‘Ah, crud, to think that the level of technology Dragon’s Lair had was this advanced. I didn’t think I would fall into a transportation matrix like that,’ Gizmo thought as he sat despondent inside of their team’s private waiting room. Immediately after he was sent away, he died fighting the first few waves of opponents he had to face.

‘To think that Dragon’s Lair would soon be another technological powerhouse equivalent to the Nexus solar system… how troublesome. Should I be glad that they aren’t using the Vortex Container simulations to raise their youths?’ Gizmo thought about the situation between solar systems.

With more power, technology, and productive citizens, the difference in culture between solar systems tend to change to the trends. With the advancement of effective communicative means, the people from various solar systems tend to slack on letters and words as long as their point still gets across, creating an entirely new language.

Looking over the live streams chat Gizmo shook his head as he saw how fast the message board was responding upon his death. It was filled with laughter, cheers, and memes.

‘I might be quite famous now… in the infamous kind of way…’ Gizmos thought. He shook away his thoughts and prayed that one of their teammates would die in a more pathetic death than him. After all… he died to a swarm of monkeys, tomorrow he would have an animated video of himself being savagely wrecked by them, and it all started with a banana peel.

…

Luon and the man stared at each other for a bit, while they were carefully watching each other's actions, he occasionally sent his gaze over to Valerie. If they wanted to win they could have done so already if the two of them teamed up together, but he found no signs of her intervening.

She who was observing their battle careful noticed this gazed, she gave him a smile and said, “Rest assured, unless you kill my Vice-Captain I have no intention of joining in the fray. So… show me an interesting display.”

Luon wasn’t sure how authentic her promise was, but he had no time to check the validity of her statement as the Vice-Captain made his move. He used a high-movement skill and quickly arrived by Luon side as he launched a horizontal attack. Luon managed to block the attack. However, the force was too strong sending him flying for several meters despite how casual swing looked.

‘This is the power of a dragon...’ thought Luon whose hands were shaking from the blow. From what he knew the basic baby dragon, depending on its bloodline is born at the combat level of 50-70. The reason being was that they could transfer memories between generations, it was called the Draco inheritance, and some scientist believed that the person who made the Vortex Containers based their research on this system. With a superior memory from previous experiences they are quickly able to reforge their bodies with many abundant and precious resources, creating a superior army of elite soldiers in an instant.

Despite having this much power, the Inzektor race still thrived. Their level of intelligence was much higher than other races, and unless they could travel through galaxies at a breakneck pace while eliminating Inzektors, they could only grow stronger.

Imagine having a group of superior swimmers diving into the ocean to find the treasured island only to see an endless amount of ocean before them, with their goal nowhere near sight. It was a fruitless endeavor to eliminate the Inzektors, and although they can slowly eliminate their race as they expand outwards, their enemies always bring new things to the table.

There were close combat Inzektors, transportation Inzektors, farming Inzektors, so many kinds exist, and because of their hierarchical relationship, there was no need for discipline.

“What’s wrong? Can’t handle one blow?” said the Vice-Captain. To his remark, Luon only responded by shifting his swords. He coated them with mana to make up for the difference, but it just caused the man to laugh as he did the same. The two of them began to trade blows, and surprising despite having dragonic strength, and a sword encased in mana, the Vice-captain found that he wasn’t able to overpower Luon.

‘Strength and mana control, is it?’ thought the Vice-captain as he realized that Luon was doing an incredible job of redirecting his attacks with an expert level of skill to make up for his lack of strength.

Despite the remarkable display of swordsmanship, the Vice-captain’s will didn’t waver as the two continued to exchange attacks garnering the attention of the audience. Luon soon realized that his foe wasn’t just blindly attacking him. Instead, he was trying to exhaust his mind and stamina, after all, it wasn’t easy to maintain this state of concentration. Eventually, he would tire before the enemy would show signs of any weakness.

Luon needed to do something game-changing, and he needed to do it quick. The black mana enveloped him once more only he didn’t give control to Thanatos, instead since he had accepted a portion of his inner darkness, his control over black mana had given him the necessary ability to make himself an undying warrior. The amount of stamina he had multiplied, the Vice-captain who noticed the sudden changed frowned.

‘He didn’t transform into the other personality, and this seems to be more troublesome than I thought it would be.’ The Vice-captain parried one of Luon’s blow but was unable to get him to expose an opening.

Sword fights are more complicated than a simple game of chess. It wasn’t a simple game of rock paper scissors, whether you attack, defend, or counter, there were too many factors to take in consideration.

Their exchanges caused ripples in the air. Luon firmly received the Vice-captain’s attacks, and their fight looked amazing in the eyes of the audience, and yet Valerie appeared bored out of her mind. Maybe it was due to her upbringing, but to her, these attacks were rather slow.

After some point, she yawned out of boredom as she said, “Enough fooling around, activate the pill, or I’ll beat one into you later. I expected you to obtain some results not to fool around.”

“Tsk,” the Vice-captain clicked his tongue which Valerie noticed but decided to ignore. With a sigh, he backed away from and rummaged out a pill from his gear slot and consumed it. The Plana and Nexus solar systems weren’t the only ones searching for new methods to increase their power levels. The pill that the Vice-captain had ate originated from Daemon’s Gate and later brought into the Magician’s tower for improvements. It was able to boost the user's capability for half an hour before a continuous strain of muscle pain for a good portion of the day. And since this was a simulation, as long as they bore the mental torture that it supplied it was possible to continue to operate during the day.

A tremendous force came from the Vice-captain’s body as an intimidating pressure roared out as if a dragon had come to life. Luon bore the force to the best of his abilities, using his Eye of Insight he managed to read that his opponent had just reached the level 80 region. At first, they were even, but Luon knew that once he had crossed that borderline, he could be considered a real expert.

With a whirl of the wind, the wings behind the Vice-captain body emerged and spread widely. The Vice-captain flapped his wings slowly as he began to hover in the air as he said, “It’s time to end this, try your best to survive.”

The Vice-captain’s wings flapped once, and then he vanished before the audience eyes while mid-air. In reality, he went at an extremely fast speed at Luon as if he was cutting air itself. Like a razor-sharp sword, he dove at Luon as if there were no tomorrow.

An average person wouldn’t be able to track his movements, but Luon could and at the same time he could recognize that his opponent would be able to change positions, mid-way through his attack.

Luon straightened his hand out which caused the Vice-captain to think that Luon was willing to lose one arm to block this attack. However, that was only a misconception. Before his attack can arrive Luon conjured up a shield in the last moment from his gear slot, completely blocking the blow.

The impact sent the pebbles and light rocks in the area flying as the area surrounding the two created a crevice.

Realizing his attack had fallen through, he tried to retreat but found himself in a peculiar situation, his sword was stuck on the shield!

Behind the shield was an array of magnets arranged stylishly, in fact, the way Luon managed to block the accelerated attack was due to this array. Using his ability to redirect he tipped the sword to a particular direction using the magnets. This reduced the amount of damage a sword could do and at the same time allowed Luon to counter him.

His attack accurately damaged the Vice-Captain’s vitals. From far away, excitement appeared in Valerie’s eyes as she thought it would be her time to shine once he fell. But a great warrior doesn’t fall that easily. Despite being stabbed he stood up gallantly and faced Luon once more. It was the internal struggle of one man, his will and determination that kept him going, and yet his body was unable to compete, and although Luon felt pity, he didn’t allow him to recover his wounds.

Luon took a series of steps forward and closed in on his opponent, the faster he could beat him, the better, despite the fact there was another battle junkie right behind this challenge.

The Vice-captain fell unwillingly, in the end, all he managed to do was exhaust Luon’s NG-Arms power supply by some extent. Valerie begins to clap her hands as she enthusiastically said, “Great! What an interesting shield! To divert his blade, tsk, tsk. It was quite the surprise, if you had timed it wrong, he would have noticed this and avoided the shield in general. If I’m not wrong… you must have some really good eyes.”

Luon was surprised by her analysis, it seems that dealing with Valerie is more difficult than what he could have imagine it to be.

Valerie after celebrating Luon’s success became solemn as she stood up. She began to pull out an elegantly long katana. With one hand gripping the handle with her hand and the other one lightly tracing the blade as she said, “Ah, to fight another opponent in this tournament. This is indeed a blessing in disguise.”

Luon readied his stance, in response she smiled even brighter.

‘I wonder if he could even contend with me? Or will the other personality entertain me? Does he have any more fun tricks under his sleeve?’ Thought Valerie. She became lost in her thoughts as she conjectured all the possible things Luon could have in store for her.

‘Is it me or did it get chilly?’ thought Luon.

Thanatos responded, “It’s about half and half, one because she’s looking at you weirdly… the other-”

Before Thanatos could finish his words, the long katana appeared next to Luon’s neck as Valerie managed to arrive behind his back in a matter of milliseconds. Luon began to sweat bullets realizing how fast she was, he hadn’t even blink his eyes, and she had already disappeared.

Despite the perilous situation, Thanatos continued, “Her killing intent is already locked on to you.”