Parallel - A Virtual Reality.

Huff, huff, huff.

I huff a bit trying to control my hard breath. I sheath my sword and close my eyes as I try to calm down the chaotic death energy surrounding me.

'Still not enough…' I think as trickles of sweat falls from my face.

'I am still away from the second phase of Heaven Splitter…'

After controlling my breath and my power, I open my eyes and look around my surroundings. The wall that was attacked is half destroyed. Traces of magic power could be felt from it, but it seems the channels were badly damaged, so it might take a while to repair.

I look at my squad, a tinge of guilt runs through my body, as I couldn't pay attention to them, having my entire attention on Zar. I easily spot them, a few of them are injured, but it seems all of them made it, and no one is really in danger of their life.

I let out a sigh of relief, and then I feel a presence approaching me. Looking towards the direction of that presence, I rapidly notice that it is the Scardinian that was confronting Zar when we got here. His powerful build seems a bit less mighty than before, tiredness on his steps along with his face. But his sharp eyes never lost its shine at all.

As he gets close to me, both of us look at each other eyes, and he suddenly bows respectfully.

"Thank you for your help, if it wasn't for you, our losses might have been way more than a simple broken wall," the Scardinian says while not raising his head. I look at him calmly as he continues, "it is a pity that Zar escaped, but with those wounds I highly doubt he will come back anytime soon."

I nod at those words. It was truly a pity that we didn't manage to kill it now, as I easily noticed that it is one of the commanders under Dorek. 'The Earth commander… he is stronger than Cha Cha.'

As I think that, the Scardinian straighten his back and looks at me firmly, "Pardon for my late introduction, my name is Guri, commander of Scardi's Ganz. May I ask what the name of our benefactor is?"

Taken aback slightly by the sudden politeness, I tell him my name abruptly.

He nods slowly and says, "Zenith, I wish to thank you again for your help, be assured that we will try to satisfy your every need at Scardi's Ganz," then, he looks at me sharply and continues, "But I guess you are not here to stay for a while… right?"

At those words, I look towards the direction that Zars escaped, then to my squad that are treating each other while seemingly notifying the guards of Scardi's Ganz about our coming, and then I look at Guri, nodding at him slowly, "Yes, we haven't come to stay for a while, we have come here to negotiate!"

I tell him accentuating each word. I couldn't waste any more time, the power of our enemies isn't something that we could take lightly, any delay may inflict into our demise, so I tell Guri the point of our visit immediately.

"We have come here to ask for reinforcement!"

Guri closes his eyes as he hears that and stays silent for a few seconds. Exhaling loudly, he opens them again, finishing his train of thoughts.

"I will bring you to our Chief to talk. I think we can't fool around anymore" Says Guri with a heavy tone as he looks at me and then starts moving inside Scardi's Ganz.

I breathe in deeply and start following him, each step seemingly heavier than the last.

'I can't fail!'

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Finishing our prep work, Kagito leads us into the Spatial pocket, lightly touching it. Ripples of spatial disturbance are shown on the surroundings as he starts manipulating the space as much as he can.

It wasn't long until our surrounding start changing, and we are transported to the other side of the spatial pocket.

As soon as we could see, we check our surroundings, a tremendous pressure exerted from everywhere. A beautiful cavern is seen, but our sight is soon fixed on what is laying at the center of it.

Gulp.

I hear Kagito gulping, his expression growing stern. I could feel my face muscles tightening too, as what is laying there is a small Silver Dragon with its eyes closed.

I try to calm myself down, but the pressure is almost maddening. I close my eyes and try to rationalize our situation. Dragons are existences that we definitely can't defeat. From what we have researched, even the weakest of dragons were level 500 Elites. That meant that a normal level 500 monster can't even make a dent on them.

Thus, it felt a bit illogical for them to appear in a zone in which the highest-level monster was an Elemental of close to level 350.

The click of a switch resounds in my mind as I look at the dragon hurriedly.

'An Elemental…' I could feel the pieces of the puzzles coming together. My tense body relaxes a bit, trying to evoke my fighting spirit as much as I can to resist the powerful pressure.

Fuuu

I look at Kagito exhaling loudly, and then he looks at the Dragon with newfound resolution.

"I think it's an Elemental"

He nods and says, "It is an Elemental… a Space kind Elemental"

Surprised at that response, I look at the Dragon again, and this time I feel ripples of the space around it. This time, I can feel other elements surrounding it, but something was holding them in place.

Then, before we could prepare an attack to surprise it, the dragon suddenly opens its eyes. Two multicolored pupils gaze at us, and the pressure increases two-fold.

'Shit…' I grit my teeth as I resist the pressure, this time going all out with my fighting spirit.

I can feel amus.e.m.e.nt flashing on the eyes of the Dragon as it looks at us, and then at Kagito. It starts standing a little from its position, and its wings are spread wide open. As it does that, we tighten our stances, ready to spring an attack at any moment.

Suddenly, the Dragon lifts its paw and waves it at us. The space congeals in our surroundings, and I feel my body frozen in place, feeling how an enormous paw is projected in front of me, its claws threatening to rip me apart.

I push my fighting spirit to the limit along with my elemental enhancing and manage to break through the sealed space. I look at Kagito, and he manages to break through too, as both of us manage to dodge the attack of the small Dragon.

Kagito suddenly waves his sword at my position, and when his strike is about to fall on my body, the Dragon suddenly appears, getting slightly pushed.

'Teleportation!' I grit my teeth, as I wield both of my swords to attack the Dragon that got slightly off balance because of Kagito's attack.

The Dragon tries to attack me hurriedly with its tail. A powerful impact happens when we both connect, pushing each of us back.

Taking a closer look at the dragon, it seems to be 2 meters long with a strong body. A beautiful gleaming silver color surrounded it, giving the small dragon an ethereal look. Its power wasn't as great as I initially thought, but…

'Incredibly hard!' I gave my attack with the combination of Fire-Lightning-Water, but I barely felt I damaged it, as if I was punching a wall.

I grit my teeth while thinking desperately for a way to win this fight. The world slows down, concentrating to my fullest.

Thus, I manage to catch how the simple motion of a sword, slowly approaching the Dragon, bends space slightly, appearing in front of it, striking squarely.

I can see how the Dragon visibly stiffen and then tries to evade hurriedly the rest of the attack. The attack seemed almost harmless by either its speed or power, but there was something special about it. Something that brought goosebumps to my skin.

Kagito appears behind that sword, his eyes unfocused as if he was watching something else. The usual shine of his buffs is tinged with traces of silver. Then, like ink falling on water, silver taints his eyes.

He… had evolved once more!

The Dragon looks at Kagito closely, feeling apprehension from the wound it was just given. Flapping its wings and slowly floating on the air. Sudden razor-sharp gales of wind appear from them, rushing furiously at us.

I grin widely, as I can finally see a way for us to win.

I stomp forward, standing in front of the gales of wind, and move my swords coordinately, absorbing that attack, and give a tight spin on my area, waving my swords at the Dragon. Furious sharp razor-like thunders appear from them, flying at an astonishing speed at the Silver Dragon.

It looks surprised as it suddenly waves its paw and freezes the attack in space, but that makes it stop its movements for a bit, and I appear closer to it, absorbing my own attack and attacking again. Pillars of light appears from my swords as they imposingly fall on the Dragon.

I can finally see a change in its expression when it prepares to receive my attack, creating a defensive barrier in front of it.

A powerful shockwave resounds, finally triggering the beginning of our battle.

I glimpse at Kagito who appears a few meters in front of me, his eyes were like silver pearls, an indomitable expression on his face.

I grin widely as I think.

'I will have to evolve, too!'