Daunting

Gaia turned around and there he was. Unnatural golden eyes surrounded by endless whites. White hair, white skin, white robes. And then all of that surrounded by a soft golden aura as if he was a deity from the Heavens Supreme Region.

'Hmm, he really did look like them… Those damnable dogs.' All deities had a permanent golden aura that surrounded their bodies. It was probably tied to the fact they all had extreme affinities with the Element/Laws of Light. Not that that meant that their affinities were exclusive to light. She of all people would know.

She forcefully shut down the memories of those harrowing days and focused on the man before her.

Honestly, he wasn't the most handsome man that she had ever seen, after all, in just the small galaxy alone, there existed races, bloodlines, physiques and even techniques that made the owner impossibly appealing. Some of the more devious kinds even had the ability to forcefully raise arousal, and she had met them.

Compared to them, although this man that called himself Eridel possessed looks that were far above the level of mortals and even standard immortals, it was nothing much. But still, there was something about his eyes and his voice that exuded boundless charm, so much so that it even held her enthralled. And he wasn't even using his Laws of Sound to aid him like he did the first time they met.

She was only dazed for a short moment though. It didn't take longer than a second for her to extract herself from that state and soon her eyes widened when she comprehended what he said.

'Your people will all die if it descends any further.'

The ominous red smoke that Aeshma had released when he completed his evolution. Of course it was dangerous! Gaia felt like an idiot. Remembering how the explosion caused by his first evolution caused many Dragons to disintegrate to the point that only scales and bones were left, Gaia became a little worried.

But when she turned to look at it she became a little confused. The feeling that the smoke gave off was deeply ominous and terrifying, this she already knew. But what was raised to attention was that although the smoke gave off a very scary feeling, it didn't strike her senses as something innately dangerous. It felt more like an aura.

An aura could give off many kinds of feelings; Happy, sad, aggressive, scary, whatever. But most of the time it could never hurt anybody. It could possibly influence the emotions of others, but that was the greatest extent of most auras. And that was how the red smoke felt right now.

Lethal, dangerous, oppressive. But harmless.

But how could this be possible? If even Eridel was telling her about it, then it definitely possessed the ability to cause harm. How was it hiding? If the 2 Laws that created this new existence were anything to go by, then they should not be containing stealth abilities, so what was going on?

Could it be that its capability to cause harm was not something that she could comprehend? Was this thing called 'Ruination' completely beyond her scope of understanding?

Many thoughts were being generated in her mind but she didn't have a lot of time to waste. She didn't want the smoke to delve any deeper. So without any more hesitation, she gave Aeshma an order through the new mental link formed by the Soul Brand.

=Aeshma, get rid of that smoke.=

Immediately, Aeshma lifted himself up from his prostrating position, causing barely audible sounds of creaking that Gaia suspected were coming from his gigantic muscles, and the sound of wind as his humongous body tore through the wind barrier. The former was more impressive because it spoke of how dense his muscles were, but the latter was only natural.

For him to move with that big body of his and look like he was operating at the same speed as a regular Dragon could only mean that he was actually moving extremely quickly. After all, for a normal Dragon in the 4th Realm to lift their wings to its highest point from the lowest point, it would have to cross a distance of around 80-100 metres, but for Aeshma that distance was multiplied by at least 10 times. And yet he still crossed that distance in the same time frame that it took for a regular Dragon to complete the same movement. Essentially 1000 metres in 2 or so seconds. Of course he was tearing through the wind barrier.

A normal Dragon was still quite big and could of course produce the same sound, but they could only achieve that by moving at their maximum speed (or close). As for Aeshma, it looked like almost any random movement from him would kick up the wind.

So it went without saying that as he lifted up his chest and tilted up his head, flaring his wings out a little to steady his balance as he exhaled an almost visible breath of air, his 6 glowing eyes and gleaming teeth easily visible through the smoke, it formed quite the sight.

WFFFFFFFF!

Aeshma began drawing air into his lungs very audibly, and instantly, the lazily descending smoke stopped its aimless movement, instead changing direction and collectively moving towards the vacuum that was Aeshma's mouth and disappearing inside.

This continued on for about 50 seconds before it came to a stop and all the smoke had disappeared completely.

As Aeshma settled back down once more, his entire body glowing a little as if he had just received some magical nourishment, Gaia couldn't help but think that he had indeed become incredibly daunting. She'd be very, very worried if she didn't have the ability to control him. She couldn't even give herself a guarantee that she could kill him even if she was forced to do so, and that was even with the special techniques that she knew of.

Thankfully, she had the Limitless Soul Brand and his life was now hers to dictate. If she wanted him dead, it would take nothing more than a single thought.

Hopefully, that would never happen and her desire to restore Aeshma's mind would come to fruition.

"Excellent, excellent~" came the voice of the golden eyed abnormality. Gaia turned to face him and saw him rubbing his hands together like a devious businessman.

"Now that that's over with, it's time to get to the main topic of my visit. Care to chat with me?"