In a pre-excavated underground cavern, Dade the Giant leaned against one wall, gasping rapidly.
His heavy breathing sounded like a broken bellows being worked without pause.
Dade kept pouring bottle after bottle of potion into his mouth.
But given his current injuries, they were merely a drop in the bucket.
"How could this happen?"
"I calculated everything!"
"The current Dawn Archduke and the current Burning Marquis were supposed to cripple each other!"
"Why?"
"Why was the current Burning Marquis unharmed?!"
Amid his repeated questions, Dade the Giant looked at the figure across from him.
Dade hoped for an answer.
Yet not only did the answer he expected fail to come, even the figure itself became blurry and insubstantial, like a soap bubble on the verge of bursting.
"No!"
Dade let out a low roar.
He knew perfectly well what it would mean for him if that figure disappeared.
A drastic loss of strength would only be the beginning.
Long-term weakness would merely be a consequence.
In the end, he would be completely defeated in this contest.
That was something Dade, who had wagered everything, could never accept.
So, Dade chose the most dangerous method: merging with the other party.
They had originally been one.
They had only been separated by some secret technique.
Now, they would become one again!
Perhaps he would suffer backlash from the secret technique, but that was still better than losing everything.
Dade the Giant lunged forward.
He tore and bit at the figure.
The figure, already on the verge of shattering, broke apart without any resistance under such tearing, turning into something like smoke and mist that Dade inhaled through his nose and mouth.
Then...
Pfft!
A massive amount of blood sprayed from Dade's pores, forming a cloud of blood that wrapped around him. His