Reborn as the Last van Ambrose

Jiaolong stared at the severed remains of his corrupted followers, dark blood pooling across the stone. When his black eyes met Grim’s again, they burned with something beyond rage—a fury that had been building for fifteen hundred years.

"You think enhanced mana makes you my equal?" Jiaolong’s voice carried through the chamber. "Let me show you the difference between power and true strength."

Without warning, Jiaolong’s body began to change. Not a transformation into dragon shape, but something far more unsettling. The corruption wasn’t just coating his scales—it was rewriting his very essence. His already massive body expanded further, dark energy crackling between his claws like black lightning.

"Abyssal Corruption: Void Strike!" Jiaolong roared, his claws sweeping toward Grim with speed that left trails of darkness in the air.

Grim barely managed to dodge, the attack passing so close that the corruption energy singed the edges of his clothes. Where Jiaolong’s claws struck the stone floor, the stone simply ceased to exist, leaving perfectly smooth gouges in the floor.

"Celestial Mist: Ethereal Mist," Grim whispered, mist immediately beginning to pour from his body and fill the space around them.

But Jiaolong laughed, the sound echoing strangely as the corruption around him began to pulse. "Mist against the void? How quaint."

The dark energy radiating from the corrupted dragon began to devour Grim’s mist, creating pockets of absolute darkness wherever the two energies met. The battlefield was becoming a shifting maze of visibility and shadow.

"Celestial Mist: Drifting Steps." Grim moved through his remaining mist like water, positioning himself for an attack from Jiaolong’s blind spot.

"Celestial Mist: Seven Sword Strike!"

His blade became a blur of motion, seven attacks launching simultaneously toward different points on Jiaolong’s body. But the corrupted dragon’s response was too fast.

"Abyssal Corruption: Consuming Barrier."

A dome of pure corruption energy erupted around Jiaolong, meeting Grim’s seven-fold attack head-on. Where the celestial mist techniques struck the barrier, they were absorbed and converted into more dark energy that fed back into Jiaolong’s power.

"Did you think I learned nothing during my years of preparation?" Jiaolong taunted, the barrier dissolving as he prepared his counterattack. "Every technique the Dragon Kings possess, every sword art practiced in the realms—I have studied them all."

Above them, more chains fell away from the Dragon Emperor’s egg with thunderous crashes. The colorless mana seeping from the growing cracks was now flowing in visible streams toward the four key holes, creating a complex pattern of energy circulation that made the air itself hum with power.

Jiaolong struck again, this time with a technique that seemed to bend space itself. "Abyssal Corruption: Dimensional Rend!"

Reality tore along the path of his claws, creating fissures in the air that led to... nothing. Void. The absence of everything. Grim threw himself sideways to avoid the attack, feeling the pull from the attack as he dodged.

"Celestial Mist: Death’s End!" Grim’s blade struck the floor beneath Jiaolong’s feet, shattering the stone in a perfect circle and disrupting the dragon’s balance.

For just a moment, Jiaolong stumbled, and Grim pressed his advantage.

"Celestial Mist: Serenity’s Fall!"

Leaping high into the air, Grim brought his blade down in a devastating overhead strike aimed at Jiaolong’s neck. But the corrupted dragon recovered faster than anticipated, twisting aside so that the blow struck his shoulder instead of his throat.

Dark blood sprayed across the chamber, but Jiaolong’s roar was one of triumph rather than pain.

Indeed, where Grim’s blade had cut him, the wound was already closing, sealed by the same dark energy that enhanced his strength. But more disturbing was the way the spilled blood moved, flowing not downward but toward the streams of colorless mana, as if the Dragon Emperor’s power was drawing it in.

"Abyssal Corruption: Shadow Swarm!" Jiaolong’s next attack wasn’t a single strike but dozens of dark energy projections that attacked from every direction simultaneously.

Grim found himself completely surrounded, shadow-claws striking from above, below, and all sides. "Celestial Mist: Thousand Paths!" His blade moved with supernatural speed, becoming a whirlwind of cutting motion that intercepted most of the attacking shadows. But several got through, leaving burning gouges across his arms and chest.

The corruption tried to take hold where it touched him, black veins spreading from each wound. But something in Grim’s body—whether the water mana he had absorbed or the dragon blood Tianlong had awakened—fought back against the invasion.

"Interesting," Jiaolong observed, noting how the corruption was being expelled from Grim’s wounds. "You’re more resistant than most. But resistance only delays the inevitable."

The corrupted dragon’s next attack was his most dangerous yet. Dark energy began to gather around his entire body, and the temperature in the chamber dropped noticeably as something fundamental began to change.

"Abyssal Corruption: Entropy’s Embrace!"

The attack that followed wasn’t just directed at Grim—it was directed at everything. The very concept of order and structure began to break down in a sphere around Jiaolong. Stone-aged centuries in seconds, the air itself became thick and poisonous, and even the light from the Dragon Emperor’s egg dimmed as it was drawn into the expanding field of decay.

Grim felt his strength beginning to drain as the entropy field reached him. His enhanced mana was being dissolved, his weapons and armor were showing signs of rapid wear, and even his thoughts seemed to be slowing down.

"This is what true power looks like," Jiaolong said, his voice now coming from everywhere and nowhere as the corruption field continued to expand. "Not the borrowed strength of other realms, but the fundamental force of endings. Everything dies, human. Everything ends. I’m simply... accelerating the process."

But even as Grim felt the entropy field trying to unmake him, he noticed something else. The streams of colorless mana flowing from the Dragon Emperor’s egg were beginning to react to Jiaolong’s massive expenditure of power. The ritual was accelerating beyond the corrupted dragon’s control.

More chains fell with deafening crashes, and the cracks in the shell spread wider. Whatever was inside was beginning to stir more actively, and the amount of pure mana flooding into the chamber was reaching dangerous levels.

The entropy field was too powerful, draining his strength faster than he could replenish it. His enhanced mana reserves were being systematically dissolved, and his body was beginning to break down under the relentless assault.

Grim fell to one knee, his sword trembling in his grip as the corruption-fueled decay continued to eat away.

"This is the end, human," Jiaolong said, triumph evident in his voice as he watched Grim struggle against the inevitable. "Even your dragon blood cannot save you from entropy itself."

"The Dragon Emperor," Jiaolong said, his black eyes now showing the first hints of uncertainty. "I will fix the realms with his power. I will make it right."

Before Grim could respond a voice came through the chamber.

"Jiaolong!" The voice that echoed through the chamber carried the authority of oceans. "What have you done?"