The first day came and went without any notable participants, almost all the creatures who fought Adret failed to pressure her. So and so reasons existed, but really it all came down to what those stronger, smarter ones decided. The best way to beat a dragon is through knowledge and preparation, and that requires powerful observational abilities or sacrifices.

Sacrifices abound… Something in great supply around here.

Additionally, while no one wanted to fight an injured dragon, they weren’t so honourable to pass up a victory against something exhausted after days of combat without rest. Adret only healed and refilled energy stores between fights.

30 hours into the series of battles introduced the first creature on the upper end of mithril tier, claiming to hold a level of 76 as well, this giant wolverine didn’t fall short in front of Adret. With similar weights, little difference in claws and teeth, not to mention their naturally opposing alignments, what created an uncrossable gap between both was that it fought a dragon. Its black fur pulsated with incandescent yellow tips, creating periods of light and dark from head to snout, the illuminance alone rapidly chilled their surroundings.

An impressive passive effect, but air-conditioned mountain winds didn’t trouble anyone.

Greater endurance often led to longer battles, especially in cases where one side depended on surprise for any hope of victory. That also made the results clear as day. The wolverine launched forward first, unable to attack at range, every second given to Adret at range only gave her time to throw blasts of psychic power its way. Her attacks arrived quickly, but actually hitting anything weaving at these speeds came down to luck.

In melee, its high speed assault quickly faced the first hurdle every other challenger met with, dragon scales. Metal on metal screeched out once more with every quick strike. Adret responded to strikes towards her wings, whether true attacks or feints, but nothing else broke through the silver coat.

Another boring start to a battle in the eyes of everyone else though, how many times had they seen this exact exchange?

Camaraderie didn’t matter to those here, the battle existed as a means to set apart the worthless and the strong. If you wanted to fight a dragon without reliance on magical prowess, then you better start on equal footing, or it’d simply be a joke.

Those nearby lost interest, more annoyed if a crystal dart somehow wormed its way into their backs…

Things grew slightly interesting when the joke of an opponent finally did something. Its fur completely lit aflame and formed a thick armour of black flames all over, with every strike, the flames lashed out like whips or copied the wolverine’s body. A maw of fire tried to crunch down on her, and lashes of black fire split or tore off silver scales, but one interesting ability was just that in the end.

It wasn’t like that interest lasted, Adret copied those actions as her scales radiated white moonlight. Claws infused with lunar elements tore through that blackness.

And the battle returned to its original state. A powerful-looking beast against a dragon, other tricks came up too, but nothing which changed the outcome or harmed her. A breath of black fire collapsed when she empowered the moonlit radiance directed onto her foe, and it tried to block her light through some other earth element abilities, but failed hopelessly in the end. Incredible energy reserves combined with constant psychic threats simply demolished these jokes.

What actually changed was that the creatures who appeared now required some abilities to beat.

Her toughest opponent thus far was a turtle. How it even climbed this mountain with such short notice deserved some applause.

Its toughened shell, coloured black with blazing yellow patterns, blocked her lunar claws several times with minimal damage, and the turtle released beams of black light wherever she struck. Such a counter skill couldn’t be avoided easily, something she accepted with several bleeding spots on her body. It also blocked her psychic attacks for good measure.

In the face of such defence, Adret argued against the use of spells in favour of a single breath. The silver threads drilled through its body at a hundred different points, some blasted away by black beams, but many quickly penetrated through. Seeing this, a giant spider on the opposite side intervened by summoning a ring of black fire and forcing it into the drilled holes. Her attack dissolved under the master tier’s move and that ended the first use of her breath attack in the 48 hours of battle.

Two days, and yet all that came were the normal creatures in mithril tier. Akevorax wholly expected they had enough with endless losses and prepared to send a series of the strongest to beat Adret down through numbers. Everyone there expected the same, the girl in question most of all, and so she even used a few of the last healing materials…

Nothing came up the mountain for 12 hours.

The pair only intended to stay another day, but spent half that remaining time standing about with nothing to do. An even worse case for Adret and the others now in an awkward position, Akevorax had done quite a few things with the arrays he managed, collecting ample resources.

At some point, he finally made use of the abundant resources taken from the Trapolca ocean’s inhabitants. Some of the cornem tier beasts saw abundant value in the water element items he gathered, naturally a minority in a place filled with fire, and gladly took this as a chance to trade away slightly rare items for things which never appeared in their own realm. A world associated with the Dark Sun already struggled to maintain sufficient water elements for oceans and in-land water sources, let alone supply the energy required for high level materials.

Furthermore, eating fire or dark element ore couldn’t make anyone stronger. Equipment, arrays, potions, scrolls and so on… All these things strengthened a magical civilisation, but formed from a similar branch of their foundation.

Knowledge.

With inherent selfishness and possessive qualities, how could those with training so happily pick apprentices who might steal their teachings? Perhaps even compete and destroy their master’s livelihood?

Needless to say, these more powerful beasts gathered their fair share of materials over the years, but struggled to acquire anything useful in exchange. Some required metals for arrays, others took plants for potions, but the strangest in his eyes were those who preferred the animal flesh of various master tiers.

All of this came down to easy arbitrage and solving his own boredom.

Discussions on materials also weakened the surveillance of many. So far he gathered over 3000 extractions, although that didn’t really explain much. After the improvement of his soul armaments from the dragonstone, just two test tubes of blood essence completed a bloodline, and it took 7 extractions per test tube. So, the fact he acquired over 400 bloodlines worth in two days obviously opened up a huge avenue of empowerment…

Ignore the part where he falsely equalled the strength of these random bloodlines with that of dragons. At least he felt confident in absorbing all the cornem tier bloodlines obtained here.

“Only took 13 hours, wonder what held them up so long,” Adret commented on the new beast who arrived. The snark and resentment in those words couldn’t be missed. It was hard not to mock them given she gathered a few hours of sleep, enough to fully recover her fatigue after two days of focus.

And finally, something of interest approached, a being of the Dark Sun who climbed the mountain at a slower, conservative pace, but each step came with quaking forces which shook the ground noticeably. Not visually though, that would be a bit ridiculous for even strength-exclusive mithril tiers. After all this time, what stood on the mountain arena was a large humanoid with four arms, each pair equipped with a massive studded club.

Over three metres in height, and protected by leather armour affixed with metal plates, it was solely the weapons of black metal it wielded which introduced a threat. Such power on a blunt object easily shattered bone, ruptured organs, and threw around her brain to such a degree she’d be knocked unconscious.

The fight began with a silver breath aimed at the large figure, silver threads aimed to penetrate gaps in the armour and his revealed orifices. Besides the hairless head without brows, easily mis-identifiable as a human, each wrist covered in thick black hair and the spots of red skin all over very quickly differentiated the species… If the four arms didn’t do that enough already. With two clubs, it dexterously manoeuvred them around to block the breath attack.

Minute black flames sprouted on the clubs in response to contact, seemingly caused by an enchantment of the weapon, but Akevorax saw the innards quite easily. The four-armed giant manually controlled the flames at all times.

It wasn’t impossible to deal with, Adret certainly saw quite a few, but she also had to wonder why this fighter came out.

He hardly used Dark Sun Flames, even after approaching for a melee, it was just a weighty smash which threatened her. Rather than draw out another battle, she’d rather either force them to scramble or call the strongest. Prepared to bring about the conclusion, she summoned her crown.

The unfortunate figure who entered a melee now took the full force of an enemy like no other, the lunar elements fuelling the crown’s presence directly rejected the plane itself, purifying and burning away the darkness. Flames of black appeared as space itself fought a battle, but lost instantly as its territory nearby the crown disappeared, remnant flames of white remained but dispersed as the fire elements ran out. And that didn’t even account for the lunar energy which erupted in the large humanoid’s mental space.

A cornem tier reacted to pull them away and cleanse their Mind and consciousness. None of them had actually seen a dragon with a crown before.

None of them expected that a mithril tier’s bloodline could be so oppressive, yet it still fell slightly short of the top talents of her generation. With the exception of a couple beasts across the entire realm, they truly couldn’t imagine any other mithril tiers who could stand in front of this crown. Why else did the higher tier observers act?!

That ‘guarding’ master tier tried to stop the wave of lunar elements immediately, but actually found their own power too weak at this distance. A hundred metres should not be enough to significantly weaken anything of their level.

The crown left them confounded and self-doubting for more than a short while. Precisely why Adret always fought without mana or lunar elements.

She knew better than anyone the power of her shattered moon. The damn crown drew its power from the mental space, and as well as being a dragon with a Mind Palace, her entire palace centred around the slowly built altar of solid moonlight!

The number of suitable enemies across this plane dropped drastically to four or five. Furthermore, two of those beasts lacked sufficient aerial combat ability, probably because they lacked wings.

What else was there to do? She might have been a bit fairer 12 hours ago, not destroying the four-armed giant with just her crown’s appearance, but his appearance after all this time ruined any hopes of desirable final battles. This action almost immediately killed the desire to battle in everyone else. Those top beasts also didn’t care to prove themselves by fighting a dragon, arrogantly considering such a thing pointless as natural equals to this race.

A rightful comparison in most cases; a way to get out of this fight for some others.

Hours ticked by on the mountain peak, and now the degree of oppression even left Adret confused. Unknown of what occurred behind the scenes, she could only vent aloud, “Another 5 hours without anyone arriving, are there really so few who can withstand it? I didn’t think it was that bad…”

Akevorax replied after a few moments of silence, “What gave you that idea? You’re passively emitting a field of power that can damage Intermediate Mind Palaces, the cornems here don’t even have Exalted Souls.”

“You resist it perfectly well.” Adret’s response flocked the entire invisible crowd’s attention onto him.

“Because my True Will lives in my mental space. Your crown wouldn’t work even at my level with an upgraded palace.”

Just those words were enough to turn the majority nearby aghast, knowledge of the True Will not especially deep, but enough to know they couldn’t shrug off such a thing. Thankfully, they could take refuge in the fact that even a master tier couldn’t so easily kill them with it alone…

Simply incorrect, but it helped them relax.

“If you finished locating our next stop, then could we just leave?” Asked out of exhaustion, he just nodded and tunnelled out of the plane momentarily to gather the materials used for those arrays. Meanwhile, the sceptre’s array already existed and could be used at any time.

An almost necessary fact, as neither of them waited about after that.

Akevorax suppressed his greedy body’s recovery and detached all four limbs using a sword from some corner of the dimensional storage. Either a Mid or High-rank Treasure tool, it easily sliced through all four ice cream limbs before he handed them off. Gently flapping wings retained his height as he chucked over the agreed upon materials to the still unknown being. He wasn’t stupid to wonder why or how they evaded his abilities this whole time.

“It certainly does look appetising, it’s a miracle you haven’t been eaten yet.” The four limbs floated in the air near their position and Akevorax moved the two of them outside immediately.

A sceptre appeared and activated, just seconds later slingshotting the two dragons at a speed tough for most to match. In less than a minute, they escaped 100,000 kilometres away, safe from all, excluding spatial bloodlines, a necessary decision as a hunched, upright creature tore its way out of the plane with fury in both incandescent eyes.

Covered in pitch-black fur, and its hands given with bear-like claws, the creature roared into the empty darkness without any sense of direction. They clearly noted that some magical sources existed nearby, but how could that be useful information?

“That cheating little shit! Better run if he wants to live… From the eight worlds too, how much will the dragons protect a fake bastard?” His bright eyes didn’t know where the two went, unsure if Akevorax was even a dragon, but absolutely sure where the main universe lay. More importantly, he refused to believe that a questionable master tier possessed means to get back before he arrived…

“Leave the dragons alone; I will not protect you.” The voice which forced its way into his head instantly dismissed the enraged beast’s thoughts, reminding them of their limited power.

Such limited power as a supreme tier… Something worthy of awe and respect, treated as a minor nuisance. He couldn’t accept the treatment or results suggested by the planar will. Yet, he couldn’t reject the truth either.

Yes. He only had limited power.