69: Chapter 69

In the Three Realms, aside from the Infinite Dragon God Ophis and the Great Red, Luo Yu's form could definitely be called the largest.

Even those Evil Dragons were far inferior to him.

"……Dragon King!!!" Seeing the true form Luo Yu revealed, Azazel felt a shock in his heart, his face full of disbelief.

Luo Yu tore off his scales one by one, slicing a wound deep to the bone on his chest.

Blood the size of fists hammered downwards, making the ground thud with impact.

In no time, the plaza was soaked through with blood.

The blood gathered into a small lake centered around the giant cocoon Ddraig had transformed into, and the thick scent of blood assaulted the nose.

Because of the excessive blood loss, the scales on Luo Yu's body visibly dimmed in color.

But it wasn't over yet.

He opened his massive maw and spat out a drop of essence blood.

That drop of blood was as large as a basketball, emitting energy fluctuations that would make anyone tremble in fear, and it fell directly onto Ddraig's cocoon.

As soon as the essence blood left his body, Luo Yu's aura immediately weakened by a few notches.

Just then—

"Bang!" A crystal pillar exploded.

The dragon-type Sacred Gear sealed inside was shattered directly under Azazel's control, turning into a beam of light that drilled into Ddraig's cocoon.

Judging by how skilled Azazel was at dismantling Sacred Gear, he must have done this often.

Once this Sacred Gear entered, the surface of the cocoon began to ripple slightly.

Azazel's eyes lit up.

This was a good sign.

The information fed back by the array showed that the Sacred Gear had perfectly fused with the Boosted Gear.

Furthermore, Ddraig was actively splitting off his source dragon soul, merging it bit by bit into the gauntlet, which provided a buffer for the subsequent fusion of other dragon-type Sacred Gear.

Following that—

"Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang……" Crystal pillars exploded one after another.

The dragon-type Sacred Gear sealed within were all dismantled by Azazel and fused in one by one.

The ripples on the surface of the cocoon became increasingly intense.

Luo Yu's blood was also mixed in; he could clearly feel the Boosted Gear undergoing changes.

The Sacred Gear brewing inside the giant cocoon was indeed growing stronger step by step.

Time passed bit by bit.

Azazel smashed all of the hundreds of dragon-type Sacred Gear in the crystal pillars and stuffed them inside, even sacrificing top-tier items like the Black Flame of the Evil Dragon and the Pitch-Black Territory.

The consumption was terrifying.

Yet, the item still hadn't successfully advanced.

Azazel gritted his teeth.

Bang, bang, bang, bang—crystal pillars exploded one after another, and the dragon-type Sacred Gear inside were all fused into the Boosted Gear.

He had no choice but to bite the bullet and pick more items with dragon attributes, gambling that nothing would go wrong.

Another thirty pieces of Sacred Gear were forcibly dismantled and fused in.

It pained Azazel's heart to watch.

If he couldn't push the gauntlet to the level of a King-Class Longinus in one go this time, his savings of several thousand years would have been for nothing.

Suddenly—the aura on the surface of the giant cocoon surged violently, with absolutely no warning.

"Damn it, the Sacred Gear are conflicting." Azazel's face turned black.

The conflict among the dragon-type Sacred Gear fused in earlier hadn't been obvious, and with Ddraig splitting his source dragon soul little by little to fuse along with the artifacts, the buffering had been stable enough.

But now that Ddraig's dragon soul had been completely fused, there was no buffer, and with artifacts of conflicting attributes mixed together, Azazel felt his scalp tingle.

At this moment, Luo Yu moved.

She forcibly endured the excruciating pain of her soul being torn, directly ripping off a third of her source dragon soul and tossing it into the giant cocoon.

Luo Yu's massive body swayed, and her aura grew even weaker.

With the suppression from Luo Yu's source dragon soul, the conflict between those Sacred Gear and the Boosted Gear slowly calmed down.

"Hiss—this woman really knows how to go hard on herself; she rips her dragon soul just like that." Azazel gasped.

They endured for another ten-plus minutes.

Luo Yu could clearly feel that the Boosted Gear had been strengthened to its limit, and it was just one breath away from advancing to a King-Class Longinus.

The Boosted Gear inside the giant cocoon had been touching the peak of high-ranking Sacred Gear since last month, just one step away from rushing into the King-class.

But this step was stuck.

It seemed like something crucial was missing, causing this artifact to be fundamentally flawed.

Luo Yu gritted his teeth and forcibly stuffed another fifty-plus Sacred Gear inside, putting in almost everything that could be used.

The remaining ones were scrap that conflicted with the Boosted Gear's attributes and couldn't be fused at all.

He also cut off another quarter of his source dragon soul, forcefully suppressing the conflict of that pile of artifacts.

Now, both Azazel and Luo Yu were at their limits; neither could hold on for much longer.

A thought suddenly exploded in Azazel's mind.

"……The Sacred Gear created by the God of the Bible are all managed by the Heaven System.

But I want to detach the Boosted Gear from the system now……"

He suddenly understood.

The things he had been ignoring all this time came flooding back.

Once that God died, the Heaven System collapsed, and various Sacred Gear started having problems, with complications popping up one after another.

To put it simply, the Heaven System was not just a control system as he had previously thought.

There must be deeper secrets involved, perhaps even a part of the core of the Sacred Gear.

It was just that he couldn't see through the God's intentions for the time being.

But now was not the time to ponder this.

The Boosted Gear was stuck at the most critical hurdle, and he had to find something to fill in, to complete that part of the Heaven System's functionality.

This would allow it to advance smoothly and also cut it clean from the system.

"What can replace the Heaven System?"

Azazel searched through hundreds of years of memories in his mind, his peripheral vision catching sight of Luo Yu, who was trying desperately to recover nearby.

A flash of inspiration struck his mind.

Four words popped out—Eternal Paradise!

"That's right…… Whether it's the Heaven System or Heaven itself, they were all created by that God using the Eternal Paradise.

If I embed an Eternal Paradise into the Boosted Gear, could it completely fill that vacancy?"

The thoughts in Azazel's mind were like an exploding pot, popping out one by one, and he began to mutter to himself.

"Luo Yu, can you still manifest an Eternal Paradise right now? It doesn't need to be too big, just complete."

He shouted loudly at Luo Yu.

Luo Yu couldn't be sure what Azazel was planning.

His current state was very poor; he had lost too much blood and essence blood, and his [Source Dragon Soul] had been torn apart.

If he really had to fight, he couldn't even bring out thirty percent of his strength.

Fortunately, he still had quite a bit of sacred power left in his body.

If he pushed himself, forcibly releasing an [Eternal Paradise] wasn't impossible.

Looking at Azazel's frantic appearance, Luo Yu knew clearly that it must be related to that final step for the [Boosted Gear].

He didn't intend to hesitate any longer.

Taking a deep breath, Luo Yu drew out almost all the sacred power within his body and directly released the [Eternal Paradise].

The solemn and holy Nine-Layered Heaven appeared in the sky, covering everything.

The sacred aura surged towards the surroundings like a tide, light showered down, and melodic hymns echoed in his ears.

This Nine-Layered Heaven was much smaller in scale than the one deployed when annihilating the [God of the Underworld] Hades.

But its degree of materialization was much stronger than before; it was no longer a phantom and had a bit more of a tangible texture.

Of course, it was still a long, long way from true physical manifestation.

"Good!"

Seeing that Luo Yu could still manifest the [Eternal Paradise] completely, Azazel was overjoyed.

Luo Yu did not continue to control it, handing the control directly over to Azazel.

Azazel took it, feeling the profound mystery within, as if he were truly holding an entire Heaven in the palm of his hand.

He dared not waste time, immediately taking action, continuously shrinking the [Eternal Paradise] that covered the sky, and finally gripping it firmly in his palm.

After all, the [Eternal Paradise] itself was not an offensive type of divine art.

After Luo Yu relinquished control, it was nothing to be surprised about that Azazel could directly grasp it.

"Go!"

Once the [Eternal Paradise] shrank to only the size of a palm, exquisite like a small model, Azazel slapped it into that giant cocoon.

The next moment—

The giant cocoon suddenly erupted with blinding light.

That [Boosted Gear] inside, which had originally been stuck at a bottleneck it couldn't break through, shattered immediately after merging with the [Eternal Paradise], as if a chemical reaction had occurred.

Luo Yu could clearly feel that the aura of the [Boosted Gear] inside the giant cocoon was climbing upwards bit by bit.

At the same time, the interior of the gauntlet was undergoing some kind of profound transformation and evolution.

Half an hour later.

The aura emitted by the [Boosted Gear] was dozens of times stronger than before.

"It's done……"

The stone in Azazel's heart finally landed.

At this step, he finally dared to be certain that the [Boosted Gear] had truly advanced into a [King-Class Longinus].

This was something that even that God had not been able to create.

Although he had picked up a ready-made advantage based on the Sacred Gear left behind by that God, which was a bit like plagiarizing others' ideas, regardless, today's achievement was enough for him to be proud of for a lifetime.

The giant cocoon had completely solidified, wrapped in a hard shell.

The moment the Boosted Gear successfully evolved into a King-Class Longinus, that hard shell began to crack from the middle, and the cracks spread rapidly across the entire surface like a spiderweb.

"Bang!"

With a crisp sound, it was as if a shockwave exploded from within, and the entire giant cocoon shattered into fragments.

In its place appeared a white dragon claw, crystalline and transparent throughout, glowing with a holy luster.

Compared to the original Boosted Gear, it was worlds apart—everything from the color to the design had changed.

The dragon claw became more slender and no longer had that clumsy feeling from before.

The position where the emerald green gem was originally embedded was replaced by a golden eye, carrying a faint sense of majesty.

If one were to look closely, they would find that the eye was exactly the same as Luo Yu's own golden eyes.

A white aurora streaked across the sky—

Before Luo Yu could move, that drastically changed gauntlet, as if it had smelled its master's scent, flew over directly and firmly latched onto his left hand.

"This is…… the Boosted Gear that has advanced to the King-class……"

Luo Yu looked down at the new gauntlet on his left hand; his first feeling was that this thing seemed to have grown completely together with his arm, unlike before where he could still feel a sense of separation from the weapon.

However—

Luo Yu was not in a hurry to study this Boosted Gear that had transformed into a King-Class Longinus, nor did he check how much its abilities had increased or whether it had met his expectations.

"Ddraig, are you okay?"

From the moment Azazel started the forging, Luo Yu had been worried about Ddraig's state, after all, he had completely merged into the gauntlet.

"Don't worry, partner, I'm fine. On the contrary, I feel especially comfortable, as if I've shed the shackles from my body, and I feel light all over."