Alkuthuzen hung on by a thread.

That thread being none other than the protective bodysuit. Not just the armour too, as beneath the black metal plates laid a mucous membrane, alchemically created to dull pain, inflammation, and irritation, for a supreme tier.

His citrine scales were nowhere to be seen, not even charred or blackened flesh, just raw crystal reminiscent of fat stores and muscle. Culling his ability to regrow those tough dragon scales was necessary in healing. Wiry wing bones still sprouted from his body and into their own sections of the metal bodysuit, but not a scrap of leathery membrane remained. The grey scales formed of layered alloy plates allowed for something reminiscent of flight.

Did the damage sound bad? It was worse, so much worse… Akevorax mocked his armour for that reason.

Crafted entirely from metals spewing life elements. Unlike life essence, which accelerated growth and healing, this purer element only healed and recovered following natural processes. For that reason, he begrudgingly accepted a composite of master tier materials. The only portions which differed were its helmet and dedicated heart guard, cast from a cornem tier material. All because he couldn’t source enough of the greater substances in a short time frame before everything collapsed. Akevorax’s substantial level of damage gave an idea of his problem.

The three-point-something billion runes swarming his body mutilated his insides. Worst of all were the tumours and cysts, most don’t even know crystal bodies can still get cancer.

Why exactly was Alkuthuzen ranting so much about all this stuff?

Because, as he thought about these things to himself, the stressed knot in his heart unravelled. Usually calm and collected, disregarding a bit of obsession over research, the boundless frustration, depression, and mania finally hit all at once… His idiocy also popped up like a gopher’s head, but pride and hatred smashed it back down.

…

Akevorax stood gingerly with a sway as heaps of mental pressure crushed his brain. Moving and fighting in time measured by milliseconds was one thing, but trying to reduce that a thousand-fold was ridiculous. Though, a mostly intact brain claimed it fine in moderation.

He gave Alkuthuzen his full attention. The array’s successful activation also came with a minor binding effect in the form of hooks and chains. Unlike his previous seals, they lost their appearance of white and golden light in exchange for a polished gold finish.

It looked alright. Something about 150 gold chains descending from the sky lacked grandeur over pure light, a shrug worthy observation.

The Mana Seal activated alongside these binding hooks, a pronged lance appeared above the grounded dragon’s heart and stabbed through the protector with ease. Once inside, his ruined body couldn’t stop a seal wrapping around the beating organ.

Next came the Body Seal. A familiar golden mist spewed from the upright array plate, filling the crystal cells formed entirely of specialised great runes. But this upgraded form formed individual links of runes between droplets of mist to all cells around it, like how two specific enzymes locked together.

His Mind Seal wasn’t as effective as predicted, mostly because he built the array to deal with Adept palaces. Applied as a crown of inward daggers, one slim javelin penetrated into Alkuthuzen‘s mental space to seal it inside and out. Weakened but wholly effective. It still completely shuttered the connection between Body and Mind thankfully, blocking access to the palace.

A Soul Seal, absolutely Akevorax’s preferred domain and expertise. The structure built to protect it, in this case an Exalted Soul in Alkuthuzen’s likeness, had its connection to Mind and Body switched before translucent gold spears stabbed deep into its giant figure. The flow of soul power within dragged to a halt and any hidden senses developed by the Soul faded away. A change in connections couldn’t directly hurt someone this powerful, but it did put a secret timer on their time to remain conscious.

Too bad their Exalted Soul barely suffered any damages from the blast. Through the Nexus’s information and his own research of Providences, when given access to the core of a Soul there existed only hell for an enemy.

Their battle over the crystal boundary ended in less than a second, but the seals took a further 12 seconds to apply. About 23% of the array’s mana remained. Those spare reserves meant Alkuthuzen hadn’t moved an inch while restrained.

However, more mana did not drain away as the golden hooks maintained a presence. Exhaustion and pounding headaches made thoughts even at a reduced speed difficult, and about 10 seconds later he managed to get a grip. Crown firmly on his head with his spirit and divinity as support… This was just the preamble for god’s sake!

Yes, also the hardest part in his opinion. Alkuthuzen silently lay on the floor as though he’d just given up, not that the dragon even had a choice. Millions of runes worked together to rip apart bones and tissue.

And if it were any wonder why he didn’t just fill up the array in advance…

Exactly half a minute since he flooded the array with condensed mana, everything poured out of the array without any trouble. No long-term storage meant that a routine ‘dump’ process inevitably ejected anything inside.

Storage consumed both space on the array and crafting materials, two things in short supply.

On that note, he collected the array plate and watched as all 150 hooks shot out of Alkuthuzen’s body, every last cut into the metal closed up like a wound healing itself. Rich supplies of life essence made self-repair a breeze. However, these recovered sections showed a smooth white-green metal, so faint that he hardly made out the slight colour at a short distance.

Knowing better than to just charge in, he goaded them, “Are you just going to lie there now that I get to beat you personally? Seems like you really screwed yourself.”

“I am still waiting on you to act. Go on then, you see my insides melting,” Alkuthuzen spat at him. The response only made him hesitate more, wondering just what possible tricks a dragon without mana could muster.

It was nothing more than a bluff.

To come to kill him with so much uncertainty, in such a weakened state, this foolishness didn’t fit someone remarked a genius. A petty grudge– Alright, he knew well enough they shared a dire mutual hatred, and this dragon still wanted his bloodline. Akevorax never intended to let him live either.

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That line of thought answered one other thing, he mused some more as a black orb smacked all over the plating. Most strikes dented the metal plates but they popped back out immediately after.

“It seems you really deliberated about attacking me these past few days. Must have been very unsure, ” he said without a hint of stress. Strike after strike, the power behind the orb increased slowly, dents grew in severity with the rate of attacks edging upwards. At full strength, this soul armament penetrated the body of a high-end master tier with Elder blood, he was just playing about to see what triggered Alkuthuzen to react. It didn’t take long for a struck metal plate to crack at the dent’s centre.

He continued the attacks as usual, but finally, raised its power to the limit to smash right through their crystal stomach. And his wish came true.

Before the orb struck metal at a speed several times faster than the last minor denting, a swarm of multi-coloured crystal cubes blocked the strike. The cube which took a direct blow fell to the ground in pieces, but dozens behind it just flew about on set paths.

“379 more of them and no automatic repair. Fine then,” his words entered empty ears as loud bangs filled the decrepit glacier.

The speed of each cube only slightly lagged behind his orb at maximum speed, but as a convenient master tier defence, it couldn’t do well against concentrated firepower. After 200 strikes, already a small drain on Akevorax’s Origin Force, the lack of cubes made it possible for multiple weaker blows to work instead. They couldn’t repair when completely broken, but this degree of partial recovery was already excellent for a High-rank treasure tool.

Automatic activation, highly responsive, excellent mana supply, decent durability, and the fact 380 of them existed in the swarm…

Five minutes of nonstop smashing finally destroyed every last cube. He immediately heaved a sigh and asked, “Still just going to sit and wait?” The moment of downtime allowed a dart to fly off to the side and stab into the metal plates at Alkuthuzen’s back.

“Do I gain anything by–” The words cut off as the orb zipped towards his neck, moving at maximum speed once more, but another barrier appeared. This time created by a slim pole of ash grey wood, it stabbed into the glacier after successfully blocking. Its semi-transparent white colour didn’t mean much.

Eye of Truth activated to glance over the pole’s exact function and the dart’s absorption now began. Supreme tiers always noticed its existence, but it was functionally impossible to feel or sense it in Alkuthuzen’s position. Dumping the extracted and refined metal even went unnoticed!

“Far simpler than I imagined,” he dismissed the barrier entirely.

A droplet of Origin Force pushed into the white barrier and countless holes revealed in its surface, he just smashed the pole with his orb. It didn’t break or splinter, but agitation pushed the invasive energy deeper. Highly-efficient recycling of mana let it last days without any input, but right now, that gave him a back door. The spirit spread it further all while the rod’s internal protections pushed back. Further strikes from the orb would have completely disabled it, however, another defence appeared to block.

A bulky heater shield, but more annoyingly, clearly a Rune tool. Not highly augmented at least, it seemed to just defend very well and move fast. Eye of Truth easily saw through it too, so almost surely nothing worrisome.

Before solving that issue, he resolved the issue with the rod by throwing a pre-charged array down. On activation, it flung an arrow of finely compressed fire towards any desired target, with a small orange wisp quietly attached to its tip. Alkuthuzen, with his eyes closed, couldn’t possibly notice the appearance and disappearance of a purple crystal.

Unable to defend against both the arrow and orb at once led it to block whichever attack could harm its master. The fire, obviously.

Three strikes rattled the rod to its core and the final strands of its barrier vanished. Another item taken down.

Condensed mana and Dimension Force acted together, controlled by him and the spirit, respectively. The shield, unable to think for itself, moved to block and allowed the sticky phoenix flame to burn brightly. Even heat in the millions of degrees couldn’t melt the shield… Unless the magical structure carrying away heat stopped working. Yellow earth elements halted, now active as a mountain, and for just a few seconds a flame symbolising heat focused all its power into the Rune tool.

The undefended Rune tool melted, no surprise there. Akevorax melted cornem tier metals countless times for alloys, should he be in awe just because a defunct shield was made of some?

For the… Whatever time, he attacked with the black orb.

Four more items appeared, four more barriers compounded, and his orb bounced away like a rubber ball. Two more Rune tools and two High-rank treasure tools, just what he wanted to see!

“We’re going to be here for a while. But…” Alkuthuzen flipped open an eye in suspicion, yet Akevorax just stood there. Disgruntled as he stared deep into the sealed dragon’s eyes. A beam of light barrelled down from the sky, all four barriers erupted to block it, but the beam pierced through them with ease and continued straight onto the lying dragon. Aimed right for the heart. Only his voice carried through the air, full of disdain, “If you’re fighting, do it properly.”

The drained armour plate shattered on contact.

Without any interruptions the strike ended with a muffled thump. On their chest, hidden as Alkuthuzen kept against the floor, a defined dent pushed into the ice below. The orb rose up the passage of crystal, and once inside his heart, flew sideways, smashing apart plates on exit.

A hole the size of a plum wasn’t really that bad against a fully-grown dragon, even if sent right through their heart. An open jaw as chunks of crystal flew out said otherwise.

Akevorax pulled a layer of golden runes off the black orb and the flow of Dimension Force stopped once more. Auric Spirit’s aptitude with the crown wasn’t fair by any measurement, directly crushing such a silly interaction. Maybe now the ‘defensive’ tools would do their job. And if the extent of usable equipment truly fell so much, this would be pretty easy. The crown’s store of Origin Force hadn’t even fallen by half yet! Most of that consumption came from the sealing array’s cost!

Chuckling came out of the collapsed dragon, a few teeth clearly gone along with sections of tongue and gums. Heavy wheezes followed with a string of coughs, but he finally said, “I see why stunning you didn’t work, that is an excellent relic. Those armaments as well… I should have brought more planar arrays. The seal is a bit stronger than expected too.”

Akevorax’s eyes narrowed in front of those last words. This was already way more autonomous equipment than anyone reasonably needed, or owned for that matter, so why else would he bring it all?

Words repeated in his head, ‘Back. Back. Back…’

“Retreat? Good idea,” he mumbled to himself about the spirit’s advice. He didn’t really need it to know that getting away now helped.

A kilometre away, having travelled for just a second with divinity and Origin Force, the ground shook as troubled waves threw about an entire glacier. Where the armoured dragon stood, a dozen small objects hovered menacingly, a hundred more floated around his body religiously, and above them all… A flying ship in the air.

Very similar to a wooden ship, the only noticeable changes at a distance were the ship’s front. At its bow rested a huge eyeball, squirming and glancing about. Its sight settled on him in seconds, and restless danger stiffened his tail immediately.

A 20 times acceleration activated and he threw himself to the side. Neither fast nor slow, enough to survive. Just barely.

Where he once stood, about 50 metres away, a spotless hole appeared, it continued all the way down. Not to the ice’s bottom, but further into the ocean’s depths, somewhere far beyond his vision. Thankfully, a pair of eyelids wrapped around the eye. Bronze metal shutters closed around it defensively. It seemed to enter a recovery period after a shot, but he assumed this a bluff to fire twice after evasion of a future beam.

All dozen of the small objects acted as well, flying straight for him at a speed below his own with divinity. Would you believe that only six of them had pointed tips! He didn’t care about that part, this appearance had been foreshadowed too much.

The fun fact was that all 113 items were Rune tools… ‘Fun’ probably wasn’t the right word though. A fuck you seemed far more appropriate.