It had been a few hours since the battle on the Evelard mountain range, and the storm above cleared to reveal a bright, sunny sky, but the damage remained. Mountains of snow remained displaced, with the ground so unstable that anything incapable of spreading their weight instantly sank into the several metres of slush. On the range’s east lay hundreds of bodies from a battle unseen by its denizens, however, from sight alone one could tell that crabs massively dominated the fatalities.

But, by far the worst of the effects were the three massive corpses which laid there. One of a wyvern, and two crabs…

Whilst all their bodies had been hastily stripped of valuable parts, clearly, those who performed such a clean-up only vaguely cared about the bodies. Of course, it had to be this way as a young girl and dragon awaited their return at the camp. Such resources would be helpful in the upcoming days, after they left the dead battlefield entirely. Once finished with the three big corpses, the small group rushed away, leaving the meat and parts to whatever truly desired them.

“What even just happened?” From the white and grey slush around them, Rebecca’s voice sounded out just enough for them to sense her movements.

Jaren replied sarcastically, not taking the matter seriously in the slightest to start off with. “We went from nobodies to nobodies in over our heads. But seriously… Isn’t this what we wanted?”

Of course, the last one helping with the dissection, Korridan, remained silent through the exchange. He’d also considered the question, and came to a similar result as Jaren for once. They were in over their heads to an unimaginable point, but no part of him would trade away this opportunity.

Just three days after meeting the dragon they slayed a gold tier. Two of them in fact, as the unconscious crab remained that way even with a blade piercing its brain.

In all these years they’d never truly gotten the chance to kill a gold tier, but they knew from here on things would only grow. Let alone some gold tiers, who’s to say they wouldn’t be hunting mithril tier beasts one day? There was so much to look forward to, so much power to unveil. Only now did he truly believe it possible to achieve his personal goals. As for the others… It depended on themselves.

Rebecca was the simplest at least, she was happy doing anything ‘fun’. Even if taken aback by the sudden change of pace from their usual life, or even the casual journey with Raccelline on the way here.

Where would the future possibly take them all?

None could answer, but Korridan knew it would still be his role to lead them all and keep the team uniform.

* * *

His body tensed up from the aching pain throughout, but as soon as his head came to, he jumped onto his feet shakily and calmed down over the period of a few seconds. The injured dragon quickly collapsed onto its belly and went back to resting, at the same time receiving another hug from Raccelline who saw it awaken.

Unfortunately, while his physical body couldn’t have been in better shape, that damage to his mind required time to mend.

At the very least, this sort of destruction differed completely from the terror lord’s attacks which permanently destroyed sections of a Mind Palace. The wyvern’s attack certainly did excellent damage, but just that in the end.

Finally, a bit calmed, he opened his eyes to see who was around. Besides Rebecca who decided to hide beside a nearby tree trunk, somehow blending in against its white silver bark. Her stealth and camouflage combined in a way which seemed incomparable for a Steel rank, not that it particularly defended against magical searches well.

If her technique could be improved in any regard, it would be a way to completely hide her mana as the next step. Then perhaps nullify spatial effects.

The rest of the group were actually just sitting around the roaring flame and resting, a rare sight as they practically spent 20 hours a day training when they were hiding underground earlier. As a plus side, they didn’t kill him and try to extract his memories directly, so that worked out pretty well. Standing up gently, it was Darak who looked over, with closed eyes, and said, “Just rest. Mala froze the ground here and we’ll set off tomorrow. Recover your mind as fast as possible.”

His face scrunched up for a moment, but the dragon just huffed and curled up into a ball once more. While it seemed exhaustive from his viewpoint, everyone else agreed that he just looked rather cute.

Whilst a bit funny, the childish nickname ‘Icy’ really fit him for now.

No one truly did anything after that battle. While it appeared easy on the surface, every single blow taken by Rebecca and Korridan utterly pummelled them. Even the slightest slap from that wyvern snapped their bones like twigs, and ruptured organs. Healing magic certainly closed those wounds and prevented any lasting physical trauma, but it took time and resilience to overcome the mental effects of such attacks. Even now the two still felt how parts of their bodies turned to mush against specific attacks.

Korridan’s entire body occasionally shook as though still spasming from intense bursts of lightning.

Jaren’s position had been best overall, although not truly great, as he occasionally went up into close quarters to retrieve arrows and get a couple cheap hits on the wyvern’s legs. A sweeping tail hit him square in the chest and broke all his ribs at once, several of them pierced into his lungs and resulted in horrendous bleeding. Whilst patched up, it reinforced just how durable their leader was, and how Rebecca knew to parry and distribute forces the best amongst them.

Jaren asked them all, “I’m still a bit confused, why is she so close to the dragon? They only met for a few hours.”

“He’s the only connection she has to her family… Guess why it matters so much,” replied Mala. No one needed the explanation.

The number of beings the child knew outside the capital could be counted on one hand, and those she knew the homes of… Well, that was literally two. In the end, Raccelline was a child, not a fool, and naturally understood that a child dragon wasn’t best suited for dealing with something that even her uncle couldn’t handle.

However, if you only have one option, then there’s not exactly any way to go about something else.

“Also, what was he talking to you about in the end? That Draconic between you two,” Mala spoke up again, this time facing the dragon who simply rested on the floor with Raccelline’s hand gently stroking his head. Whilst a bit insulting at first, he quickly got used to it and understood why so many tamed intelligent beasts were happy to receive the affection.

Turns out, it just felt very nice.

“He wanted to know her identity. So I told him, reminded me that beasts call her the divine blood.” Head still on the ground, he lazily replied to their question. It wasn’t of any real importance, but he explicitly left out the wyvern’s name as a final act of pettiness.

“Because…” Mala moved her hands to encourage a further explanation. It took a few seconds of staring for him to understand that it was a human action, and pulled himself together.

“Everyone believed she carried the blood of a god at birth. That was disproven by dragons at one year of age, but most beasts never corrected that. Her power is innate, a random chance due to being related to a god.” Without much build up, he spilled the notes on Raccelline provided by his race, it wasn’t any big news but rather just some history.

But perhaps due to his poor speaking skills, the story came off as rather dry and purely informational. Completely unlike how the group of five discussed their past and childhoods which led up to an unlikely formation and eventual meeting of Raccelline.

A rather troublesome injury to his mind certainly wasn’t helping. And while he easily repaired the damage to his building in a day, by the time he awoke the next morning his recovery had been average at best.

Name

Icryladrom (Icy)

Title

Nexus Aid Bonus II

Lord Slayer

Species

Dragon

Bloodline

Stormbringer Ice-cream

HP

65%

MP

100%

Level

30

EXP

90%

Unallocated Stat Points: 30

Strength

0

Luck

0

Agility

10

Growth

15

Magic

30

Mutation Rate

5

Wait… he gained 8 levels from that? Immediately, he checked the few Nexus prompts that he ignored due to his injuries. The first one explained things pretty well.

[Killed Level 44 Blue storm Wyvern! Received 7800% EXP

Killed 300 Snow wassats! Received <1% EXP

Killed 780 Frozen Cantou! Received <1% EXP

Killed 445… ]

Those numbers were… frightening to say the least. So everything that died due to his lightning or the rain was included by the Nexus. And while the deaths of a few Steel tiers occurred sometime after the wyvern’s death, once more the level difference made it amount to very little.

In comparison was the big thing itself. The level 44 wyvern.

Killing anything 20 levels higher than you will obviously do that. Although, this also confirmed that the Nexus didn’t multiply experience points when an opponent was 5 levels higher, like how it decreased for enemies 5 levels lower. Although, this made sense as it would spiral out of control precisely in cases like his…

Wouldn’t 7,000,000% experience be maddening? He almost laughed to himself at that idea, but first checked the other prompts available.

[Activated Lord name acquisition process. Accept Lord namesake?]

Right, that thing. He immediately selected ‘No’ and the prompt vanished, instead quickly materialising a new one with effects as expected.

[Lord name rejected. Lord Slayer effect slightly increased]

This was a pretty common observation for dragons. They very rarely wanted to become a lord, and therefore constantly rejected the name to quite a funny degree. However, one important fact is that at some point the upgrades to the Lord Slayer title become utterly trivial, normally after the 20th one wherein the decrease to a Lord’s bonus stats is reduced by a mere 1% extra.

Realistically, a 49% and 50% reduction are the exact same.

“When do we set off?” He stopped all the Nexus prompts and looked towards the group, hoping to know how much time he had.

They all looked at each other and mouthed various numbers, but in the end, Korridan just spoke up without bothering to continue that discussion. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning. Just get some sleep, you look like crap from that.” This time he was actually able to laugh a bit, but stopped soon after as a small migraine set in and he just wanted to rest some more.

“Straight to a port to charter a ship?” Korridan nodded right after he asked the question, and he was able to completely relax and just tried to sleep some more. As always, mind damage hurt the most…

How much did soul damage hurt then? There wasn’t any real fear, just annoyance as he reluctantly accepted that he’d have to endure some one day. If he obtained a soul strengthening bloodline now, he probably had to take it. It’d be powerful enough to have a useful effect, and he neared the point where soul attacks appeared.

Prepared to sleep, he moved over to Raccelline and went to sleep. However, her hand stopped on his head as she bit her lip and said, “I don’t like not helping.”

Naturally, the group of humans understood her words better, but it was specifically Mala who replied first. “You did help though. You cut its wing, and we wouldn’t have won wi–”

“NO!! I mean actually help. Like help, help… Not just stand there.” Her voice trailed off again right after the slight outburst and she couldn’t bear to raise her head to the adults worried about her.

As for Icy, he saw her face well enough through mana sight. How it appeared disappointed and saddened, he recognised this face rather well in fact. She’d behaved precisely like this when told off by her uncle for breaking his tail back then, fully accepting her poor attitude and behaviour. Did she see her outburst here as guilt, or rather her lack of help in that regard?

He moved her hand off his head to sit up and look into her eyes. As none of the others spoke yet, clearly they were at a loss as to proceed. Training her to fight a bit wasn’t a problem, it was an issue far more annoying in that evolving prior to puberty can take months of corrective training, something painful. And a child’s body just isn’t made for any of the techniques they’d learnt over the years. Magic required months of study for real prodigies, whilst a normal student took years just to grasp single ring spells, and faith was… Well, Manus didn’t accept children into his clergy to avoid being marked as a cult.

Starting off as priests or nuns with children was always a slippery slope.

“I have a few things for children, however, it is very basic. Do not rush into dangerous fights and run if it looks bad. Okay?”

“But…” She wanted to argue back, knowing that she could be the biggest importance in a fight at this point. But the way that he stared at her, was worse than his angry stare at his tail being broken off for some reason. In the end, she could only pout and nod.

Slowly, the dragon transmitted the information to her head bit by bit, giving her two very basic techniques.

To be exact, he actually had a small book full of them, but dragons only included these in the off chance that they found a child of interest who wanted to train and grow. It wasn’t too uncommon for adult dragons to come across such situations, but as a youngling, it certainly felt strange. However, he saw no reason to reject her desires here, it wasn’t like any of these techniques harmed a child when trained properly. And she had a set of steel tiers all around to ensure nothing like that ever happened.

The first made swinging a sword easier on a child’s wrists and arms, aimed to simply begin helping a build up in form when they grew up. However, it was also just great to teach how to hold a sword-like weapon in weight and stance.

Meanwhile, the second focused on maintaining balance whilst swinging weapons and blocking. If she used this when receiving a blow from the wyvern’s tail, it was likely to have pushed her back a few steps but nothing more than that.

The concept of techniques is rather simple in of itself. Combine a sort of simplified skill with a set of motions, and the result is a way to ‘form’ the body into a desired manner. Enhance specific muscle groups, as well as train proficiency with them, then add in some defence through the use of mana to top it all off. And well, that was that.

More advanced techniques took this further by including combinations of skills which had to be utilised at the same time, and the result was a body further improved by mana in small amounts.

In fact, this process was very similar to the transformation of his heart but through a slower and more natural process.

He went to sleep immediately after providing her the two techniques, and had to be ready for the next day. From what he saw, Raccelline was a mixture of happy and sad for receiving the techniques but still being unable to really do anything for now.

At least, she jumped into trying to learn them straight away.