Soul Venerable (Re-written)

 

Splat! Shion’s mechanical body, which was more durable than most rank 0 artifacts, exploded into a thousand pieces after receiving a tail sweep from the pseudo-dragon. Her godlike evasion ability and dynamic defense could not exceed the speed of this Dragon’s Shadow. Fortunately, ‘Shion’ moved in a strange manner so that Kasumi’s Metal Core wasn’t destroyed in that tail sweep attack, so there’s still hope for recovery.

“[Subjective Time Reversal]!”

Kasumi with ‘mature Shion’ form activated a ninjutsu of dimension seal to reverse the flow of time subjectively. With a flash of golden timeforce, Shion reassembled as if her destruction was a lie. 

Unlike the clones in Sumire’s or Kenji’s hall, Kasumi’s clone of Dragon’s Shadow was more troublesome than them. Although it does not split into fake clones or control a hundred dragonoid puppets, it has a strong body that could withstand multiple direct cannon hits without having a scratch. Also, it has extreme speed and sufficient power to completely splatter Shion in one hit, because Shion wasn’t built for durability but flexibility.

In other words, this one is highly specialized in physical brawl. 

Kasumi quickly realized she cannot allow this to continue. Splitting her power to control two bodies would probably be effective if the enemy she fought are on the same level. With the Dragon’s Shadow rank 1 cultivation, even if it was merely 20% of its original power, she wouldn’t be able to kill it.

“Fuck this.” Kasumi’s liquid metal body enveloped Shion. While Shion dodged the incoming attacks from the dragon, the heavy liquid metal is entering her body in multiple places. The two cores are rejoining into a formation as metal and lightning elemental particles mixed together.

One second… two second… Each passing second was like years when Shion’s body is used to evade all the attacks of the Dragon’s Shadow. Kasumi’s metallic slime cells are slowly transforming into intricate mechanical parts under the influence of her methods. When it passed the ten second mark, the liquid metal that attached itself to Shion like a giant tumor finished transforming.

“Rank 1 Transformation-path killer move, [Special Assault Armor: Blitzmerker]!” 

Special Assault Armor or SAA, is a type of highly-specialized Power Armor given to Galatreon special forces to fight in demon incursions because they have absolute racial advantage compared to ‘human’. Humans are extremely versatile in finding ways to overcome obstacles. If they cannot hunt demons through strength, bloodline or techniques, then they will use technology. 

The typical Power Armors are too general to be used to fight against Demons. After all, the demons are purely combat races made for war.  

Thus, Special Assault Armor was born.

Different from exo-suits which are just mechanical armors without a power or internal supporting systems, power armor or its derivation are the culmination of ‘Galatreon’ civilization.

SAA has many types. It could be specialized for underwater combat or if the area of combat is in the Land of Sand and Fire, the SAA will be customized to be able to function properly in sand sea, magma lakes or other extreme environments. So on and so forth.

The pseudo-SAA that Kasumi transformed into is specialized in high-speed medium-range air combat. It has a sleek, aerodynamic design despite its 2.5-meter height and cumbersome weight. Since it is specialized in burst, her joints and crucial parts contain replicas of [Electric Jet Stream Propulsion System] that should only exist on giant mechas, allowing a large amount of electric power to be exhausted in a somewhat efficient manner to produce a crazy burst of speed.

In this personal battleground where she doesn't have to worry about Shion’s identity, Kasumi went all out!

Bzzt! A large amount of electricity is being exhaled by her joints. With the addition of terrestrial magnetism manipulation to alter her weight close to zero, she has the burst of speed required to contend with the dragon’s shadow’s movement. After all, rank 1 is still rank 1, even if it was just 20% of its original.

The gunlance on her right hand and the heavy shield on her left does not seem to be too heavy anymore, she has become a knight-like figure that could slay a dragon.     

With a thrust of her vibrating gunlance, SAA-clad Shion managed to deflect the Dragon’s Shadow’s claw attack. The pseudo-dragon particle infused in that attack could not inflict meaningful damage to the gunlance because the weapon itself is vibrating in a strange frequency that dispelled them outright.

The learning ability of Mordred and his split souls are extremely high. He is a former Sovereign, after all. If Kasumi could not decipher the Dragon’s Shadow’s weakness after fighting against this creature for half an hour, then she wouldn’t be worthy as Mordred’s split soul.

Continuous rumble of thunder and sound barrier exploding are constantly happening in this part of the micro-plane. Without inhibition, Kasumi could use her restricted methods, but she couldn’t mimic what Mordred could do because she has a limited amount of resources. 

In fact, her current form is exhausting a tremendous amount of energy every second from her two cores that she has to periodically take out blood crystals from Shion’s dimensional storage ring and activate the blood-path killer move [Blutopfer] to recover her energy reserve.

DADADADADA! The Dragon’s Shadow did not use the chance to engage in melee with her because it knew Kasumi could not keep up the transformation for long but Kasumi transformed the gunlance into Devastator and sprayed kinetic shells. Every bullet was accurately hitting the lizard who tried to evade with every ounce of its being, but the rounds ricocheted as its scales are extremely durable. 

The dragon’s shadow did not think too much about those pebbles-like attacks as its pseudo-dragon scales are capable of tanking even cannon shells. However, why is it that every bullet suddenly sting as if it was a needle? Furthermore, the pain it experienced is getting stronger?

When it checked whether the bullets broke its hard metal scales, it was confused because the rounds are properly ricocheting, but the sense of pain is getting clearer with each hit.

This clone of Dragon’s Shadow realized that it had made a grave error. Letting its prey merge as one was its greatest mistake.

Suddenly, Devastator stopped firing metal bullets as Shion has no more bullets to speak of, it was replaced with condensed rounds of sound. The new sonicrounds are far more dangerous than kinetic rounds as it has some level of ‘armor piercing’ effect which was stronger by the second.

Kasumi, who chose to slowly wear down the Dragon’s Shadow, noticed something about the changes in her foe.

“You’re getting weaker because of the damage that I inflicted to you?” Kasumi asked herself. “No, it can’t be, you’re not this fragile. The only explanation is…” Kasumi grinned through Shion who is encased in her SAA body. “Either one of us has killed one of your clones, or Mordred forced your true body to pull more power from your clones, isn’t it?”  

“Alright, time to bring an end to this fake lizard. [Subjective Time Stop]!”

The Dragon’s Shadow’s movement did not stop, but it crashed into the wall because Kasumi paused it’s thought process for a brief second. In its perspective, the scene suddenly changed into the surface of the wall.

Kasumi did not waste the chance that she made by using up the last portion of her time-path resource. She began bombarding the Dragon’s Shadow whose head stuck in the wall with her attacks. There was no hesitation. What Kasumi lacked was an opportunity to get close and deal effective damage. 

With the dragon’s shadow being immobilized for a brief second, her gunlance easily decapitates the clones after stacking 14 layers of [Triple Extreme Sound: Finger Whistle] under the influence of [Quadruple Maximize: Overlapping Resonance] and [Quadruple Pierce: Rend Harmonics].

Of course, her gunlance receive significant damage to make this attack, but Kasumi wouldn’t care.

 

…

The first one who noticed the changes of this ‘raid’ was not Kasumi, but Sumire instead.

The clone that fought against her was the weakest, it does not have the physical strength of other clones nor its wisdom-path saturation attack capabilities but its mental ability is far superior. Through the use of dragonoid puppets, it made the ‘weaker’ member of Twin Helix pushed to the brink.  

Since Sumire has gained the ability to steal the dragon’s shadow control upon its puppets, this battle of attrition has turned into a stalemate. However, when one of the two forces of equal strength had a slight drop of power, the other side would immediately notice the difference.

“The dragon’s control over its puppet is getting sloppy!” Sumire ordered her kobolds and teammates to push on. The kobolds led by Sakuya and Kurogane are slowly destroying these golems, the Dragon’s Shadow also didn’t repair the fallen, so its forces are slowly getting obliterated. 

Bam! With the last puppet broken under Kurogane’s heavy greatsword, the only hostile left in this hall was the dragon’s shadow projection, which had never made a move. 

“You think just because I dropped my control for a bit… You’ve won?” The clone spoke.

Everyone was shocked. “You… can speak?” Sumire unconsciously retorted.

The clone has its dragon lips smile in a smug way, as if it has grasped victory. It spread its metallic dragon wings and dispersed the dark mist that enveloped its 5-meter long body, displaying its true form of young black dragon.

“Bullshit, you’re just bluffing…” Kurogane had yet to finish his words before he was flicked with its tail. In that moment, his tired body, half of his biometal skeleton and full plate armor broke. He was embedded in the black rock wall but his twin greatsword never left his grasp.

“That… fucking… hurt…” The dude slowly removes himself while he sees everyone else is being attacked by the overgrown lizard. The kobolds are slaughtered, it would be hard for Sumire or Seraphina to endure an attack that made him like this. “Although you’re just… a fake lizard…” Kurogane muttered in raging fury.

Something changed within his body.

Since Shirogane, his sister, was capable of awakening her bloodline ability after a grievous wound, he had been feeling a little eager. 

Bloodline abilities are strange. Sometimes, you get it, but your older sister doesn't, or the other way around. However, one thing that Kurogane did after the battle with Nyx and getting incapaitated in one hit was always trying his best to awaken his first bloodline ability.

It wasn’t easy. 

Some bloodline abilities will automatically awaken by just sleeping or doing nothing, the greatest example of this was the dragon race’s. But, Kurogane is a human and he has no dragon bloodline, he cannot wait for his bloodline ability to awaken like those overgrown lizards who can choose to laze for centuries and automatically become stronger. Therefore, he had tried his best to push himself to the brink, everytime. 

While everyone was ‘walking’ in their path of cultivation, he ran and ran. The sweat that his body produced slowly turned into blood as he forced himself to keep moving, but he did not stop. He had a good bloodline and bountiful resources of the Kubikiri clan, yet why can’t he catch up to Kenji who works for his resources by himself? 

Kurogane couldn’t accept it!

Completely unacceptable!!! 

The pure wrath in his sea of consciousness stirred his blood, his body felt hot as if his whole body was being boiled.

“I see…” In that instant, he just knew that one of the 424 recorded Kubikiri clan’s bloodline abilities had awakened in him.

This was, quite literally, a furious awakening. 

[Lesser Metalbane], the ability to weaken the chemical bond between metal elemental particles to a certain degree through radiation. As long as it has metal elements or is based on metal, he could soften them up. Because he isn’t a mage with strong control upon his own elemental radiation, the range is significantly reduced to the point of touch. But, it is still useful in some capacity.   

“I, KUBIKIRI KUROGANE, INHERITOR OF ANCIENT STEEL TYRANT SWORD CENTIPEDE BLOODLINE, WILL KILL YOU!”

Sumire was forced to sacrifice seven of his kobolds so that her team members could survive. The dragon’s shadow tried to bite Sumire’s head with its jaw but she suddenly moved unbefitting of a physically weak enslavement-path expert. She jumps back to evade, but the Dragon’s Shadow still catches up to her movement, biting her left arm.

Blood sprayed as Sumire suddenly turned into a wolf beastman. 

At this point, Alanis’s transformation-path method to take on Sumire’s identity as bait has been canceled due to the damage. The real Sumire was far back, concealed under an information-path stealth method.

Just as the Dragon’s Shadow was about to make a follow up attack to finish Alanis, Kurogane arrived with his greatsword. He used all of his martial arts in this exchange, including [Power Overwhelming] but he could not completely decapitate the Dragon’s Shadow’s head.

Bang! The greatswords split into two halves. It’s pseudo-dragon scale is so tough that most mortal weapons are ineffective against it.

If only he had cultivated sword-path instead of strength-path… his metal-path bloodline will amplify his lethality to a new degree.

But, he did not regret his choices. If he does not cultivate in strength-path, he will have a conflict of interest with his sister, which restricts him to stay beside her. He wouldn’t be able to protect her from harm until she gets better from her condition.   

“MOTHERFUCKER, DIE!” 

The human body couldn’t produce this type of adrenaline rush, it was pure unadulterated wrath that resonated with the world who fueled his body.

The metallic dragon scales rumored to be immune to most mortal weapons cracked open under his fist, disorienting the pseudo-dragon. Of course, his hands could not endure the force of the attack, his own biometal bones were exposed to the air. The sight was gruesome, but he did not care. 

Once, twice, thrice, the black-colored bone of his fist cracked. If he did not block the pain receptors in his brain, Kurogane would’ve squirmed in pain. Keep in mind that [Power Overwhelming] is still active, when he attacks, all parts of his body are being used to provide the momentum, he is giving his all.

“MY CENTIPEDE BLOODLINE IS SUPERIOR THAN YOUR FAKE DRAGON EXISTENCE!”

Bang! Although his bloodline ability is active this whole time, the fake dragon is still powerful. The last attack completely crippled his hand, but the insides of Dragon’s Shadow’s head which was filled with gears and steel got splattered in exchange. 

 

…..

 

Galatreon is the most advanced country in terms of magic technology because they are simply the inheritors of the Great Archmage, the Brave who brought refinement-path to an all-time new height.  

Currently, they lacked a ‘Sovereign’ to hold the fort, but the fact that not a single super-factions from the Five Regions decided to attack the said country after the fall of the Great Archmage reveals a lot of reasons why it was a bad idea.

First of all, even if everyone ignores the fact that Galatreon housed a dimensional fissure and the city-cum-country serves as a giant plug to block demon incursions, Galatreon still has an overwhelming number of combatants.

It housed four great clans, and all of them were militaristic.

In theory, they have a limitless number of cannon fodders.

Using clones as slave soldiers or labor slave have almost broke the tacit understanding between the gods because ‘refining’ human is literal heresy. If Replicants have souls and are fertile, the gods wouldn’t just stand still, but Mordred’s capability has limits. Despite his great accomplishment in bio-science, he has his own specializations and bio-refinement is not his true field of expertise. 

That being said, although their advanced magic-technology civilization allows any random soldier to carry railguns, reality isn’t as ideal as that. 

To carry advanced weapons, there are strict restrictions, even carrying a gunpowder-based gun requires one to have a license. Most low-level Galatreon soldiers are Replicants, they aren’t even licensed to carry railguns. 

Yes, this was a method so that nobody misused them to kill higher-rank cultivators, because some special advanced weapons can really do so. 

One example of them was… the one that Ayame used right now… the shoulder pad.

Its name was X-45 Hydra-pattern Mass Fabricator.

“Although I have yet to earn the license to carry this around… I use my Murasaki privilege to ask my cousin from the Richtofen clan to get the blueprint of this weapon as a trump card…” Ayame muttered in her heart. Galatreon Inquisitors would probably punish her for bringing this thing out without the corresponding clearance, but as long as nobody saw her bringing this out, it should be fine.

The prismatic glow produced from the shoulder pad is actually a refinement process. Despite taking the form of a shoulder pad, it was a micro-fabricator that refined micro-missile out of hardlight and energy.  

That’s right, it was a roundabout way to say a fucking missle launcher.

However, not even Ayame earned the license to carry this in combat because it was categorized as an SAA-Armament. Meaning, they were supposed to attach this weapon on an SAA. It wasn’t even designed to be carried by heavy infantry because their expenditure is too extreme! 

“If a true Military Hydra where to see this, I would probably be reprimanded harshly, but nobody would complain!” At this moment, her hardlight shoulder pad opened up its segment, revealing a few dozen distal phalange-sized micro-missiles. 

The dragon’s shadow was curious of what the girl is doing, but she’s covered in eight defensive spells, it wouldn’t be easy to one-hit her to break them all, especially with her erratic movement that allowed her to dodge its most powerful attack, the pseudo-Dragon Breath.

“Aozora, have you locked on it?”

< Affirmative, hostile movement set has been decoded. Inputting hostile defense rating… Calculating attack solution. Attack solution set…  The following resources will be consumed: 98% of the remaining rank 0 Solid Photon materials, 5.72 kilograms of electro-charged liquid plasma, 2.88 liters of blood and 29 other supporting materials in minute amounts, confirm? >

“That’s alright, please help me kill it…” Ayame took a deep breath as she launched the missiles. This equipment is heavily inspired by Multicast’s Arcane Artillery to continuously spam an uncountable number of [Arcane Missile] spells.

Although these micro hardlight missiles do not have the fraction of a power of Multicast’s spells, the principles behind the weapon are similar. To continuously fire high-yield micro-explosives to deal damage from afar is the true way of a mage-gunner!

Unfortunately, standard hardlight micro missiles could not deal effective damage to a dragon, even a fake one. Thus, each of them contains 1 milliliter of Ayame’s activated blood which will explode in a 1-meter violent blast of lightning.

The Dragon’s Shadow projection has a frightening maximum speed limit. But when Ayame fired 48 micro missiles per second and each of them were homing, just a minute of evading allowed 2880 missiles to accumulate and chase after it. 

The Dragon’s Shadow tried to destroy the missiles with its breath, but who would’ve known that the missiles can evade as if it was a living being?

Due to the size of the hall, it could not permanently evade almost three thousand missiles. The damage accumulates after the first hit connected because each explosion would stop the dragon in its tracks.

The sound of nearly three thousand explosions compressed in less than fifteen second was deafening. After the last micro-missile exploded, what’s left of the Dragon’s Shadow projection was just the charred wreckage of a dragon. Melted gears, springs, or other fake dragon body parts littered the area. 

Ayame’s knees dropped to the ground, her face pale. A normal human would die from losing 2.5 to 4 liters of blood. Even if her clan’s bloodline is from a rank 6 Immemorial beast which are far superior than rank 5 Ancient or rank 4 Desolate beasts, losing nearly three liters of blood could weaken her significantly. However, it was worth it. 

If she did not quickly end the fight, she could not treat Kenji who’s probably experiencing hell right about now.

She crawled towards where Kenji was after dematerializing the mass fabricator. 

Kenji was still spasming uncontrollably. “Aozora, please use some of the nanos in my blood to create some control-strain. He’s in… the second stage of genetic collapse. Please make it in time…”  

Due to her cybernetic enhancement, all Murasaki clansmen are supported by A.I units and various strains of nanomachines are swimming in their bloodstream. The nanomachines who are responsible for the maintenance and other aspects of the body are sometimes simply referred to as nanos.

< Affirmative. I have coagulate a drop of nanos onto your fingertip, allow your blood to infiltrate Kenji. >     

Ayame put one of her fingers on top of Kenji’s lips. A drop of purplish-red blood dripped and entered Kenji’s groaning mouth. 

< Please consume 4 rank 0 emergency recovery pill to regain your lost blood and give him two portions. >

She took out a pill box from her pouch and took out six silvery marbles from it. This is a type of emergency pill that only works on Murasaki clansmen who have nanos in their bloodstream. She ate four while giving Kenji two.

In her body, the silvery marbles which are essential elements such as calcium, various vitamins, iron, or other rare elements required for her body to produce more blood and recover from wounds are being disassembled by the nanos rapidly. In less than thirty seconds, her complexion slowly returned as her lightheadedness caused by blood loss was somewhat alleviated. It’ll take some time before she recuperates completely, but it was sufficient for the time being. 

As for Kenji, he had stopped spasming, but his face still expressed unbearable pain.

“How is he?”

< Measuring subject’s body metrics… Genetic mapping complete. Genetic collapse averted, his genes are currently stabilizing. The nanos in his body are no longer forcefully excavating his hidden talent because there’s no such thing in the first place, but his lifeforce is depleting in a rapid rate. >

“How so?” Ayame asked.

< Due to the genetic concoction, his genes are currently ‘exhausted’. There is an urgent need to undergo a blood-path life alteration surgery to reinforce his genes with the bloodline of other creatures, preferably a rank 3 Legendary beast. Otherwise, he would continue to age 10 faster until his normal lifespan is used up. >      

Ayame grinds her teeth in frustration. “Oh no, it’s because I took it out and Kenji injected it without thinking… I… have to explain this to big sis as soon as possible….” 

There was a tinge of fear in her tone. She did not want to make her ‘big sister’ angry.

As for the weeping Shirogane… that useless baggage was never in her mind in the first place.

….

In another hall.

An Armored Xi Ling (Mordred) inhaled hard, then he exhaled in a force so great that his breath carried Dark Mist over twenty meters away, imitating his foe who could produce dragon breath.

The Darksteel Dragonoids which are hit by this darkness slowly corrode and become corrupted by Modred’s Dark Mist. Their movement became noticeably slower before they fell under Mordred’s control.

Unlike Sumire’s method of wrestling its spiritual control upon their puppet, Mordred brute-force it through the usage of Dark Mist. The swarm of soulful nanomachines can even control rocks and dead objects that shouldn’t move, why can’t it be used to hijack puppets?

However, doing so would reduce the amount of Dark Mist that controls Xi Ling’s body. Therefore, Mordred couldn’t do that to every dragonoid puppets. At most, the corruption of dark mist allows him to remotely dominate 3 at a time. 

As for the pseudo-dragon particles infused in the dragonoids… Mordred’s dragon-path attainment is probably higher than this pseudo-dragon. He has a True Inheritance based on his understanding of dragons, after all. 

In this fight, Mordred wouldn’t be satisfied with controlling merely 3 dragonoid at one time. Any Darksteel Dragonoid got corrupted by the Dark Mist will have its pseudo-mind and hardware altered in some way and would be controlled by Mordred through a spiritual link. There was no need to decipher its mental control upon the puppets if he can slowly corrupt more and more Dragonoids through Dark Mist.

In the first 10 minutes, it was the Dragon’s Shadow who kept pressing the attack, but after all of its powerful dragonoid puppets were stolen from it, it was the Dragon’s Shadow turn to be mindful of its own puppet!

It was because… Mordred can actually use AoE Buffs!

“Rank 0 sound-path killer move, [Acceleration Tempo], [Strength Frequency Tuning], [Delayed Enduring Tone], [Body of Explosive Strings], [Mass Vibrating Weapons], [Shock Absorption], [Song of Lesser Sorrow Resistance], [Indomitable Whispers], [Despair Devil Silent Encouragement], [Group Whispering Premonitions]...!”

Mordred’s (Xi Ling’s) vocal cord exploded when he sang under the effect of [Quadruple Maximize], but his mouth kept producing the required noises to activate the buffs because he didn’t rely solely on the vocal cord to sing. 

After the activation of his 10 AoE buffs that have all sorts of positive effects, the relatively slow dragonoids moved swiftly as if it was Mordred himself! The Dragon’s Shadow is being slowly overwhelmed by 21 Mordreds.

“Weren’t you the one who uses numbers to overwhelm me? What’s wrong, you can’t refine more of your puppet?” Xi Ling, or in this case, Mordred casually spoke while carefully jumping around behind lines of darksteel dragonoid, shaving off the Dragon’s Shadow protective barrier through his railgun.

The custom railgun has taken several shots before this, each was powerful enough to grind the barrier that protects its true body. If railgun bullets hit it a few more times, the barrier would break and it's true body would be exposed. But, that wouldn’t be the end of it.   

Unlike the other clones that have splintered abilities, this one has them all.

Dragon Breath, superior physique, extreme speed, being protected by magical barriers and superior puppets… It's true body is actually a troublesome foe to fight against.  

The Dragon’s Shadow realized the threat immediately. Eating a direct shot onto its black-colored barrier, it attacked Mordrerd and the railgun. Under the cover of an focused Dragon Might mental shock, Mordred’s consciousness has stopped for a brief second, allowing the fake lizard’s attack to destroy the railgun and shove it’s sharp tail into his armored chest, gouging his heart and destroying one of Xi Ling’s bountiful chest. 

But the hole in Mordred’s heart has no meaning. 

The loss of his left breast would affect balance, so he cut off the right one as the Dark Mist immediately filled the hole and closed the gap with metal parts so that it does not hinder his movement.

Mordred clasped his hand before flicking his finger. “I’ve seen her do it once, I hope my methods are not too shabby… [Quadruple Pierce: Rend Harmonics], [Quadruple Maximize: Overlapping Resonance], [Triple Extreme Sound: Truesilver Finger Whistle].”

He tried to replicate Shirogane’s killer move, [Truesilver Slash], with his [Finger Whistle]. Different from her flashy silver colored attack, Mordred’s modification of Finger Whistle produced multiple dark silver sword images that shredded the rocks and walls. It has a strong power, but it cannot penetrate the Dragon’s Shadow dark barrier.

Needless to say, even under amplification, it would be hard for a rank 0 attack to shave off a  true rank 1 defensive barrier, especially since it has the power of a pseudo-dragon.

“It seems like I need to fine-tune my Finger Whistle.” Mordred wasn’t in a rush. He kept slowly shaving off the Dragon’s Shadow defensive barrier under the cover of the dragonoid puppets.

The Dragon’s Shadow was, no doubt, truly powerful. It thinks it has gained an advantage, but the reality is not. It fell to Mordred’s scheme a while ago. 

First of all, the Dragon’s Shadow has a peak-stage rank 1 cultivation base. If it progressed further, it would break the micro-plane. Doing so would be suicide and ruin the resources contained within the micro-plane, but the Dragon’s Shadow didn’t know about this. Still, it tried to advance to rank 2, but it was almost impossible with the ‘resource’ of this micro-plane because of the enclosed environment. It is stuck in an infinite cycle of needing to break the restriction to get more resources, but breaking the restriction requires resources to advance.

If it cannot increase it’s ‘depth’ of cultivation, the only way to grow is to spread its cultivation to pursue ‘width’.  

The exotic-lifeform tried to learn enslavement-path through dragonoid puppets, but it's true body cannot escape from the seal. Although it learned enslavement-path battle tactics for decades or even hundred of years in this micro-plane, its actual experience is very low. 

It has never fought against someone with the ability to steal its own puppet. 

As an exotic-lifeform who is born under the projection of a dragon, it has inherited a few of dragon race’s bloodline abilities such as Dragon Bloodline, Dragon Might, Dragon Breath, Dragon Corrosion, Dragon Parallel Mind, and a few others (all of them are fakes, not even having a quarter of the real one’s power). 

Of course, the Dragon’s Shadow cannot break the seal of this location, but centuries of time allowed it to learn some of the rules of this place. At this moment, it was capable of using investigative methods outside.

Not only is the Dragon’s Shadow smart, it also inherited some part of it’s ‘parent’s’ memory, experience and habit such as using metal and puppets. It has devoured all precious dark-path materials can be devoured, and refined the rest into puppets through centuries of learning robotic puppet refinement from the micro-plane. 

When it noticed a new intruder had descended into the micro-plane, it was ecstatic. 

No, it did not detect Mordred’s truesoul directly because that’s impossible with [Faux Soul Configuration] still up and running. It managed to detect Mordred through the disturbances he made by killing exo-primates. 

After some time, the Dragon’s Shadow realized that this intruder is extremely sly and strange. But, the creature has centuries of time to learn combat tactics by using puppets, it was confident that it can handle any foe.

Until suddenly, the seal that binds this hall shook and it leaked a certain aura that it would never forget in its entire life.

That moment sent shivers to the Dragon’s Shadow’s spine, or something equivalent. It’s pseudo-dragon nature experienced a true Dragon Lingering Vengeance, a real one that could only be gained by killing a rank 1 True Dragon, for the first time. 

Rank 0 members of the true dragon race are when they are still in egg form. When they hatched, their power level should be around rank 1. Although killing an infant dragon seems easy, it wasn’t. Depending on the species, dragon eggs or their infants are protected by either adult dragon or dragonoid slaves. Thus, it was an achievement worth celebrating, even if the dragonslayer is a rank 2 expert.

Since this hall is somewhat connected to three others by portals, the dragon’s shadow immediately gathers the most elite battle puppet it can refine into one hall to fight against Mordred. 

However, something stopped it from doing so.

Not long after Mordred’s infiltration to the facility, another group of intruders also entered the micro-plane. They aren’t as strange as Mordred who’s immune to detection.   

Since the Dragon’s Shadow inherited the nature of a true dragon, it was greedy. It wanted to devour all the intruders and learn more things by reading their memories. It started a new round of deduction and derived a result after investigating the new intruder’s capabilities.

The border between the core-area and the middle-area are separated into four storage halls, each containing different materials. The Dragon’s Shadow ‘main body’ could not move between halls even with hidden portals connecting them, but it can send shadow clones to other halls and inhabit robotic puppets.

The north hall contains a large amount of rank 0 materials, the ‘weak ones’ will be dealt with by one of its clones specialized for controlling puppets.

The west hall harbors superlight but durable materials prepared for agility-type exosuits, the sneaky pair of ‘twins’ will be paired with one of its clones made for speed. 

The east hall harbors extremely durable materials and various materials excellent for spiritual amplification modules. Thus, the brute, sniper, and the swordswoman will be facing one of its clones that inhabit an extremely durable puppet of itself, which also will radiate pseudo-dragon might because that’s the weakness of most strength-path cultivators.  

The last south hall was special because it contained the most precious rank 1 materials, including the Dragon’s Shadow main body.

It was confident in dealing with Mordred because he might be powerful, but he has yet to reach rank 1. The difference between rank is too far for any tactic or strategy to work. If it can pressure him with its myriad abilities, it should be sufficient. Thus, the Dragon’s Shadow split 50% of its power to three other halls while the rest are focused on him.

Unfortunately, that didn’t work. Its biggest mistake was relying on strong puppets to overwhelm Mordred because he took control of them. 

Despite not having the damage output to actually damage its body, who would’ve thought that Mordred was capable of using tons of buffs that made these puppets sufficiently annoying to slowly shave off its ‘shield’ and ‘armor’ bar.

The Dragon’s Shadow siphoned some of its power back from its clones to gain an advantage against Mordred which led to the other hunters killing its clones, but those weak ones do not matter anymore because the main body is struggling for its dear life.

The materials that made these puppets are exosuit-worthy, they are not to be underestimated. Of course, the body it inhabits right now is the same. It was made from the best material in this micro-plane, but despite having the best ‘shield’ and ‘armor’, it still cannot block the strongest ‘spear’ that Mordred used because the ‘spear’ is getting sharper as time passes by.

Each time he used [Truesilver Finger Whistle], he modified the method so that it can effectively break the dragon’s shadow shield. 

“Ah, I got the perfect frequency!” After twenty times, Mordred sent another Truesilver Finger Whistle, but this time, it was completely different because… it bypassed the Dragon’s Shadow defensive barrier!!!

Slashing marks of multiple swords appear on its scales. This damage was insignificant, but the significance behind it is not. 

The Dragon’s Shadow felt extreme fear!

The dragonoid puppets can move as fast as Mordred, and the real Mordred now can use methods that completely ignore its defensive barrier? What’s next, armor-piercing? 

“Ah yes. That’s the healthy reaction when someone sees me in a Devil-infested World. This fear… is addicting.” Mordred literally devoured the fear from the Dragon’s Shadow as negative emotion is a delicacy for him.

The Dragon’s Shadow used everything in its arsenal. 

Dragon Roar, a normal roar for other lifeforms, but when combined with pseudo-dragon might, it becomes an extremely lethal mental attack. The first time it was activated, Mordred’s sea of consciousness received a significant shock that it almost shattered right away. But he became strangely resistant by the second roar, and on the fourth time, he became completely immune.

Dragon Breath and Dragon Corrosion. The Dragon’s Shadow tried to melt the puppets and reduce the amount of hands that Mordred could use. After ten minutes of spamming Dragon Breath to the point of its neck completely dried, it reduced the puppets from 20 to 3. Now, it only needs to fight against four ‘Mordreds’.

Dragon Might was always active, but Mordred has been devouring the telepathic melancholic sorrow that it can produce. For him, this level of negative emotion is a delicacy, it would only give him more telepathic resources, thus it was deactivated shortly. 

It relied on pseudo-dragon particles to brawl, but since Kasumi can dispel them with her vibration, how can Mordred not do the same? Mordred deflected a dragon claw attack with his fist imbued with Triple Extreme Sound. The barrier that protects the Dragon’s Shadow did not flare to life as the dragon claw suffered moderate damage, but it also completely exploded Mordred’s right hand.

Up to this point, Mordred has no more puppet to control around because they melted under the black dragon breath that isn’t flames but capable of corroding most materials.

“You have… no more cards left. Give up.” The Dragon’s Shadow spoke. Its black metallic scales are decorated with countless dark silvery sword marks with various depths. One of its claws had been chipped dull, and it’s tail constantly shivered as if experiencing constant pain from the silvery wounds on its whole body.

As for Mordred, his right hand and left leg have been severed and melted, it was a miracle that he can still fight with only one leg. The exosuit he wore has been corroded after multiple exchanges, exposing Xi Ling’s deformed body of flesh and metal parts. His chest is extremely eye-catching because Xi Ling’s bountiful breast has been cut off and the hole is filled with metal parts looted from the dragonoid puppets before they melted.  

The left side of his lower jaw has been deeply lacerated, the flesh around the wounds are black due to corrosion but Xi Ling’s golden white bones could not be corroded by the pseudo-dragon corrosion.

Yet, Mordred merely smiled at the Dragon’s Shadow provocation. 

“Let’s see… My body has less than 11% combat ability remaining, while yours still retain roughly 69%. Normally, I would have given up by now but…” He reveals an eerie smile with Xi Ling’s broken face. “You’re just too dumb to realize it, don’t you?”

The Dragon’s Shadow frowned. “Your bluff wouldn’t work on me. My three clones might be defeated, but that’s merely the puppet they have been inhabiting. Now that I have my full power back, what makes you think you have a chance?”

“Tsk tsk. It seems like scheming to weaken you this far is redundant if you’re this stupid.” Mordred casually sighed as his remaining arm pierced his own stomach. Without defensive methods being activated, his body is merely a corpse of a rank 1 martial artist, it was already rotting a little bit. His hand quickly penetrated his stomach and pulled it out.

That action literally splattered Xi Ling’s innards and slightly rotten black blood to the ground, but he did not care. He crushed the stomach and pulled out a dark purple crystal from it, it was his Soul Phylactery.

“According to my calculation, I might not be able to kill you with my rank 0 cultivation, but there’s sufficient resources for me to advance.” Mordred sat down and began devouring the souls from the phylactery as his peak-stage soul foundation slowly broke through the superlative height of rank 0.

“Are you an idiot?” The Dragon’s Shadow wouldn't hesitate to attack as it inhaled a deep breath. After killing this troublesome foe, the Dragon’s Shadow will have to repair everything else and heal while waiting for another intruder as its resources. But, it was happy that it could survive.

Just as it wanted to exhale its dragon breath, its whole body paused in its tracks. It was paralyzed as if its body was not its own. “W- what did you do?” The Dragon’s Shadow felt the unnaturalness of its paralyzed body.

Mordred opened his eyes while his soul foundation was increasing at a frightening rate, “You still haven’t realized my Dark Mist has been infiltrating your body? Tsk tsk, what an idiot. Perhaps, I shouldn’t have schemed this far to kill you. You’re just too easy. I gave up an arm and a leg, and you eat it without thinking. Aren’t you afraid of having stomach cramps?”

The Dragon’s Shadow felt fury after being insulted. Of course, it wasn’t an idiot. It never ate anything that came out of Mordred’s body, at the very least, it was vigilant enough to know in terms of corruption-type methods, Mordred is an expert.

What the Dragon’s Shadow did was using its claw and tail to attack, Mordred shouldn’t be able to… wait… the Dragon’s Shadow opened its eyes wide.

“So you just realized it now?” Mordred mocked. “That’s right. The ‘blood’ flowing in my body is liquid-concentrated Dark Mist. In the first place, this body is merely a corpse, and her light-path blood is precious so I wouldn’t want to waste it for something like this.”

As Mordred spoke, the puddle of ‘rotten blood’ that spilled from his stomach slowly evaporated into a dark mist that went towards the Dragon’s Shadow body. It infiltrated the body through its nostrils as it could not move its body. 

The Dragon’s Shadow now recalled that every effective attack against Mordred are those that made him bleed, which left blood marks on its claw and tail, but its entire body is now clean from Mordred’s blood.

Now that more Dark Mist is infiltrating the Dragon’s Shadow’s body, Mordred is slowly analyzing his prey. “Oh? So this body is also just a puppet like the others… Truly, a smart exotic creature worthy of rank 1.” Mordred happily cultivated while his Dark Mist obstructed the Dragon’s Shadow from moving its body.

Needless to say, the Dragon’s Shadow is making its utmost effort to break Mordred’s ‘invisible chains’, but it was useless. Despite merely a top-grade rank 0 artifact, Dark Mist is designed for corruption and possession, if it cannot forcefully take control of the body of someone else, at the very least, Mordred’s control allows it to forcefully halt the Dragon’s Shadow movement. The tug-of-war of Dragon’s Shadow body is constant, but it was merely delaying the inevitable. As long as Mordred is still in rank 0, the Dragon’s Shadow will eventually break through this restriction, especially since the death of its clone, the Dragon’s Shadow have regained 100% of its power back. 

This brand new war of attrition would eventually tilt into the Dragon’s Shadow’s favor as Mordred had to supply the energy to halt its movement.

However, Mordred has around 700-man worth of souls from various species stored in his Phylactery due to the constant beast hunt and the last greenskin war. If those soul resources are sacrificed to activate recovery methods, it is more than sufficient to hold this for a couple of weeks.

“RROOOAOAARRRR!” The Dragon’s Shadow roared, but Mordred had already deciphered the attack mechanism so he is immune, this was truly a last ditch effort of a cornered animal.

As seconds turned into minute and minute turned into hours, Mordred’s soul foundation slowly approached the absolute limit of the superlative height of rank 0. 

The Dragon’s Shadow metallic scales cracked in multiple places as it struggled, Mordred’s time was dwindling by the second so he accelerated the consumption of souls to engrave more soul runes in his truesoul.

“If I advance in this brittle micro-plane… it would destabilize the dimensional laws and collapse the whole plane because my truesoul carried various laws of other paths that do not exist in this micro-plane’s dimensional laws.” Mordred briefly paused as he reached the 15th superlative height of rank 0 after nine hours of cultivation. “However, I can’t end the Dragon’s Shadow misery if I do not advance, and advancing in the main world will also leave too many traces.”

“Oh, I well, it can’t be helped.” Mordred continued his cultivation. 

18th, 19th, and after 3 days, he reached 20th superlative height of rank 0.This was the absolute limit of soul cultivation that he could create. There’s simply no 21st superlative height at all.

At this point, the other hunters would’ve probably have joined up with Kasumi, recuperated, and is in the stage of looting valuables in the micro-plane, but that was expected.

Mordred glanced at the Dragon’s Shadow body whose body had collapsed in some parts. Half of its tail fell, revealing mechanical parts. The joint of its legs cracked, a puddle of oil-like liquids has been made after days of struggling.

“I WILL SERVE YOU. LISTEN TO ME, I CAN INFILTRATE ANY TIGHT SPACES AS LONG AS IT IS WIDER THAN 1 MILLIMETER. I AM USEFUL AS A MOUNT AND I CAN ALSO MAKE SHADOW CLONES!! I WILL AGREE TO THE STRICTEST SOUL CONTRACT THAT YOU MAKE, JUST DON'T END MY LIFE”

The Dragon’s Shadow retaliation has become a wail of despair. It now begged Mordred not to kill it because none of its methods worked against him after he deciphered them all. However, Mordred did not listen to its dying wail.

Because its plea was a pseudo-Dragon Might mental attack to make him lower his guard.

Even if the dragon’s shadow truly agrees with the strictest soul contract that Mordred could make, he isn’t interested in the Dragon’s Shadow because honestly, it is pathetically weak. If pitted against military combat puppets refined by Richtofen clansmen, this weak shit will be completely devoured in no time.

However, it was true that Mordred currently could not kill this Dragon’s Shadow despite its current condition because of the difference of rank. 

Keep in mind that the Dragon’s Shadow is an exotic lifeform of dark-path, until now, Mordred has yet to be able to attack its true body. Mordred’s Dark Mist might have restricted the Dragon’s Shadow mechanical body, but it's ‘true’ body was preparing for a last ditch effort to end him.

Thus, although he was crazily devouring souls in these three days, he still raised his guard for the possible sudden burst attack from the Dragon’s Shadow.

“Still trying your best even to the last moment, eh?” Mordred sighed. He was too familiar with that kind of mentality. “Then, let me break through to rank 1 and devour you.”

Crack! The whole micro-plane shuddered as dimensional fissures centered around Mordred’s body spread.