Dragon Gods Reign

[Foundation of Space]

Taking on his true form, Darganth sped through the endless expanse of spatial energies with ease. Just like how aquatic dragons were adapted for life in and around oceans or other bodies of water, he was fully in his element when traversing the foundation of space or the river of time.

As such, even the terrifying spatial storm barely slowed him down, allowing him to fly through it at speeds faster than anything he could achieve in a transformed form.

Breaking out of its cover on the opposite side, Darganth found himself just a few meters away from his opponent.

Caught off guard by this and with barely any time to react, the man didn't manage to prepare any additional defense and could only rely on his personal shield as Darganth crashed into him.

Colliding with him head first, Darganth grabbed the man by biting into the shield that surrounded him. Piercing through it with his teeth, he dragged him along as he took a tight turn back toward the space storm out of which he came.

Throwing him in its direction by quickly turning his head to the side, Darganth quickly followed up by closing in again and this time sinking his claws into the shield.

Again piercing through the silvery sphere protecting the mage but not reaching far enough to actually wound him, he kept him secured in his grasp as he flew back into the spatial storm.

As soon as he reached it, the chaotic elemental energies started tearing into both Darganth's skin and scales as well as his opponent's shield. Though while the wounds they left on Darganth rarely lasted even a whole second, each flake that broke off from his opponent's shield took a noticeable amount of his mana reserves to be repaired.

Despite this predicament, the man initially remained calm and stretched out an arm as he tried to cast a spell. Though to his shock, the surrounding spatial energy refused to bulge at his command, leaving only a harmless blast of mana to shoot out from his palm.

Quickly shaking off his momentary confusion over this, he instead tried casting a different spell. This time he kept a close eye on the process, allowing him to notice when the purer space energy that was streaming up from the deeper layers of space started interfering with the spell. Or more accurately, his inability to control this purer elemental energy.

With the knowledge that he couldn't cast spells in this storm of elemental energy, his previous confidence immediately started to waiver. Even if Darganth had the same limitation, the latter's far greater physical might made a fight in this environment unwinnable for him.

Unknowing of the panic his opponent was feeling due to this realization, Darganth remained wary of any counterattack. As such, he didn't stay at such close range for long, instead letting go just a few seconds after entering the storm and turning to the side to fly off.

And while Darganth could move unimpeded, the same purer elemental energies that already had prevented his opponent from casting a spell also prevented him from flying, leaving him to helplessly float around. Thus he had no way to dodge as Darganth circled around in the distance, his breath attack already charged as he turned back to face his opponent.

Immediately firing on the immobilized mage, a silvery beam struck the man's shield a mere moment after Darganth opened his maw. Erupting in a blinding flash as the two masses of spatial energy came into contact and dispersed each other, the beam tore a large gap into the shield.

After only a second of this Darganth ended his breath before it fully broke through and again turned to fly in the opposite direction. Flying another circular path as he had done before his previous approach, he soon turned back and came at his opponent from another direction.

Realizing that he was a sitting duck if Darganth were to repeatedly fire breath attacks at him from a distance, the man hastily channeled more mana into his shield to speed up its repair.

While it too suffered due to the uncontrollable spatial energy like newly cast spells, thanks to there still being elemental energy of the purity native to their current layer it at least didn't collapse. Instead, the efficiency with which it repaired itself suffered drastically, with many spots initially breaking again as his mana failed to keep the purer energy that had been there in place.

Nonetheless, by the time Darganth fired his breath attack for the second time, the shield had repaired itself enough to block it for a moment. Using that time to twist his torso out of the way, he barely made it out of the trajectory of the beam when it shot past him a second later.

Even better for him, as Darganth again turned to bring distance between them before his next approach his shield regenerated slightly faster than before even without any extra effort from him.

Focusing his senses to find the reason and hopefully a way out of the situation with it, he only paused for a moment when Darganth's next breath attack struck his shield. Relieved to find it holding up slightly better than even during the first attack, he needed a moment to notice that the purity of the spatial energy around him sank rather rapidly during it.

While it was normal to have the spatial storm slowly dissolve until the area returned to its previous state as the tear they had accidentally torn into the walls between the layers closed up and cut off the supply of higher purity spatial energy, it shouldn't happen this fast.

This prompted Darganth's opponent to take a closer look when he flew in for the next attack run a few seconds later.

During this, he finally noticed that both the energy from Darganth's breath and the one that made up his shield became essentially trapped near him as they were unable to push the dense cloud of purer spatial energy away. Thus, when they dissipated into the surroundings after the shape they had been bound into was shattered by the collision, they remained in his immediate surroundings.

And while he didn't know exactly this, Darganth too realized that his plan wasn't working when the second of his breath attacks in succession were easily blocked by his opponent's persona shield.

This observation led to the spontaneous decision to change tactics, prompting him to stay on his approach instead of cycling around and keep launching breath attacks from a distance.

Using the light of his breath's impact to obscure his attack as well as he could, he arrived before his opponent with his claw reeled back before the latter could make out his plan. Ending his breath as late as he could, his claw already swung down by the time the mage registered it.

Shattering the flimsy resistance that what remained of his opponent's shield after his breath attack could put up without any trouble, his claw was poised to bisect his target and end the fight when Darganth felt a sudden force across his entire body.

At the same time as he noticed it, this unknown force started rapidly dragging him to the side. Immediately flaring his mana in response, he tried to break the spell affecting him by interfering with the foreign mana guiding the spatial energy to form the telekinesis spell holding him.

To his surprise though, his attempt quickly proved to be unsuccessful when his mana bounced off the spell without doing anything at all.

Looking up in surprise, he did so just in time to see another spell manifesting where he had been just a fraction of a second earlier before the telekinetic hold had dragged him away. There, a torrent of a silvery flame-like mass broke through the wall between the spatial layers and into the one they were presently in.

Shooting through the spatial storm without weakening and rapidly stretching into the distance, Darganth immediately guessed that the spell didn't come from his previous opponent.

Yldra practically confirmed this suspicion a moment later when four massive crescent arcs of energy came flying into his view from the direction where he remembered her to be. Vanishing just before the pillar of energy by tearing through the wall between spatial layers and probably crossing over into the layer the other spell came from, they left a momentary silence until an explosion broke through the spatial wall and into their current layer a few hundred meters further from where they vanished.

With it, a figure was dragged up by the current of the spatial energy rushing out of the lower layer.

At the same time as this person appeared, Yldra also suddenly showed up right next to him. Immediately, she punched out at him only to have him conjure up a silvery hue around himself and catch her strike.

Wordlessly following up with a swipe from her other arm that she had transformed back into a draconic claw, she forced him to pull back his outstretched arm.

Also transforming her other arm as soon as her opponent let go of it, she thrust forward with the claws on it. Tearing through only the outer layer of his clothing as the man dodged her attack, simultaneously reached out with her other hand and caught him by the sleeve.

Holding her opponent in place as she swiped at him with her already outstretched arm, she surprisingly felt no resistance as her claws reached him. Instead, his entire body turned into a faint silvery mass of energy with a humanoid outline.

As her attack passed through it, it still left the same marks in its wake that it would've caused as wounds in a physical body. But unlike how it would be in a physical body, at least for humans, these marks vanished again in under a second as new energy filled the resulting gaps.

This allowed her opponent to simultaneously free what had been his arm out of the grip of her claws. Simply pulling the limb away, he disregarded the already healing tears this resulted in and sped toward where the mage Darganth had been fighting was.

“I hate that annoying ability.” Yldra mumbled under her breath before shooting off and following after him.

Arriving at Darganth's side, she kept a watchful eye on the man as he arrived next to Darganth's opponent a moment later.

“Thanks for the help.” Darganth said, having noticed that the telekinesis spell had come from her.

“No problem.”

Watching in silence as their two opponents seemed to discuss something, Darganth spoke up again a few seconds later.

“Do you think you can deal with that one?” He asked, pointing toward the newly arrived opponent.

“Considering he just said that he has to hold back to hide from 'that monster up there', which I'm assuming refers to my father, probably.”

“Good. Let's still wait for Sarkia to arrive, then the two of us will take care of the weaker one.” Darganth proposed to which Yldra agreed.