Chapter 51 — The Fruad & The Fuck You Spear

The sky above the Azure Capital was hemorrhaging mana.

In the ruins of the old world, the Loscraf refugees watched the projection screens with the frantic intensity of a crowd at a snuff film. 

One by one, the clones flickered out of existence, dissolving into raw magical essence that streaked across the horizon like falling stars, funneling back into the "Real" Jay. 

He was standing in the clouds, a solitary figure against a god.

「Seems like they’re about to begin,」 Iris said, her voice a forced anchor of calm. She didn’t want to traumatize Lena and Clara more than the apocalypse already had.

Lena looked up, her eyes wide with that terrifyingly pure childhood naivety. 「Will Papa be okay, Mama Iris?」

「Yeah. He’s the strongest in the kingdom, remember? He’s too stubborn to die.」

Saalin leaned toward Liani, her brow furrowed in a cold sweat. 「Didn’t the intelligence reports say Draco was three hundred meters long?」

「Yes, they did,」 Liani whispered, her confusion giving way to a sickening dread.

Saalin’s voice trembled. 「That thing in the sky... it doesn't look like three hundred meters, does it?」

The realization hit like a physical blow. 

Liani gasped, a sharp, jagged sound. 

Lisa—the wife of a man who treated gods like annoying neighbors—dropped to her knees and began to pray with a desperate, rhythmic intensity. Rina’s thumb rhythmically clicked against the guard of her katana, a nervous tick that sounded like a ticking clock.

Iris just stared at the screen, her nails digging into her palms. 【Don't you dare die, you arrogant pick.】

◽In The Azure Capital◽

Draco was playing with his food.

He was currently compressed into a fifty-meter form—a "compact" version designed purely to avoid killing his opponents with the sheer, crushing weight of his presence alone. 

To Draco, fighting a human was like trying to perform surgery with a sledgehammer; if he didn't hold back, the sheer terror usually stopped his opponent's heart before he could even land a blow.

Jay was armed with the "Hero’s" gear: the legendary sword and shield of the Loscraf Kingdom. 

They traded blows in a high-speed sparring match, steel clashing against scales in a dance of lethal geometry. 

It was a stalemate. 

A draw.

They broke off, creating a hundred yards of empty air between them.

Jay was breathing hard, his lungs burning. 【His body is way tougher than the Tyrant Wyvern. It’s like trying to cut a goddamn steel beam with a paper knife. This gear is garbage.】

Draco hummed, a sound like a vibrating engine. 「Jay Vin Lancer... that sword and shield. Did the previous 'Hero' use those?」

Jay blinked, wiping sweat from his eyes. 「Yeah. They’re heirlooms. Why?」

「Want to know where they actually came from?」 Draco asked, his chest beginning to glow with a sickly, incandescent heat.

「Sure. Enlighten me.」

Draco unleashed a massive fireball. Jay snapped the shield up, the enchantments absorbing the impact until the flames vanished into the metal.

Draco laughed, a sound of pure, mocking malice. 「I knew it. That’s why this place smells so familiar. Three hundred years ago, your 'Hero' realized he couldn't kill me. So he did what all cowards do—he begged. He knelt in the dirt and offered up his own party as a sacrifice just so I’d let him live. It was so pathetic I actually felt sorry for him. I gave him two scales from my old, sloughed-off skin as a parting gift.」

Jay looked at the shield. 「So these 'legendary' weapons... are just your old scabs?」

In the ruins, the crowd went silent. 

The "Golden Age" of their history was revealed to be a transaction of cowardice. 

Hope didn't just fade; it curdled.

But back in the sky, Jay just nodded.

「That explains why this shit can’t damage you, then,」 Jay said.

Draco looked irritated. 「Wait. Why aren’t you disheartened? Your entire history is a lie. Where is the despair?」

Jay chuckled, a low, dangerous sound. 「Aw, what’s wrong? Is the whittle dwagon angy? Is the big lizard upset I’m not crying?」

「Why you...!」

Draco lunged. 

He slammed his front paw into Jay with the force of a falling building, pinning him into the cobblestones of the capital below. 

A crater bloomed around them, dust choking the air. 

When the smoke cleared, Jay was standing, the shield cracked and ruined, but his spirit untouched.

Draco landed in front of him, looming. 「Tell me. Why aren't you broken?」

Jay spat a glob of blood to the side. 「First off: I don't give a fuck about some fraudulent dead guy. That taunt was a swing and a miss. Second: I’m only a hero to my daughters, and I’m not about to beg for shit in front of them. And third? I have five wives waiting for me, and I am very, VERY determined to have celebratory sex after I kick your ass.」

Draco actually paused. He let out a booming, genuine laugh. 「That is the most absurd reason to live I have ever heard.」

Jay smirked. 「Hey, Draco. Guess what?」

「Speak, human.」

Draco didn't notice the humming. 

He didn't see the dozens of magic circles Jay had secretly etched into the dirt and air during the fall. They were everywhere—layered, stacked, and ready to pop.

Jay threw the ruined shield in front of his face. 「~Fire in the hole.~」

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

A hundred localized grenade-level explosions went off simultaneously, hugging Draco’s hide. 

It wasn't enough to kill him, but the redundancy of the blasts created a vacuum of concussive force.

When the smoke cleared, Draco was bigger. 

Much bigger.

A hundred meters now. 

The "boss fight" had entered phase two.

「That stung, Jay Von Lancer,」 Draco growled, his voice vibrating in Jay's teeth. 「Smart. But now... don't die on me. ~Annihilation Ray!~」

Draco unhinged his jaw. 

A beam of pure plasma, so hot it turned the air to ozone, shrieked toward Jay.

【Shit.】

Jay didn't use a standard bubble shield. 

He calculated the physics in a heartbeat, layering angled, flat barriers like a diamond’s facets. 

The beam hit, refracted, and bounced off the "angled armor" of his magic. 

Stray beams sheared through the surrounding buildings, melting stone like butter, but the core of the attack missed him.

The capital was scarred, a smoking ruin of molten rock, but Jay was still standing.

◽At The Ruins◽

The crowd watched the projection with a mix of terror and religious awe. 

No human survived the Annihilation Ray. 

It was a physical impossibility.

Clara bounced on her heels, pointing at the screen. 「Look, Ms. Saalin! Papa made it!」

Saalin’s jaw was practically on the floor. 「Y-Yeah. He did. Let’s... let’s keep cheering, okay?」

◽In The Azure Capital◽

「Still alive, huh?」 Draco muttered, impressed.

Jay let out a breath and tossed the "Hero's" sword and shield into the rubble. 

They were trash now.

「Oh? Choosing death?」 Draco asked.

Jay reached into his dimensional storage. 

He didn't pull out a sword. 

He pulled out a spear, six feet of mythril engraved with glowing, violet runes. 

In his other hand, he gripped a heavy, knobbed club, also etched in the same chaotic script. 

The handles were wrapped in the cured leather of ware-rabbits.

Jay dropped into a low, predatory stance.

「Lancer Technique: Third Form...」

Draco saw the stillness.

He saw the opening.

He charged, a mountain of scales and teeth moving at terminal velocity.

Jay’s spear began to glow a deep, arterial crimson.

「Crimson Cord.」

Jay vanished.

Draco’s instincts screamed. 

He twisted in mid-air, tumbling to the left as a blur of heat tore through the space he had occupied a microsecond before.

Jay was suddenly standing where Draco had been, his back to the dragon. 

A literal red line of residual thermal energy hung in the air behind him. 

Draco landed heavily, a long, clean cut opening up along his left flank. 

It wasn't a death blow, but it was a wound—a permanent scar on a Dragon King.

Draco spun around, indignant. 「What the hell was that? What is that spear?!」

Jay stood there, steam rising from his skin as his body dealt with the recoil of the technique. 

He didn't look happy. 

He looked cold.

「Tch. You dodged.」