With Kalmiktar’s unexpected but speedy surrender, Icy faced the other five dragons set to battle him still. Revealing the full extent of this soul armament’s destructive powers was a slight loss, but to automatically win a battle with no risk?

Everyone here knew how to weigh costs and benefits, and with more age, they understood the value of an easy win far more.

The former second rank dragon, whose red scales glowed from thick orange veins, an effect which resembled flows of magma through red-hot iron. This remained his only real challenge. Even if the dragons above clearly glanced at Kalmiktar in displeasure, believing that his offensive power could easily eviscerate Icy in the time that orb broke through.

Icy clearly possessed power, but to them, this displayed cowardice instead of pre-emptive caution.

‘A mishap with tricks could never compare to an objectively great bloodline, one with outstanding defensive and offensive means.’

Fair logic which completely ignored reality. Not that any of the younger adults could change this thought process, many of them also considered their future too. Previously, staying seemed best, but the whole situation with Icy really pushed them in another direction. Partially because they respected his strength, but mostly because it disgusted them to think those master tiers flying above lived here perpetually.

“I’ll still fight. It’s stupid to assume I’ll lose just because you have power on your side,” he finally replied with more than a few eyes on him this whole time. Maintaining a rough attitude as that single strike against Kalmiktar replayed over and over.

Part of him considered rescinding the challenge, but as a dragon who excelled in fire attacks, he practically existed to suppress something like Icy!

“I can retract my challenge, if Pritaslo couldn’t even cast a spell, I have no chance,” a reply came from the challenger placed after that fire dragon. Faltrynia, if Icy remembered correctly, another spellcasting dragon that came to Mala to butt heads with, but with far less success than the one with sapphire scales he spoke of.

Icy also quite liked his name, ‘Pure Light [borne] of Intelligence’, with scales of a truly pure white, it completely differed from the silver scales on Adret or ash grey on Lostradus. Also, due to some specifics, the ‘of’ in his name contained a different connotation. Easy to translate if you know it, and not like that single word impacted the meaning considerably.

Faltrynia spread himself too thin in terms of knowledge, but with triple the lifespan of Icy, his attainments in everything completely eclipsed the newbie dragon.

On the other hand, Mala completely scared him this past month. He heard about a frightening human from the dragon that accompanied her in the stitched realm, but hadn’t thought much of it. And the fact he only won in branches of knowledge she never studied in only deepened this concern. How could a human actually happily research and learn for 20 hours a day and completely retain that knowledge?

Fortunately, the next day’s battle against that fire or magma dragon, Icy didn’t really care for his name, went as expected. An acceleration with the pocket watch, combined with some full power attacks, instantly demolished all his limbs and wing bones. Icy was kind enough to only target the smaller bones, so everything hurt less as well.

Beaten to the ground in less time than a dragon lifted off the ground, he asked with an aggrieved voice, “I don’t understand, why is that thing so fast? Does it even have a limit?”

Soul armaments are meant to be weapons, sure, but it made no sense that Icy received one which only attacked with a speed that exceeded regular master tiers. A couple weeks ago, he would’ve said that no one actually knew why or smirked whilst screwing with the losing dragon’s thoughts…

But that manual really cleared things up.

“It’s hard to explain, but this thing’s only limits are myself and the speed of light. I tore a tool of pure destruction from a soul’s depths without realising… And the cost of that is immense,” Icy’s reply, an oddly solemn and realistic response, was the first time he actually mentioned this fact outside of his circle of friends.

Reality came down to more than just that, but Icy couldn’t possibly explain all that stuff. Providences, ordained objects, soul mutations, conceptual awakenings, and several more ridiculous terms that took several read throughs to partially understand. All of it came to one firm conclusion that at least made sense and explained why he failed to awaken any further armaments after seven months. Furthermore, this also answered why it took so long to awaken something after the crystal dart.

The blank orbs in everyone’s souls, their providences, were not actually owned by them. And that meant every awakening incurred a debt, usually an unnoticable repayment such that the being freely obtained another object later on without any noticeable problems… So what about if someone relied on an uncanny collection of powers to forcibly awaken a providence usually unavailable to them?

Like someone with a collection of bloodlines which had no right to naturally exist.

Icy sighed at the danger he put himself in, but wouldn’t ever consider returning this orb. One day he’d have to pay it back though, and the Nexus already told him that it delayed the repayment for now.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The final three dragons also stood convinced of Icy’s power, directly forfeiting rather than rescinding their challenge. Rather than avoiding a battle, they claimed he beat them. No different in effect, but the meaning changed Icy’s perception of these three greatly.

“As there are no other challengers, I will collect my dragonstone three days from now, the end of my month-long agreement,” Icy’s voice emanated over the lonely mountain, and no one argued with it. Clearly, the fact remained that his existence deeply annoyed and frustrated those older dragons. A mishap made of ice cream had no right standing as the peak of a generation of their kind.

Ready to disperse, Darak came up to heal the grounded fire element dragon. The repeated divine spells reattached muscles, healed bone, and soothed all pain at incredible speed. Just minutes passed as their whole body moved freely. Even though his eyes still contained arrogance, he nodded thankfully to the human priest.

Words broke out from all over, Icy hardly able to keep track of conversations. “It’s over then?” “So, that thing actually won.” “Didn’t think we’d lose the dragonstone like this.” “But at least he won it fairly just now.”

Some voices from the younger dragons, with so many more of the older ones that consistently dismissed him. Even though he won, UNDOUBTEDLY.

“Was there any rule about someone only challenging you once?” The words in Draconic swept across the mountain, the many dragons talking quietly instantly shut down as they turned to see who arrived.

But everyone of the generation vying for the stone already knew this voice, they remembered it far too well…

And Icy just felt the quaking divinity within him stir once more. He didn’t even need the voice, frankly, and once his head turned, the parting of dragons revealed a unmissable figure. Already, the golden shard within him spasmed, deformed as it saw the opponent it crushed and defeated return once more.

But Icy’s eyes focused on something else, especially as they lit up with a similarly gilded layer… Not only was their heart completely fine, but the mana within appeared stronger than before. Immensely stronger, as though they underwent an evolution on top of recovering to their peak state.

Icy glared and suppressed the vile hatred as the enemy with ashen scales landed nearby. Neither confusion nor surprise filled Icy’s words as he spoke, just disgust, “I was mistaken to keep you alive while I extracted your flame. That won’t happen again, Lostradus.”

“Don’t say my name, it makes me gag. Don’t worry though, I won’t fall for your little sticky trick again, name the time and place.” As he spoke, Lostradus’ neck raised up and looked down slightly on Icy who stood close to the ground for now.

He too raised, such that both heads rested at eye level, replying, “And rules?”

“A fight to the death. No surrendering; no retractions. Winner takes all.”

“Perfect. I recently heard there are some battlefields for master tier dragons here, we’ll use one of those. Time will be the final day at… 6PM.” Icy stared out over the ocean and at the glimmering light which refracted through it over the horizon. Sunset passed, and they stood in the final fringes of twilight, a time where the last bundles of light came to an end.

Feeling somewhat artistic, a rare sensation, he wished to complete this final battle with the setting sun as the victor’s point of entry.

He already felt the glares from his friends, especially Raccelline who completely hated how wilful Icy’s actions seemed. But the raging divinity within him already decided all this, just like the rampant flames within Lostradus.

One of them must die. It wasn’t a question of when, just where.

“How did you heal it? Not even potions made for supreme tiers can perfectly recover a dragon heart,” Icy did his research, or at least thought so. But with such a large world, it was only expected that something remote or unknown could actually do this…

Or so he assumed. But Lostradus had no desire to answer, just laughing under a few snorts as he flew away first. Icy never expected an answer, but now he needed a better way to deal with this opponent.

Master true spells wouldn’t work here, the flames defended too well, just like Icy’s divinity. A small shred of hope remained if he enhanced one of them though… But the cost pretty much drained his Auric spirit dry instantly. It felt itself no closer to an upgrade in the past year as well, so he gave up on that aspect.

With Lostradus gone, everyone too dispersed, with Icy heading back to the cave bearing repetitive thoughts. Thankfully, not the type caused by a Forced Exposure event, just because no solution to this came to mind.

Use more extreme acceleration, push the orb as much as possible, extract flames where possible… practice melee combat a bit as well, also learn to fight better with spells.

Kalmiktar and Pritaslo both respected him, so surely they could advise him in these matters.

“Nexus… What would happen if I unlocked the providence within the orb?” Icy asked an uncomfortable question, his soul twitched and shook as though conscious enough to warn him. Rather, it gave a reflexive response to what it perceived as extreme danger. The Nexus’ response only backed that up.

[You will undergo a Forced Exposure Event, one far worse than the higher concept you previously saw, on top of drawing a mass of monsters from outside realms. At least your soul is likely to collapse after a few seconds, so it wouldn’t hurt]

“I don’t appreciate the sarcasm at this time,” he blurted out assumingly, perhaps a bit too aggressive. In retrospect, the message very well could’ve been entirely serious.

Regardless, he didn’t actually know what hid within that dark-green shell, but at least now he understood why the Nexus disliked using ‘soul armament’ as a term. Nothing much changed though, unable to grow significantly in a few days, his options for growth lay in front, immediately, he headed to see Pritaslo first.

Only about half an hour passed since the events of Lostadus’ return, many dragons still ill-prepared for how a seemingly average member of their kind suddenly shot up the ranks. Nonetheless, many welcomed his appearance, as he maintained a healthy bloodline and they supported his victory in this battle on that single part alone. They claimed this ridiculous reason at least. Many simply chose Lostradus as a way to spite Icy, unwilling to correct beliefs, they doubled down and went for someone who had lost just a month prior.

Anything to maintain this concept of ‘bloodline purity’, although, at this point, even those arguments were clearly nonsense. They just wanted reasons to hate Icy, whether as projection to the elders or spite at how a mishap grew stronger than any of them. None of the group, or dragons participating in the trial, understood what was going on now.

If dragons were such incredibly petty creatures, how could their race possibly have survived this long?