"Cough... Did Ian win?"
At this moment, Sio and Yisen, who had been blown away, also regained consciousness. The red-haired Dragon Maiden and the blond boy staggered as they helped each other stand up. Together, they looked toward the direction of the Dark Gold Colossus Dragon, their expressions anxious: "It seems the situation doesn’t look good."
"They’re both so strong..."
Yisen murmured to himself as he gazed wearily at the wound on the dragon’s abdomen: "Is this the power of Terra’s top geniuses... It seems I still have a long way to go..."
Echo and the Prophet were engaged in their final showdown.
Because it possessed the strongest ’soul,’ the True Dragon’s body replaced its flesh and gave birth to its unique firm conviction.
Because it possessed the strongest ’conviction,’ it cultivated an indestructible body and the most stubborn soul.
If from the start, they had received a ’Body of Light’ representing ’strength,’ it might not have been able to catalyze these two qualified existences.
In essence, Ian remained fundamentally different from Echo.
As Echo controlled the dark gold dragon’s flesh and blood to chew on Ian’s body, attempting to crush The Unyielding Fortress, the Pioneer of Iron, Ian instead used this immense brute force to break his own left hand!
Crack! The left hand, entirely constructed of Moren Steel and containing an ’Aether Crystal,’ snapped off in response... Then, Ian forcefully punched it with his right arm into the Dark Gold Colossus Dragon’s stomach, into that biochemical reactor that hid the ’Soul of Origin’!
Even Echo was momentarily stunned, completely unprepared for Ian to break his hand instead of pulling it out and send it into his own stomach?
What on earth was he trying to do?!
"Hey... Unlike my right hand, this one’s too hard. I couldn’t take it off myself..."
Yet Ian showed no sign of pain from the severed hand; he merely gave a weak, confident smile: "Echo, you’ve lost."
[Nonsense, it’s just a hand. Even if the Aether Furnace inside really can self-detonate, at most it would severely injure my main body]
Echo could certainly sense the Aether Crystal within Ian’s left hand; this living Aether Furnace also surprised Him. No wonder Ian didn’t fight like a typical peak of the Third Energy Level—he already had a Fourth Energy Level Sublimation Organ within him, which explains why he could exert the power of a typical Fourth Energy Level!
If the Aether Crystal exploded, it would indeed seriously injure Him, but Ian would undoubtedly perish. He didn’t believe Ian would launch a suicide attack.
But this was precisely during Echo’s instant of observation, contemplation, and deliberation.
The crystal right arm, emitting a faint cyan glow, touched the stomach core’s shining gold dodecahedron.
Then, this hand, already ’disconnected’ from the main body, opened its fingers under the control of ’electromagnetic force.’
Then clenched tightly.
[It’s useless] sensing his main body was seized, Echo sneered: [The Soul of Origin is far sturdier than you can imagine; even a vacuum’s direct hit wouldn’t shatter it. It’s tougher than a Dragon Soul...]
Suddenly, Echo froze, then erupted with the most intense and incredulous roar: [How do you have... have this authority?!]
"The Pioneer of Iron is not such a simple inheritance..."
With the goal achieved, feeling the surrounding flesh and blood trying to crush him suddenly stall, knowing victory was in his grasp, Ian laughed heartily: "Can you feel it, Echo? Feel your soul quaking?!"
Echo roared, at the Ice Dragon’s Nest, the dark gold dragon stood tall, roared to the sky. The visible sound waves shook the atmosphere, bursting with thunder, melting the millennia-old frost: [Impossible, how can you have...]
[Have the authority of a ’Pioneer?!’]
At this moment, the golden Soul of Origin, that dodecahedron, was gradually dimming; it slowly turned into dark gold, pale gold... then azure gold...
Amidst the color variations, Echo’s control over the Soul of Origin became less and less, increasingly weaker, for it faced more than just the ’Radiance of the Stars’ and ’Body of Light’ at its level... but a superior, completely suppressive ’Pioneer’ authority!
[Why do you have complete Pioneer authority?! This is impossible!]
Struggling, using the last of its strength to stretch a claw into its own belly, Echo gritted its teeth, trying to extract Ian, but it had already lost that strength.
The towering dark gold dragon shook as it collapsed to the ground. The light in its six dragon eyes gradually dimmed, even shedding enormous tears: [The Pioneer... He... why didn’t He just destroy me directly... why give me false hope... why tell me, saying I also have the right to choose the future of Humans...]
[Why did he entrust the authority to you... if it was decided all along, why deceive me!]
Inside the dragon’s belly, Ian whispered almost inaudibly: "You’re wrong. The Pioneer didn’t give me any extra legacy or authority."
"As for why you ask..."
Speaking thus, the white-haired boy’s voice gradually amplified: "Why? Of course, because I pioneered a whole new legacy!"