Late Afternoon - Late Summer : Asimi's Estate

As I fell to the ground, the artifact stuck to my head started violently sucking out my mana.

The mana being forcefully pulled out of my reserve caused all of my senses to blur. My vision, hearing, and balance all became significantly worse and mixed into an awful sensation.

I laid there, not in my right state of mind until I heard a few words.

"Today.. is the day the Ragnaroks fall."

-Like hell it is!- Quickly snapping back to my consciousness, I thinned the walls of my reserve and forcefully slammed a massive wave of mana into the artifact.

Unable to handle the volume of mana, the artifact crumbled and released the pent up mana.

With my senses slowly coming back to me, I felt the ground shake and looked over to see Asimi as she got slammed to the ground by Eugene.

"Oh? How did you manage to break the mana lock?" Eugene looked over at me with a confident smile, stopping his foot just short of Asimi’s neck. "Well, not like it matters."

In an instant, he appeared in front of me and threw a heavy kick. *CRACK*

With my senses still in a mess, I couldn't dodge and got launched through the estate.

"Hmph, I guess a halfie is a halfie." Eugene turned back around to the other elder. "Go clean him up."

Giving a quick nod the sky blue dragon ran into the cloud of debris and smoke that arose from the destroyed estate.

"Kid, just stay dow-"

*BANG* *CRUNCH*

"Hm?" Hearing her voice abruptly cut off and feeling the ground shake, Eugene turned back around and looked towards the half destroyed building.

*Thud*

*Thud*

*Thud*

The vibration from my heavy steps filled the air.

As I came out of the smoke, I met eyes with Eugene and threw forward the huge dead dragon that was in my mouth.

Her body was fairly intact but her unrecognizably crushed head was only hanging on by a bit of flesh and skin.

Everyone that saw the scene froze and didn't move a muscle.

I stared right into Eugene's eyes, my mouth covered in blood and my eyes filled with rage.

Eugene's crazed smile slowly returned as he looked over the dead elder. "To thi-"

Using thrusters, I instantly appeared in front of him and threw a kick surpassing the speed of sound several times over.

*CRR-RACK*

The ground around me shattered from the shockwave and Eugene got launched out of sight along with a chunk of the gate and forest behind him.

"Shut the f*ck up.." My leg nearly broke from the kick and my body felt like it was on fire, but my anger numbed most of it.

As I turned around, I saw Mother try to yell out to me with a horrified and panicked voice. "Vasilias! That's not eno-"

"That was pretty good!" Eugene's voice interrupted her.

-What?!-

*CRUNCH*

Catching me off guard, he stomped and dug his claws into the base of my wings, shattering several bones and slicing into my flesh.

"Ugh!" Trying to ignore the broken bones and the pain, I tried to whip around and used thrusters to get him off me.

*FWOOSH*

"Hah.. hah.." -Sh*t..- The base of my left wing was totally shattered and now I had 3 huge gashes down my side from trying to turn over with his claws dug into me.

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"Oh? Are you at your limit already?" Eugene seemed fairly alright but he had a bit of blood dripping from his mouth and some exposed, broken bone on his chest where I kicked him.

-Who said I was at my limit?!- Channeling my anger, I opened my mouth and aimed at his chest to fire as fast as I could.

*CRACK*

The steel rod met his body nearly instantly but my jumbled senses made me miss by a couple meters.

"ACCKK.." Although I missed my intended target, it still blew a massive hole down his side, gouging out flesh and plowing through bone.

Eugene's eyes were quickly consumed by rage as he caught his balance and saw some of his own organs hanging out of his body. "You.. YOU HALFIE BAST*RD!! YOU DARE-" Finally pushing him over the edge, Eugene got consumed by his anger and quickly charged at me. (Something like a berserk mode)

-Got you!- As he lunged at me, I jumped up and bit into his neck.

His claws quickly dug into my sides as he tried to slam me into the ground but it was too late.

*CRACK*

A single white dot quickly flew up into the sky as Eugene's body fell limply to the ground, no longer in one piece.

As his massive claws slipped out of my side and his body fell to the ground, I finally realized how bad my condition was. As temporary repairs, I used metal to reinforce my broken bones to at least let me move a bit better.

Once I finished, I took a second to catch my breath. "Hooh.." But that didn't last long.

-What the!?- As I was relaxing, I noticed a massive dragon that was using stealth magic right behind me.

I quickly tried to turn around but before I could attack, something else did.

*Sizzle-CRACK*

A flash of light zipped past me and almost immediately after, the stealth magic around the huge dragon faded.

*Thud*

Falling limply to the ground was a huge 51 meter tall dragon missing the back of its head.

-What the..- As I looked over to see what the source was, I saw Ilios running up to me. -Ilios did that?!-

Ilios quickly ran up to me and jumped up and licked my face. "Haha, I'm alright buddy.. thanks for saving me.."

Although I was still bleeding quite profusely it was nothing fatal, luckily. -That was too close though..- In Eugene's final attack, his claws managed to break my ribs but they were luckily too short to hit anything vital.

"Ah, right.." I looked over and noticed everyone still had those mana locks on and walked up to each of them. "Stay still.." Lightly tapping the side of each artifact, they each shattered and released the contained mana. -Everyone seems to be alright.. Thank the heavens..-

"Vasilias.. please.. come here." Mother shakily tried to stand up even though her senses were still in a mess.

I quickly came to her side and gave her some support. "Please relax Mother.. lay back down and absorb some mana."

"You're so badly hurt.. let me.. treat you.." Her face was covered in worry as she looked down at the pool of blood forming below me.

"I'm fine.. the bleeding is slowing down so I'll be alright." As I slowly laid her down, I noticed Asimi was staring at the corpse of the dragon Ilios killed with visible bloodlust. "Do you know them, Grandmother?"

"Who? The ones you just killed? Yeah.. Eugene was the big blue one, the other was Basilia.. she was another elder."

-Sh*t.. that's not good..- "So who was that last one.. were they someone from the elder hall as well?"

"No.. that was Antonia.. an old maid who used to work under me.."

Hearing the name, I immediately remembered back to the head maid Antonia nearly getting killed by Mother. -Why is she.. here..-

"I think she was the one that informed Eugene about you.. I was being too tight on information leaking for it to be anything else.." Asimi was deep in thought as we talked.

-So that was the 'her' Eugene mentioned..- "Well.. they're all dead.. what do we do next?"

Asimi’s face quickly morphed to one of worry and frustration. "Don't say 'we'. Just go focus on healing.. I'll deal with the legal issues.."

"Are you sure you can? Eugene seemed pretty confident in his plan.."

"His plan needed me to die for it to work. He broke several laws to get here and since I'm still alive, he will actually get charged for them.."

-But what about..-

"There will be some complications with that but.. I'll.. pull some strings.." She looked worried but it didn't seem too bad which eased my worries just slightly.

*Crumble*

-Hm?- I looked back to see quite a few dragons making their way out of the rubble.

The first to come out was Chloe. She immediately rushed over in her dragon form with a look of pure panic. "ARE YOU ALR-"

"I'm fine, I need you to get some maids to take care of my Krystallo, Father and Mother. Father and Krystallo just passed out from mana exhaustion, but Mother's senses are still scrambled and she has a bit of bruising.." When I scanned their bodies as I broke the artifacts, both Father and Krystallo were basically untouched, Mother was mostly unharmed with the exception of minor bruising on the top and bottom of her head and as for Asimi.. Well, I couldn't scan her since her aura caused too much interference but she seemed alright with the exception of some bleeding from a small gash on her neck. "Phew.."

My anxiety finally started subsiding as I laid down and tried to heal some.

I glanced over at Eugene's mangled corpse in the courtyard as I tried to stop the bleeding.

Wanting to be able to help later, I tried to think about the mound of legal issues a bit as well. -I originally didn't want to kill Eugene since Id get executed for killing an elder but if he broke a bunch of laws I think I can get away with it..-

Looking over at Basilia and Antonia, I quickly realized where the problem was. -If there isn't evidence of them committing the crimes.. can I talk my way out of it?-

Although I was fairly certain we would be able to dig up something for Basilia since she worked in politics and played a pretty large role in this event, Antonia caused the biggest problem. -But.. I shouldn't get too bad of a charge for killing her even if she is found innocent..-

At the end of it all, my minimal political knowledge didn't help, but things looked good enough for me to relax, if only for a bit.

"Hooh.." Getting rid of the metal I used to hold my broken bones together, a wave of pain washed over me, but it wasn't too bad.

I glanced over to Krystallo who seemed like she was in a peaceful dream. -Maybe.. Maybe it's time..-