Soul Venerable (Re-written)

 

 

 

Some would argue on who is the most powerful race native to Morgen World, but those who are knowledgeable about the history of the First Hero wouldn't hesitate to crown the Dragon race as the strongest lifeform.

Let’s talk about their physiology first. 

There are reasons why dragons are universally enthroned as the ‘perfect lifeform’.

[Dragon Bloodline], one of the dragon race’s bullshit racial traits, allows them to pass down cultivation memories and combat experience of their previous generation to the next. Being born from a dragon’s womb and having father and mother’s blood flowing in their veins is already the greatest True Inheritance that a baby dragon could get. 

Of course, there’s an issue of talent and statistical probability because real world genetics isn’t always 1+1 = 2. Sometimes, their parents will have to help awaken their ‘bloodline’ ability so that they can properly inherit their parent’s True Inheritance or, the said dragon will have to make an effort themselves to awaken the dormant abilities sleeping in their blood. 

The logic of ‘strong bloodlines are harder to awaken but it also gives them more power’ is applicable even to the dragon race. But, if we consider each dragon could live for thousands of years and their bloodline abilities will mostly awaken by itself even if what they do are merely sleep, eat, shit and fuck, the said logic would be perfectly translatable to ‘the older the dragons, the stronger they are’. 

If you think [Dragon Bloodline] is overpowered, then you are still wet behind your ears.

[Dragon Eye], the ability to discern between truth and lies. Illusions and most stealth methods wouldn’t work on them unless it was way beyond the dragon’s power level or having strange properties that the dragon race (including the previous generations of dragons, thanks to Dragon Bloodline) has never experienced before.

[Dragon Flight], for the dragon race, their wings are not a crucial component to achieve flight. Some can fly without having wings through their inherent ability to manipulate terrestrial magnetism or other methods. While having wings does affect the top speed or acceleration rate of dragon flight, it is not a reliable metric.

[Dragon Might], their presence allowed them to mentally suppress anything weaker than them, rendering any dragon to have absolute racial advantage against those who tried to hunt them. A strategy revolving around battle of attrition using cannon fodders wouldn’t work if you want to kill a dragon.

[Dragon Corruption], dragon races have an inherent talent to enslave lesser races that got affected through their bodily fluid (typically blood or sperm). True Dragons would be immune to Dragon Corruption, but for other races, If one could not endure the Dragon Might of an enslavement-path dragon, one could get enslaved pretty easily and enslaved beasts are notoriously weak to this. Some Desolate, Ancient or Immemorial Dragons even have dragonoid cults that serve them. Thus, it would be almost impossible to slay dragons with the help of cannon fodders.

[Dragon Corrosion], just as elemental energy is made out of elemental particles, dragon energy consists of dragon particles, which are extremely corrosive to other races, even to other dragons. A simple claw attack infused with dragon particles would sometimes leave an unhealable wound if one does not possess the proper method to counter Dragon Corrosion.

[Dragon Breath], each dragon has their own life experience. Dragon Breath-type attacks contain their life accomplishment, comprehension and accumulation, allowing them to have strange properties that couldn’t be easily replicated by merely sucking air and then breathing them out. Depending on the path they deepend, dragon particle-infused breath attack could have all sorts of properties and Dragon Corrosion must always be included in that list of effects. 

[Dragon Lingering Vengeance], any who killed a dragon had their body, mind and soul branded by the lingering aura. It allows any dragon to decide who is hostile towards the dragon race. Through this, dragons can identify dragonslayers from a glance.

[Dragon Stomach], the inherent ability to be immune to almost all types of poison and having absolute control upon one’s digestive system. When a dragon is recovering from a tough battle, it could devour a mountain of food to accelerate recuperation, but in an environment lacking food, they could choose to hibernate or slow down metabolism. Killing a dragon through starvation is almost impossible. 

[Dragon Paralel Mind]...

[Dragon Mana Pool]...

[Dragon Fang]...

[Dragon Horn]...

[Dragon Scale]...

[Dragon Heart]...

[Dragon Soul]...

So on and so forth.

The list was so long that even encyclopedia writers are fed up with the dragon race’s bullshit racial traits which would make other races seem like cannon fodders. Furthermore, there are always genetic variations between each dragon, allowing them to have unique traits that other dragons did not possess. 

Although it seems like they are simply a lifeform’s ability being elevated to an exaggerated level, there was a need to exaggerate it. In fact, it was so exaggerated that the Great Archmage Mordred had to classify a new path for this particular race.

Dragon-path.

Needless to say, dragon-path methods can only be used by dragons or some that are related to dragons in some way. 

For the typical concept, weapon, or elemental paths, Legendary-level attainment allows cultivators to mimic or replicate the profundity of other paths. As an example, [Triple Extreme Sound: Finger Whistle] is the use of sound-path to produce the effect of sword-path. 

However, racial path like the dragon-path is an exception. 

Dragon particles, which was the foundation to use dragon-path methods, cannot be replicated unless you have the source of dragon power and no dragon would be kind enough to give it out to anyone else even if they were forced under the threat of death. It’s just how they are. 

“During the battle against Demon King Maximillian, the Sacred Alliance dispatched their ace troops, the Dragon Knight Corps, to buy time until Alistair took the field. One of them was an Immemorial Titanium Fade Dragon Lord, a dragon of metal-path and enslavement-path…” Mordred recalled the source of Dragon’s Shadow as he scanned the dark hall that he was brought into.

It was a wide flat area encircled by tall walls decorated with a few doors like an indoor colosseum. The floor was black soil, the walls and roof were non-reflective black rock, and the black blast doors of entrance and exit had a purple gleaming rune formation on it. Black fog enveloped everything, making visibility extremely low. The gloomy atmosphere was also a wisdom-path saturation attack in the aspect of emotion, making one have difficulty in performing their best. 

In the center of the ‘arena’, there was a giant shadowy creature in the shape of a dragon, the 5-meter class one. Due to the dark mist being produced by the dragon, Mordred couldn’t get a glimpse of the texture of the dragon’s scale.

“When the Immemorial Titanium Fade Dragon Lord flew upon one of my dark-path resource points in the Land of Autumn Rain under the bright sun of Morgen World, it projected a shadow on the ground. The dragon race’s bullshit racial talent was so powerful that the projected shadow resonated with the environment and caused a dark-path Greater Elemental Wave. This creature is not a Shadow Dragon, but the shadows of a dragon that gained sentience after multiple coincidences!” Mordred smiled. 

“At that time, I was desperate to decode the profundity of dragon-path, therefore, I locked it up so that my future self could unravel its secrets.”

“However, I got myself a few immemorial dragon corpses including mutated demonic dragon ones in secret after subjugating Demon King Maximilian, allowing me to synthesize the infamous Myriad Wave Photonic Dragon bloodline which was placed in my Dragon Refinement True Inheritance. I forgot that I have this thing stored here all this time.”

That’s right, Dragon’s Shadow was just a material that went feral. 

Unfortunately, a ‘material’ for a Sovereign is a disaster for mortals. The Dragon’s Shadow was originally a pack of peak-stage rank 0 exotic-lifeforms who had no ‘real’ physical body to speak of. Since this minor-plane is a warehouse, the Dragon’s Shadows were held with other useful materials that can be used to refine various types of exosuits, including stealth. Under the influence of fate, it somehow broke some of the restrictions and devoured everything precious and practiced cannibalism, thus allowing one of them to survive and progress to the peak-stage of rank 1.

“The Titanium Fade Dragon Lord and its rider of that time was one of the most powerful commander-type Dragon Knight in the Sacred Alliance. His dragon mount have an uncountable number of metal-path dragonoid slaves on top of its powerful body…” Mordred’s attention soon fell upon the lump of darkness near his surroundings.

“According to my calculation, the Dragon’s Shadow should be able to break the seal in 100 or so years from now. After devouring this whole micro-plane, it will slowly progress into a rank 3 exotic-lifeform that would take an army of experts to deal with. Since it has yet to find way to advance to rank 2, its threat level is lowered significantly, but Sumire should be fighting against it’s darkmetal dragonoids…”

Although Mordred is alone in this hall, he knew the situation pretty well.

The micro-plane is a giant warehouse with some level of manufacturing capability. The labyrinthian design would stop at the border of the core area where it was encircled by four  secretly connected storage halls according to the cardinal direction. The exo-primate that Shion killed was supposed to be the last guardian of the core area because it has a steep learning algorithm.

The Dragon’s Shadows have an inherent talent in dark-path which are excellent in the aspect of stealth. Even though it was an exotic-lifeform born from the projection of a dragon, it still has the nature of most dark-path creatures, which was its thirst for brutality and to toy with its prey. 

However, instead of a talent for ambush, the Dragon’s Shadow has the ability to create projections, like some sort of shadow clone. After all, it is an exotic-lifeform that couldn't be measured by the typical metrics of normal lifeform. It used its projections to control puppets of itself in other halls.  

As for this one… This is the battlefield of which the Dragon’s Shadow’s ‘true body’ choses to kill Mordred. 

There should be three other halls that housed other Dragon’s Shadow puppets controlled by its shadow clones which used up a bit of its power to maintain, but none can compare to the one in the same room with Mordred.

“Perhaps… 50% of your power is here?” Mordred touched ‘his’ chin in ponderation. The  dark-path undulation of the Dragon’s Shadow is so strong that any other elements would be suppressed by up to 50%. Since Xi Ling’s body which Mordred used through the Dark Mist right now is a light-path body, the opposite of dark-path, he was suppressed. 

“Thanks to the multiple layers of seals and restrictions in this place, it cannot get out of this room, but it was capable of using investigative methods. If I did not lure its attention and set this raid up with the Lingering Dragon Vengeance that I’ve accumulated in my previous life, it would kill everyone else and then use the freed up power to kill me. By splitting its power fight against multiple ‘raids’ at the same time, can I say it wasn’t that smart to begin with? Still… killing it wouldn’t be easy.”

“The original Platinum Fade Dragon Lord could summon an army of dragonoid through ‘carpet bombing’ with its scale. No. The correct words should be, the original Platinum Fade Dragon Lord has refined its scale so that it can transform into dragonoid puppets, having minor similarity with Replicants. In other words, the Dragon Lord is actually a superheavy bomber/carrier that could drop an army at a moment’s notice. So… they should be your darksteel dragonoids, right?”

Just as he finished his internal monolog, the lump of shadows underneath the Dragon’s Shadow revealed themselves as humanoid dragons with a height of 3 meters, forming a line like an elite royal guard protecting their king. The dragon’s shadow ‘true body’ is already a hassle, it would be harder to kill it with its elite darksteel dragonoids protecting it. 

Each dragonoids is armored with black-colored metal armor and welding primitive melee weapons. Not a single puppet carried a ranged weapon because the hall does not contain gunpowder or bullet materials, yet they could not be underestimated because pseudo-Dragon Corrosion is laced within those weapons.

Although the Dragon’s Shadow is merely a projection of that dragon and did not possess a true Dragon Bloodline, it still adapted some of its ‘parent's’ traits. Through its unique usage of pseudo-dragon particles, it refined darksteel dragonoid puppets.

The materials used to refine these darksteel dragonoid are mostly common, while the core components are ranging from uncommon to rare. Their physical spec are not the greatest, but they are battle puppets similar to primitive golem of this world, having no clear external weakness. Without having qualitative difference in strength to kill them in one hit, it would be hard to slowly grind them to death. 

If compared in quality, each of them should have the same durability of former Nyx’s Bone Golem.

And there are 20 of them in this place, which are bad news to someone who wanted to subjugate the dragon’s shadow. 

“Let’s see… Since you’ve brought 50% of your power to fight me, the rest of the team should be having an easier time.” Mordred did not immediately start the battle. He was deducing the distribution of forces that was split by the Dragon’s Shadow.

“Sumire has a strong soul connection to her kobold army through command seals, it shouldn’t be able to split her army, thus Sumire’s strength is full. Because she’s the ‘weakest’, she should be together with the rest of the weaker members of Twin Helix. The Dragon’s Shadow is confident of killing her by lumping together the weak ones.”

“Shirogane must be separated from Sumire and Sakuya because we are unlucky. Then, it should be Kenji who’s lumped together with her. Perhaps… Ayame is in their group because her information-path passive defensive measure suppressed her power level to the same level of those two. This group wouldn’t have any problem in killing the projection, especially since Ayame has yet to showcase the full power of triple A-grade combat mage.” 

“Then, the last group must be Kasumi and ‘Shion’, they cannot be separated because they are essentially one entity. Unless Dragon’s Shadow has profound dark-path attainment to forcefully break their connection, they should be fighting together with one of its projections.”

“The power balance should be… 50% me, 20% Kasumi, 20% Kenji, Shirogane and Ayame, and the last 10% should be Sumire and the rest…” Mordred grinned.

“Great decision. I, too, want to have the ability to make projections without having to split my soul. Perhaps I should ask my big brother to completely decipher dragon-path when he descends into this world?” Mordred asked himself, but he didn’t think too much. The dragon’s shadow has made a move by taking a deep inhale.

“You’re going to open our meeting with a pseudo-Dragon Breath?” Mordred made some hand seals. “Despite having only 50% of the original power, a rank 1 pseudo-Dragon Breath is still something that I couldn’t block. Truly problematic.” 

With a flash of golden light with black outline, Mordred's body flickered as he reappeared outside the black dragon breath attack’s area of effect. The breath attack isn’t flames, it exhales some sort of unexplainable darkness, receiving it is not a good idea even with multiple layers of defensive methods on his person.  

Mordred revealed a custom-made weapon that was made from looting the exo-primates during his time waiting for Kasumi and the rest, a customized single-barrel rifle that was seemingly made by strapping three experimental railguns together. Despite looking ugly, it wasn’t something that can be underestimated.

In the face of that gun’s barrel, the Dragon’s Shadow didn’t dare to be arrogant by standing still as it could sense the danger emanating from that ugly weapon. It moved erratically, creating fake shadow duplicates and using the dragonoids as cover while looking for an opportunity to attack.

The fight against Dragon’s Shadow's true body has officially begun.

…

 

In another hall.

Just as Mordred has predicted, Sumire is being grouped by the other ‘weaker’ members of Twin Helix. This projection of Dragon’s Shadow has yet to physically make a move, but it is protected by a large amount of darksteel dragonoids.

Unlike the dragonoids used to fight Mordred, these dragonoids are 1.5 to 2 meter tall, wearing less ornate armor and holding less dangerous weapons. Some are even walking with four legs like lesser dragons. They are clearly weaker than the elite royal guards, but the numbers are almost reaching a hundred.  

“Sakuya, have you found a method to destroy them completely?” Sumire asked while her eyes closed, her kobolds fighting a grueling battle against the dragonoid puppets. 

She could not open her eyes and waste telepathic resources to process visual information. 

Her complete attention is spread to micro-manage her kobolds. Due to funneling cultivation resources to these elite 10 kobolds, they have reached the stage where they can contend with the darksteel dragonoids, but unlike these immortal puppets which could be telepathically reconstructed in less than a minute by the Dragon’s Shadow clone, her kobolds would slowly bleed and die if exposed to physical wounds.

Without Nyx’s support of optimizing her commands, Sumire’s group would have collapsed in the first 2 minute. Sumire did not have resurrection methods, after all. She could not fight a battle of attrition against the dragon’s shadow’s puppet. Being split from the true ‘dps’ of the team was a surprise that they couldn’t prepare against, but they still have a chance to kill the Dragon’s Shadow.

Her hope lies in Sakuya who has the firepower to completely obliterate the dragonoids, but mindlessly throwing AoE spells wouldn’t solve the problem if these puppets reconstruct themselves. The solution is to use a single-target spell or attack that completely melts the metal that made these dragonoids, but Sakuya have a limited amount of spell catalysts. She has to make use of the best of her spell resources, otherwise they would slowly get grinded.

As for the others… Well, they tried their best, but they could not function properly because the dragonoids are simply a bad match for them. 

Yamamura’s poison wouldn't work on puppets, just as Ramiel’s crossbow attacks wouldn’t be able to penetrate their tensile darksteel scales, so they supported the kobolds to the best of their abilities. Seraphina the elven supporter has no offensive power to speak of, therefore she can only heal and make root walls to aid the kobolds.

The core that held back the frontline was Kurogane with his twin greatswords, but he’s only one man. If he fell, the frontline would crumble and the ‘squishies’ like Sumire and Seraphina would quickly die under the dragonoids assault.

Thus, Sumire’s mutant kobolds became the most important tool to contest with the endless dragonoids.

“I’m working on it!” Sakuya replied, frustrated. She was primarily a martial artist and a mage second, but her captain wanted her to excel at both roles. Although others would say it was expected because Sakuya is always being an arrogant and irritable bitch, to cast a spell, mages require a tranquil state of mind.

Chanting in a magical language isn’t similar to speaking a non-magical tongue, her spiritual force also requires fine tuning to resonate with the language so that it can produce the desired effect. 

Having a fist fight while casting a spell is an impossible feat for most rank 0 mages. 

Although she is considered as the ‘weaker’ member of Twin Helix, it was because she is compared to Shion, Ayame, Kenji, or Shirogane. Each of them are either freaks, having a great bloodline, or are supported by great equipment. In the case of Ayame, she was all of that combined. 

Yet, if she retreated to the backline and prepared her spells, the frontline would crumble before she could use her spells. 

They were stuck in a tight situation that couldn’t be solved unless they took out their trump card. However, their trump card requires Shirogane! She’s not with them at the moment, that’s why everyone is pushed around by these dragonoids.

Splat! The head of a crawling dragonoid got hit by Sakuya’s flaming fist and exploded, splattering its metallic body parts to the ground. Kurogane too, was capable of killing it after some effort, but while everyone got occupied by other dragonoids that came thirsting for their life, the damaged dragonoids slowly reassembled under the telepathic influence of the Dragon’s Shadow clone. 

This scene repeated for fifteen minutes as they could not create an opportunity to completely destroy the golems for good. 

< Master, I propose we wrestle control upon these dragonoid puppets. > 

On the brink of despair, Nyx proposes an idea to Sumire.

After the battle to capture Fort Esela, she and Nyx have been steadily using the soul resources harvested from the battlefield to increase their soul foundation. Needless to say, with Nyx’s soul meditation technique, the rate at which their soul foundation increases is a lot faster than Sumire’s original. 

At this point, both have recovered from their early-stage of rank 0 to touch 6 transparent star soul cultivation base, back to where Sumire was before she enslaved Nyx. 

“You’ve decoded their mental barrier?” Sumire replied telepathically.

< Yes. I can handle the rest, you should begin your spell activation method to take control of these puppets. > Nyx sent a telepathic message regarding his analysis on the dragonoids.

Since they are a golem-like construct, it wasn’t impossible to forcefully take the ‘remote control’ from the original owner. 

Actually, it is impossible. 

At least for Sumire.

It would also take a lot of time for a grandmaster to do it. Actually, grandmaster-level enslavement-path cultivators wouldn’t be able to wriggle the control of other enslavement-path experts of the same level. The Dragon’s Shadow was probably a Master or Grandmaster of enslavement-path, so it was possible for Nyx to do it.

Nyx was cheating because he had a greater enslavement-path attainment level than the Dragon’s Shadow. At the very least, the clone that they fought has weaker control than the original, and keep in mind that Nyx’s ‘legendary’ attainment is the real deal. Deciphering the Dragon’s Shadow’s mental undulation and creating a method to counter it was, of course, possible for legendaries.

If enslavement-path is all about enslaving creatures, why couldn’t enslavement-path experts enslave their foe’s battle resources and claim it for one’s own? With Sumire’s hypnotic abilities honed for this particular endeavor (her combat style before she got kobolds was like this), it was actually possible for her to do it despite her relatively low cultivation base, as long as she had the method to do it.

With Nyx’s analysis on the dragon’s shadow projection’s mental undulation, she slowly understood how powerful this pseudo-dragon is.

‘No wonder everyone universally accepted the dragon race as the strongest lifeform in our world… This pseudo-dragon has some of the traits of a real dragon… The others must be having a hard time…’ 

Sumire wasn’t aware of the origin of the creature, but thanks to Nyx’s centuries of ‘experience’, she was enlightened of its pseudo-dragon nature. This projection took up a fraction of its real strength.

The Dragon’s Shadow is truly an intelligent exotic-lifeform capable of using divide and conquer tactics to increase its odds of success.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t aware that Nyx existed.

If it was just this group of hunters alone, its clone would completely obliterate this group after some effort. After killing them, the true body will retract the clone’s power to fight against the rest. This tactic will slowly snowball until it kills everyone and begins deciphering methods to break the seal of this place.

With Nyx taking command of the Kobolds, Sumire quickly altered her original method of hypnotism and began the activation sequence of a magic spell. 

“Rank 0 enslavement-path magic spell, [Dark Matriarch’s Requisition]!” 

The magic spell produced a large amount of purple-colored ball which was her telepathic will. These telepathic will ‘balls’ are thrown onto the midst of the dragonoids and some of them begin twitching non stop until the telepathic will completely infiltrate its primitive mind. When it happened, the ‘control’ upon the dragonoid puppets fell into the hand of Sumire.

Keep in mind that command-path is different from enslavement-path.

Command-path uses Command Seals which was a type of soul contract to enforce one’s will. To refine these Command Seals, it usually consumes a fragment of one’s soul foundation and soul resources and each Command Seals have different ‘weights’. The stronger the command seal, the more ‘weight’ it carries. 

Sumire’s kobolds are held under a 1-man soul command seal. As long as she has at least 2-man soul foundation, she can carry this ‘weight’ threshold. Of course, since the kobolds have grown stronger, she has upgraded the command seals that binds them to at least 10-man souls strong which can bind anything with 10-man souls strong or less. Therefore, as long as she has an 11-man soul foundation and does not care about the resource expenditure, she can easily create an endless amount of 10-man soul strong command seals.    

On the contrary, enslavement-path ‘weight’ is additive. Meaning, if she has a 101-man soul foundation, she can either enslave a hundred 1-man soul lifeform, ten 10-man soul lifeform, or a single 100-man soul lifeform. It was that easy.

Since the kobolds are under her command-path methods, she has a lot of enslavement-path ‘capacity’ to spare. 

In that instant, a few of the dragonoids are slowly fighting back against its brethren. As long as she’s careful with her methods, she can keep enslaving more dragonoid puppets.

‘Successful. You are truly a frightening high elf, Nyx.’ Sumire mentally praised Nyx’s capability. 

With the converted dragonoid puppets, the crumbling frontline held on as a new battle of attrition has begun.

 

…

 

At the same time, in another hall.

Kenji took a deep breath. The wounds on his body aren’t closing despite the multiple activation of his healing methods. The pseudo-Dragon Particles are still capable of inflicting pseudo-Dragon Corrosion. 

A real Dragon Corrosion would’ve made the wound worse as time passed by due to his inability to hand it, the claw attack that almost exposed his heart would never close up. At the very least, he managed to stabilize the wound and made it so that it wouldn't bleed. Though, the flesh wounds are slowly turning black, evident from the corrosion. If not healed soon, it will worsen.

“Motherfucking lizard won’t stop moving…” He complained as he glanced at his left.

There was a silver haired beauty whose exposed big breast and pink peaks were rising up and down slowly. Although the scene was something that Kenji liked, he preferred it wasn’t in this situation. Shirogane was bleeding all over her body, her prized half-plate armor which partly melted from the pseudo-Dragon Breath had been completely broken from a simple tail sweep infused with pseudo-Dragon Particles.

She suffered from multiple puncture and slashing wounds, she is leaking silvery-red blood all over her body. Unlike Kenji who’s trying his best to heal himself or at least stabilize the wounds, Shirogane lets herself bleed while she’s immersing herself in sorrow. 

“Fucking… pseudo-Dragon Might…” Kenji pinched the spot between his eyes.

Although this clone of Dragon’s Shadow does not have dragonoids protecting it, it has an extremely strong and nimble body and constantly radiates pseudo-Dragon Might in the form of wisdom-path saturation attack.

In the first half an hour, Shirogane was capable of fighting alongside Kenji and Ayame while dealing with the foregin telepathic emotion invasion. But after her Telepathic Ruthless Sword-Emotion ran out, she quickly fell victim to the telepathic melancholic sorrow emotion radiated by the Dragon’s Shadow, becoming a useless baggage that even Kenji wanted to leave alone.

“Fucking hell, where is boss where you need her…” Kenji cursed, but he didn’t let him get lost in the emotion. If he is immersed in emotion too much, he will experience a melancholic sorrow that would make her cry like Shirogane. If that were to happen, the chances of Ayame killing the that fucking lizard will lessen and lessen.

“I will try to wake her up. Please cover us.” Kenji pleaded to Ayame who’s covered in three different Mage Armor and five other defensive spells. 

“Sure. I can carry this fucking team by myself. You’re just a burden, after all…” A synthetic female voice resounded from her. “Sorry, that was Aozora, my A.I unit. Aozora, set sarcastic speech patterns to 0%, we don’t need to incite any emotion right now. Kenji, I’m sorry, you can try your best to wake her up. I will be waiting.” The real Ayame muttered as she deftly evaded a dragon breath from the Dragon’s Shadow.

Even with her defensive measures, Ayame wasn’t confident in defending against that black psuedo-dragon particles-infused breath that melts a part of Shirogane’s armor as if it was cotton candy being washed in warm water. Even her flesh is still being corrupted now.

“Thank you, I’ll try my best.” Kenji began activating the rings on his fingers. There are ten rings, and some of them are specialized in dealing with wisdom-path methods because it was the weakness of most strength-path cultivators. “Fuck, these are all self-defense rings and some offensive ones, I have no attainment in wisdom-path to support others…”

It couldn’t be helped. Until recently, he was a lone wolf without allies to rely on. Or, using his perspective, he has no ‘burden’ to carry.  

While Kenji spent his time in frustration, Shirogane’s bloodline is still fighting back against the pseudo-dragon corruption. Unlike Kenji who had to actively fight with his healing method, Shirogane’s bloodline was powerful enough to have a passive defensive method against the dragon’s shadow’s methods.

“No… please don’t die…” Kenji tried his best but he simply did not have a proper wisdom-path method to counter it, and her condition of falling deeper into melancholic sorrow further slowly affected Kenji.

Memories of his parents slowly resurfaced. 

When an image of his deceased father and mother crossed his mind, he felt boundless anger and sorrow. “You’re both fucking trash of human beings! Why the fuck did you sold me to the slave trader so that you can survive? If you’re incapable of raising me properly, don’t have me in the first place!!!”

Kenji started tearing up as he felt a deep sorrow. He punched to the ground to resist, but he recalled the scene of his father being drunk on cheap liquor instead of working in the field to bring food to the table. His mother didn’t help either, she was busy indulging in unrealistic fantasy of living in town and had always treated him as a servant.

“Those 10 years that I’ve experienced as a child-slave… They were all thanks to you. I did not regret splitting all of your head open with my own fist. But…” Kenji dropped his knees to the ground, tears continuously flowed from his eyes. “Why… aren’t you even sorry on the verge of death. Did you give birth to me so that I can experience all the pain in the world?”

“Hmm…” Suddenly, he stopped crying. “So this is melancholic sorrow. How pathetic.” Kenji touched one of the rings on his finger, the treasure that allowed him to be arrogant in front of Anastasia’s wisdom-path killer move.

“Rank 1 strength-path killer move, [Man Up]!” Kenji slowly recited. At this moment, the 50 computational cores all over his body are producing telepathic manly will. Testosterone is being produced all over his body and adrenaline is forcing his body to move.  

This telepathic manly will is excellent when used to counter negative emotion such as sorrow or depression. 

“So what if I my mother and father sold me as a labor slave? So what if I have nobody to rely on? So what if I have to seek revenge by myself. I survived, didn’t I? I am a man. A man never cries.” His eyes become clear. 

“Nevermind my broken bones and ripped tendon. A real man would stand and fight instead of weeping and running away.” The dude actually stood up despite his nearly fatal wound. The killer move [Man Up] blocks pain receptors in his brain while flooding his sea of consciousness with telepathic manly wills.

“This fucking lizard want to broke my spirit? Fuck you!” Kenji gets out of the safe area set up by Ayame’s drones. “COME HERE YOU LITTLE SHIT!”

Kenji released a [Flesh Tearing Bone Breaking Fist] at the dragon’s shadow who’s too occupied in evading Ayame’s railgun shot. Boom! The fist splatter its head but it was merely a fake shadow clone. The ‘real’ dragon’s shadow clone of this hall is still hiding somewhere behind multiple fake clones, fearing Ayame's penetrative railgun.

Of course, the Flesh Tearing Bone Breaking Fist ripped the tendons and muscle of his fist, but Kenji didn’t care.

“You… actually countered pseudo-Dragon Might?” Ayame raised a question in shock. “Excellent, we can slowly grind this overgrown lizard. Please focus on stopping its movement, I will most definitely kill it.” Ayame asked politely.

Needless to say, Ayame is immune to wisdom-path attacks of rank 1 and below. Aozora, her A.I. unit, isn’t there for show. Because the Dragon Might is merely a replication and not a true one, it cannot pierce the mental defense woven by Aozora. Still, her energy reserves are slowly running low, even with her triple mana pool regenerating mana three times faster than the typical A-grade mage. 

If Kenji and Shirogane were to continue suffering from the mental attack, it would be hard for Ayame to carry the team as this particular clone is specifically made to counter the trio. Now that Kenji has awoken from his stupor, killing the dragon’s shadow without resorting to Ayame’s trump cards seems possible. 

“I heard you used to have a warhammer, please, use this as you see fit.” Ayame passed a baton.

Kenji did not say anything but accepted it without too much thought. In his hand, the baton suddenly produced a great amount of light that turned into a physical weapon in the shape of a warhammer.

“That’s one of my secondary Effulgence Weapons, [Hardlight Variable], please return it when you’re done.” Ayame muttered. 

If Mage Armor spell is a mage’s method for protection, then Effulgence Weapon is for offense. The baton has been engraved with an Effulgence Weapon spell so that it was easy to use.

“Heh. Now I feel like a real man.” Kenji smirked. Battle intent shining from his clear eyes.

But, his presence doesn’t make the situation better. He only made it stop being a one-sided assault. With his help, Ayame doesn’t have to extend her drone’s safety area that consumes a lot of energy to maintain. With one less burden to carry around, her mana regeneration rate could somehow keep up with the expenditure if she uses combat drugs.

The two tried to chase around the Dragon’s Shadow, but it was too fast as it can fly even without the need to physically flap its wings. 

Also, Kenji did not actually recover his body. He was just ignoring the wounds he suffered from, so his performance was actually getting worse as time passed by. 

Ayame too, is slowly becoming tired because she’s a sniper who should be staying still for hours, not someone who fought in the front line dodging and defending against attacks.   

Ayame produced two tubes out of her secret compartment. After some thought, she gave one to Kenji after injecting one to her own neck. “This is Type-Y Genetic Concoction, containing nanos that will dissolve in your body and aid regeneration before excavating…” Ayame had yet to finish her words but a claw attack made her pause her explanation. 

The dumb Kenji know there must be some sort of repricurssion, but he wasn’t thinking straight.

“I fear nothing.” Kenji followed what Ayame did, injecting the Type-Y Genetic Concoction to his own neck. Instead of powering up like he had expected, Kenji’s whole body is spasming uncontrollably.  

“Oh no...” Ayame facepalmed before she continued her assault on the Dragon’s Shadow who had ideas to jump on them while they talked. “I was about to explain that, without cybernetic augmentations to block the pain receptors and adjust your physical body metrics, it would feel like your body is being bitten by a million nanoscopic ants because they are excavating your latent talent for a last burst of energy. Also, I never said you have to inject that whole solution in one go… that was made as… a last resort… in small doses. 

I didn’t even take this out when Shirogane is dying due to genetic collapse because it has a severe impact on non-cybernetic humans… I… tsk, even if you did not dissolve into a soup of genetic mess, I will have to explain a lot to big sis Shion..”

While shooting with her railgun and moving so fast for the normal eyes to keep up dodging the Dragon’s shadow counterattacks, Ayame took out the Omni-gear on her wrist and… strapped it on her neck. The artifact was so versatile that it immediately changed from a wrist watch-like artifact into a choker and produced hardlight substances that manifested into… a shoulder pad.

“I thought that with your presence, we could slowly grind this lizard to death… but now I’m forced to use my last resort because melee combat is not my element.” Ayame wanted to curse so badly, but she had her mind filled with the pseudo-dragon. She has to hurry and quickly treat Kenji, otherwise he would be dissolved by the nanomachines.

She had tried her best to not use her trump card because of its insane resource expenditure, but Kenji just had to fucked up in the last moment. 

With a sigh, her shoulder pads shone in prismatic light.