DOTM: Chapter 250/251

Chapter 250: Different Dimension

Although this magic was called Blizzard, it looked more like a meteor shower, except the meteors were condensed from frost energy.

"Fall back!"

At a time like this, there was no way to call out everyone's name to remind them to dodge.

Fortunately, Varian and the Stormwind soldiers had extensive combat experience and a solid understanding of how mages operated.

They had all trained in coordination with mages and knew what to do in such situations. As the Blizzard began to fall, everyone retreated to a safe zone in time.

The only one who didn't retreat was Bolvar Fordragon. The Grand Duke of Stormwind did everything he could to keep Onyxia occupied, preventing the black dragon from escaping the area covered by the Blizzard.

Of course, this also meant he would be caught within Jaina's magical attack.

Large-scale magical attacks in reality did not distinguish between friend and foe. Although Bolvar was mentally prepared to die here, he certainly didn't want to die under his own people's magic.

"The Light is with me!"

As one of the most powerful paladins in the Kingdom of Stormwind, Bolvar's Holy Light was pure and strong. At the critical moment, he activated Holy Shield. Shrouded in Holy Light, Bolvar completely ignored Onyxia and the Blizzard descending from the sky, allowing the attacks to strike him while he continued to wield his weapon, relentlessly slashing at Onyxia's vital points.

"Damn mage!"

Onyxia found herself unable to break free from Bolvar's entanglement and began mobilizing the magic within her to cast an Arcane Shield. With her abundant magical power, it wouldn't have been difficult to withstand a Blizzard head-on—if she could focus entirely on casting it, instead of being forced to punch back a man shining like a human torch just after gathering half her energy.

Large chunks of frost energy pounded Onyxia and the surrounding ground. The energy that struck the ground wasn't ineffective. The cold air that erupted upon impact created significant problems for Onyxia. It disrupted her perception, hindered her magic control, and even slowed her physical movements.

After the last burst of frost energy exploded, Onyxia and the area around her were shrouded in a thick white mist. The temperature in the cold mist zone was extremely low. Even Bolvar, protected by the Holy Light, had to retreat and wait for the mist to dissipate before engaging the black dragon again.

At this moment, everyone was praying that the black dragon had been severely wounded, or better yet, killed outright by the attack.

From the beginning of the battle to Jaina casting Blizzard and the spell finally ending, only about ten minutes had passed. Yet, in this short time, thirteen of Stormwind's elite soldiers had been killed, more than twenty were seriously injured, and the rest were all wounded. Not a single Stormwind soldier was unharmed.

Broll Bearmantle was using druidic healing spells to keep the seriously injured alive, while the young Prince Anduin stood in confusion, still unsure of what was happening.

Jaina, having just finished casting Blizzard, turned to look at Ethan.

"You're not going to make a move this whole time?"

"I will," Ethan replied.

Jaina didn't ask when. Mages had their own rhythm in battle. Often, it was impossible to tell whether a mage was spacing out or preparing a powerful spell behind the scenes.

She was concerned about something else. The child Laura stood out among this group.

"You should've left her outside."

Ethan saw Jaina's concern for Laura and gave a helpless smile. "Don't worry. She's much stronger than you think. Everyone else here could die, and she still wouldn't."

Laura's healing factor came directly from Wolverine, Logan. Among everyone present, these two were arguably the ones in the least danger. While Onyxia was powerful, she didn't appear to specialize in soul-related magic. If she only relied on physical or magical attacks, she simply couldn't kill them.

At this moment, the white mist on the battlefield gradually dissipated, revealing Onyxia's figure once more. The black dragon princess appeared unharmed. Aside from her expression looking worse, even her clothes weren't damaged.

However, Jaina's spell still drove her into a frenzy. Onyxia's body began to swell, black scales emerged on her skin, and in front of everyone's shocked eyes, she fully transformed into a massive black dragon.

"That was fast," Ethan muttered.

He had intended to sneak attack Onyxia during her transformation, but didn't expect her to complete it in an instant. The behemoth in front of him smashed nearby structures and even touched the edge of the Mirror Dimension.

"Hm?"

Onyxia finally realized why her teleportation spell wasn't functioning properly, and she instantly understood who was behind it.

"It's you!"

Her anger intensified, turning into a massive blaze that erupted from her mouth, engulfing Ethan's position in flames.

Faced with the oncoming flames, Ethan revealed a surprised expression, then turned to Loki beside him and said, "Beautiful illusion."

With a flick of his right hand, a scepter with a curved blade appeared in his grip. As it materialized, a stream of light swept across 'Ethan,' revealing Loki's form to everyone's astonished eyes.

Loki, who had been quietly standing there, transformed into Ethan amid shimmering light. He smiled at the real Ethan, who raised a hand as if to say, "Don't be shy. This is a great chance for revenge and to slap the black dragon in the face."

Seeing Ethan appear in a different location and realizing she had attacked the wrong person, Onyxia was momentarily stunned. Her fire breath paused, giving Loki the perfect opportunity. His scepter erupted with brilliant light, followed by a wave of bone-chilling frost.

Jaina's Blizzard had already lowered the temperature of the Mirror Dimension, but it couldn't compare to the cold energy released from Loki's scepter.

Blizzard simply summoned water elements from extremely cold regions, condensed them, and threw them down. The element density and quality weren't particularly high. It was great for clearing weaker enemies, but insufficient against a black dragon.

Moreover, casting spells in the Mirror Dimension created additional difficulties for Jaina, and the final power of her Blizzard was far weaker than usual.

The frost power Loki wielded, however, was a relatively high-level energy in the Marvel universe. Otherwise, with Loki's talent, he wouldn't have spent so much time just grasping its surface.

Perhaps Loki still couldn't instantly kill Onyxia, but the frost power he released was a genuine threat to her.

At the same time, Onyxia recalled that this man had previously approached her with a proposal to join forces.

Back then, she thought he was just a clown who appeared out of nowhere, didn't take him seriously, mocked him a few times, then sent him away. She even had SI:7 send agents to hunt him down, and she hadn't expected to meet him again under these circumstances.

What surprised her most was the fact that his power now made her feel a trace of fear. Only now did she realize that when he first approached her, he truly had the qualifications to team up with her.

Unfortunately, she realized it too late. Even if she had another chance, she would still refuse. After all, she was a proud black dragon. She didn't need anyone's help to destroy the Kingdom of Stormwind.

While Onyxia was momentarily stunned, she didn't notice the blue circle that appeared beneath Ethan, who had been quietly lying in wait. He immediately fell into it.

At the same time, an identical blue circle appeared above Onyxia, and Ethan dropped down from this portal.

This was the teleportation spell from Kamar-Taj. After studying spatial energy for quite some time, Ethan still couldn't open portals to specific locations at will, but within the Mirror Dimension, he could cast the spell freely.

The energy absorbed from the Tesseract was also highly compatible with the spell. It could be cast silently, without gestures or the circle-drawing motions of the Ancient One and others. A simple hand movement was enough.

This time, he used the spell to launch a surprise attack on Onyxia. His Battle Cross was fully charged. The light sword, condensed at maximum energy output, radiated blinding brilliance, like a miniature sun descending on Onyxia's head at incredible speed.

To increase the speed and impact force of the strike, Ethan immediately unfolded his Flame Cloak's wings. The powerful thrust instantly pushed his speed to the limit. In the next moment, the light sword in his hand pierced Onyxia's wing. The black dragon, sensing danger, blocked the strike with her wing, avoiding a fatal blow to the head.

"Roar!"

Getting a hole punched through her wing was far from pleasant. Roaring furiously, the black dragon flapped her wing, throwing off Ethan. Then, she unleashed another wave of fire breath at him, who was now unbalanced in midair.

As the flames surged toward him, Ethan stabilized his posture in the air, extended his left hand, and cast a spell he had recently developed.

"Dimensional Rift!"

(To be continued.)

Chapter 251: Space Reinforcement

The flame breath, which nearly covered the entire sky, surged toward Ethan's outstretched finger as if drawn by some unseen force, then rushed to 'drill' in.

This scene greatly surprised those below who had been sweating nervously for Ethan. Jaina carefully observed the situation and realized that Ethan had used a spell similar to banishment, redirecting Onyxia's flame breath to another location.

Ethan's finger didn't appear to change, but the tip had essentially opened a spatial rift, which seemed to generate a powerful suction force. Otherwise, there was no way it could gather that massive torrent of flames and banish it elsewhere. Jaina could already sense that his fingertip was connected to another space, but she couldn't tell where it led.

Seeing her breath attack rendered useless, a complete waste of energy, Onyxia stopped. Her massive dragon eyes stared fixedly at Ethan, who was still hovering in mid-air.

At that moment, Ethan had just stabilized his posture. The fiery wings behind him finally allowed him to maintain balance. His outstretched left hand remained in place. Although Onyxia had ceased her flame breath, the flames didn't vanish immediately just because she closed her mouth. There was still a large area of lingering flames in front of him that hadn't yet been sent to another space.

The spell of dimensional rift was one Ethan had only recently developed. Its prototype came from a certain fake pope, but the original version could throw any object or creature into another space—or rather, some remote corner of the universe. Given that most creatures couldn't survive in space, it was an extremely lethal ability.

Ethan didn't know whether the black dragon in front of him could survive in outer space. What he did know was that his spell had yet to reach that level. He still couldn't throw a creature as powerful as Onyxia into dimensional space.

Let alone a powerful black dragon, even a human like Varian was beyond the current limit of the spell. Furthermore, since this spell was developed in the relatively 'porous' world of Azeroth, Ethan wasn't sure if he could still open spatial rifts with sufficient strength in other worlds.

As it stood, the spell was still just a prototype. It could only absorb energy-based attacks. Fortunately, that was enough to counter Onyxia's flame breath, disabling one of her most powerful offensive abilities. That alone was an unexpected advantage.

Just as Ethan received Onyxia's attack and left the black dragon momentarily unsure how to respond to this human mage, Bolvar and Varian on the ground rushed forward once more, launching desperate attacks against the massive black dragon.

Compared to a black dragon, humans were truly insignificant. Even though Varian and Bolvar were tall and robust by human standards, they were nothing before such a colossal creature. Although Varian's weapon was powerful and sharp enough to pierce the black dragon's scales, even at full strength, they could only leave shallow wounds. These did little beyond irritating Onyxia further.

Perhaps annoyed by the constant cuts, Onyxia finally lowered her head to glare at Varian, then raised a massive claw and swatted at him.

At that moment, Varian had just inflicted a shallow wound on the black dragon's body with the sharp blade in his hand. The sudden counterattack gave him no time to dodge properly. In a panic, he could only brace himself and block with his weapon.

"Your Majesty!"

The weapon in Bolvar's hand was just an ordinary longsword. After hacking away for so long, it hadn't even left a scratch on the black dragon. Apart from striking sparks from her scales, it hadn't produced a single wound.

So, after some time, Bolvar stopped expecting to kill the black dragon himself. His focus shifted to distracting her. He now pinned his hopes on Jaina, praying she could unleash a more effective and destructive magical attack.

At the same time, he kept a close eye on King Varian Wrynn's situation. He had already made one grave mistake and absolutely could not afford another.

Varian had finally returned to Stormwind after many hardships. Bolvar would not allow His Majesty to be harmed by the black dragon before him.

When he noticed the sharp claw swiping toward Varian, he reacted faster than the king. He charged forward and shoved Varian aside.

Boom!

When she raised her claw again, Onyxia discovered that Bolvar, who should have been flattened into a pulp by her strike, was completely unharmed under the protection of the Holy Light.

"Damn paladin!"

This battle was pushing her past the limits of her patience. Onyxia, so enraged that she couldn't even describe her mood, suddenly let out a strange roar.

Unlike her previous roars that were purely to vent, Ethan, who was floating mid-air with fiery wings, felt powerful magical ripples spreading from the black dragon's body. As soon as the waves touched him, they disrupted the flow of his magic. The fiery wings behind him were scattered by the magic-infused roar, causing him to lose the ability to fly and plummet rapidly toward the ground.

Fortunately, Ethan's control over magic was exceptional. He quickly recovered. With his right hand, he lightly pointed downward, bringing his index and middle fingers together. A blue circular portal appeared beneath his feet.

Adjusting his posture in mid-air, Ethan dove headfirst into the blue portal. When he emerged from another blue circular gate, he appeared beside Onyxia's neck, changing from a downward fall to a horizontal charge.

His Battle Cross was powered to its maximum output. In this state, it could barely pierce the black dragon's tough scales and inflict meaningful damage. But if he wanted to truly hurt her, slashing wasn't enough. He had to stab directly. Only then would the wound be deep enough to threaten such a massive creature.

Unfortunately, a dragon's field of vision was much wider than a human's. A human's blind spots were not the same as a black dragon's. Onyxia saw Ethan's movements clearly. She flapped her wings and swatted him away again.

This time, there were no fiery wings to stabilize his posture. Swatted solidly, Ethan crashed into the ground and slid a long distance before stopping.

"How is it?"

"It's nothing."

Ethan happened to land not far from Jaina. Concerned, she asked about his condition.

They were allies now, and Ethan was tied to the stability of the Mirror Dimension. If Ethan were seriously injured, fell unconscious, or died, the dimension would collapse. Once Onyxia escaped the cage, she would surely bring destruction to Stormwind. No one could say how many lives would be lost.

From every angle, Ethan could not afford to be harmed. What Jaina hadn't expected was that, despite being swatted directly by a black dragon's wing, Ethan stood up again as if nothing had happened. Judging by his appearance, he truly seemed unscathed.

"That gear you're wearing won't protect you anymore."

Loki saw more clearly. Ethan had just taken a direct hit from Onyxia. The reason he didn't sustain injuries was that his magic armor had absorbed the impact. But that layer of protection was now completely gone.

What Loki didn't know was that Ethan's gear hadn't just failed. It had been destroyed. The magic suit he wore originally had a built-in energy shield near the body. He had always believed it offered sufficient protection, but now, after just one direct hit from the black dragon, it had been shattered completely.

"Weren't you the one so eager to take revenge on the black dragon? Why haven't you attacked yet?"

"If you want me to go all out, then reinforce this space first."

If Ethan hadn't noticed it before, Loki's words now made him fully aware of that subtle yet terrifying trace of frost energy.

Loki had been silently mobilizing this power, waiting for a chance to deliver a killing blow. However, the current state of the Mirror Dimension wasn't good. If Loki acted now, the black dragon might not die, but the space would collapse.

Ethan looked up. At some point, the Mirror Dimension had developed countless cracks. Now, looking around felt like peering through a spiderweb of fractured glass. It was riddled with gaps, falling apart, as though it could shatter into pieces at any moment.

"He's right. This independent space you created is on the verge of collapse."

Jaina wasn't idle either. She was preparing a powerful spell. Like Bolvar, she understood that it was completely unrealistic to expect Varian and Bolvar to deal serious damage to a creature like a black dragon. Only spellcasters with strong offensive capabilities could make a decisive difference.

Ethan glanced at Jaina, then at Loki. Both had prepared their ultimate attacks. As long as he reinforced the Mirror Dimension, they were ready to unleash devastating blows on Onyxia.

"This is easy."

Ethan clenched his fist. The plain-looking ring on his right hand suddenly glowed with dazzling blue light. He had already activated all the magic power stored inside, preparing to use it entirely to reinforce the space.

As all the energy in the ring surged forth, Ethan crouched and pressed his glowing palm to the ground. A wave of blue ripples spread outward from his position.

(To be continued.)