This was the same crushing force that had struck Lyra before, but now Nolan could not lift a finger. He was pinned by exhaustion and the dragon's mana-disrupting blaze; there was nothing left to summon, nothing to block the oncoming annihilation.

"Master—!" Lyra's cry cut through the roar. She was running with everything she had, ragged breaths tearing at her throat. She tried to shift into her behemoth form, to answer the dragon with divine power, but her reserves were spent. The transformation stalled; her shape wavered and frayed. Still in human guise, she surged forward, arms out, closing the last few paces between them.

Nolan looked up at her, pain and something like apology in his eyes.

The Divine Dragon King's maw glowed like a newborn sun, the Absolute Supremacy building into a colossal pillar of flame. His body had grown monstrously, towering like a mountain itself, wings blotting out the sky. Nolan and Lyra were nothing but specks before him.

"Master! Master!" Lyra's voice cracked with desperation. She remembered the last time she had faced this attack — she had survived only because her own counterstrike had collided with it, weakening the blast. But Nolan… Nolan had no way to resist it now.

She staggered forward, raising both hands. "Stop! Stop!" she screamed, throwing every shred of willpower into her plea. The dragon glanced down, amused, and with a lazy swipe of his massive claw, sent her flying across the field like a ragdoll. Her cry tore through Nolan's ears, and rage welled up inside him even as his body refused to move.

"Lyra!" Nolan's hoarse voice echoed from the pit. He clawed at the broken earth, raising one trembling arm. "I promise you… I'll save you. I won't let this be the end. No… this is not it!"

Then the dragon loosed the attack.

The Absolute Supremacy roared downward, a torrent of fire and destruction that could have erased nations if unleashed without restraint. The dragon focused it into a concentrated beam aimed squarely at Nolan's body, condensing annihilation into a single point.

Nolan's eyes widened as the fire rushed down. I can't use my shield. I can't even move. But I won't die… I can't. I will never die! His voice, ragged but defiant, rose over the thunder of the flames.

The inferno swallowed him whole. His battle suit melted away in seconds, burned to nothing. His skin blistered and charred. The fire sank teeth into his flesh, burning through his hands, his chest, his face. It pressed him deeper into the earth, gouging a new crater as it consumed him.

Nolan's scream shook the air, raw and defiant, echoing even through the fire that sought to silence him.

Nolan's screams echoed into the depths of the earth as the Divine Dragon King's inferno pushed him deeper and deeper, burying him under layers of scorched rock. His skin blistered, his battle suit disintegrated, and his flesh burned. At a hundred feet down, the fire still raged over him, threatening to reduce him to nothing.

Then—silence.

His cries ceased. His chest rose faintly. He closed his eyes against the agony, and in the suffocating heat a thought burned hotter than the flames.

Is this how I die?

The words echoed in his head, bitter, defiant.

No… this isn't it. I refuse. I told myself I would grow stronger. I told myself I would surpass everything—and I haven't even shown what I truly have. I've kept ninety-nine percent of my mana locked away… until now.

His eyes snapped open, blazing with fury.

"Then burn, all of you!"

BOOM.

An eruption tore through the depths. Nolan's suppressed mana flooded outward, an ocean of raw energy bursting free. The Divine Dragon King's Absolute Supremacy—flames that could erase worlds—flickered, cracked, and then vanished, consumed by the overwhelming tide of Nolan's unleashed power.

The ground trembled. Rocks split. His body, still battered and scorched, floated upward, suspended mid-air in the heart of his own unleashed mana. He no longer sank.

A mechanical chime rang out in his mind.

[Status Update: Level 30 reached.]

[New Authority granted: Dominion Over Time.]

Nolan's body glowed with a violent crimson aura as torrents of energy surged into him—but then, suddenly, darkness fell.

His vision blackened. His body dissolved into stillness. His soul was pulled, torn from flesh, cast into a place beyond mortal understanding.

He stood in a void. An endless black expanse stretched infinitely, silent and cold. His own footsteps echoed though he hadn't moved. His status screen was gone, cut off, leaving him stripped of every system he relied on.

"Where… am I?" His voice trembled. "What is this place? The last thing I remember—I released everything, all my mana. I reached level thirty… and then—nothing. So why am I here? What the hell is going on?"

A low hum reverberated through the void, growing louder, until light pierced the endless dark. A throne of radiance appeared before him, brilliance so fierce he couldn't look directly. It hurt his eyes, his soul, even his thoughts. Upon that throne sat a figure shrouded in unbearable light.

Then a voice thundered—not through ears, but through existence itself.

"Mortal man."

The voice shook the void. Nolan's body quivered though he had none.

"You stand in the presence of the Almighty… the Creator of All."

Nolan's breath hitched. The void vibrated with divine power, and before him loomed not a dragon, nor a demon, but something far greater.

"What do you mean—'the Creator'? And where am I?" Nolan shouted into the blinding void.

Then his body betrayed him. His knees struck the unseen floor, and his head bowed low as if the weight of the universe pressed him down. His chest heaved, his mind screaming.

"What's happening? My body's moving on its own!" Nolan thought, panic twisting his voice in the silence of his heart.

The throne of light pulsed, brighter than any sun, and the voice spoke again—vast, infinite, and absolute.

"You have finally reached the stage no human has ever reached."

The words sank deep into his soul.

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