Facing that furious pounce, Zoffy only sidestepped lightly, his enormous body displaying an agility completely at odds with its size, easily letting the attack slip past. In the instant Norton brushed by him, Zoffy casually swept his arm, and an invisible, colossal force slammed hard into Samson's torso.
"Bang!"
Like swatting a fly, the massive dragon, along with Norton on its back, was smashed viciously into the ground, blasting out a huge crater as shards of ice and earth shot into the sky.
Norton struggled, still trying to climb back up, an unyielding fire burning in his eyes.
But this time, Zoffy gave him no chance.
He landed steadily, crossed his arms on either side of the timer on his chest, then thrust them forward sharply, assuming that utterly classic starting stance—left palm stacked beneath the right, both arms forming a cross.
Blinding white light instantly gathered in his right arm!
"Hsssla—!"
A dazzling stream of white light, like a sword tearing heaven and earth apart, shot from Zoffy's right arm! It did not strike Norton directly, but missed by the barest fraction, grazing past Norton and Samson's bodies before blasting into an uninhabited hill far behind them.
There was no deafening explosion, only an extreme flash of light that vanished in an instant.
Then the upper half of that hill disappeared without a sound, as though erased by a rubber eraser, leaving only a mirror-smooth molten cross-section to prove that something had once existed there.
The scorching wind pressure blew across Norton's rigid face, lifting the blond hair over his forehead.
The destructive aftermath of the Spacium Ray slowly dispersed, leaving behind only a deathly silence.
Norton froze there, still in the posture of trying to rise.
In his lava-like Golden Pupil, the distant mountaintop that had been erased