A few hours later, Sol was sitting in an abandoned cave.
Next to him, tied down to a rock, were the remains of the insectoid-like monsters.
"Hum...do you have anything else to add?"
"P-please...Kill me."
The chaos spawn spoke in a significantly weaker and low voice, compared to the vigor it showed in the beginning.
Since the moment it had been captured by Sol, it had been under constant torture as Sol explored all the possible ways to hurt it, also obtaining intelligence about the power structure of the 4th Circle in the process.
Even though the chaos spawn had been used to scenes of carnage, those few hours had been the worst of all his life and the only wish it had was to be put to rest.
"Damn. The way you talk…it's as if I am the bad guy."
Sol sighed inwardly, eyeing the monster.
'Should I send it to my dimension and see the results?'
Sol hesitated a little. He was really curious to see if his dimension could inverse the feeling of these monsters.
'I will ask Kiyohime first when I meet her.'
Now wasn't the time to experiment with something like Chaos Spawns. He didn't know how territories were stained by Chaos and it would be wise to not take useless risks until he had clear information.
"Well, I guess you are indeed useless to me now. "
For that monster, Sol’s words were heavenly – so much that Sol was even sure that it was tearing up in joy.
Focusing on his hands, Sol’s nails slowly sharpened until they were as long as small blades and he plunged it in the chest of the monsters before swiftly retrieving them.
Aside from the blood and gore, he procured a small scarlet orb which he proceeded to destroy. The monster began to slowly disintegrate until not even dust was left of it.
Looking at this sight, Sol showed no joy. There was only a cold and calculating light in his eyes.
‘This might be somewhat difficult.’
During the short interrogation session, Sol had discovered many things.
One was that, while high-level chaos spawn like this one had organs close to that of mammals, such as a brain, heart, lungs, and others, those organs were in a way more of a decoration as they were useless.
Destroying the brain would not stop them from thinking. Piercing the heart would not kill them. They did not have the need to breathe either. In short, they had apparently no fatal points and could regenerate any wounds.
Even after cutting all their limbs, pulling their tongues, piercing their eyes, decapitating them, or dicing them into pieces.
The only true weak point they had was their core. Something that formed once they became close to the Duke level. Only by destroying their cores could they be completely killed. But therein lies the problem.
The emplacement of the core was only known to the spawn. This would mean that even just fighting two or three such creatures would be a monumental pain in the ass and would change into a fight of attrition. Fights that Sol would lose, since they could absorb the mana in the air way more easily than him in this stained environment.
‘Thankfully, they are sentient and feel pain.’
They could feel pain, fear, joy, and a plethora of feelings. At least the situation wasn’t completely grim because of that.
Standing up, Sol took off the completely bloody clothes and changed swiftly after wiping the blood off his hands and face.
Opening the map, he compared the information he received and traced the shortest road toward his goal. After all, his goal had never been to fight and kill everything in this circle. All he needed to do was to reach the safe zone created by Kiyohime and that would be it.
Sol was the kind of person that would stop playing a game as long as he finished the main story and the minimum required side quests when he was alive.
‘Currently, I am in that Lord Dordonii or whatever territory. Passing through without alerting him is impossible. After that, I will have to pass through the territory of Lord Drachmae and finally, Lord Liya.’
“Well, time to leave.”
Sol briefly considered using his dimension to finish everything. If he so wished, he could bypass all blocks and reach the main target directly.
But he soon discarded the option. Things that came too easy were not cherished. This was a great opportunity for him to hone his fighting skills and increase his strength. If he simply avoided all obstacles, he would reach his goal, but he would ultimately fail.
He had to remember his goal for entering this place — Training.
That was not all either. A competitive spark flashed in his eyes. He wanted to see just how he would fare when compared to other elite young dragons.
—---
Sitting on a large throne made out of stone, a creature entirely clad in armor addressed two of its subordinates.
“Kert. Prepare the legion. It seems like we have an intruder. I lost all contact with Derk. He must have been erased.”
Kert, who was another insectoid-like monster, nodded before leaving.
“Merk, you are the fastest under my order. I want you to rush at your highest speed to the territories of other Lords and warn them.”
A crimson light shone in the place where its eyes should have been, “It’s time to hunt a dragon.”
Dordonii chuckled, they were currently in a territory stained by Chaos, which even made Tiamat’s control over this part of her territory limited. This was how they managed to sometimes kill and devour young dragons. As long as they were able to hide their core carefully, at least one-third of the current lords would have a chance to survive.
Dordonii itself had managed to live through three purges and the same went for three other lords.
Evolution was their ultimate goal. To reach it, they would be even willing to bet their life. Furthermore, as long as one of them managed to reach the King level, they would be able to destroy the dimensional wall and enter the abyss. After all, the walls in the 4th to 6th circles were far less sturdy than those in the 7th circle.
—---
‘Finally…’
Sol was stealthily observing a very large gathering while hiding in a six meters tall tree.
It had been three days since he entered the 4th circle. Initially, he had been expecting to face a huge number of enemies on his way toward his target but, he was surprised to find that aside from some lone ones, the 4th circle was basically void of anything to kill.
This made him heighten his guard as he decided to slow down his march to avoid any kind of trap that could be sprung on him. Even so, he finally reached the headquarter of his first target without encountering any obstacles. Because of the situation at hand, he had managed to conjure some guesses, but now that he was here, he was sure of it.
‘They have gathered all their strength at one point.’
The beings born from Chaos were extremely hierarchical. Being higher in the chain of evolution could easily order those lower, despite the fact that those yet to evolve were nothing but mindless beasts.
Sol could see hundreds of Chaos Spawn. The sight alone was enough to make his skin crawl in disgust.
‘This will be complicated.’
This wasn’t like during his fight against Rio and White. Back then, even though those two also had some soldiers, those soldiers were nothing more than cannon fodder. Here though, if he wasn’t careful, he might get swarmed to death.
Once he observed the surroundings and made sure that he could feel the presence of a powerful being, Sol carefully began to formulate a plan.
The target was further back, protected by an entire army. No matter how powerful Sol was, fighting such an army before fighting a Duke was too dangerous.
That’s why he needed to be smart. He decided to deal huge damage before retreating for now.
His eyes changed into slits while wings appeared on his back. Just one flap of his wings was enough to propel him high in the sky where he could observe all the chaos spawns gathered.
Taking a deep breath, he visualized a certain image in his head–
<<Dragon Roar: Phoebus Catastrophe[1]>>
—And roared toward the sky.
What followed was a veritable rain of destruction.
[1]: It’s me being shameless. Watch the video to get a better picture in your head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgISI9x2BeM
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om