Earth Sovereign Dragon: Dhaarth

Feishu smiled and waved at the dragon.

"Ahoy! It's me, Feishu!" She announced.

"Oh-" The dragon took notice of the petite girl and calmed down. "Here to challenge me?" He asked.

"YUP! YUP! I need a good divine class artifact to increase my HP." She said.

"You seek an artifact and that too, a divine class...? Are you so confident in yourself now that you have an ally? You've never managed to defeat me, you remember that too?"

"I do think she will change the outcome of this fight!" A spear appeared in her hand. I checked the stats.

Staff of Duality

Level: 40

Attack: 492

Passive: Increases HP by 20%

Awakened passive: Increases attack by 180% when weapon of holder is less than 30% HP.

I checked Feishu's stats and her HP was in fact roughly 30% of her total HP. She tapped the spear against the ground and activated some ability that infused the tip of the staff with water magic.

"Divine class artifact... I see." The dragon roared as the grounded quaked.

"Am I supposed to fight against that thing?!" I quickly grabbed my weapon and charged at the dragon but Feishu was so much faster than me, she not only reached the dragon before me, but had already started attacking it.

Our levels and stats are almost identical yet what showed here was difference in our experience. She knew this dragon personally so she must've fought it countless times in past and maybe even other strong enemies. Earth dragon was so much more powerful than Sapphire and all of us had nearly died against her and here Feishu was casually trading blows with an enemy whose power dwarfed the power of sapphire.

I cleared my head and threw my spear with all my might at the dragon and put fire affect on him. Feishu uses water, so our combination would be pretty strong. My understanding is that when two elements react, they do roughly 4 times the damage. So even if our enemy is too strong for us individually, if we fight as a team properly and coordinate effectively, we can still win, even if its by a margin.

"Nice! Fire is a good reactant." She stated before charged through the dragon. She had dug her weapon into its skin causing it to roar in pain before it slammed its forelimbs onto Feishu who managed to dodge it rather easily.

Given her ability which forces her to fight at low HP, she had become quite good at dodging from what I see here. She was flawless. The dragon was not only using its entire body but also surrounding to hit her, yet here she was... unharmed.

Wait... I need to help her. I don't know what this artifact is or what this dragon is either but I gotta help. I raised my hand and the spear returned to me. I then got near and made sure I kept applying fire to the dragon to help Feishu but in fact her water magic was also helping me. So in total, we were able to output 8 times of what we would do individually. This was the power of a team.

Since the target was rather big in size, we didn't need much coordination either. But then the earth dragon went inside the ground and the ground started shaking.

"Careful! The rocks from ceiling would fall!" Feishu warned me.

I tried dodging as much as I could yet my HP went down a lot. 

The dragon emerged again from the ground and slammed its forelimbs against the ground again causing the ceiling to fall even more.

I checked its HP and it had gone by barely 20% or so.

"TIME TO GO!" She raised her spear and small water droplets started appearing in the air and soon it started to rain... inside?! We are in a cave and she created a whole ass weather condition?!

"Kristine! Take the stage with your fire magic." She took a step back and allowed me to attack the dragon.

I quickly started towards the dragon and attacked it while trying my hardest to dodge the attacks. Given its size, the attacks weren't exactly fast or discrete making it easier to dodge.

Feishu kept the weather condition up till the dragon reached half its HP and then it calmed down.

"End of the fight, Kristine." She announced.

"Huh? End?" I asked.

"Yes. I took on the challenge for only the artifact." The dragon told me.

"Wait so... you were holding back?" I asked and Feishu chuckled.

"Of course, stupid! He is Dhaarth. Earth dragon. If he used his full strength, he can destroy this entire country without even breaking a sweat." This revelation shook me.

"That strong?!" I wonder if this dragon is stronger than Kenji or not. "I don't think anyone can defeat this dragon then."

"In my current state, maybe someone can defeat me." He spoke. "I have lost almost all my previous strength after my lose against the origin. I won't be surprised if there are humans who can now kill me."

"Have you met someone like that?" Feishu asked.

"There is a being. He called himself captain of the ascendant. He introduced himself as number 1 or something and also... another... Ezekiel. He was number 3 or something from the same group. Those two could've defeated me in my prime too."

"Ascendant?! Number three is stronger than your prime form?!" I was shocked. Wasn't Kenji just one rank below him. If it wasn't for Feishu, I couldn't have lived through this fight but ... but Kenji can single handedly defeat the dragon but can possibly win against it's prime too?

"Oya... you know something?" Feishu looked at me suspiciously.

"My boyfriend is number four." I told her.

"Number... four?" Dhaarth thought for a second. "You mean Kenji?"

"You know something?!" I asked.

"Kenji... I do remember he did challenged me. I only survived because he allowed me to live longer." Dhaarth said in an embarrassed tone.

"Allowed? What do you mean? What are his powers?" I asked.

"First, his shield is neigh unbreakable. I've never seen a shield strong enough to last through all my attacks. Second, he has a weird corrosion ability. Basically... as you fight him, your HP will start depleting every second. This ability can even bypass shields. If fight goes on for more than 30 seconds after corrosion has been applied, he will always win. Last, he understands his powers but lacks experience. I'd say he is only ranked low because in a normal fight, he might lose against more experienced fighters."

"Corrosion...?"

"He has submitted himself to the void. He reeked of corruption." Daarth said.

"What's the void?" I asked.

"During the great war, beings who were not humans were tortured, raped... killed. They were treated as objects. Their pain and suffering took a physical form and created 'Assembly of the forbidden' and all the memories reside in this place. For elemental entities like me, it is rather easy to tell who is corrupted and who is not. He must've spent months in the assembly. He must've learned more things than he was supposed to know"

"Can you please tell me what this truth is?"

"I'm afraid I can't. Even I don't know the extend of the origin and it's powers. All I can say is Kenji is walking down a path that will lead to his demise. His destiny is... unfair."

"Is there any way to learn about this?" I asked.

"I can only advice you to seek other elemental dragons. Two of them died but four are still alive." He said as two objects appeared levitating in front of me. "This is a crest of earth dragon. If you present this to elemental dragons, they would not attack you and since you get stronger as you lose HP, I offer you a HP artifact. Apus is water dragon currently in form of a little girl. Nature dragon currently resides in the center of the Jankana forest. Ice dragon and thunder dragons are dead. Not much is known about whereabouts of fire dragon though. Wind dragon is missing but I wonder if its dead or not."

"So technically, we only know of one dragon? Nature dragon it is then. Jankana forest will be my next stop." I sighed and looked at my HP. It had crossed 20K.

"Seems like this trip turned out to be of utmost importance to you." Feishu smiled.

"Yes! I can't thank you enough for this." I smiled back at her.

We left the temple and continued on our journey to capital of Shulian, Jukuvi.

...

"Today we mourn the death of our team member, Sapphire. Her defeat would not go in vain. We may have lost a member yet we gained knowledge due to her expeditions. Her diplomacy skills knew no bounds and were of great help to us." The captain spoke.

"She may have been ego centric at times, she proved herself worthy regardless. I suggest we mark this day as a remembrance day and halt the entire nation for one day." Verga suggested.

"Sapphire was killed by an outsider, we must make them pay for it though! We are yet to attack anyone but here they are attacking ascendants out of perceived threat." Lizette wasn't taking her dead well at all. She had been crying and mourning her death the most.

"I understand the pain you must be experiencing right now, yet, Lizette, we must move forward carefully. This is a direct attack on his majesty and we will demand reparation from kingdom of Grumania." Ezekiel said.

"Wasn't she killed by Kristine? Sapphire was ambushed and she landed the last hit. She must face punishment." Professor said.

I can't say anything since Kristine did kill Sapphire.

"Any reasons provided for her assassination?" I asked.

"They felt threatened by Ascendant seeking diplomatic relations with Grumania whose king is on his death bed. Aristocrats assumed that we were planning on establishing ourselves on their lands and then annexing it all once the king dies. This was merely a threat: Do not try to take our lands. They misunderstood the situation entirely and here we are..." Caption was utterly disappointed in how kingdom of Grumania conducted themselves.

"I see." I couldn't suggest anything to help Kristine's situation. She was involved nonetheless. "After I'm done with my mission, I will go there with Lizette and see how things go."

"Number four and number five. You both are roughly equal in strength so I'm not too worried about either of you dying but Sapphire... despite being number 12, was an important member. All 12 of you are still just as important regardless of the number given to you. Mind you, numbers represent your strength and not your value. So be careful moving forward." His majesty finally spoke.

"Yes!" We spoke in unison and bowed.

"Took my position." Lizette approached me and smiled. "I'm not mad though. It was taken by someone well deserving. What mission are you on? And how long would it take?"

"His majesty has asked me to keep it a secret till we have all the information but it might take me a week and no more."

"Kristine is your girlfriend, right? She is one of the few who still cares about you. Are you sure you can punish her?"

"Correcting the actions of your significant other is an obligation. She murdered someone regardless of what her opinion might be of the regulators. I would be doing disservice to her by not punishing her."

"Hope you keep up this attitude when we confront the kingdom's aristocrats." Lizette patted my back. "We may want to take over the heaven but don't lose yourself to ambitions and rely on us too. We are in this together." She said as she left the room.

Lizette and I had grown closer ever since I became an ascendant. She was a kind person but strict too. A sister-type, if you will. I smiled before teleporting back to the village to continue on my journey to north. I only have seven days before I confront kristine.