The spinning vortexes of wind and dust moved through the grey wasteland, everything in their way lifting from the ground and getting sucked into them.
Bright golden lights showered the wasteland underneath them in a golden glow as the six orbs hit the dragon and exploded in a blindingly bright explosion. The shockwaves passed through the surroundings, sending waves through the clouds like a stone thrown into a lake.
The dragon flapped his wings, cracks spreading through the surface of his armour, the purple magma leaking out and closing them almost immediately. His eyes were blazing in the golden flames as he directed the tornadoes.
The rotating pillars of wind moved forwards, the wind loudly howling.
The huge building-sized drakes were flapping their wings woven of shadows and dust, their golden glowing teeth glinting in their gaping mouths.
“Gaaah!” even with their massive sizes, they still looked like birds compared to the mountain-like dragon before them, his wingspan easly covering their whole horizon in red crystals.
The tornadoes moved towards them, sucking them in, their black bodies thrown and tossed around by the strong wind currents, only their screeches escaping.
The dragon just observed them, controlling the wind’s power, ensuring not to kill the shadow monsters.
There was no change or announcement that he won, ‘So I need to do more.’
The shadows were tossed around, their bodies moving in spiralling motions of the wind currents.
“Now what, young dragon? You have finally done something that wasn’t a bad idea.”
‘That is my question too. What now? I can’t destroy them, and trapping them isn’t enough.’
“Come on, do you maybe want a hint?”
Vesuvius turned towards the crimson-red flames hovering above the stone throne in the sky. He just glared before averting his eyes, refusing to accept such a humiliation.
“Graaah!” the beasts kept screeching in the tornadoes, golden lights flashing inside of the trunk-like wind vortexes.
Vesuvius exerted his aura and domain out of his body, with his voice resounding through the whole wastelands, carrying magic within each syllable.
“Obey me!”
The black drakes didn’t even react. Their bodies were still tossed around by the wind, their golden eyes burning with palpable hostility, ‘Just as I thought, this also doesn’t work.’
“Do you really believe that it would be so simple?”
Vesuvius wanted to open his mouth and blast the annoying fire out of the sky, but he felt it was stupid to attack the terrific demonic dragon.
‘I doubt that my attacks would even bother such a monster.’
The dragon focused on his memories of how he hit the drakes, his high intelligence stat working wonders as the image passed before his eyes with the clarity rivalling that of television.
The massive pillar of lightning descended from the sky, its bright blue light shining and pulsing, electrical arcs circling and dancing around it.
The incredible burst of electricity passed through the drake’s body, tearing it apart, splitting the smoke into individual particles with their bounds giving up.
However, the shadow particles sucked the lightning energy around them back into them, reconnecting and multiplying.
‘Maybe I can destroy them. Maybe enough energy that it will not only split the particles but annihilate them is the correct way… but that feels wrong. Why would such a brute force way be part of the trial? Maybe to remind a dragon that their power is the most important?’
The dragon flapping his wings high in the sky, looked at the shadows trapped within the tornadoes with serious doubt in his heart, ‘This can easly go wrong. If it fails, I will end up with an even stronger enemy.’
His eyes suddenly glinted as he got an idea.
‘Wait, maybe I can go the opposite way. And use only the amount of energy needed to tear them apart without any extra energy they could absorb.’
The world slowed down in his eyes, his concentration quickly peaking. Calculations passed through his inhumanly fast brain.
Then the dragon’s whole domain crackled with lightning, the massive blue arcs surging and flashing in the dark black clouds drifting around.
The black shadows screeched from their wind cells, their golden eyes glowing in anger and hostility as they stared at the dragon, growling and opening their teeth-filled mouths.𝒪𝗏𝔩xt.𝗇t
Tiny droplets of water spread through the air around them, the electricity slowly flowing through them, throwing occasional blue sparks. The dragon carefully controlled the electrical water as if it was his own body, the water flowing straight towards the nearest monster.
He already saw them get hit multiple times before, giving him a perfect estimate of how much was needed to tear the connection between the abnormal shadowy-smoke cells.
The tornado trapping the monster dissipated, the wind current moving and bounding the beast from all sides like a chain, the loudly howling currents immobilising each of its limbs.
The water flowed towards it, surrounding it from every direction, creating a large floating droplet with the monster trapped within it, the golden light distorting in the crystal clear water.
‘Can I drown it?’ The dragon watched as the monster trashed in the water and winds bounding it, his domain pressing against it, giving the wind unnatural strength and firmness. Its eyes were brightly flashing as the dragon just stared at it in fascination, watching and waiting.
However, there were no signs of it drowning the dragon, not even hearing any breathing from it, reinforcing his thoughts about it, ‘It really is not a real drake, but just some unliving replica.’
The dragon raised his long-clawed hand, his crystal claws glinting in the golden and purple light.
“Skip these theatrics already!” The annoying voice of Satanael stabbed him once again as if he enjoyed provoking him.
The next moment electricity sparked through the water, the dragon controlling the electrical current flowing through it, dividing it to evenly spread the destructive force.
“Griiiiiiiaaaahhhh!” the beast was screeching even louder, the surface of its body smoking and dissipating, the water grabbing the individual black particles, dragging them away from the rest of the monster.
‘Maybe this is could also work. Maybe I can disperse it enough that it will be unable to form anything meaningful!’
Vesuvius felt his heart pound in hope, knowing that he was founding more and more ways to potentially solve it, ‘Who says that there is only one solution?’
The monster stopped moving, the electricity perfectly destroying its body piece by piece, each electrical pulse and spark containing only the exact energy needed to destroy the bond between the shadowy particles.
The black mass of shadows was shrinking at a visible rate, and millions upon millions of water droplets containing black specks levitated around the dragon, brightly glinting in the purple light radiating from the magma in the cracks of the dragon’s armour.
Seeing that it worked, the dragon’s mouth opened in a large grin, the light in his eyes brightening.
‘Time to test the second method!’
The dragon horns pulsed in the light once more, the winds howling around the second drake, speeding up and grabbing droplets of water. The water was moving and swishing through the air faster and faster, turning into deadly sharp blades.
The whirls of blades moved towards the second monster, the water swishing and cutting through its body, the blades of water splitting the shadowy and dusty tissue.
“Grrriahh!” more squealing sand growls escaped out of its disintegrating mouth.
The winds immediately grabbed every separated part, launching it into a distance.
The blades of water were constantly blasting through the air at an immense speed, looking like blurs of distorted light. Their sharp edges were reflecting and bending the light.
They were constantly pelting the monster from every side, cutting it into parts, followed by the wind carrying the severed parts away.
The particles were slowly multiplying, feeding upon the kinetic force behind the blades, but it was too slow, and they were too dispersed, each moving further away from the other by the wind.
Seeing that it worked, the dragon speeded up, his mind blanking out under all of the calculations passing through it as he summoned more and more water blades. All of them launched towards the remaining monsters at an immense speed.
“Grriiih!” their cries were dying out as the monsters, one by one, dispersed through the air, turning into small black specks kept apart by the turbulent winds flowing around the dragon.
‘Maybe eating them would also work? Well, there is also a chance it would kill me painfully.’
That moment bright golden light descended from the sky, its golden brilliance shining upon the whole wasteland, the soil, the dust and the shadows vanishing, leaving behind only the endless white space with the dragon and the five thrones.
Everything finally turned silent, the shrieking of the monsters and howling of the wind vanishing.
Finally, Vesuvius realised what the point of that trial was, ‘Control over the domain and powers. It required such precise control both ways, not just brute force. It fits nicely with the previous one that focused on the control of emotions. Now I am even more sure that the first way of just brute-forcing would end badly.’
“Well done, you have passed it. Every dragon can easly gain brute force, but only a few learn how to use it properly.”
‘So you can give me praise too, not just insults?’ Vesuvius kept his thoughts to himself, refusing to sour his relationship with the stupendously powerful being even more.
“Now prepare. Soon you will face your last obstacle.”