"Entei?!" the dragon said as he stood tall and mighty above Ed. His Black scales absorbed the surrounding sunlight, giving the dragon a natural light protection shield, which looked like a black fog.
"Entei, it means Flame Emperor," Ed said. "I don't plan on calling you 'Calamity Black Dragon' every time I want to address you."
"I'm not your pet, human!" the dragon seemed as if he was insulted. The black fog surrounding his body thickened as he raised his front right limb. The dragon swiped it in the direction of Ed, leaving behind black burning marks on the ground. However, before he could even reach Ed, WarGreymon interfered and blocked the black claws with his Brave Shield.
The two struggled, trying to overpower one another, but to no avail. They were at a standstill.
"Move away, small Dragonoid!" the dragon said as he breathed flames towards Ed and WarGreymon, but, once again, the flames reached neither of them. Sieg interfered this time and trapped the flames in a barrier. He had done the same with Sarin's poison earlier.
"Grrr…" the black dragon was not happy at all, but he knew he was overbearing. He realized that he was trying to fight the people who had, to a certain degree saved his own life, when he should be focusing on getting revenge on the person that controlled him. He raised his head high, flapped his wings and sent sand and ground pieces flying all over as he roared to the sky.
Asem approached Ed from behind and said, "I told you that was a bad idea. Dragons are not to be trusted!"
"I know, I never said I trust him. But, there was no way of escaping that situation," Ed said with a hint of regret. "However, you needn't worry. With a soul contract, he won't dare to make a stupid move. Plus, I have my own way of controlling him in case he goes berserk. Although I'd like to avoid since I'll lose all of his trust if I were to do something like that."
With Ed's final words, Asem no longer had anything to say and retreated back. Ed gathered everyone around and passed potions and healing pills around. He had done so before, but since he held the greatest reserve out of everyone, he chose to let their healing items stay untouched.
"We need to follow after Sarin," he said. "I believe he went to meet up with the Blood sect master, and that means bad news for us since he'll tell him all about our abilities. However, even if we were to go now, we wouldn't be able to do much to them together. So, we'll have to, unfortunately, use up some time.
"Asem, I want you and the others to head back to Avalon," Ed's words came as a surprise to Asem, who believed he would be fighting until the end of this war, but, before the latter could voice his unhappiness, Ed continued, "You'll have to meet with anyone who finished their mission and tell them of our current situation. I'll come and pick everyone up in exactly one hour."
"What if no one was there?"
"There will be, trust me."
Silence took over once again as the sun's orange-red rays shone their last on them. The cold of the night took over, and the winds howled in the now empty battleground. Yet, Ed and the others were unaffected. The towering, mountain-like dragon proved to be quite the useful shield for them.
"Sieg, Suika, you two will stay right here with me," Ed turned around once Asem and the others teleported away. "I'll need your help. As for the others, I want to go and take all the valuables inside the Poison sect. I doubt any high-grade materials will be in the sect instead of Sarin's spatial ring, but since they were so sure of their victory, I'm certain they will have something there. You should also retrieve that filth's spatial ring."
Although Ed didn't use his name, everyone understood that the filth meant No-bō.
Everyone left immediately, and only Ed, Sieg, Suika, and the proud dragon remained.
"Sieg, I plan to train against Sarin's poison, the one you put away. We have one hour, so we'll be using a dimension, I need you to stay back and inform the others when they come back. As for you, Suika, you get to eat poison after a long time. Well, after I'm finished with it hahaha…"
Sieg and Suika stared at Ed as his eyes flashed red. The dragon seemed to notice something, as he raised his head which rested on the ground and peeked at Ed. A moment later, the human and the slime disappeared. The dragon squinted his eyes and soon noticed the skeleton-like monster. The Elder Lich had his hand raised in front of him, and his fingers were all gathered in his palm, except for one of them, which pointed at the sky.
The dragon didn't understand what it meant, but he couldn't help but feel annoyed at the gesture. Alas, he couldn't do anything, so he rested back one again.
Inside of the dimension Ed created, there were a couple of red cubes floating in the air. They were all filled with the poison smog created from Sarin's strongest attacks.
Ed stepped in front of the first one, opened it, and stepped inside. A layer of aura protected his whole body from the poison, but it was corroded as soon as it started interacting with the poison. Ed was not worried, however, as he had enough faith in his energy reserves. He created a pocket room with his Wind Magic, and let in a small amount of poison. He breathed it in.
Ed could feel the poison burn his insides as soon as he entered him. He had felt the pain many times while fighting Sarin, but it was still unbearable. His Poison Resistance skill kicked in soon after and started to neutralize the red fumes inside of his body. Ed chose to back it up by enhancing his immune system with his Hatsu. Soon after, he expelled dark-red fumes out of his mouth. He kept repeating the same thing until the poison in the first chamber had been exhausted, and only the lesser dark red version remained.
"Suika, you can gobble it up," Ed said as he exited the first cube. He made his way towards the second.
.
.
.
In Avalon, Asem and the rest of the Sword sect appeared in the castle's open yard. They walked inside as per Ed's orders and made their way into the throne room. There, they noticed a couple of familiar faces. It was Hayato, Ellie, and the others. However, they weren't looking exactly as they last saw them.
They were all covered in cuts, bruises, and most importantly, their own blood.
"That you, Asem?" Hayato said with a hoarse voice as he noticed someone approaching.
"You…? What happened to you guys?! Did a master do this to you? Was it Sarin?!" Asem quickly approached them as he felt his heart thump harder than ever.
"Sarin? So Ed didn't finish him off…This is bad, more things keep escaping Ed's predictions…"
"What are you muttering?! Tell me what happened! What happened to Eric, why is he unconscious?!" Asem shouted as he crouched down next to the bloodiest body out of those present, Eric's. Those behind him could only gasp in horror.
"He protected us while we prepared for our escape. You see, they ambushed us right after we killed the crimson woman. He was too strong, far stronger than anyone I've ever faced. He reminded me of Ed."
Hope you enjoy the chapter!
In the middle of a war-torn landscape, a circular veil of glass swayed and waned in the air, slowly increasing the tremors that resulted from its trembling. The great veil couldn't hold on anymore and shattered into a billion pieces. Right next to the destroyed veil, a black dragon snored impatiently, and his breath blew the pieces away. The dragon opened his crimson red, and released a roar like a sentence, "you're finally back!"
Under the billion pieces stood a man and a slime. The two paid no heed to the dragon and instead focused on the skeleton like figure approaching them.
"The others are still not back?" Ed asked even though his eyes and his Map could answer him easily.
"You said we had one hour, but you returned in less time, my lord," said Sieg.
"Yeah I ended up taking far less than I thought, things are much easier when no one is trying to stab you," Ed explained. "Anyways, I'll go over to the others and help them out. We'll depart as soon as we're back."
Just as he finished talking, all traces of Ed disappeared. He was later inside the Poison sect's headquarters. Suddenly, thousands upon thousands of Telekinesis threads emerged out of his body and scanned the entire structure. A couple of them quickly found his companions and let them know it was time to return. The rest continued to find any treasures, especially spiritual treasures which he could feel with his ability. What should have taken hours was done in ten minutes, and Ed was back where the dragon lay.
"We're heading back to Avalon," said Ed.
Ed seemed to be especially short on words, and everyone seemed to notice it. It was as if his mind was focused on something else entirely. The dragon tried to voice his displeasure, as he wanted to head over to blood sect's headquarters immediately, but found that the scenery in front of him had changed. Ed teleported him as well.
"Human brat! I believe our agreement was pretty clear, no?!" The dragon's voice thundered as he hung in the air. Ed made sure to teleport him, and him alone, a couple of meters in the air, since he would have crashed into the castle otherwise. However, due to the dragon's ear breaking shout, and his colossal appearance hovering above the castle, Avalon's citizens broke into a panic rather quickly.
"Merry, we don't have much time to lose, so I need you to talk to one of the guards and tell him to calm the people down," Ed said. "You can head over to the Blood sect headquarters if you want, but how long will that take I wonder?"
He turned around and ignored the dragon. His pace was quite quick, and nobody tried to ask him anything as they went ahead.
Quickly, they found themselves face to face with Asem's party, as well as the injured, but calm, Hayato and the others.
"Ed, you're finally here," Hayato said with a smile, but his eyes never tried to find Ed's. "I heard you were injured badly, are you alright now?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. How about you guys? You look terrible."
"That's how we're feeling at the very least," Hayato said with a snicker. "It's quite shameful, it really is. We defeated the woman, and just as we were about to take it all in, they appeared. Five of them, each one stronger than the next. Two females and three males. It was quite funny, you see there were five of us as well, and you'd think we put up somewhat of a fight. But, it wasn't even close. In fact, only one of them fought us."
Hayato sat down, bent his back and looked at his hands with clutched one another. "He didn't even bother to use his blade, and he simply beat us black and blue. Eric noticed the gravity of the situation and decided on the best course action. He had us prepare teleportation items as he fought the man. He exhausted all of his Qi in order to throw the man hundreds of meters away from, but in the process, he got hit by a Qi attack without any inner protection."
"Do you mind describing them for me?" Ed asked in the calmest voice possible.
"They all looked the same age as us. Not too old not too young. The women had black and crimson red hair. The men, well those that didn't fight looked well built and quite strong. One of them was bald and lacked any emotional features. The other was the shortest of the group and wore a mask. The one who fought us, well he's easier to remember. He looked strikingly similar to you. Golden blond hair, though much shorter than yours, and a well-built body and broad shoulders. There are only two distinct differences between the two of you. He had freckles all over his nose and cheeks, and, his eyes were deep water blue contrary to your black eyes."
As Hayato finished talking, Ed had his eyes closed. A figure appeared immediately in his head, and it was one he encountered in the Tower of Origin. 'Johan...' he thought to himself.
"If this is true, then we need to change our strategy. I'll depart ten minutes from now, and I'll only be taking one person with me. No one is to say a word and no one will ask me anything. All I ask is for you to trust me, as you've always had," Ed said the last sentence with a smile on his face.
However, no one shared his smile. Emilia was busy consoling Ellie, Stephanie, and Alicia, while Hayato's heart tormented him with guilt.
"Cheer up Hayato; we still have a chance, especially after I let Sarin escape. I'll never let Blood sect win, no matter the cost," as spoke the last sentence he secretly contacted the system in his mind.
'How many tickets do I have now?'
[110.]
'I'd hoped for better. Can you lend me some?' Ed asked jokingly.
[Certainly, but I need something as collateral. Your liver, perhaps?]
'Wait, you can really lend me?!'
[No. The tickets are obtained through the ways you know of, nothing else.]
'Well then, I guess I'll have to make do with the things I have at hand. Use up all 110 tickets on Function Gacha. Exchange any cards I have in inventory, as well as any Transformation card I get. Keep only one of them.'
[Understood. Drawing Gacha!]
*Ding*
Enjoy!
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