The dragon's immense body, a hundred thousand feet long, trembled violently high in the sky. Every scale quivered slightly, an instinctive response to utter exhaustion after a battle fought to the limit.
The Five-Clawed Golden Dragon raised his head toward the heavens, and a long, low, far-reaching roar spilled from his throat, laden with endless reluctance and helplessness.
His roar held none of the furious dominance with which he had begun the battle, nor a trace of savage arrogance. All that remained was the ruefulness of an overlord of a hundred million years losing the upper hand, and the acceptance of having given his all yet still proved no match.
His vast, hundred-thousand-foot body reeled back thousands of miles through the void, shaking and lurching without cease. The divine Water Element might surrounding him collapsed completely.
At that moment, his spiritual power had run dry and the force of his Dao had crumbled. He had utterly lost all strength to resist, keep fighting, or counterattack.
After ten days and ten nights, the epochal battle spanning the ages finally reached its conclusion.
The ancient Water Element Dragon Venerable, who possessed water defenses among the most impregnable in all the heavens and inexhaustible Water Element endurance, who had stood at the pinnacle of Six-Star Fiends for a hundred million years—had narrowly lost!
Above the firmament, the fierce winds that had raged for ten days gradually died down, and the terrifying energy storms that had torn heaven and earth apart slowly subsided and dispersed.
The violent water vapor that had churned across the sky and obscured heaven and earth gradually grew still. The Great Way of heaven and earth on the Fourteenth Layer, thrown into disorder and collapse for ten full days, finally began to regain its order and stability.
The entire vast