“You...you were the one that forced me here?” The red dragon asked.

“Finally paying attention to me now then? Yes. I am-” I was immediately hit with a black ball of mana with a corrosive attribute.

“Hmph! The cur is gone. Now prepare yourself for-” I appeared in front of him with my punching motion already complete. My fist connected to his face and launched him quite a distance away. The metallic sheen on my fist faded away as I relaxed the metallic aura concentration on my fist.

Some of my clothes were scoffed and my hair was in a slight disarray and I was irritated. Very irritated. I allowed my aura to flow and take on the quality of wood. I healed myself of all the injuries completely through aura, both hidden and seen, before it relaxed again.

I rolled and cracked my neck in preparation before taking a step in the direction of the launched dragon when I lifted my left hand and swiped at the incoming fire ball with a water aura coated arm.

I turned my attention to the other dragon before lifting my right hand in his direction. A blue magic circle appeared in front of me and a homing eastern dragon made completely of ice manifested and flew in his direction.

The red dragon tried to evade, dashing in various directions but the ice dragon persisted and eventually collided with him and froze him in place, leaving a pillar of ice where the ice connected with the ground with him awkwardly half in and out of the ice pillar and bleeding profusely.

I saw him trying to melt it with his fire from his stuck position but I had manipulated the property of the ice in the spell forming process to be resistant to flames of a very high temperature. In essence-

‘You are just not powerful enough.’

I turned and flashed towards where the black dragon was struggling to stand up. He looked in my direction and roared at me before a concentrated burst of dark magic exploded and in his place was a large dragon. He had a muscular torso, two hands and two feet with black spikey hoens. Two large wings stretched behind him as he began ascending, no doubt to create some distance so as to attack me from afar.

‘As if I’d allow that.’

I lifted my palm facing upward and a magic circle appeared above the ascending black dragon and increased the gravity within the area of the large magic circle, crashing him down to the ground and crushing him. I gradually increased the gravity until I saw the dragon begin to bleed from its mouth.

‘Better not kill him.’

I closed my hand in a fist and another magic circle appeared from underneath him. Magical ethereal chains appeared out of that magical circle and bound the downed dragon, sealing his magic as well. I turned my head to the red dragon that was still struggling to get out of the ice. I flashed in his direction and appeared in front of him. I went to reach towards him to cast a spell when-

“They’ve learnt their lessons, haven’t they?” I heard the dragon king say and looked in the place where he just appeared.

“I wondered how long I could torture them fore before you showed yourself, you’re quite kind to them, aren’t you?” I had felt him when we all teleported here both because I was actively looking for him and he didn’t really try to hide from me.

“Ohh? You’re finally doing away with courtesy?” He asked with a feral look on his face.

“I’m beginning to find that dragons respond more to a show of brute force than anything else.” The surrounding mana began bellowing as we relaxed our energies.

“So what? You’re going to attack me? Knowing you are several millennia too young to put a scratch on me?” He asked with a smirk.

“I definitely won’t be able to beat you, but putting a scratch on you…” A magic circle appeared above me and dropped my sword in front of me as I caught it.

“...is well within the rights of possibility.” I narrowed my eyes on him.

“You might want to protect your subjects, I have never had the opportunity to fight someone at full strength so I will not be able to pull punches.”

I let my aura and chi flow to their max capacities and a deep crater appeared around me as the very air became heavy. I felt all the elements of the world within the reach of my fingertips and everything was in balance. I closed my eyes, inhaled and exhaled deeply and opened my eyes. Then I launched at him.

My sword, coated in the metal element and sharpened to the extreme I could, met with his forehand. A blast escaped from our clash and created a crater where he stood as he just smiled at me.

‘Well, if your skin is slash resistant, then…’ White flames erupted from me and the sword, the hottest flames I had ever produced. It melted the ground around us and the surrounding temperature skyrocketed drastically. The only reason I was not affected was the balancing act I was performing by coating myself with an aura attributed with the opposite element before attacking.

The flames then took on the form of jaws and swallowed the dragon, forming a cocoon of fire that concentrated the hottest flames at the centre. Within the cocoon, I added the element of yang to the flames to increase the intensity and heat and poured in my aura heavily. I was so concentrated on the cocoon that I noticed when I saw a slight fluctuation and had the opportunity to dash away from his reaching claw. I looked at him as he emerged, searching.

‘Tsk, not a spot on him.’

“Hot flames, not bad. But you should know that I hold dominion over all elements that occur naturally in the world. You’ll have to do better than that.” I narrowed my eyes as he said that.

‘That would have been nice to know before we started.’ I stood silently.

“What? Giving up already? Well that's too bad.” He chuckled to himself.

‘Very well, then.’ I tapped into an aspect of my aura that I had...avoided, for quite some time.

‘The five elements revert into ying-yang, which reverts into the origin, the nothingness, the void.’

The aura surrounding my blade completely disappeared and looked like a normal sword, but only I knew what was there. This was an aspect of my aura that will only be called when I am prepared to kill. As my blade was surrounded with the void, I let that void encroach the aura covering my whole body to allow me to ‘slip’ through the void and mimic instant teleportation. In an instant, I appeared behind the dragon king in the after swing motion and dismissed my sword, my back facing him.

“Interesting, you found a way to tap into the void and make it a part of your aura.” I heard him say. I looked over my shoulder at him.

“I trust you will be able to control the dragons?” I asked. He waved me away.

“Sure, sure. You can go on ahead. You’ve shown me something interesting today.” I opened a portal and left.

I appeared in a lounge area in my house and just sat to think.

‘When I said I only bring the void out to kill, I was being serious. I aimed for his neck and should have lobbed his head off completely. Instead, he dodged me completely and allowed me to scratch his cheek with my aura blade. It was like he had complete control of that moment’s space and time, smiling at me as I came for his neck. How was he even able to see something that isn’t there? Something that is hidden in nothingness? In the void? Right, right. I should have thought of that. It’s his eyes. His damn eyes!’ I exhaled deeply.

‘I’ve slowed down on growing in strength because I made the emperor my goalpost. Silly me, I know there are more powerful people I’ll eventually interact with. Lesson learned.’