Chapter 457: The Last Dragon Commander
The flaming dragon commander laughed boisterously as he toyed with Kael’s arkship. He couldn’t believe that someone with so little experience was actually going against him.
He understood the combat style he was to employ immediately after the first attack. All he had to do was avoid getting hit.
He had even forgotten about opening the heavenly gate as he was enjoying this. He felt that he could handle whatever was happening here and didn’t need to bother anyone from heaven.
Within the chamber, his mind was connected to the operating system of his arkship so when the new arkship was coming, he detected it almost immediately.
The holographic screens in front of him showed that the new arkship belonged to one of his colleagues, the Fortune Dragon among them.
"Oh, it’s you," The Fire Dragon said, the message was sent through a regular transmission channel.
But there was no reply. The fire dragon commander didn’t think too much of it. This fortune dragon was the least talkative among them so it wasn’t immediately noticed that he was acting out of character.
Meanwhile, the Fortune Dragon’s arkship continued getting closer to the fiery arkship.
No words were said.
The fire dragon, having most of his focus on chasing down and shooting Kael’s arkship, didn’t notice that something was off.
He continued talking, "I don’t think anyone can find us in this distortion field, talk less of opening a heavenly gate to our location.
Luckily, we’re inside and it seems there’s no problem opening a heavenly gate from the inside.
But without our Warp Engines and Warp Signal satellites, it’s gonna be hard to do anything.
I don’t know why this idiot still has the distortion field active but let’s take him down first..."
The fire dragon continued rambling, also noticing that Kael’s arkship was getting a few of their cannons ready.
"Hey, won’t you say anything? Where is..." The fire dragon finally noticed the unnatural silence and the creepy manner in which the fortune dragon was getting closer.
His instincts were warning him that there was nothing normal about this choice of silence.
But he could feel his colleague’s aura, he could feel it clearly. There was nothing wrong anywhere at all.
There was nothing wrong besides the unnatural silence.
The fiery arkship stopped moving and stopped chasing Kael’s arkship around. It turned to face the fortune dragon’s arkship while keeping a safe distance.
The fire dragon within his chamber frowned, watching the arkship continue to get closer.
"Stop!" The fire dragon said coldly as hundreds of cannons were aimed at the fortune dragon’s arkship.
He didn’t want to aim his weapons at his friend but experience told him that this was a time when he had to be cautious.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t cautious enough.
"Hey...what is this?" Within his chamber of command, the red fiery dragon was contemplating his mode of communication when he noticed someone.
At some point, black mist had invaded the edges of his arkship and the black mist was moving fast.
The operating system started sounding alarms, warning him of a foreign unauthorized power running amok within the vessel.
Now, the fire dragon’s attention was divided among three places. The fortune dragon’s creepy arkship, Kael’s arkship, and his own arkship.
Splitting his focus into three was nothing to him for someone of his power level, but the black mist that had invaded his arkship required more than attention.
From the holographic screen showing the inner structure of his arkship, it showed that the black mist was moving quickly and easily passed through the smallest gaps.
It moved so fast that the fire dragon commander was not able to predict where it was going at first.
Before he knew it, the black mist bore into one of the small chamber worlds. A few microorganisms and alien trees resided in this chamber world for the commander’s personal use.
The mysterious black mist was like a thirsty dog that had just found water. It spread out, sweeping over the land of the chamber world and touching all the trees and microorganisms.
The fire dragon witnessed something that made his heart sink to the bottom of his stomach.
Everything that had life was touched by the black mist, and once they were touched, they began to decay.
His operating system kept on warning him that the lifeforms in his chamber world were starting to die out, no longer showing signs of life.
The most terrifying aspect of this black mist was that it was getting stronger and thicker. With every life it took away, with every living organism it killed, it got stronger.
It was almost as if the black mist was operating as a single entity, feeding on the events of their death to get stronger.
Within a few seconds, the black mist had swept through this chamber world and was spreading to other chamber worlds.
The black mist was attracted to anything that had life in it, it would continue spreading until all that was close to it was truly dead.
And if it was indeed attracted to all that had life, then the black mist would eventually find the fire dragon in his command chamber.
It didn’t matter how tightly his metal gates were closed, it wouldn’t stop the black mist from finding him.
It was only a matter of time.
The few things of the universe that could effectively fight against death were not in this arkship.
"Burn everything!" The fire dragon immediately ordered his operating system, pouring his power into the arkship once again.
But this time, all the fire burning on the outer surface of his arkship disappeared and all the flames burning within the chamber worlds of the arkship.
This proved to be a little useful as the fire burned the black mist, but it didn’t eliminate it.
As the fortune dragon’s arkship kept on getting closer, the black mist within the fire dragon’s arkship continued getting stronger.
*BOOM!*
The fire dragon’s arkship was rocked viciously all of a sudden. An invisible cannon blast had struck it from behind, nearly shaving off more than half of its defensive capabilities.
Kael’s arkship had circled back a some point with all its cannons aimed at the fire dragon’s arkship.
"Again!" Nalii shouted within the command chamber.
The lions and lionesses had excited looks on their faces, they didn’t know what was happening, but finally, they could gain an advantage.
They didn’t care about the reason for their enemy suddenly not becoming immobile, they just attacked.
This time, they were not using their strongest cannon, but multiple medium-scale cannons.
Once again, they fired another round of invisible cannon blasts that twisted space around them. At the same time, they were keeping an eye on their Origin Essence reserves.
If the fire dragon didn’t understand what was happening before, he definitely understood now. The fortune dragon had been compromised and his arkship was linked to the black mist that was invading his arkship.
He quickly realized that things were a bit tricky. He had to handle the black mist but also two arkships trying to pin him.
Just like that, the tables had turned.
Not having any other choice, the fire dragon decided to drive his arkship away from them. Not because he wanted to escape, but as a strategic retreat.
As his arkship moved, something incredulous and unexpected happened.
The distortion field was deactivated.
Using warp speed for the fraction of a second, Kael’s arkship and the fortune dragon commander’s arkship closed in on the fire dragon’s arkship.
By the time the fire dragon realized what had happened, the distortion field was activated again.
There was no collision, but the two arkships were now extremely close, way too close for comfort.
His fate was sealed.
A mixture of Death Essence, fortune power, and cannon blasts shot out from the fortune dragon’s arkship.
At the same time, Nalii continued firing her own cannons.
There was little room to escape, the black mist had already made it to the command chamber.
The cannon blasts from both sides almost instantly depleted his defense mechanisms and the hard metal exterior was struck directly.
Pieces of metal flew through the void as Nalii and Kael focused on thoroughly demolishing this enemy.
Cannon blasts rained from both sides, some tearing massive holes in the arkship and shattering the foundation of the chamber worlds.
Death Essence flowed around, having already invaded the body of the fire dragon.
The fire dragon commander on the other hand gritted his teeth as the coldness of the void touched his red scales. He could see that there was no escaping.
Alas, he was not a dragon commander and an imperial official of the Dragon Empire for nothing. It took unimaginable ruthlessness for him to get to where he was.
That same ruthlessness flashed in his eyes as he let go of everything. His command chamber had been breached by cannon blasts, his body was being ravaged by Death, and chaos was all around him.
If he was going to die, he would make sure to drag all of them down with him.
"What? You think you can just kill me and get away with it?" The fire dragon spoke as he began activating his Heavenly Beacon.