Brass Dragons in the Dragon World

“That puts my mind at ease.” Ander nodded in satisfaction, his eyes fixed on the silhouette of the World Tree in the distance.

"I've never killed a god before..."

Chapter 644 Becoming a New God

At this moment, Angers and Zero had arrived at the roots of the World Tree. They were walking among the black roots, with Zero on Angers' back, pointing out a path to the interior of the World Tree.

“I still don’t understand what that guy is trying to do.” Angers bent down and walked through a passage formed by arched tree roots, asking Zero. The guy he was referring to was, of course, Little Devil Zero.

Zero didn't answer the question, but instead pointed to the towering black tree trunks ahead and said, "Go that way, there's a cave that leads down."

Angers sighed, carried Zero forward, and the centenarian seemed to be deep in thought as he followed Zero's command.

The surrounding buildings were originally part of the shelter. Those minimalist-style tenement buildings were penetrated by tree roots and transformed into the world's most complex three-dimensional maze along with the giant tree. Yet, Zero was able to find the path to the bottom.

Something within her called to the girl, urging her and Angers to keep moving forward. The original location of the sanctuary's center had been replaced by the World Tree, but among its dense roots, there was a single path leading into the depths.

That was Zero's backup plan. He always has backup plans, just like the Black Serpent that appeared in Black Swan Harbor back then.

Angers gazed thoughtfully at the World Tree before him. Its roots were a carbon black color, with a viscous liquid clinging to them. It was a substance similar to dragon blood, and just a little of it could turn a human into a Deadpool.

"The so-called 'being together' is actually the kind of physical togetherness, right?" Angers asked a seemingly unrelated question. Zero didn't answer, so Angers added, "Lu Mingfei and Zero are becoming one, aren't they?"

While gazing at the World Tree, Angers finally understood some things. Just as the White King's Holy Grail would be reborn after combining with the Holy Relic, Zero and Lu Mingfei would be reborn as a great being.

But in the process, the two of them were essentially dead. The original Lu Mingfei and Zero no longer existed, leaving only the towering tree in front of them.

“So he doesn’t want to die, and he wants us to save him.” Angers walked on the ground formed by tree roots, analyzing slowly and deliberately in his magnetic voice: “That Zero left a backdoor, allowing us to get close to this thing, but what can we do there?”

“You’ll find out.” Zero climbed down from behind Angers. They were now close to the final sanctuary of the Doomsday Faction. The surrounding roots were becoming increasingly complex and thick, and the black mud had solidified into a black ground that reflected the light of the World Tree above.

The light was a bit dazzling, so Angers took out a pair of sunglasses from his pocket and put them on. They were specially brought to prevent snow blindness, and he never expected to use them here.

Zero stood on the ground made of black mud. She pulled out a small knife from her waist and cut open her arm. Blood flowed from under her smooth skin and dripped onto the ground along her slender fingers.

The ground formed by the solidified black mud began to writhe under the catalysis of blood, emitting a foul, bloody smell. Zero's blood was like some kind of delicacy, causing the black mud to surge greedily, wanting to devour him.

The black mud surged and formed a slime-like monster, which lunged at Zero, emitting a pungent, bloody stench.

Zero stood there motionless, watching helplessly as the black mud rushed towards him. Angers had thought the girl would disappear, but in the next instant, the monster formed from the black mud froze, turning into a pale statue, before shattering into countless fragments.

“In my blood flows the gift he left behind, which can open a passage for us to the bottom.” As the monster disappeared, a tunnel appeared on the ground, with a pre-prepared passageway inside.

“He calculated everything. With just a gentle push, the giant tree will topple.” Zero coldly used a cable tie to stop the bleeding from his forearm and said to Angers, “Now, let’s go down.”

……

Meanwhile, at the roots of the World Tree, within Ender's world of consciousness, his communication with Zero continued.

“I’ve deliberately slowed things down. Our contract won’t end until you’ve seen all the historical events,” Little Devil Zero said to Ender in a triumphant tone. “This way, we’ll have enough time to discuss what to do next.”

"But it won't be long. How long will it take for the gods you mentioned to revive?" Ander lay on the ground, looking at the events that took place in ancient Rome. He wasn't very interested in history, but he still had to patiently watch the images Zero had given him.

“It’s not far off. All the dragons in the world are flying towards the World Tree. They will enter the tree and become one with it.” A globe appeared in Zero’s hand, with countless red dots moving at high speed on it. These were the dragons flying towards the World Tree one after another.

"Then, the World Tree will begin to reclaim the bloodlines of all dragons, bringing all living beings under its rule." Zero showed another scene: yellow-eyed hybrids lay on the ground, black mud gushing from their mouths, turning them into mindless walking corpses.

"Finally, the world returned to one, just like in the era of that tree." Blackness spread across the globe, eventually engulfing the entire world and transforming it into the realm of the gods.

“Devouring the world, ascending to godhood.” Ander squinted at the scene displayed by Zero: “Truly terrifying power, perhaps even surpassing some gods of low divine power.”

There are naturally differences among gods. For example, although Bahamut is also a minor god, he is a dragon god and is not afraid of those stronger gods when fighting.

The World Tree is a similar case; it is inherently powerful, and even though it is not a god in the traditional sense, it is already comparable to those beings that roam the star realm.

“But there is one thing you might be able to do.” A hammer, like a scepter, silently appeared in Zero’s hand: “In the beginning, all the power in the world belonged to the World Tree, but in the countless years since its demise, the dragons have developed their own way.”

"The scepter in your hand is the authority accumulated by the dragon race over countless years," Zero said to Ander in a commanding tone, "devour it and compete with the newly born gods for the position of the One God."

Upon hearing Zero's words, Ender raised his hand high, striking Zero with a powerful gust of wind: "Do you know what the price will be?!"

Zero looked at Ender with a smile. He didn't answer, but just let Ender's claws strike him, smashing his head into countless bloody pieces.

“Such a price, others would probably be more than willing to pay,” Zero’s body slowly collapsed, and a new Zero emerged from the darkness: “Ascend to the throne, new god!”

Chapter 645 The Price of Killing a God

In the world of consciousness, Ender looked at Zero and wondered what the price he paid for eliminating the Dragon King's authority was. It was the flood of the Dragon King's memories over millions of years that transformed him into a completely new puppet.

A puppet of the dragon race.

This was something the free brass dragon could not tolerate; it was an insult to his dignity.

“But there’s no other way,” Zero looked pitifully at Ender, “the world is waiting for you to save it.”

"Sacrificing oneself to save the world, what a classic teen drama," Ender said casually, yet light emanated from his body, causing the dream created by Zero to teeter on the brink of collapse.

"But I don't like this fucking trashy show." With Ander's roar, Zero covered his head, the dream shattered like glass, and a terrifying aura appeared on Ander, shattering everything false in front of him.

"Are you insane? Everyone will die if we don't kill the god, and you're no exception!" Zero roared furiously, but he was powerless to stop Ander from leaving.

At the roots of the World Tree, Ander opened his eyes. A bronze-colored dragon was bound to the roots, and an immense pressure was applied to every inch of his skin, rendering him unable to move.

That was an ability to manipulate gravity, similar to the Word of Power: Royal Authority. Now, this Word of Power had formed a cage against Ander, sealing him in with gravity a thousand times greater than that on Earth.

"Hey, this is interesting." Ander's limbs trembled slowly within the constraints of the tree roots. To face the gods, he first had to break free from these bonds.

As for the World Tree, an unknown creature like Ander was worth all its efforts to stop. The surrounding branches formed an alchemical array, locking all the elements within it, making it difficult for Ander to use his magic.

As Ender escaped Zero's illusion, his contract with Zero ended. The branches that bound Ender began to grow, slowly cutting through his scales and reaching into his flesh.

"Hiss, damn it..." Ander muttered, as the remaining magic in his body was injected into his flesh and blood, burning away the branches that had penetrated deep into his body.

He is now unable to use magic and can only rely on the remaining power in his body to fight against the World Tree's erosion.

"Fortunately, I'll be able to break free in a little while." As Ander struggled, the tree roots binding him began to crack. Just then, footsteps came from above.

Ander looked up and saw Angers and Zero descending from the sky. The two stared at each other, and Angers winked at his old friend: "Looks like I've come at the wrong time?"

“No, you’ve come at the perfect time.” Ander looked at Angers who had appeared, took a deep breath and commanded, “Go to the fourth scale on the third row from the top on my chest and take out the space bag.”

Angers crouched down and crawled through the bushes. Tree roots grew around him, trying to take hold of him. Then Ander breathed out a dragon's breath, burning the roots away.

“You’d better hurry, I don’t want to see you impaled on tree roots,” Ander urged. Angers took out his folding knife and chopped open a section of the root. “Don’t rush, I can’t use my Words of Power here, um…”

As Angers entered the vicinity of Ander, he was immediately captured by that domain, and a thousand times the gravity was applied to his body, causing his bones to crack.

"Don't come any closer, use another method..." Ander had just remembered the heavy pressure on his body when he saw Angers recklessly reach forward and insert his hand directly into the gap between Ander's scales.

Card……

The sound of bones shattering rang out as Angers' arm broke, bones protruding from his skin, and twisted fingers emerged from the gaps in Ander's scales, the fingertips hooking onto a spatial pouch.

"Huff... hiss..." Angers gasped for breath, slowly and steadily removing the spatial bag from the gravity field, then slumped to the ground.

"Thank...it's out." Angers lay on the ground, grimacing, biting the spatial bag with his teeth, and mumbled indistinctly, "And then...what do we do?"

Ender struggled to adjust his position, straightening his chest: "Take out the Greedy One, and then... stab me."

"What are you saying?" Angers looked at Ander in disbelief. "I'm here to save you, not to kill you!"

"Stop talking nonsense, this is the only way." Ander said coldly. To fight against a god, one does not necessarily have to become a new god. What Ander wants to do is something even more insane.

“You…you must come back safely…” Angers looked at Ander’s expression and seemed to realize something. He used his remaining hand to take out the Greedy Warhammer that Ander had put in his spatial bag.

At this moment, the warhammer formed from the Dragon King's authority was shining brightly in Angers' hands, and Ander also used the magic in his body, flames appeared on his body and transformed into a magic circle drawn on his scales.

“You must be crazy…” Angers stumbled to his feet, blood dripping from his twisted arm onto the ground: “Didn’t you say you were the biggest coward?”

“But sometimes, I’m willing to risk my life for something.” Ander’s face was hidden in the flames, and he looked at Angers with the signature smile of the brass dragon: “And, using this method, I might not even die.”

“Then it’s a deal, you must survive!” Angers raised the more than three-meter-long scepter and pointed the end of the scepter at Ander’s chest.

Within the crypt, Angers thrust out the scepter in his hand, its sharp tail piercing through Ander's scales and deeply embedding itself in his chest.

“That’s right,” Ander’s eyes dimmed, “If you want to kill a god, you don’t need another god; a divine artifact will do.”

At this moment, the magic circle on Ander's chest began to operate, and the dragon's flesh and magic condensed into a lump, beginning to transform into a brass-like metal.

When a metal dragon dies, it transforms into a corresponding metal vein, within which the soul of the metal dragon is contained. Ander simply accelerated this process slightly.

Within the magic circle, Ander's flesh and blood completely vanished, transforming into magical brass. He loved sculpture, but at this moment, he became a sculpture.

"I will die, but I will be reborn in the future."

Ander slowly closed his eyes. If he wanted to face the gods, there was another way besides devouring the authority and becoming a puppet of the dragon race: to use his own flesh and blood to forge a divine artifact and integrate the authority into it.

Only in this way can the Dragon King's mad will within the power not affect Ander himself.

At that moment, the World Tree's seal shattered completely, flames soared into the sky, and a giant dragon made of metal rushed into the air, a cross-shaped scepter embedded in its chest, giving it power enough to change the world.

Ender abandoned his physical body and future, using alchemy and magic to transform himself into a divine artifact, and his goal was to completely destroy the giant tree in front of him.

"Come on, let me go completely insane!"

Chapter 646 Merging with the Dao

At this moment, the former Ander was dead, replaced by a bronze dragon-shaped statue. The statue soared through the air, determined to challenge the newly born god before it. "After studying living spirits for so long, I've finally used it on myself," Ander thought, sensing his new body, a being similar to the dragon-like living spirit statue, with Ander's own soul becoming part of it, temporarily controlling its movements. Ander soared high in the sky, before him, a colossal black tree sprouted leaves emitting a white light, its branches rustling slowly in the far north wind. The next second, black sap gushed from the branches, surging like living things, transforming into black fruits that fell from the leaves. These black fruits split open in mid-air, and winged monsters emerged, lunging at Ander, now a statue. But at this moment, Ander was like a powerful machine with limitless energy. He didn't even need to dodge; with a single thought, flames spread from his fingertips, transforming into a sea of ​​fire. "Fire!" The echoing voice reverberated in the air, and the elements captured by the World Tree came alive, appearing as flames in the sky. Sorcerers were a profession that relied on instinct to cast spells. Having become a legend, Ander didn't even need much chanting to manipulate the surrounding magical energy. And when he merged with the Dragon King's authority, this ability became even more terrifying. The sea of ​​fire continued to spread in the sky, gradually changing from crimson to cyan, and finally to an incandescent, glass-like color. The black monsters couldn't even make a trace within the sea of ​​fire before being melted by its power. At this moment, Ander was no longer a user of magic; he was the master of magic, the master of the world. "Earth!" Sandstorms erupted from the fire, swirling with the flames. Beneath the millennia-old frozen earth, specks of metal flew from the ground, melting into molten iron and merging into the sea of ​​fire. The entire sky was illuminated as a blood-red hue. Just then, a cacophony of chattering came from afar—countless dragon-blooded subspecies of creatures, having migrated, had finally arrived beneath the World Tree. Ander gazed at the dark mass of monsters in the distance; beings of this magnitude no longer held any interest for him. With a casual wave of his hand, the sea of ​​fire transformed into a wall, blocking the dragon-blooded subspecies' path. At the same moment, the World Tree before Ander stirred. Accompanied by the tremor of the earth, dark roots rose from the ground, their target not Ander, but the group of dragon-blooded subspecies beasts that had traveled from afar. Black roots, like the tentacles of an ancient god, coiled around the frenzied beasts. In an instant, tens of thousands of monsters were resurrected by the World Tree, white threads extending from its roots, tightly binding the monsters. Meanwhile, Ander encountered new enemies. "One, two, three, four, five… nineteen, twenty," Ander slowly counted the various dragons before him. "Twenty second-generation species, what a grand scheme." The awakening of dragons takes time, and not all dragons are qualified to stay by the king's side. Therefore, even if the Secret Society searched the world thoroughly, there would always be dragons missed. Now, they had all been awakened by the World Tree, becoming Ander's enemies. Twenty second-generation species, hundreds of third-generation species, thousands of dragons from other generations—the eyes of these former rulers had lost their light of intelligence; they had become mindless puppets. Perhaps, to them, it made no difference. "Wind!" The air rippled, and a violent gale arose from nothing, blowing away the snow-covered clouds high in the sky. Ander looked at the dragons before him; the combined power of thousands of dragons breathing down their throats was enough to engulf an entire nation in flames, yet these creatures could only sway back and forth in the gale summoned by Ander. The sea of ​​fire, mixed with scorching metal, combined with the gale, the fire fueled by the wind, fusing the molten metal together. A gigantic fireball appeared high in the sky, its size nearly matching the towering World Tree. Ander glanced one last time at the trembling dragons before him, then plunged into the fireball without looking back. In a single exchange, the inferior dragons fell like dumplings being dropped into a pot; such power was beyond their ability to withstand. "Water!" Within the fireball, Ander chanted his final incantation. He disliked water, but for this world, fire, earth, wind, and water were the fundamental elements constituting the entire universe. As Ander uttered this word, the ocean below began to surge. Countless icebergs rose from the ocean, melting into black water in mid-air. The moment this water entered the sea of ​​fire, boundless white mist rose into the sky. A giant golden egg hovered high in the air. In the distance, the humans on the icebreaker trembled in its shadow. Giovanni stood on the ship's railing, feeling an attraction from her bloodline. "What...what is that?" Giovanni murmured to herself, then added incredulously, "Is that the gods?" At the same time, every Dragonborn in the world felt that call from their bloodline. Something was different. Dragonborn sorcerers stepped out of their rooms and looked up at the sky. They saw a vast net, like the roots of a tree, enveloping the entire world, surging with immense magical power. It was the magical power that the World Tree had extracted from the earth's layers, circulating and breathing for millions of years, ultimately forming a magical network, and the gods lurked within it. Ander was etching his existence into the magical network created by the World Tree. At this moment, he was determined to completely master this magical cyclical network. "I take the breath of dragons, the gold of the earth, the winds of the heavens, and the ice of the poles to forge this indestructible body," Ander's voice emanated from the golden egg. A claw, equally gleaming, tore through the shell, unleashing terrifying power: "From this day forward, this body will forever be imprisoned within the magical network, never to emerge again!" In that instant, blazing light erupted from the egg, and a thousand-meter-long brass dragon burst forth. The magical network, once created by the World Tree, hummed softly, acknowledging Ander's existence. A multicolored cross was inlaid on the brass dragon's chest, the Dragon King's authority radiating an elusive light. That authority had begun to merge with Ander. Countless whispers floated in his ears, but they could no longer affect Ander's will. For he was dead, transformed into a living being, an inanimate object untouched by distortion. The magical network surged, preparing to welcome a new god, and Ander, as he had promised, would forever dwell within this torrent of magic, merging with the Dao, never to be seen again. The bronze dragon vanished like a ghost, and every bronze dragonborn in the world felt a frenzied surge of magic within them; the world's authority was opening its doors to them. "Come, this is the final battle!"

Chapter 647 A Poisoned Gift

As the gates of the world opened for Ender, the body forged with alchemy and magic gradually vanished into thin air, and an even larger, dragon-shaped phantom appeared before the World Tree.

That was an avatar made purely of elements. He would replace Ender and fight against the gods of the material world, while Ender himself had already arrived in the ocean of elements and stretched out his claws against the true form of the god.

It was an ocean made of magic, which had been refined by the World Tree over tens of thousands of years and had become part of it. But today, new marks appeared in the ocean.

Ander swam freely in the ocean, manipulating his current body. The World Tree had not studied the nature of magic in detail, making its manipulation of magic very crude, which gave Ander an opportunity to exploit it.

His consciousness separated from his body, and his soul, enveloped in magic, drifted into the depths. As Ender's soul departed, countless tentacles emerged from the ocean of magic, striking the motionless brass dragon like deep-sea monsters.

But the next second, the artifact that Ander had crafted moved. The Dragon King's soul within the power took over the control of this body from Ander. The dragon broke through the tentacle's blockade and, in a swoop, tore one of the tentacles, which was emitting a white light, to shreds.

Roar!

A roar came from the depths of the magical ocean, the magic surged and flowed towards the center of the ocean, and in that vortex of elements, the god finally revealed his true form.

It was a creature radiating a divine light, with a cylindrical body like a tree trunk, and white tentacles extending from its body, stretching for miles.

On the tree trunk was a somewhat blank human face. Black sap seeped from the trunk, covering most of the face. Facing the body in front of it, the face opened one eye.