SHK CH 566: CRIMSON DRAGON (Patreon)

Cold sweat covered the back of the bull King.

They had not underestimated the prince this time. They came with the full intent of seriously fighting him, whether they would win or lose. They had many speculation, wondering if the prince also had some sort of one-shot instant skill like the two princesses or if he was perhaps already a King rank and was just hiding his level

So much speculation. So many plans. All of this was for the simple goal of doing what they could to have a serious and worthwhile fight. But, even though they did their best to overestimate the prince, they still did not manage to capture the true extent of his power fully.

“I can feel your mind churning from here. You don’t need to. I am different from Setsuna and Lilin. If you take away my power to manipulate dimensions, I don’t have any particularly special or fancy skill and I promise you I won’t use my dimension during this fight.”

The prince showed his impressive body even as he twirled his arms and resumed stretching.

“I am going to start. You better be ready or fail.”

The Bull King had nearly no time to react as he felt a fist approaching his face and it was only thanks to his reflex that he could block the incoming attack using his weapon.

It was a giant fan, with the mark of a setting sun inscribed on it. The fan was closed so the Bull King did not hesitate to use the fist force to take some distance.

Even though he had managed to block the attack, his arm holding his weapon was tingling and he understood right away that a contest of strength would be pretty detrimental to him.

This reminded him of his first fight against Sun Wukong.

“This is an interesting weapon.”

The Bull King gritted his teeth when he saw Sol floating leisurely in the sky without chasing. Clearly, he was content just observing him.

“You are underestimating us.”

“You are wrong.”

Sol shook his head, his expression was apathetic, “I have an approximative grasp of your skill and this is why I can say, unless Sun Wukong himself or any other King intervene, your chances of winning against me are positively zero.”

There was no mockery in his eyes, no pride in his voice. His tone was no different from stating that the sun rose in the east and set in the west. That people were all destined to die and that nothing was unchanging.

He was not insulting him, he was not ridiculing him. Most likely, in his eyes, all he was saying was the simple naked truth.

The bull King gritted his teeth and clenched his fist, a growing inferno was blazing in his heart. How long had it been since he had been underestimated?

“Are you angry? No need to answer. I can feel you are angry. I can even understand why. After all, you must have been told you were very close to becoming a King. Perhaps you were even told that you are nearly as strong as a King. This is honestly commendable. I salute your years of training and respect your strength. But…”

A sad smile formed on Sol’s face as if he was pitying a poor kid who could not accept the simple reality.

“It doesn’t matter how close to being a King you are. You are not a King level and therefore you are unable to win. My victory is assured.3

The Bull King roared! His cry covered heaven and earth causing everything to tremble in his vicinity.

Then, taking a better hold of his fan before fully opening it.

“You forced me.”

<<1st form: Slicing Claws>>

The wind seemed to undulate around him before being fired like projectiles at Sol. The attacks were nearly invisible, and only by paying attention could even try to count them all.

Had this attack been lower on the ground, then it could have been powerful enough to leave multiple deep scars on it and the wind was strong enough to level the building in its wake.

This was why the Bull King rarely used this weapon. As the level of damage it could bring was astronomical and he did not like killing innocents.

This time though, he could only watch as the wind was only powerful enough to leave small scratches on the body of his opponents.

Blood was flowing and the wounds would close immediately. When the attack finished, the only things that had truly changed were ruined pants, blood traces on his body, and a slightly ruffled hairstyle.

“I am sorry, but…I am nearly immune to magic. Pure Elemental-type attacks are pretty useful against me.”

Ah….

Sol shrugged as he arranged his hair, “Milia will be mad. She has been taking longer and longer to work on them.”

He shook his head and started floating slowly, menacingly, toward the Bull King,

“Use your Zone. Summon your name. Since you are close to a King, you should already have a partial name, right? Stop making us waste time. As it is your attacks are nothing but a distraction at best and an amusing trick at worst.”

The Bull King screamed and his fan glowed with an ominous crimson light. The humiliation he was currently feeling was beyond anything he had ever experienced up to now.

This was a feeling of deep helplessness that went even above what he felt when he first fought against Sun Wukong.

But more than anything.

The look in the eyes of this Prince.

He could not stand this look.

He could have accepted it if the prince was arrogant, if he was a man who took pleasure in humiliating those weaker than him, or if he was just using him for amusement.

But this…

At the very moment, for the prince, he was nothing. Barely a pebble that could be kicked away and forgotten soon thereafter. Gazing at him as if he were just a pitiful kid trying to fight an adult.

“Do not mock me! I am the Bull King! I am the Great Sage who pacifies Heaven! I will not be looked down upon by a kid!”

<<Zone: Heavenly Flame Mountain>>

The world seemed to change all around Sol and the temperature rose to a degree so high the air itself seemed ready to combust.

Like the Zone of the Tiger Lord, this was a Zone that was akin to a domain but this one did not create closed boundaries. In a way, one could say that it was closer to a dimension’s encroachment.

A large giant mountain many kilometers high appeared behind the Bull King, akin to an active volcano with flames.

The sky became red and the atmosphere became scarce. Soon, the temperature reached and even went beyond a thousand degrees Celsius.

Even the soldiers of Wratharis and Envilya who had been watching in the distances died nearly instantly under the power of the flames for the one from Lustburg they were lucky as they were protected by the barrier of the fortress but they could only look at their farmland with aghast expression, knowing fully that if the domain continued to grow, those would not be spared.

Standing on his floating cloud, the Bull King was unfazed even as everything around him caught on fire. His body had changed, becoming a fiery red while the end of his tail had fire around it. Fire also covered his horns, giving him the appearance of a devil coming to hell.

“Remember, prince. You are the cause of all this destruction. I will make you pay for underestimating us.”

Standing in the middle of the inferno, Sol laughed, his expression shifting from the earlier apathy as crystals of ice formed all around him.

“I have faced a supernova and toyed with Ifrit himself. Do not laugh with your warm sona!”

He grinned, his eyes shifting and his voice changing, becoming deeper, more guttural, and more dangerous.

“Bull King. You wish to pacify Heaven. Truly admirable but I apologize. I am the one who will stand above the Heaven.”

His skin ruptured and was replaced by scales. His pants were completely torn apart as the light started to cover him. His body grew and grew, ten meters, twenty meters, fifty meters.

The light vanished as the sun was covered by a gigantic shadow that blocked the sky itself and finally,

ROOAAR!!!

Floating in the sky — Was a Gigantic Crimson Dragon.