The day came, and the sky above the entire mountain range was covered with thick, dark clouds. It wasn’t the first time that rainclouds passed over since he obtained the Stormbringer bloodline, and he knew for a fact there was no strange sensation within him that informed him of any ‘abilities’. However, the Nexus claimed that storms are simply summoned into existence, given he had enough mana, and today would prove that.

To produce a storm so monstrous, that it produced bolts of lightning at gold tier in power.

And then watch the chaos unfold.

In the past few days, he gathered eighty Divine phalanx bones, but more importantly scarfed down so many Elder guard bones that he actually hit 85%. Additionally, he stored enough spare ones in his ring, that even if the lords forced him out of the mountain range at this moment, he could complete its assimilation with bones to spare. Also, he made sure to eat any spirit-blitz pomes that he happened across, resulting in the bloodline hitting 60%.

Oh, and most importantly…

Everyone in the group proved themselves highly competent in learning the usage of skills. In the first place, only ‘body-specific’ skills are impossible for other species to use, but dragons could use quite a large set of them, under normal circumstances.

For example, the whole group now knew an Apprentice level skill which temporarily hardened their body to that of a gold tier. It only lasted a handful of seconds, but they could now survive singular moves against any lords on the mountain.

Body toughening skills are effectively the bread of many, whilst attacking skills were their butter.

Ignoring all the other skills with utility purposes, otherwise things got too complex for a single metaphor. Icryladrom… Icy, as practically the whole group called him now, only just finished eating enough of the sea-freezing crab’s body to assimilate its bloodline. And while he tested a slightly modified version of his spell, in hopes that it slowed down the invading bloodline more than his own, its effect was so minute that he barely considered it worthwhile.

[Assimilated Sea-freezing crab bloodline! 3 new bloodlines potentially available]

Well, just slowing things down meant he stood a great chance of surviving the Elder guard bloodline right after the second growth phase completed.

As opposed to this very moment where he might survive, but the chance for severe damage remained a possibility. One he preferred to not risk in the slightest.

There was nothing holding him back now, just one chance to get this all right.

On the battlefield’s surface, he looked up to the sky and thought of how to invoke the power of a Bringer, the Nexus hadn’t helped in the slightest here. A few books on the subject made it clear that it revolved around some sort of will-based power, and that’s one thing he actually understood rather well.

If he couldn’t sense the storm, and his ability to manipulate it, then he’d just do it!

How else did he learn mana manipulation?

“Here it goes. Now or never…” Mana seeped from every scale of his body, and before long it began to massively escape into the surroundings. However, all this mana didn’t simply disperse, as would usually happen, it began to rise up as he brought his desires to the table.

To grow and expand the storm clouds. Nurture and brutalise the powers within. And summon whatever the hell a ‘true storm’ was.

Lightning crackled throughout the magnificent sky and thunder resonated throughout the mountain range, few creatures noticed the sudden change of the clouds, however, one, in particular, sensed the changes straight away. The dragon didn’t care at this point though, having moved towards the edge of the battlefield to avoid that beast within, his MP emptied in a matter of seconds, and he hurriedly pulled out the pile of ground mana-rich plants to swallow without care.

His draconic body wiped out its bundles of toxins, and that left quantities of mana several times his own to be absorbed in a matter of seconds!

The process repeated, and the originally dark grey clouds turned a threatening black, lightning not only crackled but great arcs zapped across the entire ceiling of clouds randomly. Great arcs which spanned the whole mountain range, with offshoots a few inches in width, hiding underneath the snow in fear of such power.

Rain began to fall, not snow, and the white bolts of lightning began to gain a blue tint.

He continued.

Bolts of blue, thunder like a god’s clap, rain flooding the snowy mountain peaks, and thick black clouds which only grew in size by the second.

He didn’t know how much mana he’d used by the time the pile shrunk by half, but there was still more to go for. Black clouds gained a silver lining, appearing holy even as they threatened the entire range with an unimaginable might. Blue tints transformed the bolts fully, and even then transformed them further to garner flares of yellow, however, as he’d become utterly soaked in the sub-zero downpour, he found the pile of powder to all be consumed. This was the best he could create, although how this all happened still somewhat eluded him.

It felt natural, but also, like he hadn’t been responsible for the process at all!

Still, he noticed a grand bubble of cold expanding from the mountain top once more, attempting to clear the black clouds above before any damage could be dished out. Meanwhile, miniature tornados attempted to form on the eastern side of the range, likely the roc’s attempt to stop all this.

But gold tiers are not qualified to stop natural disasters. Perhaps change the weather, but they made a very simple mistake in all this. Not immediately taking action.

And so it began.

He flipped the chessboard.

* * *

Above the central peak, the ability which attempted to freeze the clouds and stop its lightning simply failed, all of the water was sub zero in the first place. To freeze such a thing so casually?

It’d have been a joke. While the small tornadoes worked in mixing up the bottom layer of clouds pretty well, they quickly met the turbulent innards and completely disappeared in a matter of seconds. Now, a bulging mass right above the tallest mountain revealed an impending danger. He didn’t know what anyone planned to do, but watched earnestly.

All the while. Hundreds upon thousands of beasts began running, roaring, and wailing at the water which somehow wetted the snow all around them to form a slurry which dragged them down. None felt safe, and whilst a few tried to hide in caves, there was a massive lack of space to accommodate them. But even that didn’t help as masses of snow collapsed from above on many of the cave entrances, leading hundreds of steel tiers who barely escaped to find themselves trapped momentarily. It wasn’t a huge problem… But water continued to seep into the caves, and those without any drainage naturally became the worst places to stay.

The mountain’s entire ecology had been flipped on its head by a single rainstorm which defied the beasts’ common sense, but for the lords, they could only look around with a disgusted frown at the sight. Such rain was in no way natural, at least not yet for this mountain range. And for those on the west side of the mountain, they immediately glared daggers in the wyvern’s direction.

But those on the east knew better… Oh well, too late.

Yellow-tipped blue bolts crackled at the massive collection above the central mountain, and anyone with the slightest intelligence knew what came next.

The winds of fire came to dull the earth.

The spear of blue and yellow fired downwards, as though prepared to penetrate the mountain and completely obliterate it in its entirety. In quite literally a flash, the bolt already covered the short distance between this highest peak and the clouds above, but near the ground, it suddenly split off into dozens of branches with the main core of the bolt still striking downwards to the mountain’s centre.

In which, every lord knew only one thing resided inside that hollow top…

Something cried out in Beasten, its roar could be heard all throughout the mountain range, and every intelligent beast knew that things just got really bad. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see what sorts of damage it procured from the attack, but it was hardly the end with merely a single bolt.

Lightning arced and crackled throughout the clouds, evidently gathering for multiple more strikes towards the idle crab. It could only block such attacks.

Block, over and over and over…

Dozens of lightning bolts fell onto its shell, and the dragon noticed the mountain itself shake, but little damage beyond that occurred as almost all the lightning fell on the crab itself, he could only imagine the sorry state it had been forced to after so many repeated attacks. Although, it likely gained some sort of innate ability to strengthen its shell.

However, how much mana could it possibly have?

He used so much to summon this storm that it actually exceeded all the mana within Raccelline, the child at least comparable to gold tiers without any training!

In which case… How many gold tier attacks could that crab block?

A strange sight filled the mountain range, where incomprehensible volumes of water began to drown out pretty much everything, as an almost endless stream of blue bolts with golden fringes struck the mountain’s peak without any deviation. It cemented the idea that someone summoned this storm even further, however, none really knew what in the range had done so. Not that they spent much time in thought whilst the torrential downpour threatened their lives.

Instead, the dragon turned around to see all six humans beside him, Mala created some sort of force field above their heads to divert the rain and just barely keep the snow beneath intact.

But that wouldn’t last as water flowed underneath and inevitably caused a collapse.

“What the fuck are you?” Mala didn’t hold back her fear and shock in the slightest. Her eyes glimmered, and saw through the storm to see the mana contained, and every bit of her mind reminded her that this dragon could not be normal in any way, shape, or form. Well, it made sense given that a Sage valued him, not to mention surviving with a body made of ice-cream. But still…

How… How did it summon a disaster like this?

Nothing she’d ever read made this even the slightest bit possible to beasts below master tier. And this dragon was absolutely nowhere near that!

Of course, it left the rest of the group gulping, besides Raccelline who stared at the bright blue lightning with eyes of splendour. She likely just found the lighting pretty.

“Our goal is simple, I’m sure you all remember. We go for two sets of targets, and ignore any non-aggressive beasts.” While everyone knew things clearly enough, he still felt the need to reiterate the objective given how much it mattered to him. It was very simple this time round, and he secretly learnt of the rattlesnake’s position yesterday with the help of Rebecca sneaking around in the pure darkness with ease. Once she found the beast he described, with its extremely unique rattle, it was now just a matter of a race to that side of the mountain and executing that beast.

Since the rain began he felt how quite literally everything improved by 40%, just like when he used to have the Auric spiritual bloodline.

His MP, its regen, his defences, health, agility, magic damage, elemental resistances, and perhaps strangest of all… The size of the pinhole which connected his body to his mental space, which meant an improvement to his building speed, in theory.

Of course, things like an improvement to his aura capacity and some other relatively trivial things existed, but he simply focused on the matter at hand.

The prospect of revenge alone tasted sweet, and he couldn’t wait for the main dish to approach.