White and cream decorated the entirety of this sub-realm to its brim. The walls and floors were laminated with some transparent, waterproof material whilst the ceiling only held the occasional bright white light to ensure every room in the realm constantly remained lit. As for material, the sheets of smooth substance appeared like pristine marble but without the natural anomalies which gave it a uniqueness.

The whiteness caused the already bright room to light up further as though it intentionally blinded or estranged those unfamiliar. Or perhaps it simply upheld a sterile facility to an extreme.

No stains, no markings, and no undesirable influences.

Even the tables moulded from high tier alloys received that protective material, and so, every last bench glistened in the bright lights. These tables each covered metres of space though, with just the main testing room incredibly large at two kilometres of length and width. Further rooms existed on all sides with more specialised purposes, from freezers to libraries to arrays with experimental, and often self-destructing, results. Every room utilised master tier materials at the lowest, without even a hint of status or exuberance.

Its creator didn’t care even the slightest for wealth. Practicality alone decided it all.

And that being moved around the main room, casually moving glassware around from table to table as arrays activated in sequence. Some arrays chilled whatever pinkish fluid filled some flask, others forced masses of electricity into it and restrained the energy within.

On another, a different vial of emerald green slime opened up as its stopper came off, but a vacuum formed within while a single shattered shard of white gemstone dropped within. The thick slime immediately boiled and loosened into a runny liquid, with the stopper replaced just as the fluid mass exploded within the vial into a dense, green vapour cloud. Even after a few minutes, it sat within the vial, stationary and stable, left floating on the table as the creator had no need for it, yet.

While this being went about its alchemy and machinations in relative quiet, only the occasional hiss, blast, or woosh to fill the sterile lab, two dragons occupied a small bit of space not too far away.

One of them, with silver scales, looked towards their captor with a combination of fear and worry. But for the most part they glanced sideways, filled with an emotion they could not understand or verbalise. Regret to some degree? But also a sense of calm… Maybe also guilt as they only came because of her danger.

Almost a day passed since he arrived, placed on a truly incomprehensible array alongside her whilst unconscious. And now, he finally woke up.

Akevorax opened his eyes with a thick groan as both exhaustion and pain deeply embedded themselves. The weirdly bright lights forced him to squint as he tried to stretch, but soon jolted awake as he realised an incredible force tightly wrapped around his limbs and kept every part of him in place. Now that he took the matter seriously, he utilised mana to overcome such dreadful brightness and looked at the white room in confusion for just a few moments. The array beneath him stood out like a sore thumb, but the sealed Adret beside him made things all the clearer. Several things both made sense and quickly stopped making sense as he thought more and more, finally glancing not too far away at their captor standing a hundred metres ahead…

A giant figure whose clawed feet gently paced back and forth along the row of tables whilst numerous lines of psychic force moved around the apparatuses constantly. Stands, vices, flasks, bowls, funnels, and a load of metal tubing used to transfer liquids around without contact to air. They showed their back to both young dragons, hardly fearful as the arrays almost entirely restricted their movements and powers.

But mostly because their clawed, scaled captor… Was a dragon.

A dragon at supreme tier, with incredulous power skills which revealed the gulf in ability between himself and those with centuries of array experience. He looked below to find a 72 layer array, only 22 of which were currently active. Not even half of the creation below him was needed to seal almost every power at his disposal, and that could only mean…

“It restrains supreme tiers,” he mumbled out easily enough, shocked by the current ongoings as he found himself dragged into a matter far above his ability. This light sentence had another effect though, easily seen as the dragon ahead snapped their head towards him with an eager smile.

Their bright orange citrine scales certainly stood out in the room of white, especially with the wings closer to a crimson red and claws of black on their hind feet. But somehow, every claw on the dragon’s front two feet stood out as a different colour, each fully linked to a separate dimension to better utilise those types of magic. The tail appeared rather normal, but for some reason small tufts of fur grew around the tip. Like how decorations may be placed on a spear right below the head.

These tufts contained a rich fiery essence which filled them with a magmatic glow, clearly some sort of excellent material for forging or creating flames.

Much like an inventor or alchemist would always be in need of. One name for this dragon already came to mind, but he didn’t have the chance to speak.

“You took quite some time to awaken, but perhaps you should’ve stayed asleep for some time longer. There isn’t much in the way of entertainment here,” he spoke in Draconic with a respectable and normal tone. While he appeared unhinged and worrisome, at least the kidnapper they faced wasn’t truly insane… Just psychotic and frightening.

Arguably not much better.

“Alkuthuzen, does this count as our second meeting?” He didn’t have it in him to glare or revel in anger, speaking tiredly as the headache rampaged through him still.

“You researched me adequately. I’m flattered,” while he showed a humble smile, the two restrained dragons almost gulped from such a response. Adret obviously recognised him on sight as she required it for her former diplomatic role, but Akevorax personally learnt most of his information through Pritaslo.

And she in turn had to ask her teacher, Casstilandri, to even get these basics! Most of the information had been sealed and hushed away to stop similar dragons appearing…

The order-breaking, maddened dragon alchemist. A true legend of the craft, and a genius in many fields from early on. His rise to supreme tier was expected by the whole clan at the time, as was his developments of potioneering, arrays, and even proving that Rune tools could be mass-created, in theory. Though the latter never succeeded in practise, due to costs, most races knew of a method to outfit an entire regiment with identical, linkable Rune tools.

No one could actually afford it though, just the armour set would bankrupt smaller nations instantly.

While the dragon also reached the highest rungs in the fields of scroll creation, soul equipment, and spell creation, these fields were just not his forte… Alchemy was always his passion and solution to the problems dragons faced.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out exactly why Adret specified his arrival, but that only diverted the question slightly. He asked, “Why did you force her to send a message? Why me?”

“The demonified dragon heart changed my research completely, you must know I paid attention to the results of that first transformation. Do you understand? I FOUND IT! A way; A path; A possibility! But the demons are… impure scu– No, they don’t even deserve to be called demons. Cheap, enslaved trash. You understand me, right?” It took all but three sentences before his analysis of Alkuthuzen flipped on its head completely.

He was completely fucking insane.

Akevorax played along regardless, able to keep up with the train of thought as he replied, “You mean the pure demons should be the only things rightfully called demons. I can understand the logic.”

“Yes, that. Through that bitch’s heart, I had to waste days removing the control upheld by true demons… And it still failed! But I realised my mistake, and it all came down to my limited power.”

Akevorax put aside the pain and stared with cold eyes, asking, “What do you mean failed?” The word escaped his lips with so much stress that Adret looked away, old memories of his attitude towards the ridiculous arranged marriage resurfaced.

But the alchemist dragon in front just laughed, answering the question as one would a child’s foolish question, “You’ve already seen what makes it a failure! My creation should only invalidate the value of our hearts, not create a world full of half-breeds.” The way he dipped between rage, laughter, and calmness agitated Akevorax most. Almost any response held some possibility of changing his mood entirely, and he didn’t want to end up on an angry supreme tier alchemist in the same room.

The two younger dragons’ lack of questions caused him to scoff and withdraw another set of materials for the next precursor potion.

Only once production started did he speak up, “The next stage of my research requires the body of those ‘pure demons’, but they are strange. You’re contracted to the Nexus, so surely you know. Mentions, whispers, the occasional hint, all of it to a power above supreme tier that we have yet to touch.”

He replied quickly and lied through his teeth as easily as breathing, “That’s no secret though?” Almost instantly, the dragon’s eyes lit up as though a treasure appeared in the room, and he unhesitantly smashed that with a look of confusion as he replied, “The Nexus clearly states that gods and planar wills stand above supreme tiers, called tier 9 in the universe. Or do you mean another path exists?”

However, as soon as Alkuthezen heard this response, he lost all interest in the conversation. Lecturing to a child did not make for good talking points, and so he just skipped over the question entirely to go back to the point at hand.

“I recently discovered that you have an ability to evolve completely unseen by the world. Sure, you’re made of ‘ice cream’, but what does that matter if you aggregate the best of the best?”

“Is that really why you did all this? I can give you a few tonnes of body mass right now!” He quickly provided an alternative in case it saved his life here and now, but the dragon just shook his head a few times in response.

“Samples are meaningless, I already ran all those tests whilst you slept. Besides, I’m not a fool like those eternals or Gintsetbo,” with a snort of derision, the two didn’t even have to see his rolling eyes to tell how far this dragon looked down on those specific examples. Both sides had one major fault in common.

They let him live.

Adret, in almost a quiet whimper, filled in the gap which Alkuthezen graciously left out, “He wants to rip out your Mind and Soul. But you arrived too soon, so he’ll keep you alive until–” Her mouth clamped shut and throat relaxed even as air moved to and from her lungs, the array beneath activated another layer in that moment.

“Don’t ruin the whole surprise,” he smiled once more but somehow wore it with far more malice than before.

All things considered, Akevorax really couldn’t fault his methods. If the eternals took this route, then he’d have died without any ways out, meanwhile, Lostradus couldn’t be helped because of the Divinus-wrecking flame’s cockiness. The same could not be said for Gintsetbo though, who clearly anticipated and reacted accordingly, but lost because of complete bullshit outside of his control.

Really, he won far too many battles solely based on opponents not being 100% prepared for his array of abilities. But assimilation and rapid evolutions excelled at that style without a doubt! He wasn’t childish enough to act like honour or fairness in battles meant much, and Alkuthuzen took that to an extreme.

So, given that a legendary alchemist stood before him… He probably had a few days tops. How the hell did he escape and get back safely?

Scratch that. How could he avoid dying in the next couple days?