Chapter 651: The Judgment Fate
The starry sky was still, cold and silent.
The shattered meteorite belt had spread into a slowly rotating ring of dust, with broken rocks floating silently in the vacuum, occasionally colliding and sparking faint embers that were extinguished in the blink of an eye within the deep darkness.
The red iron dragon floated at the center of it all.
His chest heaved violently. The Shining Form was gradually fading, and the layer of dazzling light on his body dimmed bit by bit.
The tightly packed scales of the Overlord Form were also slowly contracting, returning to their original reddish-iron color.
At the same time.
On his body, the black lines that looked like sutures were also disappearing.
They had once wrapped around the parts of his body cut by the Sword of Judgment, as if someone had used black silk threads to stitch his shattered body back together. Now, they were fading one by one—from thick to thin, from deep to shallow—until they completely vanished into the gaps between his scales.
This meant he had resisted death and returned from it.
Even for Garoth, this battle was extremely dangerous.
The line between victory and defeat, life and death, had been only a matter of seconds.
The Bronze Dragon King’s Potency of Judgment had sealed his two major traits, Battle Dragon and Undying Life. It was equivalent to cutting off Garoth’s right-hand men, disabling his two strongest assets at once.
Over the years, he had rarely been pushed to this point.
And when facing the Sword of Judgment, the situation was even more perilous.
The Sword of Judgment could not be dodged, could not be defended against.
When facing the Sword of Judgment, Garoth had been walking the razor’s edge between life and death almost every single second.
One slight mistake would have meant complete death.
A single misjudgment, a reaction that was half a beat too slow—any of these could have allowed the Sword of Judgment to find a fatal weak point.
At such times, all Garoth could rely on was his battle experience accumulated over the years and his precise control over his own body, honed through countless days and nights of training.
It was with these that he had minimized the damage from the Sword of Judgment as much as possible.
And the effort he had put in had finally paid off at this moment.
Even with both major traits forcibly sealed, Garoth did not fall straight into the abyss.
He had endured the Bronze Dragon King’s fiercest wave of attacks and gradually adapted to the rhythm of the Judgment seal.
When the seal’s effect began to wane and the two traits were unsealed, he truly gained the upper hand and ultimately won this battle.
If he hadn’t made it through.
Then the remains floating here now would have been Garoth’s.
“The last time it was this dangerous, I was also facing a Bronze Dragon.”
Garoth thought silently to himself.
He remembered that time, he had been completely consumed by anger, his reason utterly shattered, and all his actions driven by instinct.
But this time was different.
Even at the most dangerous moment, when the Sword of Judgment was nearly pressed against his neck scales, he had still remained focused and calm.
At the same time.
After the battle, the fatigue and injuries that had been forcibly suppressed finally began to rebound.
However, Garoth paid them no attention.
He simply looked quietly at the dragon body floating before him.
The Bronze Dragon King floated in the deep void, his posture frozen in the stance of his final strike.
His left claw was still in a gripping position, as if the Sword of Judgment were still in his hand, ready to swing down again at any moment.
But his scale-covered body had completely lost its warmth. His scales were as dim as withered leaves in late autumn.
His eyes were still open.
The dragon pupils that had once been sharp enough to pierce through anything were now unfocused. The pupils were dilated, having lost all focal point, reflecting the faint light of a distant star.
Yet Garoth could still see something in those eyes.
Stubbornness.
A thing that stubbornly lingered in the body even after death—an unwavering insistence on some kind of belief.
Frankly speaking, Garoth had never had much fondness for this Bronze Dragon King.
From the very beginning, Sheffield had treated him as an enemy. Without asking for reasons, without considering the facts, just because of his bloodline, he had branded Garoth as evil and had never wavered.
This had caused him a lot of trouble, and this battle had been extremely dangerous.
But let’s be fair about it.
Regardless of whether he was right or wrong, the firmness of the so-called justice in his heart was so strong that even Garoth had to admire it.
What Tiamat, the Chromatic Queen, had done to the Bronze Dragon Lord, Garoth didn’t know the specifics.
This evil god’s methods were always secretive and insidious, capable of seeping into a being’s spiritual world through the smallest cracks, finding the tiniest trace of wavering, and then magnifying it infinitely.
He could imagine that Tiamat had prepared thoroughly.
She must have prepared means and leverage sufficient to suppress an immortal will, thinking she could easily achieve her goal.
However, she probably hadn’t anticipated that the Bronze Dragon King could hold out to this extent.
The Bronze Dragon King was completely immune to her temptations.
Even when his own situation was at its worst, and Tiamat’s will was trying to break down his spirit from within, his spiritual will had not wavered at all. He had forcefully wrestled with this evil god for control of his body.
Such willpower was not something just anyone could have.
Tiamat had never been able to get her way. Until the very last moment, it was Sheffield himself who held dominance, not Tiamat’s will.
Garoth was not a bloodthirsty person.
He had never enjoyed meaningless slaughter.
For the enemies he defeated on the battlefield, if there was a possibility of submission, he usually left them a way out.
If there had been a chance, he would have preferred to make this Bronze Dragon King change his mind and stand on the same side as him.
But unfortunately, there was nothing he could do.
The charisma that could make even Mandate great dragons listen and reflect deeply simply didn’t work on the Bronze Dragon King. It didn’t even produce an echo.
“This guy is not only stubborn and paranoid to the extreme, but he also has his own logic.”
“And that logic is completely self-consistent, refusing to listen to any other opinions or ideas.”
Garoth pondered silently.
Until the very last few seconds before his death, the Bronze Dragon Lord had still fully believed that his judgment was correct.
Combining his past actions and his final performance.
Garoth could roughly infer his thoughts.
In Sheffield’s eyes, any being with bloodline representing evil was an unadulterated evil creature that had to be eradicated.
This was his primary premise.
No proof needed, no rebuttals accepted.
What kind of bloodline represented justice, and what kind of bloodline represented evil—he had a strict classification system in his mind, and he was the enforcer of this system.
He must have been able to see that Garoth had not committed numerous evil deeds.
Sheffield was not blind, nor was he an idiot.
He must have been able to distinguish whether a dragon was actually doing evil.
The empire Garoth had built, the order he had implemented, the integration he had promoted within the dragon race—Sheffield couldn’t have been completely unaware of these.
At the very least, compared to other evil beings who engaged in indiscriminate slaughter and looting without any bottom line, Garoth’s style of conduct was distinctly different.
This was also why the Bronze Dragon King hadn’t struck at him immediately after regaining his freedom.
But he was absolutely convinced that this was only temporary.
Sheffield must have thought this way.
A being with an evil bloodline could follow order for a certain period, appear harmless, and even fight for justice, for the protection of peace and life, with all their actions coming from the heart.
They could govern an empire, enact laws, and protect weaker races from the harm of abyssal demons.
They could do many righteous things, even better than some Metal Dragons.
But none of that mattered.
Because in his logic, in the end, this being would inevitably turn to evil.
The nature in the bloodline was like a seed buried deep in the soil. Perhaps it hadn’t sprouted yet, suppressed by the environment and will for many years, but it was always there.
One day, when the conditions were right, this seed would break through the ground.
Eradicating it wasn’t just to punish crimes that had already occurred; it was also to prevent this inevitable future.
Based on this reasoning, the Bronze Dragon King’s conviction had never wavered.
From their first meeting to his final breath.
His attitude had not changed in the slightest.
“Could it be that I really will eventually fall into chaos and evil?”
Because the Bronze Dragon King was so firm, for a single moment, Garoth even felt a trace of doubt about himself.
However, this self-doubt didn’t affect him in the slightest.
It was just a fleeting thought, quickly suppressed.
Because Garoth didn’t really care about justice versus evil, or order versus chaos.
The concepts the Bronze Dragon Lord had held dear, the moral principles he was willing to die for—in Garoth’s eyes, they were merely subjective classifications.
His thoughts were very simple, very direct.
“Whoever wins is justice.”
“The line between justice and evil is drawn by the strong, by the victor.”
If the Bronze Dragon Lord had won, then he would have been justice.
He could have nailed Garoth to the evil camp, and in the name of justice, destroyed his entire empire, turning everything he cherished into ashes.
Then, how would history have been written?
History would have recorded that the righteous dragon king had eradicated the evil great dragon, and all deaths, all destruction, would have had righteous justifications.
But now, Garoth was the one who had won.
Therefore, the Bronze Dragon King was evil.
If Garoth wanted to.
After returning to planet Bernardo, his scholars and propaganda officers could work overnight to produce a whole narrative, pinning the label of chaotic evil on Sheffield, listing thousands of charges against him.
The Bronze Dragon King would be despised by countless of his own kind, including the Metal Dragons.
But he wasn’t going to do that.
It was meaningless.
It wouldn’t make him stronger, nor would it weaken his enemies.
Sheffield was dead. Most of his followers had already submitted. Even if there were a few stubborn holdouts, they wouldn’t be able to cause any trouble.
Wasting time and resources to defame a corpse?
Apart from satisfying some petty desire for revenge, it had no practical value at all.
It was just a waste of time.
At the same time, there was another question in Garoth’s mind that he couldn’t figure out.
“Tiamat has been stirring up trouble repeatedly. She stirred things up before, tempting Lamorein and turning him into an Apostle, and this time she even carried out her conspiracy through Sheffield.”
“What she’s done is getting more and more outrageous.”
“What happened with Lamorein was understandable—he was a Blue Dragon after all. But Sheffield is different. He is an Immortal, standing at the top of the Material Plane, and he is also a Metal Dragon.”
“Is the Platinum Dragon God just going to let Tiamat do whatever she wants?”
The Bronze Dragon King did have a bit of evil dragon bloodline; he wasn’t a completely pure Metal Dragon, but surely the Platinum Dragon God, Bahamut, wouldn’t completely ignore him because of that, would he?
An Immortal dragon like this should be a figure of great importance in any race.
From any perspective, he should have been someone Bahamut paid attention to.
But Garoth couldn’t figure it out.
Apart from Tiamat, who liked to cause trouble, most of the other dragon gods didn’t like to show themselves. They existed silently, like background characters.
What was the Platinum Dragon God thinking? What were his plans?
These questions, probably only he himself knew.
Garoth shook his head and set aside these scattered thoughts.
These were questions he could think about later. There were more important things to do at the moment.
He stretched his tired body and switched to the Ember-Annihilating Form.
Immediately, all kinds of stellar energy seemed to heed a call, converging from all directions.
This energy was invisible to the naked eye.
But the space it passed through would experience a faint refraction, like the air above a heat wave trembling slightly.
And when it fell upon the red iron dragon’s body, it would flow and change, displaying a riot of bright colors, as if a nebula were slowly rotating on the surface of his scales.
His nearly depleted body began to be nourished.
Garoth turned his head, looked again at the Bronze Dragon King’s body, and then extended his claw.
Life Extraction, Claim Life.
The spectacle of these abilities being used was never very pleasant to look at.
One after another, streams of blood-red life essence were stripped from the Bronze Dragon King’s body, appearing as a deep, dark red. In the vacuum, they converged into numerous slender streams that gathered towards Garoth’s body.
This scene did make it easy to mistake him for an evil dragon.
Garoth could even imagine what kind of look Sheffield would have given him if he were still alive to see this.
However, he had inherited the pragmatism of the iron dragon clan.
He focused more on practical value than on what others might think when they saw this.
His battle with the Bronze Dragon King had been fought from deep waters to the sky, and from the sky into the starry sky. His consumption had been severe.
And there were enemies lurking in the shadows. If he didn’t recover as quickly as possible and encountered danger, his only option would be to choose ascending to godhood.
The price of ascending to godhood was too heavy.
It was as violent as a flood, and without the confidence of being able to adapt.
Unless it was absolutely necessary, Garoth would not choose to ascend to godhood.
Time passed second by second in the vacuum.
With the dual replenishment of stellar energy and the life essence of the Bronze Dragon King, the red iron dragon’s terrible condition gradually improved.
Not long after, the last wisp of life essence was fully absorbed by Garoth.
The Bronze Dragon King’s body also began to disintegrate.
Scales, bones, fascia—all the material that had once made up Sheffield’s body—turned inch by inch into fine sand, as if crushed and ground down by time itself, as if thousands of years had passed.
They spread outward, merging into the ring of dust from the meteorite belt.
In the end, everything was gone.
This body had nearly been burned out in the battle to begin with. Coupled with Garoth’s Life Extraction and Claim Life, the last bit of remaining life essence had been completely squeezed dry.
Nothing was left.
No, there was one thing left.
At the spot where the Bronze Dragon King had once floated, a crystal floated silently.
It floated silently, with no halo around it, no aura emanating from it. It was like an ordinary pebble left behind on a beach, completely unremarkable.
But when Garoth’s gaze fell upon it, his eyes narrowed and his breath stopped.
Its shape was a sword.
The blade was straight, without a single curve. From the guard to the tip, it showed perfect symmetry. Every edge was polished sharp and clean, with no unnecessary decorations, no compromise made for the sake of appearance.
The entire sword had a cyan, crystalline texture.
It was exactly the same color as the Bronze Dragon King’s scales.
“Is this… the Fate Form of an Immortal being?”
Garoth examined it carefully.
He had received something similar before.
The Tear of the Immortal, containing a nascent Potency Form, was something that could only be produced upon the death of a powerful Fate Legendary.
A Tear of the Immortal was also a rudimentary Fate Form, while a Fate Form was its complete version.
If a Tear of the Immortal was compared to a seed, then the crystal before him was a fully grown tree.
“A Fate Form containing the Potency of Judgment, its shape exactly the same as the Sword of Judgment Sheffield had condensed in his final attack.”
“What a pity. The Potency of Judgment isn’t suitable for me.”
Garoth shook his head slightly.
The Path of Immortality was an incredibly brutal path.
For an Immortal being wanting to perfect their Potency, the most efficient and fastest method was to hunt down and kill possessors of similar Potencies.
The Fate Form crystal was the best trophy, priceless for the right person.
But for Garoth, it wasn’t that important.
A Fate Form was not like a Tear of the Immortal.
It was highly specialized, the product of a specific belief, a specific will, and a specific Potency condensed within a particular being’s life. It was not something that could be easily digested or absorbed.
For example, this Judgment Fate Form.
Only beings who held the same belief as Sheffield—those who saw justice as absolute, order as an iron law, judgment as their mission, and possessed the same type of Potency direction—could absorb it without any hindrance.
Garoth was not that kind of dragon.
His path was far removed from Judgment, and his beliefs were poles apart from Sheffield’s.
If he forcefully devoured this Fate Form, not only would he fail to obtain the Potency of Judgment, but he would also suffer severe backlash. At best, he would develop a split personality; at worst, he would be annihilated on the spot.
Just then, the Judgment Fate Form seemed to sense something.
It trembled slightly, changed direction, pointed its blade straight at the red iron dragon, and then thrust towards him.
It wasn’t fast, but it carried a stubborn, relentless drive.
Exactly the same posture Sheffield had taken when swinging his sword.
Garoth: …
“Even in death, the Fate Form you left behind still attacks me.”
“Sheffield, how deep is the grudge between us? When you were alive, you wanted to cut me down. Now that you’re dead and turned into a Fate Form, you still want to stab me.”
He extended his claw.
His hooked claw steadily clamped onto the sword’s body, fixing the small, sword-shaped crystal between his fingers.
The Judgment Fate Form struggled continuously for a while, then gradually calmed down.
Garoth stared at it, beginning to think about what practical value this Fate Form possessed.
His inheritance had vaguely mentioned that such Fate Forms could be forged into weapons of divine power, allowing one to utilize the Potency contained within to a certain extent.
But how exactly to forge it, what materials were needed, and who was to do the forging?
The inheritance contained no relevant knowledge at all.
“I could also use it as a bargaining chip to exchange for things I need. Or, I could use it as a condition to make an Immortal who needs it do some things for me…”
Garoth mused to himself.
Although he couldn’t use it himself at the moment, for certain beings who were suited for it, this Judgment Fate Form would be invaluable.
Just as Garoth was deep in thought, ripples spread before him.
Then, the Moon Dragon Lionel stepped out from the ripples and appeared before Garoth.
“I felt the battle between you and the Bronze Dragon King.”
“It’s a pity. Perhaps it could have been avoided, but due to a misalignment of perception and different ideals, a clash was inevitable.”
The Moon Dragon said in a low voice.
He had long watched over planet Bernardo through the starlight, so he naturally knew of the Bronze Dragon King’s existence and was also well aware of his style of conduct.
The red iron dragon was at this moment examining the Judgment Fate Form in his hand.
He raised his head and asked, “Lionel, do you know how to forge a Fate Form into a weapon?”
Lionel showed a contemplative expression and said after a moment’s thought, “I don’t know the specific forging method, but I do know a bit of relevant information.”
Oh?
Garoth looked at the Moon Dragon, slightly surprised.
He had only asked casually, not really expecting the Moon Dragon to know anything.
This concerned a realm beyond Immortality. It was normal for the innate inheritance of dragons not to have such records. He hadn’t expected the Moon Dragon to actually have some clues.
“What clues?”
Garoth pressed on.
Lionel seemed thoughtful as he answered, “My inheritance mentions that the Sun Dragons possess powerful forging secrets, including the art of forging an Immortal’s Fate Form into a weapon.”
Sun Dragons…
In Garoth’s inheritance, records about Sun Dragons were very scarce, just a brief overview.
He only knew that Sun Dragons used stars as their lairs, and were born with immunity to the high temperatures and lethal environments of stellar surfaces.
Also, unlike Moon Dragons, who moved alone, Sun Dragons tended to gather in family units, living together around the same star, with their alignment leaning towards Lawful Good.
“I can’t confirm the accuracy of this clue, but that’s what my inheritance says.”
Lionel added another sentence.
Garoth nodded and said, “True or false, it’s still a lead.”
Just as the inheritances of both Chromatic and Metal Dragons contain a lot of information about the other, Sun Dragons and Moon Dragons are naturally at odds, and their understanding of each other is certainly deeper than that of other dragons.
However, Space Dragons are very rare in themselves.
Where in this vast, starry sky could he go to find a Sun Dragon to verify this?
Garoth shook his head slightly, carefully stored the Judgment Fate Form away, and stopped thinking about it.
His body still needed time to recover. His condition was still not completely restored, so he didn’t talk long with the Moon Dragon. After briefly exchanging news about recent events, he turned around and headed back towards planet Bernardo.
The news of this battle between the Scarlet Emperor Cangxing and the Bronze Dragon King, like a storm, quickly swept across all the continents.
At first, many different versions of the story circulated in the chaos.
All kinds of rumors filled the air, making it difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood.
But in the end, one account gradually gained widespread recognition and was recorded in the Aola Chronicles.
New Calendar 706.
The Bronze Dragon King, who had been lost in the Abyss, returned in his Immortal body. Tempted by an evil god, he launched an attack on the Master of Sacred Aola.
But at the most critical moment, the Bronze Dragon King, together with the Master of Sacred Aola, expelled the will of the evil god.
Before his death, the Bronze Dragon King saw the light in a sudden awakening.
He admitted his path had deviated, repented from the bottom of his heart, and confessed that the ideology of the Purification Faction was a complete mistake. In the end, he earnestly implored the great Master of Sacred Aola, hoping that he would continue to lead the dragon race forward, towards an even more glorious future.
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