The Max Level Hero Has Returned!-Chapter 963

A cold silence filled the air.

A full-fledged dragon—a creature at the pinnacle of combat—had unleashed its ultimate breath attack, only for its head to explode mid-action.

Would common sense really allow such a thing?

Of course not. Unless a dragon was determined to take its own life, closing its mouth while using a breath attack was simply unthinkable. For a human, it’d be the equivalent of aiming a gun at their own head and pulling the trigger.

No matter how desperate the situation, it wasn’t a mistake someone would make.

And yet, here they were.

“Iri... thyll?” Felius muttered with a blank face.

The scene was so beyond belief that any rationalization was impossible.

He wasn’t alone in his disbelief.

Gold dragon Hovana and the black dragon siblings Siller and Aria were equally stunned. In fact, everyone present was in shock, save for Rudelite and Sapphire.

[Human...!!!]

One of the dragons, apparently close with Irithyll, erupted in rage and began summoning numerous magic circles into the air.

Each created Ice Spears at a level enhanced beyond their original circle.

As the razor-sharp Ice Spears aligned themselves directly toward Davey, he calmly raised his fist and slammed it to the side.

The space distorted with a deafening sound as a massive longbow emerged from the void.

It was Brunaak, the Divine Bow of Apollo, the pointy-eared elf founder of the Last Wisp.

[Die!!]

The charged magic exploded with radiant light and rushed toward Davey in an instant.

But what happened next left them all stunned again.

[Dispel.]

Crash!!

The dozens of Ice Spears shattered mid-air.

[D-Dispel?!]

The dragon stammered, stunned at the sight of its spell being so effortlessly canceled.

Davey drew the bowstring in one smooth motion, aiming directly at the flustered dragon.

[Penetrating Shot]

[Supreme Force]

Thwack!!

[Ba... Barrier!]

The dragon hastily erected a sturdy barrier in an act of desperation.

Crash!!

However, the radiant arrows pierced through the barrier with devastating ease, eventually striking the dragon squarely in the forehead.

And just like that, the second dragon had fallen.

[W-What in the world...?]

Hovana looked at Davey with disbelief as the impossible unfolded before them.

The dragons were deluded—completely, utterly wrong. They had assumed that Rinne was the full extent of Davey’s power. Yes, her existence alone was terrifying, but they believed that was all there was to him.

They were, of course, sorely mistaken.

As Davey let out an overwhelming flow of mana, Felius, who had been maintaining his humanoid form, widened his eyes in shock.

“T-This... this power?!”

His legs gave out beneath him, and he collapsed on the spot.

It was only natural for him to respond that way; when Felius had tried to confront Rinne before, it wasn’t just her power that had terrified him—it was the power now emanating from Davey.

“That power from back then... No way...”

“Yeah. It was mine.”

Without hesitation, Davey released the bowstring once more. The arrow shot forward, crackling with thunderous energy and slicing through the air.

First tearing through one of his elongated ears, the arrow ultimately embedded itself into the crumbling ruins behind him.

Boom!!

The debris didn’t just explode—it vanished, disintegrated into nothing as if erased from existence itself.

“Ah, I missed. Looks like I’m a bit rusty.”

Felius turned pale as he finally grasped the gap in power.

As Davey continued to let out vast amounts of mana, the dragons’ expressions gradually shifted to panic.

[This can’t be... This kind of power! It’s beyond any sense of scale...]

[How can a human... possess this much mana?!]

Their disbelief turned to hysteria as they refused to believe the reality before them. Watching them panic, Davey calmly spoke again.

“I don’t hold a grudge against you, but... leaving enemies alive isn’t something I’m in the habit of doing. And one more thing...”

He lowered his voice, a chill settling in the air.

“Because of you, I couldn’t hold up my promise.”

The cold murmur made the dragons retreat.

[D-Damn it!!]

Despite their superior numbers, they ultimately turned tail and fled.

As Davey watched them scatter in all directions, Hovana hesitated for a moment before approaching him.

[Human... what the hell are you?]

‘Her choice of words is as strange as ever.’

“How’s your body holding up?” he asked as she changed to her humanoid form.

“It’s... fine, I guess,” she replied, her voice uncertain.

“Good to hear.”

“Your Highness! We need to pursue the ones that fled!” Rudel interrupted.

“Don’t worry, I’m going to catch them. Just be ready—it might make you dizzy,” Davey said casually, extending his hand toward the sky.

Within an instant, the entire Dragon’s Nest was enveloped in magic circles. There were hundreds—no, thousands of them in the sky.

Even though the mana consumption was immense given the sheer scale of the spell, Davey wasn’t simply using his own store of mana. Instead, most of it came from the dragon veins flowing from the Dragon’s Nest. He had forcibly rendered them into his own gas pumps at rock-bottom prices.

There was no reason not to take advantage of such a convenient and efficient energy source.

“What... what in the world...?”

Black dragon Arti fell to her knees, staring up at the magic circles in shock.

“Even the elders couldn’t pull off something like this... Ugh!”

“This is insane! Why is the mana concentration so intense?!”

Even the dragons, known as the progenitors of magic, began to waver, feeling nauseous from the overwhelming flow of mana dominating the air.

The mana storm had initially been triggered by the earlier clashes between the dragons’ enhanced magic, surging uncontrollably. No matter how skilled they were, the dragons couldn’t stabilize the chaotic mana in the atmosphere, and the pressure crushed down on them like a metric gigaton of bricks.

Eventually, the chaotic mana flow finally settled. It was as if the entire world had gone silent.

[Release]

As Davey looked at the violet magic circles, bolts of deep purple lightning began to rain down.

As the lightning shook the heavens and the earth alike, Davey couldn’t help but marvel internally.

‘The dragon veins truly are incredible. No wonder the dragons chose this place to settle down.’

* * *

The remaining full-fledged reformist dragons within the Dragon’s Nest were utterly obliterated by the colossal bolts of lightning that had rained down.

The magic, already strengthened by the rampaging dragon veins, struck down those who had been desperately attempting to flee, including Felius, who had planned to alert others of the situation.

While dragons possessed incredibly high magic resistance, the spells Davey unleashed carried an innate penetrative force, leaving them no chance to endure.

Strictly speaking, this type of magic wasn’t exactly from Tionis—it originated from the magical continent of Atrellia, where both humans and dragons had historically devoted themselves to advancing magic to its absolute peak. Even the dragons of the Dragon’s Nest couldn’t hope to withstand the magic of Atrellia.

With one side of the battlefield cleared, a separate phenomenon was unfolding in the lower levels of the Dragon’s Nest—one that left onlookers utterly horrified.

“Rinne evaluates this trap lowly,” she said while cornering a panting elder dragon covered in blood.

Her overwhelming power exceeded anything the fallen ones could have possibly anticipated.

After all, Rinne borrowed power directly from Davey. As he was channeling the mana of the dragon veins into her, her body had gone into overdrive, enhancing her strength to an unimaginable level.

While even Rinne herself was shocked by the sheer force it provided her, the elder dragon she faced was truly shaken.

Having clashed directly with Rinne and realizing her power exceeded even that of Elder Opal, the fallen dragon struggled to maintain control over his battered body, forcing himself to retaliate.

Ssshhh...

The dragon let out uniquely shaped threads of magical energy to target Rinne, then she darted through the air by flapping her three pairs of pristine white wings. She weaved through the attacks with impossible speed.

[Die! Die! Die!!]

The elder dragon, unable to accept the humiliation of being pushed back by what he deemed to be a mere golem, gradually lost his composure, succumbing to blind rage.

His attacks became increasingly reckless, completely disregarding the environment around him.

And that recklessness led to a fatal mistake.

[Huh?!]

Boom!!

Massive debris collapsed from above, raining down on him. Reacting on instinct, he hastily erected a barrier. Unfortunately for him, he had been too focused on Rinne and forgotten to account for Elder Opal’s interference.

This gave Elder Opal an opportunity for his magic to strike a perfect opening.

Boom!!

Once the elder dragon noticed the scales tipping ever further in his enemies’ favor, he attempted to retreat. But before he could get away, Rinne waved her hand, summoning particles of energy that rapidly formed into the barrel of a massive cannon.

[Ah...]

Boom!!

Opal Elder’s Dark Breath and her cannon attacked him from both ends, obliterating his massive form and reducing him to shreds.

Elder Opal, momentarily stunned by what he had just accomplished, stared blankly at the remains of the fallen elder.

“Hah... This is unbelievable. Absolutely incredible,” Opal Elder muttered.

“Rinne requests permission to analyze your injuries,” Rinne said flatly, glancing at him.

“W-What? Oh... I’m fine. This body will recover soon enough.”

“Rinne recommends you receive healing magic from Master Davey.”

“The human? Uh...” he trailed off before suddenly snapping back to reality. “This isn’t the time for this discussion! We must move quickly! Follow me!”

Rinne followed him as he hurriedly began to move.

“Rinne requests an explanation for urgency.”

“What do you mean?! Do you think that there’s only one fallen bastard running around wreaking havoc here?! This was a coordinated attack by all the fallen ones, executed all across the Dragon’s Nest! Even the human you follow might get caught up in it!”

Regardless of how events had unfolded, Elder Opal couldn’t deny the fact that Rinne and Davey had saved him.

“That human and I may not usually get along, but I can’t just let him die like this! Hurry and follow me—we need to go save him!”

“Rinne determines there’s no need,” Rinne stated flatly, stepping in front to stop him.

“What nonsense are you saying?! Are you just going to let your master—huh?”

He suddenly fell silent as he caught sight of several dragon corpses buried beneath the massive debris in the distance.

He noticed that their hearts were missing, but that wasn’t what surprised him most.

What shocked him to his core was the fact that they weren’t allies from his faction—they were all full-fledged fallen ones.

“W-What... Who could’ve...?”

Without Kaiser, the power balance should’ve tilted overwhelmingly in the enemy’s favor. There was no way the moderate faction’s younger full-fledged dragons could’ve withstood their coordinated offensive.

That was clearly their poor faction’s inevitable conclusion. Yet, only the enemy’s corpses littered the battlefield.

At that moment, a voice rang out.

“Ah! Elder Opal, over here!”

Havana waved at him as her golden hair flowed elegantly in the wind.

“We’ve been wondering where you were!”

“Hovana! What about the others?!”

His question made her flinch.

“Ah... Well, about that...” she muttered awkwardly, turning her head.

He followed her gaze and froze.

“Move faster! Did you all eat slugs for breakfast, or are you all actually newborn baby turtles with dragon scales?”

Thud!!

Siller, Arti, Sapphire, and Rudel were dragging the massive corpse of a dragon.

Behind them stood Davey. He casually tossed aside a severed dragon’s head as though it were garbage, dusting off his hands and walking up to the two.

“Is the cleanup done, Rinne? Battle report,” Davey said calmly, his tone implying he had fully expected her to finish the task.

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Elder Opal, utterly baffled by the situation, made a blank face.

“This... What in the world...”

“Elder,” Hovana whispered cautiously as she noticed his confused state.

“Just accept it. That human... he single-handedly took down every single dragon outside. I saw it with my own eyes, and I still can’t even seem to believe it.”

She was telling him that the human had effectively soloed the faction which had spelled his own moderate group’s doom only hours before.

Even just the idea was enough to make Elder Opal feel faint. His vision seemed to grow darker and he felt like he could hear his artificial ego research assistant mocking him:

[Where’s all your knowledge and reason now, old man?]

“What about Elder Marin?” Hovana asked, bringing him back to his senses.

Elder Opal’s eyes widened with abrupt shock.

“Oh yeah! I almost forgot: he was injured while pursuing Kais and is on his way back.”

“And are you alright, Elder?”

“For now. I managed to survive, thanks to this golem here. Damn it, those bastards certainly came prepared—far more fiercely than I anticipated. We were too complacent.”

“Agreed.”

“But still... Are you really saying that the human there, that puny mortal, dealt with all these full-fledged dragons on his own?”

“Yes. And he did it with just a single spell.”

“A single spell?”

The peculiar answer made him frown deeply.

Not even their lord, let alone an elder dragon, could kill multiple dragons using a single spell. Her claim sounded absurd. If he didn't know any better, he’d think she was purposely mocking him.

But then again, considering what he had just experienced with Rinne, he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the human might know some kind of magic he wasn’t aware of.

If it were a spell even dragons weren’t aware of, her claim held some weight.

Still, his assumptions were quickly debunked when he pressed for an explanation.

“What kind of arcane magic are you talking about?”

“A 6th Circle Thunder Strike,” Hobana replied casually.

“What...?”

Elder Opal blinked, momentarily stunned.

6th Circle Thunder Strike.

It was a spell he knew well.

He also knew for a fact that such a spell could never annihilate multiple dragons. It was common knowledge among dragons that magic below the 5th Circle barely even tickled them—even when cast by an especially powerful mage, a 6th Circle spell could only do so much.

As if sensing his disbelief, Hovana sighed and added, “The thing is...”

“What?”

“He landed hundreds or even thousands of strikes per dragon. It really wasn't 6th Circle magic at that point... My knees were shaking just watching what happened...”

“...”

Elder Opal was at a complete loss for words.