Reborn as the Failed Lord with my Resource Gathering System. - Chapter 209

Chapter 209: Battling a witch II
Bam!

The impact was tremendous. A shockwave rippled through the sky, distorting the air around them.

Panting heavily, Bonnie managed to slip from his loosened grip as the rocks collided.

She floated back, clutching her healing ankle, her expression shifting from pain to a silent, breathless chuckle.

She had hit him.

She had actually managed to land a clean hit on the Dragon Monarch.

The thrill was intoxicating. Being chased by him, knowing her life hung by a thread, knowing he could end her in an instant if he truly wanted to—it excited her to her very core.

She turned in the air, ready to charge again, ready to continue this deadly dance.

But then, she felt it.

A heavy hand rested on her shoulder.

It wasn’t a rough grab. It was calm. Heavy. Possessive.

“Where do you think you are going?”

The voice was right next to her ear.

Freaked out, Bonnie spun around, her staff raised, mana already gathering at the tip to blast him away at point-blank range.

Or at least, she tried to.

Baam!

Dorian’s fist connected with her jaw before she could even finish the turn.

Baam!

Another punch, this time to her ribs.

Boom!

A third hit, a devastating uppercut that sent her spinning.

Left, right, center.

He was dismantling her. It wasn’t a fight; it was a beatdown. He was landing back-to-back punches, each one heavier than the last, treating her like a training dummy.

A few seconds in, and her face was a swollen, bloody mess. Another second, and her consciousness was fading, her body going limp as she began to fall from the sky like a dying bird.

She plummeted toward the hard ground below.

Just as she was about to smash her skull against the pavement, she twisted her body with unnatural grace, landing squarely on her feet.

Steam rose from her skin as her regeneration kicked in overdrive. The swollen eyes deflated, the broken nose snapped straight, the cuts sealed shut.

In a matter of seconds, she was healed.

Bonnie stood there, breathing hard, her mind reeling. Had she fallen unconscious during that barrage? She must have.

Any other person—any human, any mage—would have had their head blown clean off their shoulders from the first blow. She was certain of it.

She was a witch. That singular fact was the only reason she was still standing. Her body was resilient, her life force vast.

But for the first time, the excitement was gone.

A grin stretched across her face, but it wasn’t one of pleasure or madness. It was a grin of pure, genuine fear.

She slowly raised her head.

Dorian was hovering right above her, his single black wing beating slowly, casting a long shadow over her. His expression was bored. Unimpressed.

“A monster,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “That is what you are. How ignorant of me to have forgotten the true capabilities of the Demon Lord.”

Dorian descended slowly, landing softly a few feet away from her. He dusted off his hands, not even looking winded.

“I don’t care for your fancy words,” he said, his voice cold. “I asked you a question before. Are you willing to suffer yourself?”

Bonnie gripped her staff tighter, her knuckles turning white.

She remained silent for a long while, the sounds of the battle around the school fading into the background.

Slowly, she raised her staff, aiming the tip directly at Dorian’s chest. The purple gem at the top began to glow with an ominous, unstable light, far brighter than before.

“I am sorry,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper, void of the playfulness from before.

“But that is not something I can afford to do. My job was to observe only. I was not instructed to get any closer than that.”

The air around her began to vibrate. The mana she was gathering wasn’t for an attack—it was for something else. Something volatile.

“And if I cannot observe…”

Her smile twisted into something jagged and desperate.

“Then I suppose I must ensure there is nothing left to see.”

Crack!

The gem on her staff fractured, leaking raw, uncontainable energy.

[Warning: High-Energy Reaction Detected.]

[The target is preparing a self-destruct sequence.]

Dorian’s eyes widened.

Dorian’s eyes widened.

[Warning: High-Energy Reaction Detected.]

[The target is preparing a self-destruct sequence.]

He didn’t hesitate. The moment the warning flashed across his internal vision, Dorian knew this was beyond a simple, high-powered spell.

This was a complete, uncontrolled release of all her accumulated power, the equivalent of turning a nuclear reactor critical and throwing away the containment rods.

He didn’t have time to stop her, nor did he have the inclination to get caught in the resulting blast.

Rumble!

The ground beneath Bonnie’s feet began to crack, the air thickening into a tangible, suffocating pressure.

The fractured gem on her staff glowed with a malignant, white-hot intensity, sucking in every loose molecule of mana from the surrounding environment.

“Goodbye, Demon Lord,” Bonnie whispered, the genuine fear in her eyes replaced by a terrifying, final calm.

She was sacrificing herself not just to escape, but to ensure that his observation of her failed entirely, leaving nothing but ruin in her wake.

Shiiiing—

In the span of a single heartbeat, Dorian exerted his will. It wasn’t an attack. It was a command.

“Authority: Aegnis barrier!”

Dark, impenetrable mist erupted from his body, coalescing not around him but around the entire campus. It wasn’t a visible dome or shield.

Instead, the dark energy weaved itself through the very structure of the school, the walls, the foundations, and the air—binding everything into a single, cohesive, magically reinforced shell.

This was ‘Shi’, the concept of absolute defensive authority, layered over reality.

An authority he had gotten from ruling over a hundred dragon kins.

It was the most energy-intensive defensive measure he possessed, designed not to deflect a blow, but to withstand an annihilation event.

The explosion happened instantaneously.

KRA-KRA-KRA-BOOOOOOM!!!

A deafening, soul-shattering roar tore through the courtyard.

A column of pure, volatile purple and white energy shot upward, expanding outwards in a perfect, hemispherical wave of kinetic and magical devastation.