New Playthings
"Incinerate." The balls of fire all launched themselves forward, planting themselves inside the giant body of the dragon, hot enough to burn off the surface of its scales without them even touching. As soon as the deadly balls of fire had touched the surface of the dragon's scales, they burnt through multiple layers of the skin, creating small blasts. It did not take long as every single one of the over a hundred balls released their energy upon impact, completely incinerating the dragon, leaving nothing behind. An explosion so huge that it caused more harm to the city than the dragon could ever hope to do. It was only thanks to the previous adventurers that had evacuated the people that there were no casualties from Velios' attack.
"What the hell is going on inside the city?..." The adventurers which had already evacuated were more than shocked to see the site which was unfolding right before their eyes. A massive explosion had temporarily changed the color of the sky surrounding the city. The dragon which far towered even the biggest towers and buildings had from seemingly out of nowhere vanished in the huge clouds of what remained of the blue fire. "W-What is that, in the sky?" Heaps of adventurers looked up to see a shadowy figure standing on the air, starring down at the huge cloud of flame which remained.
Whew, I'm quite tired now. It's only thanks to my mana capacity that I still have a ton of mana left but even so it is still pretty draining for me to use that attack. Velios was just quietly thinking to himself as he stretched out his body. Still floating through the use of magic, he suddenly disappeared leaving the masses in shock when seeing that the person who had succesfully beaten the dragon suddenly disappear into almost thin air. Leaving no other evidence of his existence except for all of the witnesses that bore witness to his almighty strength. This incident would go down as one of the most important and major events in history, the dragon tournament.
"Ahh, it feels nice to fight dragons. I do wonder if Vadh could beat one of them. Probably just the normal dragon. Let's see... Emerge." Velios was now located miles away from the city where he had fought, yet again back into the wilderness of the isolate dessert. Vadh was summoned with an awfully bored look on his face. "Vaaaadh, did you miss me?" Velios was slowly creeping up on Vadh from behind, making him jump up at the sudden summon. "Pfft, no, of course I wouldn't miss you. You were gone for an awfully long time, what did you even do?" Velios walked right up to Vadh's face with a smile. "I got some rather peculiar play buddies for you." Vadh did not like the way Velios was looking at him. He knew exactly what that look meant and he knew himself he was going to be in for quite the ride.
"Emmerge." Vadh watched in confusement and a little bit excitement as to see what Velios had caught. Everytime Velios had said he had a "plaything" for Vadh was basically just a way to tell him that Velios had caught a strong monster, or opponent for him. To Velios, monsters were now nothing more than a tool for him to be used to further progress his physical and magical capabilities. Vadh thought that at hardest, it was another black scorpion or possibly even a monster similar to himself or Osiris but what arose from the ground shocked him. The magic circle was much bigger than with a black scorpion which are probably the biggest monster Velios had before. "V-Velios... what did you do... in these last few hours?" That which rose from the ground was nothing less than the inferior dragon which Velios had killed just a few minutes ago.
"Woah! Woah! Woah! You expect me to fight a dragon! What happened when I was gone? No, how the heck did you even find a dragon?!" Vadh was terrified looking at the creature in front of him. At most, he thought that Velios would come back atleast somewhat hurt or damaged but he looked like he had been on a ten minute walk but only that he had come back with a dragon. Vadh was just akwardly starring at Velios with his jaw wide opened, expecting and answer to something that wasn't even asked. "Hey, Vadh! Stop acting like that, it's not even the strongest out of them." Velios said it so casually that he might aswell could have said that he needed to use the toilet. "Wait, wait, wait! Stop! What do you mean, are you saying that you managed to kill something even stronger than a dragon?" Vadh's face showed every expression possible but also none at the same time. His eyes were wide open as he heard that same line from Velios repeat in his head. "It's not even the strongest out of them."
"Shut up! You're only saying that it's easy because you are so goddamn strong!" Vadh had continued fighting but he could barely damage it in any way with his physical attacks, even infused with mana. "Come on, Vadh. Use your massive pool of mana more effectively. Don't just make your aura bigger, you idiot!" Vadh was trying his hardest to even avoid the massive dragons physical attacks alone. The dragons fire was terrifyingly hot and Vadh's regeneration was taking much longer than normal and they almost always hit and if they didn't, the dragon followed up with a combination that would. Vadh was stressing and thinking much more than he had to. Velios knew this, that something was wrong with Vadh which made him significantly weaker than he usually was.
Do dragons affect the strength of others? Or is Vadh so nervous and scared that he can't properly focus. He's not even using magic. "Vadh! Use your magic!" Vadh looked back at Velios with sweat running down his face. "As if! My magic isn't even close the strength of yours, it won't even leave a mark on its scales!" Vadh seemed to get tired faster than normal, he was weaker than normal and something was obviously wrong. Velios could sense the position of them and their mana which was the only reason he knew exactly what was going on. Vadh's massive amount of mana, was being slowly absorbed by the dragon. With each and every hit the dragon landed, more power was drained from Vadh until he finally couldn't continue fighting anymore.
Vadh's weak legs could no longer bear the weight of the rest of his body as he fell down to the ground. But, something suddenly sparked inside of him. As he was laying there completely still, he turned his eyes to look at Velios, almost instinctively, but what he saw made him nothing but angry. It was a look Velios would give often to him. One that he knew better than anybody else but for some reason, it felt even worse this time. Why aren't you attacking, you trash. You monsters are so weak. Intelligent monster for what? You'll never grow strong. It was so easy to beat it, why are you even struggling? Those were all thoughts that Vadh had in that moment. Those were all of the things Vadh had "heard" from looking at the look Velios gave him. He knew better than anyone else how powerless he had become, how little control he had over his own life. All of it summed up together produced the result that followed.
Massive amounts of mana was beign released from Vadh's body from seemingly out of nowhere. With rapid speeds, Vadh managed to continously dodge the dragons attack while punching it back on his own. With each attack he landed, the stronger he seemed to get. The mana output was rapidly growing together with his physical strength. Even his aura started to change its characteristic to mimic his magic. With every attack, the scales slowly began to melt away from the highly acidic mana which Vadh produced. There was no longer a way to tell which one of them was going to win.