Deep in the night, the full moon scattered the shallow fog as I lost myself deep in thought on top of a giant tree branch. Glancing at the dark sky above, a frown quickly made its way into my face. It was already this late, I had to go back.

Throwing the damaged monster corpse next to me one final look, I shook my head in disappointment. "Another failure huh?" I muttered with a sigh before I jumped to the sky disregarding the corpse and quickly made my way back to the mountain.

I had spent the entire day hunting various monsters to test my blood-wielding theory on them, unfortunately, all of my attempts to bypass that strange barrier that protected the blood were still in vain. The only noteworthy achievement I had in the past five years when it came to this department was that I could now easily move the blood if It was outside of my target without worrying much about the cost.

Ever since I mastered control over my soul space, my control over the heart's energy was also significantly boosted. A single dragon breath of mine could now easily flatten a small hill completely without me so much as breaking a sweat.

Still, no matter how much I tried, that strange energy that protected the blood would not budge. I attempted to disturb it by using mana but to no avail, to my surprise, It instead harmlessly diverted my stream of mana before pushing It away.

The strange force did not retaliate, It didn't attack me or anything of sorts, It simply prevented me from interfering with the flow of the blood. I attempted this with numerous monsters, from strong ones to the relatively weaker ones, yet the result was unchanged, the blood remained unmoved.

This caused me to grow frustrated, and as much as I'd hate to admit, I did end up losing my temper and accidentally destroyed a small part of the forest. Another sigh of frustration escaped my mouth as I recalled my pitiful attempts, even my heart energy was useless in the face of this strange energy.

Useless was the wrong word, once I pushed my heart energy into the body of the subject, its first natural instinct was to destroy It, hence why I had to actively will It not to and instead gently direct It to the strange energy that protected the blood.

This only caused another problem to arise, my heart energy was too strong for the subject to bare and instead of It only destroying the energy that stopped me from controlling the blood, It destroyed the entire vessel Instantly killing the monster.

I tried that for a few times, only to have the same results, a complete failure. This made me lose my temper once again, which ended up in another small section of the forest getting destroyed. I was so deep in thought while flying almost unconsciously when suddenly a huge force knocked me down from the sky and into the ground below causing a few trees to fall as a small area was cleared.

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I gasped as I felt the wind get knocked out of my lungs before I turned to glare at my assailant, 'It' still proudly hovered in the air while coldly glancing at me with its scarlet eyes. "A tainted," I muttered. It was my fault that I got caught off guard, I knew that at night these bastards were more active with some especially stronger ones occasionally coming out.

Still, I was too engrossed In my tests earlier today, that I missed the sunset and ended up staying out here for way longer than I intended, and now I was facing this situation due to my negligence. The 'tainted' monster this time was a strange one.

I frowned as I sensed the corrupted energy seeping out of Its body. Its mere presence was enough to cause me to frown in disgust, Its head was akin to that of a lizard without any scales, the strange part about It was the fact that the monster's head was floating a few inches above its body.

"A lizard's face but a humanoid's body," I muttered with a frown. The corruptive energy was seeping out of its neck forming a black fog of sorts that seemed to hold the head in place, It was almost as If It didn't initially belong to It and was simply kept there with the use of that disgusting energy.

The monster's body was tainted with the signs of that dark energy, It was almost completely obsidian in color, It didn't have any claws or hands, instead, It had blades. Shaking my wings to check for injuries, I was surprised to find a small cut, but that instantly disappeared once I used my water magic to heal It.

Reaching out to the water mana, a blue-collar suddenly appeared the monster's body before I forcefully dragged him to the ground with a loud bang, 'How dare that filthy monster look at me from above as If It was superior,' Such feelings clouded my mind for a second before I calmed myself down.

I should not get agitated In a fight, and must always remain calm. As the dust cleared out, the figure of the monster appeared as he slowly pushed himself up from the small crater that formed on the ground. A small frown made Its way into my face, he was able to neutralize my water mana.

"Hmm, so you can actually wield that energy, interesting," I mumbled before causing the temperature in Its surroundings to drop, immediately imprisoning It in Ice. My frown deepened, however, as the fog that formed from the corrupt energy quickly expanded to cover the monster's entire body causing Its figure to momentarily turn into one of pure black energy before It caused cracks to appear on my ice prison.

With a loud breaking noise, the Ice prison that bound It shattered leaving behind a shadowy figure, It seemed like I was successful in breaking the monster's body since It was surprisingly fragile, what was surprising was the energy that remained.

It twisted and churned before It finally morphed into a humanoid figure, the only distinctive features I was able to spot was those deep crimson eyes that glared at me with hatred. The shadowy figure then lunged towards me with resentment as It let out a strange cry that caused me to frown.

I instinctively used my mana to try and stop It but to my surprise, the shadowy figure seemed almost immune to It as It bypassed my mana-fueled attacks and appeared almost instantly before me. I unconsciously raised my claws to block Its attack while using mana to coat my claws, but even so, the shadowy figure was once again able to bypass my mana shield and leave a few scratched on my scales.

Annoyed, I reached out to my heart energy and let out a dragon breath, It was but for a second but I surely saw those crimson eyes turned wide open in fear before the shadowy figure disappeared completely. "Huh, so heart energy is effective but mana isn't, still what the hell was that thing." Shaking my head, I hastened my movement as I jumped to the air and swiftly made my way back home.