"

"An illusion of this quality depicting a deity—could he truly be one of Her Majesty the Dragon Queen’s chosen?"

Mortifael’s concern was not without reason.

Shadow dragons were infamous among dragonkin, considered public enemies by the dragon race.

They abandoned the noble bloodline of giant dragons, chose to embrace darkness, becoming despicable shadow creatures. Moreover, no dragon god emerged among them, and even the five-colored evil dragons scoffed at them.

Gold dragons with a sense of justice would even actively seek out shadow dragons, gathering their kin to eradicate them completely, to remove this "shame" from the dragonkin.

And killing one who might be a chosen of the Dragon Queen, inciting the enmity of the five-colored dragons, was clearly not a good idea for him.

"Damn red dragon..."

Mortifael was conflicted, his construction of the summoning spell stalled.

He did not want to provoke a deity-level existence, but being deceived by the illusion filled him with a vast humiliation he had not felt in a thousand years, making him want to tear the red dragon in front of him apart.

"Are you really one of those chosen..."

"Red dragon."

Mortiel’s phantom gazed down at the red dragon, squinting slightly, seemingly trying to find a clue in his expression.

Cassius noticed Mortifael’s hesitation. He knew that at this moment, he had to appear more confident, more arrogant, more like an exalted chosen one of a deity to deceive this millennia-old monster.

So, Cassius stepped forward, fearlessly meeting Mortiel’s phantom’s gaze, arrogantly saying, "Despicable shadow creature defiling the noble traditions of dragonkin, you better think carefully."

"Can you endure the wrath of Her Majesty Tiamat!"

Hearing this, Mortifael’s dim gray eyes filled with uncontrollable anger, as if burning with ghostly shadow flames.

"Damn red dragon."

"Damn Prime Material World."

This moment of hesitation allowed the repulsive force of the plane to act on the shadow dragon incompatible with the material plane, shattering his attempt to invade the Prime Material World.

This time, he had already harvested thousands of shadow souls; centuries of planning had not been in vain. He didn’t need to provoke a potential divine-level enemy further.

Thinking of this, Mortifael stared deeply at the red dragon, his dull gray eyes showing a trace of venom.

"The plane’s barrier has been breached by those thousands of resentful spirits."

"This place has already been marked by the Nether Shadow Realm."

"Someday, I will return here, and you will not be able to protect all that you possess."

Mortifael said coldly.

Several distorted vortices appeared around the phantom of his colossal dragon body, as the plane repellant force forcibly expelled his descending projection from the Prime Material World, dragging it back to that lightless, gloomy place—the Nether Shadow Realm.