Chapter 616: Overturn A Territory’s Protection.

[Maestro des Karmesinen Stern] was, honestly, a very pretty Territory due to how the wafting flames made everything look like it was from an oil painting. The inferno hellscape trapped anybody inside my Territory in a flaming arena that could summon my three types of flames with a flick of my hand. Unless you protected yourself with your own Territory, this arena would torch anyone inside, as with my original Territory, [Magmakammer].

I could still remember how my first [Maestro des Karmesinen Stern] created small white balls to shine on me like spotlights, looking identical to the stars of Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night.” The romance of being the only one underneath the dazzling white light inside a burning, red heatwave made my heart beat as if I were performing in front of a massive crowd.

Sure, it wasn’t as complicated as Vifi’s, Neill’s, and Tasianna’s Territories, but sometimes a simple attack was all that was needed to make your blood pump. I felt like a star. An artist—no, a maestro who was painting a magnum opus with her tail dragging along flames like a painter filling a canvas with oil paint. With my music playing in the background for that amazing, hype-filled battle music, it made me feel like I was inside a game. I might have faced a rank A giant worm back then, but the atmosphere made it so easy to forget that I was fighting for my life.

A Territory was a “mana release through aura usage” technique to create an elementally-aligned area around the user where they could fight at their best. This was “use the environment to your advantage” taken to the extreme.

A technique like this felt more like self-realization, as the Territory needed to be useful for your fighting style. Maybe that was why it took Tasianna so long to create a Territory, as only now did she understand how she wanted to fight. Maybe that was why Shay and Beth still had issues creating theirs.

So, what was Hikari’s self-realization?

“Soloist der Sapphiren Eklipse!” Hikari growled the words in Draconic.

Blue and white flames started to rise around our body, spreading inside this subspace until it subsumed the walls, ceiling, and floor, similar to [Maestro des Karmesinen Stern]. Although they appeared like flames, they acted more like liquid methane and my solar ice gas, freezing anything they touched until they crystallized the surroundings into glacial-like sheets of stalactites and stalagmites.

Unlike Tasianna’s Territory, which remained a small spherical area around her, Hikari’s spread aggressively until the white subspace turned light blue and imitated an ice cavern. Defensively, Tasianna’s Territory was ideal, as it reduced the mana consumption to maintain the Territory. Since [Ice King’s Ballroom]’s primary function was to activate [Chronicled Tale (Ice King’s Ballroom)], it didn’t need to flaunt its elemental mastery and could focus on protecting Tasianna during Territory Disputes and attacks.

[Maestro des Karmesinen Stern] and [Soloist der Sapphiren Eklipse], on the other hand, were entirely offensive. After all, what better way to show a dragon’s elemental dominance than to simply crush my foes with my unique fire and ice skills?

As if Hikari was responding to my thoughts, the ice behind her started to grow into a tower where my [Ruby Star] settled in. A protective ball formed around the blue, miniature sun, growing inside until a gap was created where blue light could seep through. Like a giant eye, it gazed at Tasianna like a beam of cold light, while showering me with a soft light, like being under a light pole.

There wasn’t anything super fancy about this Territory, unlike Tasianna. It was just Hikari flaunting the mastery of her new body in front of Tasianna. It was to make her feel like the last boss of a video game… though, then again, our ice did have to have something special about it, right? How about an endless exploding “flame” wave, similar to [Quartz Regen]?

Hydra, attack her golems! I commanded as I readied [Clouds of Thunder], [Levin Core], [Quartz Regen], [Ruinous Rockfall], and [Sun, Consume All].

As my spells activated, the icicle ceiling was blocked from view by a massive thunder cloud, as giant white quartz and boulders started to fall onto Tasianna like meteorites. As thunder ruptured the crystalline floor, a ball of lightning and a white sun formed inside this pitch-black darkness, providing illumination besides [Ruby Star] and my glowing scales from [Battle Frenzy].

In response, Tasianna countered my attacks by conjuring up a dome-shaped frozen [Sapphire Membrane], a true ice [Fimbulvetr Wall], and two [Eye of The Storm]s to ward off all the projectiles with two massive typhoon-level storms. Meanwhile, [Hydra], [Winter’s Golem], and [Slithering Frost Serpent] were having a Kaiju battle at the border of the Territory Dispute.

This will weaken your ice attacks as well, but we might as well do it now. [The Will To Fight And Survive] out. Come in, [Dragon Fire]!

“In my purgatory, I make the devil cry ♫

In hellfire ♫

All you hear are his screams, begging to be released ♫

It’s music ♫”

While this small battlefield was swept by an apocalyptic setting where natural disasters and giant monsters fought against each other until one side ran out of gas, my voice pierced through the monsoon. With thunder erupting here like a hammer striking concrete, [Dragon Fire]’s slower rhythm harmonized well with nature’s instruments. As giant ice dragons descended from the ceiling, [Symphonie des Feuergottess] began its next movement.

With the 50% agility buff replaced by 50% more strength and intelligence, Hikari stomped down, drilling our claws into the ground. Her eyes peered through the storm, noticing Tasianna silently materializing a large magic circle in front of her. I didn’t have the ice-type magic circles all memorized, but I already knew I had to stop it.

However, as I was readying my next spell, Hikari’s head snapped up as we saw two icicles flying over us. As she pulled our scale barrier in front of them to protect our body, she flinched as she saw two magic circles appear on it, before the icicles burst like a bomb, sending fragments onto our barrier. [Everlasting Bloom Flower], her newest custom spell, activated, pulling in large fragments of our molted scales to the magic circle, reducing our defenses to only a few still available molted scales.

“World-Freezing Winter!” Tasianna shouted at the top of her lungs as the ice storm from outside resumed in here.

She’s trying to end the battle here with our ice resistance reduced. I’m ready, go! Spatial Rend!

With my initial plan foiled due to the distraction, I forced open a portal connected to the space behind Tasianna. Hikari’s Territory seeped into the ripped space, prompting Tasianna to turn around to see the former peering down at her.

Catch her! Overload.

Lightning burst from our body, increasing our agility in [Symphonie des Feuergottes Movement (Allegro)]’s stead at the cost of our health slowly dropping, although [White Flames] quickly healed up any damage. Hikari snapped our hand through the portal as Tasianna wrapped herself in a mantle of true ice, only for her eyes to widen as she saw Hikari commit to the act, grabbing Tasianna before pulling her through the portal.

‘Shit, this stings!’ Hikari flailed as the true ice penetrated our [True Draconic Barrier], [Panzer], and silver powder defense. I could feel our scales, skin, and blood freezing the longer we held onto Tasianna, but this was the only way for us to temporarily nullify the protection granted by a Territory.

Protection against another Territory only worked while you remained inside yours. Normally, kicking somebody out of their Territory before their aura could expand the width was difficult. Either the size of the Territory was large enough to compensate, or it bolstered defensive values that stopped you from getting kicked out in the first place.

However, those rules didn’t matter before a void-touched with any of the portal spells. Creating a shortcut was too easy, and if the portal closed before the Territory could expand through it, you would become prey to the elemental mana of the void-touched. Tasianna’s crumbling Territory was proof that my counter against nearly all Territory users worked like a charm as long as I could pull them through a [Spatial Rend].

“Arrgh!” Tasianna’s groan emphasized my success as [Ruby Star] blasted a wave of freezing solar ice gas at her, causing her ears and tail to stiffen up. Ice crystals could be seen forming on her body despite her near invulnerability to ice attacks.

After all, [Dragon Fire], even with Hikari controlling our body, still reduced the effectiveness of ice mana by 50%. That included ours as well, but most importantly, Tasianna’s ice barriers, dress, and true ice didn’t have the oomph it needed to make my hand feel frostbite fast enough.

[“You’ll survive this, no problem!”] Hikari announced as her body started to light up like an oven burning up.

“L-Lady Hikari!” Tasianna cried in terror once our body had transformed into a giant light bulb, before Hikari unleashed all remaining solar energy from our body, exploding like a bomb to destroy everything within this space outside of [Sun, Consume All] and our two Territories.

As Hikari let go of Tasianna, she was launched away from us by the explosion, since we didn’t want to kill her. As she was slammed against the subspace’s wall, I deactivated [Room] as [Solar Overdrive] vanished from my Profile.

As the explosion subsided, Tasianna and I squeezed through the portal as the subspace’s erasure immediately ejected us out. With Tasianna once again close to me, I grabbed the ball protecting [Ruby Star] and threw it at Tasianna before we detonated the solar energy gathered inside to destroy the glacier caused by Tasianna’s [World-Freezing Winter], now that it was debuffed by [Dragon Fire].

With everything totalled, Hikari snapped her fingers, ordering [Sun, Consume All] to send some of the solar energy it absorbed to me. With our solar core filled up with 20% energy, Hikari poured mana through her throat to gather all that solar energy, while I gathered the remaining solar energy in [Sun, Consume All] into one point.

Before Tasianna could fully recover from our two-combo attack, Hikari unleashed an ice laser while I had [Sun, Consume All] shoot a concentrated solar beam at Tasianna. Only able to cast an ice barrier around herself, Tasianna’s body was helplessly blasted by two well-timed laser beams, sending her flying through the room and out of Mom’s Lair.

Once she was out, I expanded my Territory to the point it encased the entire lair, shutting Tasianna out of the room before Hikari flew towards the entrance of Mom’s treasure vault. As we planted our feet before it, Hikari let out a loud roar as Mom’s clap echoed through the cavern.

This tale has been pilfered from NovelPhoenix. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Hestia! Hikari! Congratulations!” I heard as I saw Mom dash over to bodycheck me, sending my body flying into a nearby wall to hug my head. Hikari let out a little groan, as despite our size difference, Mom’s dragonewt body felt like a steel beam digging a hole into my body. “Ahahahah, what a spectacle for the eyes! You supercharged yourself, then supercharged your [Ruby Star], to then have your [Sun, Consume All] supercharge itself with all that solar energy flying around from that arcane warfare! Three solar energy explosions in a row, all while you weakened Tasianna’s ice with [Dragon Fire]. And since you weren’t in your fire dragon form, your body could actually handle Tasianna’s true ice mana for long enough to not turn into an ice cube. All that true ice training to train up your [Ice Resistance] actually paid off! Ahahah, good work!”

Did she really have to expose my entire strategy? Couldn’t she at least let me explain it for the damn catharsis? Maaaaaan…

Feeling deflated, Hikari let our head fall to the ground as Mom kept rubbing her head against mine. After some time, Shay, Beth, and the elementals had brought Tasianna over to us. She looked… honestly pretty okay since losing a Territory Dispute meant nothing to a faefolk. The arcane corruption penalty did nothing to them, after all. Another terribly convenient advantage for a full mage like Tasianna.

Still, what mattered was the damage caused by our fight, and Tasianna didn’t come out of it unharmed. Her hair was completely disheveled, and it looked like she had puked up her lunch after being on the end of a three-hit solar power combo. Her wardress was being healed by her mana, but my attacks had scorched any parts she hadn’t managed to protect in time.

“74% even through all my defensive spells and ice barrier. For an interpersonal attack, I think it might be overkill for some people,” Tasianna eked out, weakly, looking like she was about to collapse if she wasn’t lying on Beth’s body to rest. “I couldn’t do anything. The attacks came out too fast.”

[“Your wardress couldn’t keep up?”] I asked, prompting her to groan.

“No, it managed to do so, but the force behind the attacks did most of the damage. It felt like my organs were getting crushed, even if my ice barriers kept the solar energy at bay. I think due to the impact, my vitality was chosen to defend me, not my wisdom. With a near 5000 difference between the two stats, I am a little bit under the requirements to survive your attacks after all your offensive buffs.”

And yet, you did. Through three of them. I think your wardress is a bit busted, Tasianna, I thought, but kept it to myself since I didn’t have the energy to argue.

Suffice to say, this spar did end in my victory, but it felt more like a moral victory for both of us. After all, we both had the chance to test out our strategies for our future enemies. Meaning, as long as Tasianna could react to an attack, her wardress could defend herself even against enemies like Tehmrayn or the Prince of Wrath, while I had a strategy to counter their Territories for a one-moment opportunity to kill them with [Ruby Shredder].

Furthermore, most importantly, Hikari was battle-ready. That was all this spar needed to prove, even if I was the one with the strategy. Two souls, one body.

‘Just call me another weapon in your arsenal, you weapon addict.’

Oi, you can’t just call me out like that! I haven’t said that in a long while, so give me a break.

With Mom’s present finished, which she seemed to have really liked a lot as she was analyzing the battle like a hyper backseater, we entered Mom’s treasure vault for my prize. When I stepped into the room, Hikari froze in place as we gazed up and down, and I meant reeeaaly down, as there was a small chasm in the vault.

A lake-worth of gold, gemstones, and minerals filled up the entire chasm, making my jaw drop as it looked large and deep enough that you had to build a bridge to cross it out of fear of falling to your death. Sure, it wasn’t as large as the gorge of the Grand Canyon, but staring down at the wealth before me made me swallow hard. And yet, despite this depth, the gold pile still stretched high enough to tower over me like a castle wall.

Yet you could see it was well organized, as weapons, artifacts, and various items were separated from the stack of sparkling metals and jewels. Words were written on the stone signposts placed before each of the sections, categorizing the various loot Mom had accumulated over her two millennia of living.

“Battling in the dungeon was quite lucrative. It took a long time, and sometimes a few of my friends and dragonewt relatives visited me. They gathered the loot up and deposited it here, since I was only focused on leveling. The metals and ores at the very bottom were my own finds, but around… 20% of the way, I gave up collecting anything. Honestly, looking at it now, they have gathered a lot,” Mom commented. “Hestia. Hikari. Do make sure to make your own lair with your treasure, yes? Also, organize them! Keep your lair clean and orderly, so it may be presentable to your dragonkin friends. It is a status symbol.”

“Yeah, I guess?” Hikari frowned, feeling pretty overwhelmed with how insanely rich Mom was. “Though… doesn’t all this wealth trivialize the economy? The Davi should have sunk in value ages ago.”

“Thank Gaistrus, Quake Nest, and the dwarves for that. They force every lair owner to categorize the wealth inside to exempt them from the economy. If we wish to use even a piece of copper coin here, we have to register it; otherwise, it would become tax fraud. Brr, Gaistrus, as a former dragon ruler, does not shy away even from Eltharion when it concerns money.”

“… You speak as if that had happened before,” Hikari commented, prompting Mom to turn to me with a conflicted smile. “Don’t tell me…”

“It was for Kahalameet’s fifth birthday. Eltharion doesn’t have much usable personal wealth since he uses any he gains to enrich the imperial treasury, or his lair, so when he accidentally gave the young prince a gemstone-embedded flame statue, Gaistrus made him remember that our minister of economy is quite serious about her work.”

Sheesh, it was easy to sympathize with him.

Honestly, I wanted to rummage through Mom’s lair for something spectacular, seeing as there were various sparkling weapons and armors in those sections, but I held back my loot goblin urge. Yet, maybe there was some valuable item there that could really boost my power, but Mom only allowed Hikari and me to take out one item from her vault. The rules of draconic trading came into play here, and Mom took my success in her trial as payment for one item from her vault.

No matter what Mom had gained in the past, she couldn’t have something better than the materials of a rank SS dragonkin.

“Clan Nordor wasn’t very wealthy before I rose to become Iceskale’s Dragon Ruler, since your grandfather never pursued it, even while he traveled with his humanoid friends. Sure, Father and Mother had some, but all that wealth had been processed and spent to elevate our dragonewt clan after they departed. Everything you see here is mine. Earned through fighting, exploration, and haggling. Not one bit was taxed from my clan,” Mom said with pride. “I want you to do the same if something were to—”

“Don’t set up the flag, Mooooom!” Hikari complained, prompting Mom to cackle, shaking her head as if she were disappointed in herself.

“Just a precaution.”

“It won’t happen until I’m waaaaaaaaaaay too old to show you something even more fun. Quasdrakeen is nothing before us.”

“I agree with that.”

“Good, so let’s just continue walking and talking about how glossy everything is. Blinding me more than the sun.”

“Haha, very well! I should probably do some training myself once we reach the dungeon, since your father is there. Oh, and I mean proper sparring, no—”

“OI, DON’T CHANGE THE TOPIC WITH THAT TOPIC!”

… Yeeeaah, as long as it made her happy. Yes. As long as it made them happy. Happy meant they would live longer. Happy, happy, happy.

Dismissing this topic and anything that came with it, a small blank hole remained in my memory of this time until we reached the very depths of Mom’s vault. It was a new section, seeing how the walls still weren’t as decorated as the rest of the vault. Mom did love her diamonds and whitish jewels, and she had no shame in using them to decorate her blue-gray cavern walls. It might have looked gaudy normally, but with how unlit her lair was, these mana-glowing jewels were mesmerizing to look at in the dark.

Ahhh… and yet, despite how the abundance was choking me out, making me feel like this was all too much, even for a dragon, there was more. More that made my eyes glimmer like a girl trapped in a candy shop, unable to choose one piece of candy for her parents to buy. Only one. I was allowed to take only one. One wasn’t enough. I wanted more. Gosh, the greed sickened me, but how could I not, as I stared at the frozen body of Karhalantheel, the rank SS leviathan.

“… He looks like a wreck,” Hikari said.

The number of wounds on his body was countless, from chunks of flesh gouged off, frostbite darkening his skin, or pieces of ice stuck inside his body. The body was split in two, while a large, gaping hole could be seen in the monster’s skull, as I could remember Mom digging an ice greatsword half her length into it.

Mom had perfectly preserved this guy in her true ice.

“Elyonda was pretty nice about it. They didn’t even complain when I asked to take what I was due,” Mom said, reminding me that she couldn’t take the corpse after her battle with him, since she didn’t have [Storage Magic] back then. “Though even after so long, true ice doesn’t melt that easily. Nothing could break into it, and it didn’t seem like any of the leviathans wanted to ‘retake’ his corpse.”

“Not even his daughter?”

She nodded. “That is why I do not fully believe that she wishes revenge on us for killing her father. I suspect she was never really close enough to feel sad over his death after he disappeared for so long. If she had, she would have retrieved his corpse, even if it was frozen inside my true ice.”

“I guess she could have just asked for it when Hestia met her in Cedaraille,” Hikari grumbled, touching our neck. “Well, the reason doesn’t matter at this point, right? She nearly killed me without explaining herself properly.”

“Right. There is no way to go back now. She has to die, because her existence would endanger your life. We do not need such a headache,” Mom growled before letting out a deep sigh. “I have most of his broken horns, appendages, and so on in my [Storage Magic], so ask for that if you wish. I thought of stitching him back together, but found it too disrespectful towards an elder scale.”

Hikari walked towards the frozen leviathan, mesmerized by how perfectly the corpse was frozen. It felt like she could see his final moment before his death in those dull, lifeless eyes. “Blood. All of it.”

“For Grimnir, right? Are you sure? His horns, scales, or claws could create wonderful weapons.”

“I know, but I trust Grimnir on this. A leviathan this size should have so much blood left, even after all his wounds, that it would sustain Grimnir’s rune service for years to come, right?”

“He didn’t bleed out, so yes. I also froze most of his body during the battle.”

“Runes are power as well, Mom. Not just items. Or weapons. Vifi and Tasianna will be unhappy since they won’t gain new equipment, but I don’t think they will pout too much after we visit the Dungeon of Infinite Feasts. We’ll find the materials for our equipment there, and Grimnir can start using the rank SS blood to start finalizing our runes for all our equipment. No need to redo everything again.”

“What if you find rank SSS blood?”

“… You believe there is a rank SSS still out there?”

“No, but it would be funny if that were to happen, right?”

… Since when could Mom joke like this? This felt more like a flag than the one before, and she planted it this time. I guess, if that were to happen, we could just call that our endgame weapons: our Ultima weapons.

Bing! Bing! Bing! Bing, bing, biiiiiiing!

‘You’ve acquired rank SS leviathan blood!’ Hikari played with me in a sing-songy manner.

“Extract, and be ready to be melted back into blood. Just make sure to do it slowly so as not to ruin it,” Mom advised after she gave me all the frozen blood she could scrounge up. She then looked at the corpse again before suddenly breaking off the leviathan’s tail. “Dinner is ready to be cooked.”

“… You kidding?”

“Leviathan meat isn’t really good, but it’s not entirely terrible. And, no, eating it won’t give you any special skill. You need something similar to Saori’s Belzac blood for that. We are eating it, because I need to celebrate my birthday with you! You kept pestering me about it, and instead of a concert, I received the greatest present of all—a showing of your strength! Come! Just a nibble, dear.”

The birthday girl said so, so how could I refuse? However, instead of keeping everything to ourselves, I had suggested we return to Iceskale for the party, prompting Mom to squint at me as if she could see through my plan. Well, she wasn’t wrong, since the moment we arrived at the manor through the subspace, Uncle Alex, Kary, Guyul, and a bunch of other ancients and elder scales greeted her with a big, “Happy Birthday, Your Majesty! Long may you live and rule!”

Mom gave me the side eye immediately…

“Haaa. You prepared a party despite my orders?” Mom glared at Uncle Guyul before I jumped into view, giving her the puppy eyes to protect my poor uncle retainer. Seeing this, Mom shook her head. “So be it! Whatever. Fill up the tables! Bring out the drinks! Prepare the chefs, for I have prime leviathan meat for all to taste! Record this and have all Frozen Nest witness my birthday! Witness how proud I am to be your empress!”

“Long may you reign, Empress Melloxtressa!”

Hehe, let’s have some fun before going to the mainland tomorrow to meet Daddy Dearest.