The golden light slowly faded after raging for a full ten breaths.
At the center of the Arena, the giant dragon lay helplessly on the ground.
His thousand-zhang body rapidly shrank in the lingering golden glow, reverting to human form.
Long Yuan knelt naked at the center of the Arena. His golden armor had shattered and vanished, and countless fine cracks covered his body, each seeping golden blood.
The wound Zhao Leer had pierced through his chest still churned with dark-red power of decay.
The decay had spread across half his chest and abdomen. He could barely feel that side of his body anymore.
He knelt on one knee, hands braced against the stone tiles, barely keeping himself from collapsing.
His golden slit-pupiled eyes lifted with difficulty toward the trace left behind where the golden light had faded.
Zhao Leer was gone.
More precisely, the laws of Dragon Ancestor's Descent had crushed her body completely. Only her head remained, floating half a person's height above the center of the Arena.
Her long black hair hung loose, and the black pupils in her striking face no longer moved.
Yet that faint smile remained frozen at the corners of her mouth, like the most beautiful fragment left of a shattered statue.
Long Yuan stared at her head and slowly let out a ragged breath.
"Dead..."
He spoke under his breath.
He pushed against the tiles, trying to stand.
The instant his knee rose three inches from the ground, the floating head moved.
Zhao Leer's eyes suddenly flew wide.
The light extinguished in her black pupils blazed back to life at the last moment.
Dark-red specks of light spun wildly, more violently than ever before.
Her head opened its mouth.
Her voice rose from deep within her throat, shrill and hoarse, filled with