Each clone had its own personality, and it had no intention of risking its life for materials. With so many Magic hitting, it could not even scratch the skin, so there was no point. Just then, a call came from the one behind the deal.
"Go stall that dragon. I have something to handle here," said Ludwig through remote communication. The clone froze and replied after a short silence, saying the dragon's strength was far too unusual. Ludwig answered calmly that there was no need to worry, and that if he succeeded, he would not mind giving the dragon to it.
Knowing there had to be a reward to get cooperation, Ludwig made a tempting promise. The clone's eyes lit up and it accepted. Gods of that type had their pride, and from past dealings, it understood that well.
It was also very greedy for the power of that Black Dragon. If it only had to stall, it could manage that much. Although it knew all the remaining Great Dragon would be slaughtered, the situation was now different.
After ending the call, it turned back to see Belial swinging a dragon around like a toy. Quietly, it manipulated all remaining living Great Dragon, along with crushed flesh in the mud, and began to recombine them. Belial noticed something wrong and turned, nearly startled by the sight of dragons mashed into a grotesque, ball-like mass.
They were disgustingly fused together, flesh writhing as heads continued to roar. The scene felt oddly familiar to him. He asked if they were about to pull another fusion trick.
He had originally thought it was just a mad dragon swarm, but this made it obvious someone was behind it. Still, he did not care. Weaklings were weaklings, and fusion only stacked health while making them die faster.
He had already copied several spell structures, and maybe the fusion would produce something new. Inside the mass of flesh, the dragons merged and devoured each other under a twisted and blasphemous Laws. Their outer form began to change toward something more draconic.
Roars rose one after another as wind, fire, lightning, and earth surged wildly. Magic and elements in the area went berserk, forming a terrifying creation. Belial rubbed his eyes and looked closely.
"Ah, so it is this thing," he said. "I sent you over a dozen monsters as graves, and you give me a five-emperor dragon." The result was a Great Dragon formed from a twisted fusion of Five-Colored Dragonkind, with messy layers of wings and five roaring heads.
Its presence kept climbing, eyes filled with ferocity. After fusing over thirty Great Dragon, its body briefly grew larger than Belial, weighing nearly ten thousand tons. A crazed voice laughed, boasting that this imperfect body created by a single Clone was more than enough.
It admitted it was still weaker, but claimed this move could not be blocked. This form was not just about raw strength, but served as an amplifier to unleash other Draconic Magic. It declared a taboo curse that struck directly at dragon bloodlines, calling out Dragon Blood Enslavement with full confidence.
This attack ignored physical strength and Magic, targeting dragon blood itself. It believed any dragon would be affected, even if it could not fully control him, buying time would be enough. Belial watched this display with disappointment.
"Too fancy. Why are you standing there acting dumb," he said. He dashed forward, stood upright, leaned in, and threw a brutal uppercut to the chest. The clone did not even react before the massive force sent its huge body flying into the sky, leaving a terrifying hole in its chest.
Before it could recover, Belial grabbed its tail midair and slammed it down with a savage throw. The impact nearly tore it apart, organs shattered inside. It had reshaped its body into a Mage type to boost spells, and two simple hits almost killed it.
It screamed in disbelief as all five heads spat different breaths at him. He ignored them and answered with a single Freezing Breath. The overwhelming breath crushed theirs and froze half its massive body solid.
As it screamed for him to stay away, Belial walked up with swagger. He roughly handled the frozen body, then crushed it underfoot, tore off wings one by one, and slammed it around by the neck. After the beating, only two heads remained alive, the rest reduced to a broken stump.
He lifted it with one hand and said he was about done playing. He wondered if he should bring back a live specimen. As he thought, he sensed something and paused, realizing the crystals and defenses near Sky Island had been triggered.
The half-dead Red Dragon head laughed weakly, claiming its mission was complete. Belial crushed that head instantly, the consciousness shifting to the last one. That head sensed something different as the Black Dragon lowered his gaze, his presence changing.
He expanded Energy Field, crystals growing to widen perception, and sensed toward Sky Island. Most guided ghost crystals had been triggered, with no invader corpses left behind. What mattered was that he could no longer sense Lilith.
The conclusion was simple and immediate. His home had been attacked. The sudden appearance of so many dragons had been a delay.
He thought of the Witch who rarely had enemies, and realized the most likely target was himself. Before, he had been alone and did not need to worry. Now he had made his first real friend, and that friend might have suffered because of an enemy who had to die.
For the first time since transmigrating, a new emotion appeared. It was anger. The clone felt unbearable fear, teeth chattering, followed by searing heat.
Though it had planned for this Clone to die, its consciousness was not dispersing or returning. Instead, it was dragged into a bottomless black void filled with crushing fear, swallowed by darkness, then thrown into a blazing sun. A vast black beast devoured it in one bite.
The body in Belial's hand turned to ash as he spread his wings. A nuclear-like explosion erupted, energy and shockwaves sweeping the battlefield clean and forming a fireball nearly a kilometer wide. Moving faster than fifteen Mach, carrying unprecedented killing intent and his first true rage, Belial flew toward Sky Island.
Ludwig kept jumping through space without pause. To make sure nothing went wrong, he ignored the cost, because what mattered most to the Lord was avoiding trouble with a certain dragon. He tore open space directly and used threads to link two locations, returning to the nearest base in a very short time.
"Finally got it. Next is sending it back to the main body."
One Crimson Core and a Pure Crystal taller than a person were placed together. Inside the crystal was Lilith sealed in her final state. Ludwig was curious about what was inside this Witch's mind, but turning her into a puppet was not something to rush.
After losing the original self, memories might not stay accurate, and what mattered most was that no one knew whether high level mages had hidden backup energy in their minds that could destroy everything. Ludwig had to know everything to ensure his own safety, because his return could not afford any mistake. Worse still, Lilith had used self-sealing, and extracting memories could not be done with this Clone, so it had to be sent back to the main body.
Put simply, this Clone version of Ludwig was like a phone that could not unzip Lilith.zip. It had to be sent back to the main body's computer to handle it.
"Dead, huh. Whatever."
He felt a distant thread snap completely and knew the one sent to stall for time was dead. Ludwig was not surprised at all. As long as his goal was achieved, it was fine, though it meant that the Great Dragon had already seen through the diversion.
Even so, Ludwig was not worried that the Great Dragon could find him in a short time. When he left, he had erased all Magic traces on Sky Island, destroyed every Barrier and Magic Array, and set up shielding in advance to block all outgoing communication. He even took away all possible recorded information in the nanometal, not leaving a single piece behind.
He left no scent or footprints either, and because of Lilith's self-sealing, all possible positioning or communication methods were cut off. In addition, he had placed several other Clone elsewhere, along with simulated traces of Lilith. These fake traces were extracted from living facilities on Sky Island, making even the false information real.
With this, how could anyone fight him. Even if the Great Dragon searched the area thoroughly, by then the core and body would already be assembled. At that point, the Great Dragon's power would look trivial to him.
"Hahaha!"
Ludwig had even considered whether the Black Dragon had special detection methods for Lilith. After seeing her seal herself in crystal, he felt relieved instead. That sealing crystal was a product of Lilith's Laws, rejecting everything.
Although it blocked Ludwig for the moment, it saved him trouble, since even detection was shut down by her own hand. Lilith could not do anything inside, and only she could open the seal. With the user locked inside, who else could open it.