Rune looked up at his hand and stared at it before dropping it to the ground. Once more, he was sent into a spiral of confusion in the air and landed, face first, in the rocks. He tried to move slowly, but found that he moved at a regular speed if he did so, then he used only a little bit of muscles and strength to push himself off the ground.

His wings tucked in as he did so and he was able to get himself on balance as he stood up correctly. Then, with acute precision and timing things slowly, he walked towards the dragon. Even if he tried to move slowly, he was moving at a running pace.

The dragon, currently covered from head to toe in shadows and with all of its would seeming to be healed, was confused at everything it just witnessed. At first, it tried to tackle Rune when a large dent appeared underneath him. Then, after he landed, he sent himself flying not once, but twice.

“Uh… What?”

Rune was walking towards the dragon in shadows as if nothing had happened. In fact, Rune did not feel anything other than unease as he got up from his falls. He wasn’t sure if he could control his power, but he wanted to train himself in the only way he could in this situation. Fight.

Rune moved his arm back and closed his fist. He was charging up a punch that was reinforced with magic. His acid gauntlets were fine as he had taken them off when he saw that it was a Black Dragon he was fighting, but he chose to not use them in case they broke due to Rune’s own attacks.

Then, using his back foot, Rune propelled himself towards the enemy and was launched from the ground into the air. He stayed on track this time and used [Gust] to make him fall even faster with a wind pushing him downwards, The dragon, too confused to launch a counter-attack, was punched in the face and it seemed like some shadows fell to the ground, as if they were armor around the dragon.

The shadows started to move towards the dragon, but there were not like regular shadows. They were like pieces of cloth that danced wildly through the air. Since the dragon was moved back, they started to move over to the dragon’s position when Rune tried to grab one of them. Tried to.

He couldn’t as the dark shadows seemed to slip through his hands. Using [Ethereal], he grabbed for them again, but to no avail. It seemed like he couldn’t grab one, even if he tried. Frustrated, he moved towards them again and absorbed them as soon as they were around his hand. He sighed in relief as he finally did something to the shadows.

The dragon, on the other hand, was watching him like a parent would to a child who was doing something that made absolutely no sense. It watched Rune try and play a game of tag with the shadows before absorbing them. Once he did so, the dragon became even more bewildered and shook its head as if trying to make sure it wasn’t seeing things.

It looked once more to see Rune do a victory stance by raising both hands in the air and shouting strange things that it didn’t understand. Then Rune turned to look at the dragon again and leapt into the air. With his wings, he flapped them and strong gusts of wind whirled about him.

It was immensely hard for him to keep himself in the air as he was not used to having wings. He flailed about for several moments as he was afraid that he would just fall. Instead of falling, it was like his body instinctively knew how to handle his wings.

He flapped his wings that looked heavy, but were, on the contrary, not. It was as if they were actual wings instead of some strange looking pair of wings that were made of the horn material.

The dragon came back to its senses as it had no idea that Rune had the ability to fly through the sky, even if Rune did not know that before. It knew that the enemies on the ground were much easier to handle as they had a limited amount of places to go as well as the fact that the dragon’s wings were utterly useless. This became a problem for him quickly.

It moved both of its arms in front of it and placed them palm first on the ground. Then it started chanting words that Rune had never heard before. Soon enough, a magic circle, darker than the ground that seemed to absorb all colors around it, appeared under its hands and it grew wider.

It was like water spreading over a flat surface, but this kept going far beyond what was expected. Then, tendrils of darkness appeared from the magic circle’s lines and they turned and whipped around towards Rune.

All he could think at the moment when the tendrils appeared was, I am not into that kind of thing. Nope. I’m just gonna kill the dragon first, then, hopefully, those tentacles will go away.

Rune started to perform tactical maneuvers in the air to try and dodge each tentacle, but some were much faster than others. On tendril hit his spine and he felt as if his stamina and energy was depleting. He felt fainter and weaker and more fatigued.

Rune flew upwards and pointed a hand at the dragon. Then he cast [Unholy Smite] which used the elements of Light and Dark to crush its foes underneath. What he was imagining was a man sized cross like the one he summoned before, but, this time, he got something much larger.

It was all thanks to him being in his Demon King form and he got a large magic boost. The cross was far larger than a rank 3 Hierarch Dragon, but still a bit smaller than the rank 1 Hierarch Dragon before him.

Even with the slight size different, the cross moved faster than Rune thought possible and far surpassed the speed of sound. Its speed was around mach 2.

The cross embedded itself inside of the dragon, specifically its neck, and fully decapitated it while the white aura around the cross dissolved most of the shadow cloth around it. The dragon sunk to the ground and went back to its original, battered form.

Unfortunately, the tendrils of shadows and darkness kept coming from the magic circle and Rune started to cast as many spells as he could at it. [Eldritch Blast]. [Ice Lance]. [Thunderstorm]. [Ice Age].

He was fortunate that his mana lasted much longer than the tendrils of darkness and they dispersed as soon as the magic hit them. They puffed out into small specks of darkness and became absorbed into the ground once they landed.

Ruen slowly landed on the ground. The reason why he was able to fly with his dragon form was due to how the brain in the form was wired differently from his humanoid forms. Of course, the Majin form would usually not use wings, but the Demon King was wired to do so.

He landed on the ground and dust and rocks flew in the opposite direction of him as he did so and he generated large quantities of wind like a helicopter when landing. He barely had any trouble flying, but now the hard part came.

He tentatively took a step forward as slowly as he could and sighed in relief as he didn’t make another crater in the ground. Then he planted his front foot on the ground steadily and pushed off with all his might.

He soared through the sky for several moments before dropping down in front of the dragon’s corpse. After pulling out a knife, he started to descale the remains of the dragon and cut off its claws. Then, he turned his blade on the face.

As quickly as he could, he gouged out the eyes with blood dripping from each one. And, with absolute precision, he took out every tooth from the lower jaw.

With the pile of body parts behind him, he stored them except for the eyes which he stored as soon as they were gouged out. With the remaining pieces, he absorbed them and the cloth of darkness around it that was lying in the puddles of blood and acid.

Rune couldn’t figure much from his encounter, but he did understand one thing. That the dragon was ready to die while fighting him and, since it made some sort of contract, it was taken over by the contracted being. That being was one of darkness and it basically devoured the dragon.

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From that dragon and cloth, he only gained two skills. One passive, [Dragon Scales], and one active, [Shadow Step]. The former gave him more natural defense as well as more strength. The latter gave him the ability to travel through the shadows, but only shadows connected with one another.

He was now able to move his Demon King form with one precision after he cut up the dragon. He could now take a step without destroying the surrounding area. Even so, he turned back into his human form as his group members did not know the current form he was in.

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Rena and Hika were busy teaching Gaira how to play with cards while Gaira was worrying about Rune who popped his head through the portal and told them to go to the base of the temple.

Rouna wa lying down while in a lap pillow from Elisa after Rouna whined to her. Elisa was slowly patting the green hair on her lap which was silky and soft.

Riika and Erin were both doing their own thing while waiting for Rune to come out. They were nervous as he hand come out for a while.

Sure enough, he did, but not in his Cursed Armor form as it was destroyed a while earlier. He was not able to fix his armor in he current conditions as he needed Kelly’s welding tool and a very hot heat source. He was probably able to make the heat source, but would likely fail at the torch as he needed it to be precise.

He hopped down from the temple, now in Human form, and strode up to the group. He specifically walked over to Gaira after passing some Dragonborn who were squirming in their ropes and chains.

“It’s done. You didn’t want to fight him?”

“No. I just wanted to tear down everything he did. That was just a bonus.”

“Ok. If you say so…”

Then one of the Dragonborn slid part of his gag out of his mouth and spoke in Draconic. Only Rouna and Gaira, and Erin a little bit, could understand.

“Thank you. We were under his control. We can show you the way out now. Please free our people from their cells first though.”

Rune just stared at the person with a tilted head until Gaira spoke into his ear to translate. Then he stood up and told Gaira to ask the Dragonborn a question.

“Ahem. Where are the cells?”

“They are in the caves this way.”

Then the Dragonborn moved towards a tunnel entrance and strode at a semi-fast pace. Rune then turned to Gaira and spoke to her.

“You don’t know where he cells are?”

“I was stuck in that cage for several years with a minimal amount of food and water. I was too hungry to think and gone for too long. I had no idea that these cells even existed until he said something.”

Rune nodded slowly and he followed the Dragonborn with slight suspicion. It was definitely strange for someone to suddenly just snap out of the mind control and no side effects disappearing. In the Manticore village, they had red veins in their eyes and spoke in a monotone voice. Here, the Dragonborns did not change at all.

Of course, there were no signs that they were under mind control, but this mind control was due to a dragon who was definitely more powerful than the one before. That meant that their magic was more undetectable.

They walked down a stone path and encountered several cages that were similar to the one Gaira was in, but these did not have the chains nor did they feel as powerful. The Dragonborn was leading the way and the other nine were doing something where Rena and Erin were staying. They were going to notify Rune if they did anything out of the ordinary for them.

The rest of the group moved through the tunnels some more to reach a room where there was a lock and the Dragonborn pulled out a key. Then it placed it inside the lock and slid upwards. The lock moved along with it and then came to a rest.

The door opened up in a criss crossed pattern and there was a small, cube room behind it. There was only a single thing on it, but it had twenty buttons lined up in a row and a lock that used the same key as the door. The buttons were on a pedestal that was about waist level and it had twenty green colored lights next to each button.

The Dragonborn plugged in his key and pressed every button which turned the lights from green to red. The doors to the cages rose up and Rune could hear gears clunking in the walls.

Several Dragonborn escaped their cages at a time and they all looked similar with their black scales and horns protruding forwards. Each one of them turned to Rune and the others and started to screech.

They all bum rushed the group and Rune pulled out his katana. The Dragonborn behind them seemed to cackle for a little bit in glee before Rune got and stabbed in from lower to upper jaw. Blood spewed from the wound and his eyes rolled up into his head. The upper head was utterly annihilated with the brain matter splattering about the place.

The Dragonborn slid down the blade some more when it finally reached the hilt and Rune kicked it off his blade. Then he spun towards the charging Dragonborn and slashed the air. Three balls of blue flames were sent flying into the crowd and a total of five of them started to be burned alive.

Rune then pulled out his shotgun and fired off several shells before reloading. His katana was now in its sheath, but the sheathe was overflowing with blood as he sword rest in it.

The next several moments were like scenes straight out of the Nine Hell’s. Blood oozed from the cages and walls, flesh dangled from the ceiling, and meat squished in between the cage bars. Heads rolled and limbs were severed, but Rune only felt excitement as he tested out how strong he had gotten from the dragon.

At the end of the blood bath, Rune was panting. He hadn’t moved that much in his Human form in his entire life, not to mention how heavy the guns and blades were. He was used to having infinite stamina and no fatigue with his Cursed Armor form.

Gaira looked upon the scene and stumbled to a corner that did not have blood, surprisingly enough, and threw up the beef jerky she was given by Rune’s group. Rune stood back up and put away all his weapons except his katana that was still leaking blood from the sheath.

Dark red fluid dropped out which made her gag even more and Rune sighed. He turned towards her and spoke.

“Hey. I was defending my group. Plus, they were probably still under mind control.”

“I-I know, but, blegh, we could’ve imprisoned them or left. Not killing them!”

She retched in the middle of her speech as she was turning back to Rune, but saw a Dragonborn head that was halved and brains were spilling onto the drenched floor.

“What’s done is done. They decided to attack me and, at that moment, turned from innocents to attackers. Plus, they would’ve found a way to escape and sacrifice more things like that.”

Rune pointed at the strange lump of meat in the square room. There was a table that was made of dark stone and was in a rectangular basin to gather leaking blood.

“They were gone for too long and under a powerful spell. Maybe if they were under it for a few months, but not years. In that time, any mind would be corrupted. Plus, they will live on.”

She looked up at him as tears flowed from her eyes. She wiped them and spoke.

“W-what do you mean?”

“They will live on… as our party’s experience points!”

Gaira shuddered as she realized what kind of person Rune was. In her eyes, he was cold and cruel and kind of insane. In Rune’s eyes, Rune was doing the best he could to not let anyone near him die while he was on the trip. That meant doing away with his sanity, even though he had very little before, and getting stronger to protect those around him.

He could not waver, not even for a second, because that second might mean the end of someone’s life. So, instead of letting them die, he would kill the ones trying to harm them.

He crouched down and, making sure that Gaira wasn’t watching, absorbed the bodies of the Dragonborn and stored quite a bit of them. He only did this for seven of them before Gaira turned around and looked at him. She gave him a look as if to ask what he was doing.

Rune replied with a shrug and started to store the rest of the bodies and absorb the blood. Soon enough, while Gaira was watching in horror, the room was mostly cleared of any flesh, blood, and meat.

When he was done, he was about to say something to the rest of the group with him when Rena spoke over the radio which was fuzzy still and had a lot of static due to the tunnels interfering with the signal.

“We have killed the other nine Dragonborn. They were trying to kill us using farming tools and stuff.”

“We’re on our way.”

Rune gestured for the rest of he group to follow and he grabbed Gaira in a firefighter carry over his shoulder. Hey races towards the scene and found nine bodies strewn about. Rune put Gaira down and she walked over to Erin.

“How could you do this to your kin!? They are part of your race!”

Erin gave her a little shrug.

“If they try to kill you, they are your enemies and you should take them out if they attack.”

He stated it as if it was a fact and Gaira started to crouch and put her head in her hands. Rune tugged in his collar a little bit and shifted his weight. He was the one who taught Erin that.

Then Rune walked up to Gaira and placed a hand on her shoulder. She looked up and he could tell her face was a mess.

“Uh, I’m sorry?”

“I understand now.”

She sniffled and rubbed her face with a cloth Rouna gave her.

“I was too late to do anything. It’s my fault.”

Rune sighed again  and grabbed both her shoulders and pulled her up to a standing position.

“If you want to do something, then I have the perfect job for you. I want you to first learn the basics, then You will teach students in my school about a subject. How’s that sound?”

She sniffles again and nodded slowly. Then he grinned and let go of her shoulders.

“So… which way?”