The most pressing question among all of the pressing questions that the dragonling's confession raised was…
"What is the secondary effect of Devour?" I thought to myself. "Is the breakdown of mechas considered one effect, and devour another effect, and the manifestation as another effect? Or are they all considered one effect? If they are separate effects, then wouldn't there be three effects?"
"And? Just two effects? You really like being in pain huh?" I asked him, careful to inject a huge amount of scorn and remove all traces of excitement from my voice.
"The tertiary effect… We do not know it yet! Ahhhhhhh!! The pain is unbearable… We do not know it yet!! Its… My father said it is missing a crucial trigger! We don't have the trigger! We…
… …
You! You have the trigger!! That's why you know so much… That's why you are able to do something strange to the Black Pearl!"
"Well well well. You maybe a naive little dragon. But you definitely are also a smart little bastard aren't you?" I conceded that much to the foolish dragonling.
"But don't you also know that knowing too much could be very detrimental to your lifespan?"
"No! NO!!! Ahhhhhh!!!! Nooooooo!!!!" The dragonling wailed brokenheartedly when it finally realized it had inadvertently struck the nails in its own coffin.
"I can't let you go now, but I can let you live. In fact, I can let you live and make you the most powerful dragon ever. Do you want that?" I asked him lightly.
"Yes! Yes! I want it! I will do anything! I will become anything! Just release me from this pain!!!" The dragonling shouted with all of its heart.
In situations of extreme pain and doom, hope, even a distant hope, becomes a power that would drive any life form to do the wildest and craziest things.
And in that particular case, the dragonling was driven to do the one thing that no dragon in the long history of dragons had ever done.
"Swear complete fealty to me. I want your loyalty to me to be above and beyond all other loyalties, including to your race, clan, family and… your own blood." I said half seriously and half carelessly.
Of course I wanted his complete fealty. But at the same time, I had no idea how to make his oath binding, so I just asked for the most stringent and most extreme one.
You can imagine my very pleasant surprise when I found out that dragons are able to invoke the power of nature itself to bind their oaths!
The dragonling had no idea I didn't know that, and so it assumed that I knew, and invoked the full power of nature to bind his oath.
"I swear!! I swear complete fealty to you! Above my race, my clan, my family and my blood!! Let nature be my witness and my executor if I break this oath!!" The dragonling shouted in a resigned voice.
Whoosh! Crack!!!
At that moment, a gust of strange wind blew at me and a tiny streak of black lightning appeared out of nowhere and struck the dragonling's body.
All at once, I knew without a single shred of doubt that the oath was in effect, and if the dragonling broke it, the black lightning that entered its body earlier would instantly kill it from within.
Additionally, the oath also suppressed the dragon's active emotions, and made it calmly obedient to me. It was the only way for complete fealty to take place, and nature made it happen.
It was amazing.
"Huh? So… Now I own a baby dragon!?" I remember thinking in surprise. And then of course came the unbridled joy that all lottery winners probably felt when receiving a very desired but unexpected prize!
"Hehehehehehehehehehehehe." I laughed maniacally deep in my heart.
I waved my hand, and quickly released the dragonling from its misery.
Plop!
It dropped out of the cage I made for it, and crumpled onto the ground in a very pathetic and miserable heap.
It was in very, very bad shape.
Four huge circular stab wounds on its body were releasing huge quantities of blood, and it was visibly weakening every second.
I glanced around the Circle Trove and quickly tried my luck in breaking down several of the nearest mechas around me.
"They couldn't all be fully resistant to my red energy, right?" I muttered to myself. "Surely there must be one or two that's… YES!"
An ancient looking serpentine mecha with old, semi rusted armor trembled lightly as my red energy slammed into it from all directions.
Although it did not break down outright into particles, it was the only one that reacted.
There was a flaw in its red-energy resistant armor!
Without further ado, I sent all of my red energy which was spread out across a wide area surging towards it and smashed into it with incredible power.
CRACK!!!
It broke apart into pieces first before at long last… POOF!
It disappeared into particles!
I absorbed all of its software, technology in one fell swoop, while leaving all of its armor out.
"Since Devour is divided into three effects namely break down, absorb and manifest, it would be logical if I can use them separately. And if that is the case, then I should be able to manipulate the mecha particles without absorbing and gaining possession of them. And if I could do that, then I would be able to instantly create mechas at will! I would be a portable mecha factory!!"
BA-DUMP!
BA-DUMP!
I was excited.
Very, very excited.
If it was true, then I would just devour the materials for a million mechas, manifest them into a million even more powerful ones, insert parts of the Black Pearl into them, and voila!
I would have a million mechas under my direct control!!
"Let's see if it works." I muttered to myself excitedly.
I waved my hand again, and quickly injected a surge of nano medibots made up of the serpentine armor particles into the dying dragonling's body and started to close its wounds with the mecha grade armor.
At the same time, I even took the most powerful biomech design which I had personally enhanced and implemented it into him.
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