As the crazed voice of the gnome echoed, all the mouths on the fleshy abomination let out a deafening roar.
The shrill sound felt like it could rupture everyone’s eardrums.
Under its influence, the entire sea of blood surged toward the monster, dragging countless corpses with it.
At the same time, the monster’s sixteen gaping maws opened and closed incessantly.
It devoured everything that flowed into its mouths—stones, corpses, and blood—without pause.
In mere moments, more than a third of the sea of blood had vanished.
“Stop it, now!”
Even Li Wen was compelled to speak up at this point.
But Moriah had acted even before her warning.
He tentatively cast a divine prayer at the creature made of flesh and blood.
However, the searing light—hotter than fire—had no effect on the monster.
It didn’t even pierce the outer layer of its scaly hide.
This thing was no ordinary creation.
Its body was not formed from any normal living flesh.
The “Blood of Greatness” that the gnome Zottes had spoken of must have come from that nameless, mysterious alchemy master who had extracted it from a black dragon.
This grotesque monster was likely one of the results of his experiments with that very blood.
But… an alchemy master?
No.
He was clearly a master of the bloodlust lineage, someone skilled in shaping flesh.
Li Wen, who had already pieced most of it together, realized the consequences if the monster was allowed to continue its devouring.
And yet, all she could do was clutch the Eye of the Transcendent tightly, ready to flee the moment Moriah fell.
As for Moriah—he simply watched the creature feast, unmoved.
Or perhaps not entirely unmoved.
After all, he had already tried.
Ordinary divine magic had no effect on the beast.
For a sacrificial path priest like him, every spell not only consumed mana but also his own life force.
Moriah had cast far too many spells, and his face was now visibly pale with exhaustion.
Zottes noticed this too and urged the monster to speed up its transformation and crush the damned knight.
Once the last of the severed limbs had been chewed and swallowed, the creature had grown into a massive mountain of meat.
Still, the sixteen mouths howled in insatiable hunger.
It craved more flesh, more blood.
It yearned for a deeper satisfaction—to ascend!
Its bloated body began to crack.
From those fissures, white bone-like or stone-like spikes erupted, followed by grotesque, oversized claws and wings dripping with fresh blood.
Finally, a monstrous head emerged—bearing six mouths.
Like shedding old skin, the monster cast off its shriveled outer shell and abandoned its former shape.
In its place emerged… a malformed, horrific dragon.
Every inch of its flesh writhed as if alive, constantly shifting and mutating.
Its body was covered in wounds, oozing crimson liquid that, upon hitting the ground, seemed to gain life and morphed into more twisted creations of flesh.
Zottes danced and shouted as he stood before the grotesque dragon.
“Excellent! Wonderful! Magnificent! Kill them! Kill them all!”
The flesh-dragon had no eyes.
All it felt was endless hunger and pain.
Driven by this overwhelming urge, it swallowed the gnome whole in a single bite—without even chewing—leaving behind only a puddle of blood.
But it wasn’t enough.
Not nearly enough.
The Great Blood coursing through its veins, controlling everything within, demanded more nourishment.
It roared in fury, howled in madness.
More blood!
More flesh!
The dragon beat its blood-soaked wings and lunged toward the remaining group.
Moriah had been waiting for this moment.
He raised his sword, and the candlelight in his eyes blazed ever brighter.
“We honor those who offered themselves to the flames, for their souls shall endure with the light forever!”
Brilliant white fire ignited across his entire body, covering every inch of his skin.
The knight of the Sanctum moved with unwavering calm, leaping onto the dragon’s back with sword in hand.
His blade was wreathed in both bright white and deep red flames.
The two merged, becoming a radiance as blinding as the sun.
He plunged the sword deep into the dragon’s body.
The monster shrieked.
It tried to struggle, to resist.
But the fire had already taken root inside it.
Every piece of flesh, every drop of blood became fuel—like wax feeding a candle.
The flesh-dragon’s body melted rapidly, like a burning candle, leaving only a blazing inferno behind in seconds.
Was this truly the Firstborn of the Sanctum?
Li Wen could hardly believe it.
The grotesque creature, born from the bloodlust lineage and the alchemist’s dark experiments, had only just completed its juvenile transformation.
At minimum, it should’ve been a Tier 3-level monster—yet it hadn’t withstood even a single strike from Moriah.
Her memories of Moriah were still frozen in that time when he had hunted her.
Back then, his pressure had been overwhelming, driving her to the brink of death time and again…
But looking at him now, she had to wonder—had he been going easy on her all along?
Moriah walked calmly out of the flames, his expression unchanged, as if the last attack hadn’t even required effort.
The wild mage Hallick immediately dropped to his knees.
“O Radiance! Such divine brilliance! From this day forth, you are my only faith!”
In truth, he was mentally sobbing.
Why had he encountered such a terrifying man—and worse, gotten captured on the spot?
He didn’t even know if repenting now would be enough to save him.
But Moriah paid him no mind.
He was quietly waiting.
When the fire finally died down, at the center of the blaze—where the flesh-dragon had once been—a figure still clung to life.
It was the gnome, Zottes.
Though swallowed by the dragon, he had somehow avoided Moriah’s devastating divine magic and clawed his way back from the brink of death.
“I haven’t… I haven’t lost…”
His lower half and right arm were completely gone.
Struggling to rise, he gripped a strange object in his only remaining hand.
It looked like coagulated blood, or perhaps a crimson gem.
Whatever it was, everyone’s first instinct upon seeing it was the same—it was alive.
“The Blood of Greatness! The Blood of Greatness! You’ll all die!”
With all the strength he had left, Zottes tried to stab the object into his own body.
But an invisible force snatched it away in an instant.
He didn’t even have time to resist.
“That’s the so-called Blood of Greatness?”
The object once in the gnome’s hand now floated before the wild mage Nasha.
She stared at it, dumbfounded, unsure whether to reach out or recoil.
“No! My Blood of Greatness!”
His final hope stolen so effortlessly—and by a wild mage he had always looked down on—Zottes completely broke down.
“Do you have anything left to say?”
Moriah stepped in front of him.
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