While keeping a certain distance from the abnormal spirit, Akemi began thinking of different ways on how she could finish this fight. Taking it easy was something that would lead everyone to their death, and the proud dragon was already aware of that.

"You're an unexpected thing, aren't you?" Akemi spoke to the lifeless spirit who suddenly took one step back and began charging up a spherical energy in her hands.

The unfeared dragon flicked her own hair for a moment before also creating a certain light energy between her hands before shooting a beam at the same time.

Both of these beams collided with each other, creating warm pressure in the atmosphere around the room.

"Everyone, take cover!" Hina alerted everyone.

Shiro and the rest of the girls immediately ran away from there, while Demonica provided them with the best shield she could create. Her small hands trembled a little as she tried holding off the immense energy from the powerful dragon and the equally matched spirit.

A spirit, being able to release such a powerful beam was something really unusual, and Akemi understood that this wasn’t caused simply by a mare wild monster wandering in this world. The spirit must’ve been quite powerful when it was alive, that's why it was this strong after becoming a zombie.

While Akemi could manage to actually instantly kill that spirit by eating it in its dragon form, she was limited by her surroundings, not to mention that she could accidentally injure the wrong people. Even with her most deadly attacks, she could actually destroy the whole place in here, that's why she was limited on using those kinds of skills.

Hatsuko narrowed his eyes while looking at how he couldn’t provide anything to this fight. Was he becoming useless once again? Was this his limit? Won’t he be able to protect those few people who actually cared about him?

Those were the thoughts that were flowing around his head before noticing that someone was holding his hand.

When he looked on his side, he saw Chloe, who already knew what was going on with Hatsuko. Even though she had failed to take down the spirit herself, she was willing to risk her own life for the boy who she fell for. But she couldn't handle the fact of having him risk his life the same way, that's why she held him close so he wouldn't do anything rash.

“Have a little trus on us.” Chloe smiled, trying to make Hatsuko feel at ease.

But no matter what the assassin girl said to him, Hatsuko simply glanced back at the fight as the collision of Akemi’s and spirit’s attack came to an end.

None of the opponents were harmed and no one seemed to be over yet.

“Who would’ve known that there would be something this strong in the spirit's realm…” Akemi thought out loud.

The proud dragon has hundreds to thousands of years of experience, so it was a given that she would be one of the strongest species in the whole world. Even in the dragon’s realm, she was fully known as one of the most powerful dragons among her brothers and sisters.

The zombie spirit was releasing some kind of noticeable aura from her body as it stood still for a few seconds. While to normal humans this would look like the spirit was taking a break from the immense energy which she used, in Akemi’s eyes, the spirit was charging up her body like it was nothing.

Even though the spirit did not receive any direct attacks from Akemi, it still grew stronger within a few seconds.

The spirit extended her arm on her side without even bothering about anything. And within the second, a long sword flew towards her until the spirit managed to catch it casually with her right hand.

"..." Akemi understood that things were about to get much harder, and what's worse she couldn't make any reckless attacks as it would make her opponent grow much stronger.

The spirit sprinted towards Akemi, almost breaking the speed of sound, trying to cut down anything that was in its way.

But killing a dragon wasn’t going to be that easy. Especially for someone like Akemi.

Not only her pride as a dragon, but also her own confidence wouldn't allow such defeat. She couldn't allow herself to even get injured by the likes as a spirit.

While dodging every time the spirit swung her sword, both of their speeds gradually increased.

And Akemi who seemed to be getting pushed back, her eyes darted back and forth around her enemy.

[ Where is it? ] She thought to herself as she was trying to figure out something.

Akemi wasn't going to make any rash actions, that's why she found that eliminating that dead spirit was nothing else but a…

…

"Akemi is getting pushed back?" Ichika said in disbelief after seeing how Akemi seemed to not be attacking back the spirit.

"No.." Hatsuko disapproved as his eyes never separated from the dragon and the spirit. "She's trying to find the main core of the spirit’s life energy." He stated.

"But isn't that spirit a zombie? Zombies are supposingly dead creatures, aren't they?" Chloe asked in a bit of confusion.

"It is dead, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a life essence." Hatsuko began explaining as he was observing that spirit’s body. "With my power I can see the way life energy moves through hundreds of branches inside a living thing. But right now, the things I’m looking at right now are unusual…”

“Unusual?” Chloe asked, trying to understand what Hatsuko was trying to say.

“Yeah, the veins of her energy are being covered with each other. It's almost as if those veins are covering the main core of what is keeping that thing standing.” He explained as he was looking at Akemi who seemed to be struggling on finding the main core of that spirit.

If she couldn’t manage to instantly kill that spirit, then their situation would become a lot more difficult. Especially if the zombie spirit was against a powerful dragon.

Each time that spirit would take any attacks or injuries it would grow stronger. And the stronger the attack, the stronger the boost will become.

This was Akemi’s challenge while easily dodging every single deadly attack from the spirit’s longsword who didn't seem to be slowing down.

But was giving up and running away from there an option for everyone?

Yes, but if growing stronger ment on facing stronger opponents, then giving up would be something that their past self would only be thinking about.

“Now!” Hina loudly informed, as both Ichika and her released long fire arrows which immediately landed on the spirit who seemed busy trying to kill Akemi.

“Huh?” Akemi looked a little puzzled as in the split of a second she saw the spirit trip from a sudden fire arrow hitting her head and another arrow damaging her knee.

Now that the spirit was laying down with an injured head and knee, it began regenerating rather fast, to the point where it was a matter of seconds before it was up again.

“Akemi, we’ll buy you time!” Hina informed the dragon girl who immediately smiled after seeing the other girls take a step in this battle.

But before the spirit could even completely regenerate, both Ichika and Hina continued firing many more fire arrows, one after another so they could have time to reshoot them without leaving time to the spirit to fully regenerate.

[ We won’t back out! ] Hina confidently thought as they were getting more and more accurate to their hits towards their target.

And Akemi, who didn’t want to waste anymore time, gradually approached the spirit and began looking for her main core.

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