“To save time, instead of the challenges being one-on-one, like tradition, all of you will fight Denaru together,” Lilith said. I looked at her with a ‘are you serious’ face that she seemed to ignore.

  The other dragons were a bit confused, but none seemed to complain about it. Borris seemed to be about to say something, but with a snap of Lilith’s fingers, I was suddenly transported to the middle of the room. I didn’t even know if this teleport had been using space or what, because I didn’t feel a single wobble in space itself. I had just appeared there.

  Looking upwards, I saw a floating mark over my head. It was connected to something else. I could sense the connection, but whatever it was, or whatever it was connected to, was way outside of my knowledge.

  If I were to guess, this was the mark that would stop us from killing each other.

  The surrounding environment suddenly started to change rapidly. The grass dried up and turned to dust; the mountains changed into an active volcano that was constantly spewing lava; the river dried up, and the entire ground turned to stone, with several protusions that cast shadows everywhere; the lights dimmed until a full moon shone overhead, bathing everything in pale light; A glacier formed away from the volcano, and a blizzard started to fall, threatening to encompass the entire area.

  As I was examining my surroundings, I caught something in the corner of my eye. If I hadn’t already divided my mind into several trains of thought, I wouldn’t have noticed it, and wouldn’t have decelerated time in time.

  Hehe, delecerated time in time.

  Coming out of my own shadow was a black arm with its claws coming straight for my neck. It was a very sneaky attack. I could barely sense anything from [Magicule Detection], and that was with me staring directly at it.

  With time still slowed down, I grabbed the arm and pulled. Illo was dragged out of my shadow, destabilizing his own skill as I did. My shadow wobbled as he was pulled from it, and I saw some of his scales breaking off.

  I threw him at one of the rock formations and released my control over time. I was still too close to my own undeveloped body and soul. Time still felt like broken glass when I tried to do anything, and, after a quick check on my HP, it was damaging me.

  Illo hit the rock and fell to the ground, too stunned at what had just happened. From his perspective, he was attacking me and in the next moment, was being thrown into one of the stones.

  I stared at them for a moment. I didn’t even put too much force in the throw, but because it had happened on slowed-down time, and acceleration is determined by how velocity changed over time, and time was very short, that multiplied the force by a lot.

  A loud crashing sound made me turn away from Illo for just a moment, but when I looked back, he was already gone. I needed to start paying attention to every shadow to not be sneak-attacked like I almost was.

  I looked around and counted the shadows… Fuck that was a lot of shadows. The pale moonlight and the stone formations created hundreds of shadows that blended into the environment.

  Turning my attention back to the source of the sound, I saw pieces of rock being thrown and a dust cloud forming. With each crashing sound, there would be more stones being thrown away and more dust raised into the air.

  It was coming straight at me. I wasn’t dumb enough to be staring at whatever that was while it came crashing down on me, so I jumped and flapped my wings only to land a few meters back.

  “Oh wow, this became very hard,” I said to myself. I wasn’t going to say I was fat, but I couldn’t just flap my wings and lift off from a standstill anymore. Instead, I pulled myself with gravity until I was able to stay airborne on my own.

  From my new vantage point, I was able to see the source of the crashing sound. It was Borris, barreling straight through massive boulders like they were made out of paper. His silver scales had turned to a metallic black.

  Suddenly, I felt a spatial wave coming at me. I flapped my wings as I angled down to gain speed, managing to mostly dodge the wave; only the tip of my tail was caught on it and was pulled down before I managed to drag it out.

  “It seems I was right to think I felt spatial energy coming from you,” I heard Korin’s voice coming from a bit higher up in the air.

  I raised myself to the same altitude she was gently floating, with carefully controlled gravity manipulation. Her wings were extended, but she wasn’t flapping them; no, instead, I could barely feel the same kind of skill the Lunaspectra Wolf gave me whenever I transformed into them.

  She was absorbing moonlight, for what purpose I didn’t know. It could be the same type of skill that just converted moonlight into magicules, or it could be something else entirely.

  “I don’t suppose we can just talk it out?” I asked. I didn’t want to fight, but it seemed like a pipe dream as Korin just smiled and then completely vanished from my view.

  “Illusions?” I asked, carefully rotating midair and scanning my surroundings.

  “How did you know?” Her voice echoed from everywhere.

  So this was the fight with the Lunaspectra Wolf all over again. How did I defeat him again? It had been so long ago that I could barely remember what I did to kill it.

  As I was scanning the surroundings for any sign of her, A beam of ice came out of nowhere and hit my wings, freezing them solid. The next moment, a wave of gravity hit me and threw me downwards.

  As I fell, the air near where I was distorted, and Korin and Fae appeared, coming out of invisibility that Korin had no doubt placed on them. It was a clever plan, to make me distracted with searching for Korin, and then Fae attacked.

  Unfortunately for the two of them, I still had a bunch of tricks up my nonexistent sleeve.

  Just before I crashed into the ground, I teleported directly on top of the two of them.

  I crashed into them, tangling up our wings and making us fall to the ground as the two of them screamed. Before hitting the ground, I pushed myself upwards with a spell from [Magical Programming Language], as I had to use [Spatial Manipulation] to block Korin’s own version of the skill.

  I landed softly on the ground and shook away the ice covering my wings. They hadn’t taken damage, thanks to the barrier I kept on me at all times. At least now I knew that the barrier was useless if the attack wasn’t meant to damage me, but to trap me.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  They groaned as they got up. I was going to ask if we could stop fighting again, but something blocked the moonlight, casting shadows around me.

  I quickly prepared myself for the attack coming from the shadows themselves, but I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have thought that the shadow appearing around me was Illo, because the next moment, something crashed onto me, causing a small crater to form on the ground.

  My barrier cracked, but held. I looked at what had hit me, and I saw Borris on top of me, going for a headbutt that I knew wouldn’t be fun.

  I quickly teleported away from him, and his attack hit the ground, causing another small crater to appear.

  His dull iron scales turned into a metallic silver. Extending his wings, I saw as magicules coalesced into them. He flapped them, and an attack that would cause Big N lawyers to come with a cease and desist at me shot towards me, almost too fast for the naked eye to track. Except to me, they were moving slower than a crawl.

  I had accelerated my mind using [Mathematical Cortex]. I used a few minutes of accelerated perception to think about what I should do with them. I knew I needed to fight them; that one was obvious. I also knew I needed to win, because I don’t think any of them would be able to not cause any trouble in the outside world.

  The problem I was currently having was how to win, without causing major damage… Wait. The mark Lilith placed on us was to stop this very thing from happening. I could literally go all out and just be over with this.

  But maybe I should drag this out? I think it would be wise to know what they could do. Hmm, decisions, decisions.

  While a train of thought focused on that, I created a portal that just sent Borris’s attack back at him.

  I watched as his own attacks cut into his scales, just enough to cause his scales to break and cause a shallow wound on his skin. He roared in rage from the pain and rushed towards me, his scales turning into that metallic color I had seen before.

  I just inverted the gravity, and he started falling upwards. His wings seemed to become useless in this state, or he was just dumb enough not to use them and just flap them around; I wasn’t sure.

  Suddenly, my control of gravity was arrested by Korin. She increased the gravity around me and Borris. He was going to crash into me if I let it happen, but with just a mental flex, I managed to grab control of gravity from her again and threw Borris at them.

  Borris crashed into Korin and Fae, sending them tumbling onto the ground. They groaned from the impact.

  I started to walk towards them, but something wrapped around my feet and hands and pulled me down. I felt another force pulling me down, and I was basically sucked into my own shadow.

  Everything around me was pitch black, but I still could see things as if they were lit by an invisible light source. In front of me was Illo, who seemed surprised at my sudden appearance in this place.

  In the infinite darkness around me, I could see folds in space. I didn’t know what they were, but it was probably something linked to this weird place.

  I sent an electric bullet towards Illo, but he managed to dodge it by swimming in the darkness itself of this weird space. He was way too fast, but not faster than that marlin I fought in the dungeon.

  I sent out a fireball in his direction. Two things happened once the fireball manifested. The first was that the light it created made the space we were both inside destabilize. The second was the explosive force of the fireball wrapped Illo in flames, causing him to panic and dive into the darkness, causing another fold in space to appear where he dived.

  I tried to flap my wings, but it didn’t work. I could breathe just fine in this weird dimension, but for some reason, I couldn’t use the air to propel myself forward. I had to use the same force spell to push me into the fold.

  When I touched the fold, I felt like slipping through a narrow crack and was spat out back on almost the same place I had entered, just a few shadows over.

  Illo was rolling on the ground to extinguish the flames on his body.

  The other three dragons had untangled themselves and were heading over again. Fae let out a cone of frost that killed the flames on Illo’s body. Borris came barreling towards me, again, and Korin had her wings extended again.

  I inverted the gravity on Borris, but this time, he wasn’t sent flying. Before I could be confused, the Borris I was looking at vanished, and I was hit on my left side.

  The force was so much that I was sent flying into a boulder, cracking it in the process. Thankfully, my barrier took the brunt of the force. Another thing to keep in mind. My barrier can’t cancel all the force in an attack.

  Putting more magicules in the skill, my barrier regenerated almost instantly.

  A barrage of icicles came towards me, but just infusing a layer of my barrier with spatial energy, it warped the trajectories of the projectiles, missing me.

  Gravity suddenly became horizontal, but I managed to block Korin’s control of space before I fell sideways. More of the cutting attacks from Borris came, but they also got their trajectories distorted by my barrier and hit the ground behind me, carving chunks out of it like a hot knife through butter.

  The shadows below me came to life and wrapped themselves around me in a sphere, blocking my sight and [Magicule Detection], but I still could hear them.

  “Illo! Are you trying to steal my victory? I will be the one to defeat him!” Borris shouted.

  “Like you can even hit him without any of us helping you,” Illo retorted.

  I heard Borris growling, but then Fae butted in.

  “Are you two stupid? Instead of fighting each other, we should be focusing our attention on him!” She said.

  I teleported a few dozen meters above, already repositioned so I would be facing them. Korin seemed to be the first one to notice me, probably because she also had a spatial skill and could sense the ripples I caused.

  I knew Borris was a metallic dragon, but I was also curious about the others. I used the opportunity we were already fighting and used [Appraisal] on each one of them.

  [Species: Moon Dragon]

  [Level: 12]

  [Species: Blizzard Dragon]

  [Level: 11]

  [Species: Shadow Dragon]

  [Level: 10]

  Those were Korris, Fae, and Illos, respectively. Interesting. I had a suspicion it was something like this. If I were to follow the same logic that applied to me, the dragon’s species reveals their powers, at least their racial skills.

  I knew I was a special case when I could use normal magic without being an Arcane Dragon. But they could also cast normal magic, like humans, and use chants or runes.

  The [Appraisal] made them aware of my new position, so I quickly created a new spell and cast it.

  Lightning poured from the magical circuit that had manifested in front of me as I flapped my wings to stay airborne.

  Each strike hit them, paralysing them as the energy coursed through their bodies. Except Borris, whose scales turned a dull copper color.

  He looked unfazed by the electricity and roared, extending his wings in the process. All the lightning that was raining down on them changed directions and struck Borris, who seemed to absorb it on his body. His scales changed from a dull color to almost a neon orange.

  With a flap of his wings, he shot upwards in my direction, leaving a sparkling trail behind him. It seemed the fight was just starting for him. I also knew Pyro was missing. I didn’t know where he was.

  I was about to dodge Borris when I was hit by a torrent of flames that ate away at my barrier and threw me into Borris. The impact broke through the barrier, and then I was struck by the electricity.

  It didn’t do much damage, but it was enough to lock my muscles for a brief moment that Borris took advantage of. He bit my neck and threw me towards the ground, then he dived behind me, his scales changing to the same metallic black he used on the same attacks as before.

  I teleported myself back into the air as I recreated my barriers.

  Looking in the direction the fire came, I saw Pyro flapping his wings near the top of the volcano. Fire was spewing out of it and being compressed into a small sphere in front of him. He was preparing his next attack.

  The moment he shot that sphere of fire, I was hit by a frost beam that encased me in ice, with Korin using a wave of force to keep me in place.

  The next moment, the sphere hit and exploded, sending melting ice chunks and steam everywhere.