Chapter 433: Illusion or Immortality

"Do you think I want to clear my name?" asked Alexander, keeping a smile. "Do you think I need to clear it?"

"Yes! If you let me go, I’ll give you all of that!" begged the Blue Dragon, stepping back while adjusting his stance. "I’ll help you, I’ll even speak to the council elders on your behalf!"

With his last word, a geyser of energy erupted beneath Alexander’s feet.

"Die, you bastard!" screamed the Blue Dragon, bursting into laughter.

It was the Blue Dragon’s ability: channeling energy through the earth to detonate it in any direction. Fighting the Blue Dragon on his turf was suicide, even if he hadn’t set up his traps.

Alexander took the strike. The column of light shattered his form and blasted his body through the air, sending him crashing against the rocks. His body was left mutilated, reduced to a mess of flesh and blood.

The Blue Dragon let out a breath of relief, wiped his face, and turned back toward the shadow beast.

"Where were we?" muttered the Blue Dragon with a smile.

However, the mist monster wasn’t looking at him, but at a point behind him. The Blue Dragon turned his head to see what held the beast’s attention and froze.

Alexander stood, adjusting his shadow armor without a scratch on his body.

"That’s impossible..." said the Blue Dragon, taking two steps back, his face pale. "Does he have a mental ability? Is he messing with me through hypnosis?"

He couldn’t comprehend what he had witnessed.

Panic took over the Blue Dragon’s mind. Unable to process whether the sight before his eyes was an illusion, regeneration, or immortality, he gritted his teeth and slammed his palms onto the crystalline ground.

"Disappear, you monsters!" screamed the Blue Dragon, his voice cracking.

He channeled his energy into the earth. Dozens of light geysers erupted across a hundred-meter radius. The detonation pulverized the terrain, shattering stalagmites and raising a wall of dust, fire, and rocks that engulfed Alexander and the mist creature.

Capitalizing on the curtain of destruction and the shockwave, the Blue Dragon unfurled his scaled wings and launched into the sky, trying to gain altitude to flee the sector.

"If I can make it to the Federation base..." said the Blue Dragon, his nose bleeding from overexertion.

"Do you think you can fly faster than shadows?" asked a voice beside him.

The Blue Dragon turned his head mid-flight, his eyes wide. Alexander was beside him, hovering inches away with the wings of the [Vampire Emperor Shadow Armor] extended, cutting through the smoke without a scratch.

"No! Stay away from me!" screamed the commander, swinging a claw.

"It’s over," stated Alexander.

With a motion, Alexander extended his right arm and unleashed a strike powered by [Storm Steel Claws Lvl 1]. Five blades of shadow sliced through the air and severed the Blue Dragon’s neck before he completed his swing.

The commander’s head flew through the air as his headless body lost momentum, plunging into the smoking ruins below.

A notification flashed before Alexander’s eyes:

[Blue Dragon Bloodline acquired]

"So that was the name of his ability," muttered Alexander, inspecting the status panel. "I wonder... if I give it to Lyssandra, with her water dragon attack ability, she’ll become more powerful, right?"

While planning what to do with the newly acquired ability, a gust of air caught him off guard from his left. Alexander reacted on instinct, dodging the monster’s swipe.

The mist creature seemed to be enjoying the show, but for Alexander, it was time to end it. He unleashed his shadow claws once more and began slashing at the monster’s torso with volleys. However, every strike passed through the grayish mist without inflicting physical damage.

"Well, looks like it was easy to execute the little dragon," said Stephen, walking over alongside Scott.

"Don’t go feeling special, Alex," remarked Scott, taking a drag from his cigar. "That guy was wounded by this monster, so stay humble; what you did isn’t impressive."

"Let him enjoy it," said Stephen, adjusting his glasses while stepping aside from a smoky claw swipe that cracked the ground beside him.

The mist monster roared, launching a shadow whip at Scott’s head, who leaned his body back a few millimeters to let the impact pass by.

"Here comes your lesson on how to fight in this place, Alex," explained Stephen, pivoting on his heel to dodge a mass of mist. "First off: these beasts are harmless as long as you don’t attack them. In truth, they won’t do a thing to you unless provoked; they only seek out and slay the undead. However, once you provoke them, they won’t stop for anything."

Alexander leaped backward, letting an ethereal claw slice through the air inches from his face without making contact.

"And why is it attacking me if I’m not an undead?" asked Alexander, moving at speed to stay clear of the stomps.

"Because you attacked the dragon while it was fighting him," answered Scott, taking a step to the right to dodge another strike without dropping his cigar. "You interfered with its hunt, and now it sees you as its primary target."

The monster continued unleashing blows against the three of them, yet they drifted through the haze like ghosts, dodging every assault as Stephen carried on with his explanation.

"Attacking its body is useless," explained Stephen, channeling energy into his limbs. "You have to look for what’s hidden in the center."

Stephen launched himself forward, transforming into his desolate lion form. With a roar, he landed a claw strike into the core of the body. The shockwave caused the giant monster to disperse into smoke wisps; however, the mist began regrouping to reform itself.

In the center of the swirl, exposed for a second, something solid hovered and swam through the air as if the mist were water.

"There it is," pointed out Scott.

Scott extended his hand and clenched his fist. The space around the mass distorted, enclosing the thing within a compressed pocket of space and cutting off the mist’s attraction, which vanished into thin air.

Scott pulled the spatial sphere toward himself and brought it to Alexander for him to inspect.

"Look, this is the actual form of those things," said Scott, displaying the small, gelatinous, glowing creature squirming inside the spatial cage.