Chapter 98: A step ahead

Thankfully, my flight back home continued peacefully. No other tainted monster blocked my way and instead, I arrived back at our floating mountain after a short while. I was quite tired, as soon as the mountain came a sigh of relief unconsciously escaped my mouth.

It was reckless of me to move far away from home, especially at night. Our continent was not the same as that of the humans. For now, I could already roughly guess how big their continent was, yet the terrifying thing was that I had no idea how big ours was.

Just recalling the memory of father pushing that shade back to water hell It crawled out from all those years ago when we first moved in was enough to cause my scales to tingle nervously. Shaking my head, I quickly approached the edge of the floating mountain before a frown soon made its way to my face.

The sky right above me was suddenly illuminated as sounds of battle carried over. Various sparks rose in the air as two very different types of mana clashed against each other. My frown deepened as I glanced at the two figures who seemed to be equal in strength.

'They sure are energetic as always,' I inwardly noted, before I landed at the edge of the mountain. The figures that were fighting were none other than Sidus and Immy, both of their mana clashed against one another splitting the sky into two parts with Immy looking like a miniature sun, while Sidus' figure was almost impossible to see, although I knew they were usually equal in strength, this time Sidus appeared to hold the clear advantage.

'Is It because It's nighttime?' I wondered in curiosity as I steadily climbed the mountain, my eyes watching their battle unfold yet I had no intention of interfering. I didn't even fly to the top in fear of interrupting them.

Yet even though I thought that way, it seemed like fate had a different opinion as Immy launched a ball of light to attack Sidus, instead of simply dodging, he somehow used his mana to redirect her attack back at her with higher speed.

Immy was barely able to avoid the attack, yet coincidentally, I ended up in Its trajectory. It all happened too fast and since I was still very tired from today, I only managed to instinctively form an ice barrier that blocked the attack before It shattered.

My sudden appearance caused the duo that was on each other's throats just moments ago to abruptly stop as they turned their gazes towards me. Immy looked apologetic, while Sidus had a weird glint in his eyes. 'Oh, this bastard better not be thinking what I think he Is,' I grumbled in annoyance, I was honestly not In the mood to get involved.

Yet I should have seen It coming, now that he also completed his rite of passage, he was bound to come at me sooner or later. A sigh of annoyance escaped my mouth, as Sidus seemed to have made up his mind. Immy seeing that he was no longer interested in their fight and was instead studying me shook her head before she flew back to the cave.

"You are going to get hurt," I warned him with a low growl. I could already 'see' his mana gathering around his body as he prepared for something. Hearing my warning, Sidus' eyes grew wide for a second before a large grin made its way onto his face.

"Are you afraid of facing me older brother?" He asked in a mocking tone while licking his teeth in anticipation. 'This cheeky bastard,' Shaking my head, I glared at him with a serious expression and replied. "I'm afraid I won't be able to hold back little brother," I said as my aura soared to the sky.

Sidus seemed shaken for a second as he took a step back, yet he quickly regained his composure, his grin turning into a frown as I could feel his anger. He must have felt humiliated that he took a step back in fear when I didn't even do anything yet.

"I'm at my peak right now older brother, you won't be my match," He shook his head as if he was already certain about his victory, yet I could clearly see that deep within his eyes, he was nervous.

A chuckle escaped my mouth as I took a deep breath then shook my head hopelessly. "Don't say I didn't warn you, come let me show you the difference between us little brother," At that, Sidus' faced twitched as he glared at me before his dark mana suddenly lunged forward towards me like a wave.

His body disappeared, no, the entire world suddenly disappeared as I found myself once again trapped within his magic spell. "Hmm, this again, but If I remember correctly Sidus, you weren't able to attack when you-" Not letting me continued, a sudden claw invisible by the naked eye materialized from above and slashed at my back.

I was thankfully able to sense the mana as the claw was formed before It attacked me, which in turn allowed me to swiftly dodge the blow. Yet Sidus did not give me any time to breathe as he constantly sent one attack after another, trying to take me down.

"Oh, I'm impressed, you managed to improve now you don't need to rely on someone else to attack while you hold your opponent down," I mumbled. I was truly impressed since I knew how hard It was for him to just maintain this spell before, but here was using It to not only trap but also attack me.

"Still, you are not yet able to launch large-scale attacks little brother, and If it's only this much, you see still not able to take me down," I said while shaking my head before I reached out to the cosmic mana deep inside my soul space.

The sculpture reverberated in response as the mana slowly seeped out of It, I then calmly gave It my command. 'Destroy the spell,' heeding my order, the cosmic mana slowly moved out of my soul space, It was easily able to penetrate Sidus' spell causing a small thread to break through his dark cage.

Once that small thread was out, a large pillar of cosmic mana, similar to that I used to destroy the shield of Piya's capital descended once again, easily obliterating Sidus' spell. It didn't cause it to explode or shatter, no, his spell simply disappeared as If It had been teleported away leaving behind a flustered Sidus who stared at me from the sky as if he was looking at a monster.

This time I was able to see what happened better, my cosmic mana summoned that large pillar which in turn 'cut' the link of mana between Sidus and his spell causing It to just disappear. Not giving him any time to recover, a large water claw suddenly materialized in the air before It came crashing down, sending him tumbling to the ground next to me.

I slowly made my way towards him who as still collapsed inside a small crater. Sidus simply looked at me with an expression of disbelief as If he could still not understand what happened, I gently tapped his forehead, and spoke with a grin.

"Not bad little brother, you grew stronger but I'm still a step ahead,"