Chapter 43 - Supreme Dragon Slaying Formation?

"Give me control over your body," the boy's voice yelled from inside the spatial treasure.

"Never!" Shadow One immediately yelled back.

"We don't have enough time!" He yelled desperately. "I'll just send a part of my consciousness with knowledge on the formation, and you can absorb it! That way you could cut me out the moment you think I'm doing something harmful to you!"

She felt pressured. The dragon was flying, staring down on her like a king staring at an ant. There was curiosity and amusement in that look as if it was just waiting to see where she would run to, now that it had an overwhelming advantage over her.

As for Aaron's proposal... Him sending a part of his consciousness was beneficial to her. If he indeed saved them with it, she would be able to destroy the consciousness later, which would gravely injure him. That way, she would be much more confident in killing him afterward.

She considered showing mercy to him for saving her, but he was just too dangerous to that. Just like someone wouldn't show mercy to a mass murderer because he saved one person, she wouldn't just allow a calamity like him live because of his kindness! Not to mention his kindness was only so he could save himself; he had tried to flee alone earlier, which showed he wouldn't save her if given the option.

But even better, she had an instinctual fear of allowing his entire consciousness into her body. She knew her willpower had to be stronger than his, no matter how much of a genius he was, but she would rather not risk it. But if only a tiny part came, no matter how strong, she would be able to shut it down if needed.

"Decide quickly!" He yelled again.

There was no way she would be able to set a formation she had never studied before, so she had no choice but to accept his proposal.

"Fine," she said.

Aaron had to do his best not to laugh out loud. That was it, her fate was sealed!

At the pursuit, he had coaxed the Young Red Dragon into following them by promising it that he could make it breakthrough to an Overlord and protect it for one year afterward. As much as the first part of the deal was nice, it was the second part that sealed it.

Overlord Beasts were hunted as soon as someone heard of them. Be it for their taste, the quality of the materials their bodies became, or even because of the potential danger they represented if they ever became Saint Beasts, no Overlord Beast was ever left alone, with formations set all over the world to detect them.

However, if it had one year of guaranteed safety, it could stabilize his recent breakthrough in power, and thus become able to protecting itself even if a Saint came in-person to kill it. It was a dragon, after all, and from the Overlord level onwards, the suppression of the world started weakening.

But he had proven to it that he had great means by surviving its assault as a Champion, that he was too weak to lie – after all, he couldn't survive another such attack, and if the dragon even suspected him of lying, he would die –, and by showing his knowledge on how to make a dragon increase its level, he had proven that he had knowledge no one else in the world had.

He had been somewhat lucky that even in such a bad situation, the enemy that showed itself was a dragon. Dragons were beings blessed by the universe and no matter how much the Immortals ruling the planet might change humans and other races, it could do very little to dragons. Therefore, all he knew about dragons from his past life, coupled with his knowledge on mana, allowed him to easily understand how to make the dragon level up.

The hardest part had actually been talking to it using a thread of soul mana without being noticed by Shadow One. Now, that was true, overwhelming luck. It also showed how desperate Shadow One was feeling about getting to the safety of the White Sea, enough that she had been holding the garden all the time without putting it in a safer place, from which Aaron wouldn't have had any means of contacting the outside world.

Now, he only had to draw four huge formations.

The first one, was the Supreme Sacrificial-Blood Collecting Formation, to forcibly take blood from the dragon. It had to be forcibly taken, for it had to be filled with negative emotions of betrayal and anger when it happened.

The second one was the Supreme Earth Poisoning Formation, which had to turn the White Sea area where they stood into a place that instead of being beneficial to Shadow One, would poison her from the inside – thus the need for forcibly taken blood.

The third one was the Supreme Golem Core Removal Formation, which would take the core from Shadow One. Yes, she was a golem!

And the fourth one was the Supreme Spacetime Sealing Formation, which would seal all the area and prevent anyone from leaving or entering it unless an Immortal personally came, or a couple of Saints united to forcibly destroy it. Since the Fire Continent supposedly only had the Fire Emperor at Saint-level, that was almost impossible to happen in a year.

Three formations based on betrayal would fuel the fourth, spacetime sealing one! He couldn't have lied to the dragon, after all, and had to deliver what he promised. He had only omitted the fact that the process would be painful to it.

However, he couldn't do it in a way that the dragon would believe it was only a spacetime sealing formation, and Shadow One would believe it to be 'merely' a Dragon Slaying Formation.

There was only one solution: spicing things up.

He sent a sliver of his consciousness into Shadow One. It was a tiny part, but it had knowledge on how to set the four formations, how to link them together, how to use spells as a golem, and how to fight somewhat effectively.

Dividing his mind like that was a painful but quick process. As soon as his consciousness entered her body, she scanned it in all way possible, and finding no evil intentions within it, allowed it to take control of her.

As soon as that happened, he sent a message to the dragon.

"She's a golem!" He sent mentally. "She'll try to use the abundant earth energy in the White Sea to defy you!"

As expected, the dragon roared in fury and attacked.

Aaron-Two was just a confused being. It knew what it knew, its purpose in existing, how to do many things, but its mind was lacking. He felt small, weak, vulnerable.

But the body it found itself controlling... It was nothing but weak!

Shadow One – Aaron-Two now knew what the golem's name was – was a work of art. It was an Ascender Golem created by putting an inscribed monster core into a human corpse, which was no small feat. The body itself had become scarred and ugly, almost useless, and only an Immortal would be able to heal it without affecting the synchronicity between the body and the core. But the state of the body didn't matter for a golem; the face was okay, allowing it to pass as a human, and everything else could be covered by the great it was wearing. Aaron-Two even suspected it to be a Lower Relic!

The core had also lost little power when transferred into the body, becoming an Ascender from its original Overlord level. He felt his original consciousness would have a way to bring the golem's original power back to effectively kill the dragon above them, but for some reason, that knowledge had not been given to him. It seemed it was better for his original consciousness that the golem not become too powerful, and Aaron-Two could indeed feel some hostility from the golem towards him.

He willed it and the golem's arm moved. He opened and closed its hand. He also controlled its armor through its soul binding, opening and closing the helmet at will. Lastly, he pulled some mana from its core and cast a simple Light spell. It was weird, for the golem had no soul upon which to draw the spell signature, but he had. It was like using two different souls to do a task.

And then, before he could do anything else, the huge dragon on the skies roared.

It wasn't just a roar, but an attack filled with spatial mana, soul mana, and flaws. He had all the information his main consciousness had about the dragon since it had expected to fight it.

Before, as a Champion, no matter how good his perception, analyzing an incoming attack from a Quasi-Overlord had been beyond him. Now, as an Ascender, seeing how unrefined the attack from the just-leveled Overlord dragon was, was way too easy.

In fact, the attack was so bad, he had five different ways of dealing with it, three of which he could've done as a Champion instead of almost killing himself by blinking away from existence.

He pulled mana from the core and created a simple spell with it.

Myriad Arts – Spellcasting – Double Elements: Space, Soul – Supreme Drill!

An invisible drill made of space and soul mana distorted light in front of him and drilled a weak spot in the incoming roar attack. Due to the difference of power, there was still some impact, which he felt in both his soul and in the core, but nothing he couldn't ignore. Just like that, the roaring attack dissipated into nothingness.

He had no time to lose. Before the dragon could react, he willed the armor to open the area around his wrists and used a simple spell to open a cut on both of them. Then, another spell started using the blood to draw a huge circle of blood on the White Sea, while a third spell kept creating new blood in the golem's body.

"What are you doing?!" A female voice, supposedly the golem's, said in his mind.

"Drawing a formation," he explained nonchalantly.

"Why are you doing this with my blood?!" She demanded, and he felt his control over the golem's body decrease.

"Stop resisting!" He yelled in his mind. "You're a golem, and have a great affinity with the earth element. We're in the White Sea, a place covered by salt, where earth mana is abundant. There's nothing better to act as an inscribing material than a golem's blood! It'll allow the formation to absorb a lot more energy without energetic conflict!"

Before she could reply, the dragon seemed to realize something had gone wrong with his attack, since Shadow One hadn't dropped dead nor showed any other reaction to it but to use a simple spell.

It became even more enraged, and its claws came crashing at her.

"Damn!" Aaron complained. "Stop slowing my job! Now I have to dodge the attack and prevent it from damaging what I already inscribed!" Struggling full control of the golem back from Shadow One – she didn't resist –, he cast another spell.

Myriad Arts – Spellcasting – Single Element: Earth – Supreme Gigantic Hand!

Just as he had said, earth mana was way too abundant in the area. Controlling it required more willpower, but less mana from the mage, which was perfect for him.

The space-strengthened salt raised from the ground and created a huge white hand that interlaced with the dragon claw. The impact of a claw from a being of a thousand legs long meeting a solid hand of the same size created a mighty shockwave.