BHH ch10

A gate blocked his way and protected the rich from the fate of the poor. While Vincent was willing to take some of the blame for the world’s end, the nobles facilitated the outbreak. Birds with blue scales flew hard away from the city to spread their plague. At first, Vincent tried to take them out, expanding arrow after arrow, until he saw rats, squirrels, and even roaches with patterns of blue scales. Dragon scales grew across the bark of some of the massive city trees extending the plague to the foot of the mountain. The spread couldn’t be stopped without a powerful bomb. So, he stopped wasting energy on fighting the impossible.

His goals became easier.

Kill and take pills; that’s what his life devolved into in the moments between carding his family on his short march to the third stratum. Windy was up there, and he would card her before leaving. A quarantine stopped him from entering the stratum, and tens of thousands of elves pushed against gargantuan walls blocking them from the plague-free third stratum. Thivratea clung to his back, suddenly shy in a crowd of scared elves.

A discordant song fell into white noise from the elves shrieking.

He was pushed by the elves; some fell over the side as he made his way through them, hefting his club dragon. The corpse had fused with the club after hours of combat. Bashing dragons helped merge the weapon faster.

There was only one challenge anymore, and it was against the dragons; anything else was suspended.

He stood at the gate atop the bodies of elves. With the world falling apart, he could finally admit that he didn’t know what he was doing. The barbarian tried to copy others smarter and more charismatic than himself and fell short. For a while, he thought he was benefiting the elves as well. A little roughhousing was supposed to toughen them up and get their heads out of their asses before the other races came down on them. Instead, he destroyed the world.

The barbarian’s reward was the chance to do it all over again.

“Hey Tea, I’m sending you back to your card. We won’t be here much longer.” Vincent said.

Vincent didn’t know if he had it in him to try again. At least he could get the people he cared about. The barbarian could store their camp. If he had his way, his people wouldn’t feel the transition. He could get another Hector; that would be wild.

Cinder was supposed to be a deterrent against the other countries freed from her manacles. He could get another Cinder and free her. Vincent might not succeed initially, but he would be wiser next time.

Giving the fully formed dragons a reason to stay in the city instead of spreading to the four winds sounded good for those he wanted to protect. He raised his club and slammed it down on the gate. Symbols of power flared on the gate, and he slammed his club dragon down a second time and felt the magic crack. Something about the dragons eroded magical properties. It seemed no one had managed to nerf dragons yet. Vincent planned to snag a few more dragon corpses to make armor.

Another blow made half the symbols on the gate wink out.

“You fool, if you destroy this gate, what walls will you have to protect yourself. Go to the Deus cathedral and hide behind the doors while you can.” An elf guard yelled.

Vincent felt arrows from all around impact his body. They were magically enchanted like the daggers the assassin elf had. Except this time, they failed to pierce deeply. His natural regeneration eliminated them, and none managed to get his eyes. It felt like being stung by wasps.

His club fell, and the enchantments on the gate to the third stratum shattered. Vincent heard the stomping of feet and turned to see a massive blue rose dragon, the uber drake. It had no wings and appeared more like a t-rex with long, five-digit clawed arms than a dragon. The monster was also sparkling blue. Smaller drakes shot out from behind the massive lizard and bit into elf civilians. Panic ensued as elves leaped from the second stratum instead of facing their deaths at the teeth and claws of the drakes.

Vincent shot forward and slammed his club down on a raptor for a free pill. The uber drake reached with its massive claws, and he hopped on his toes. It felt like boxing in middle school. A well-telegraphed punch told him where the blow would fall. He turned his attention to the other raptor and struck. The bones of the monster crumbled, and its organs ruptured. Vincent threw his club up the blow the bite from the uber drake. He hopped to the side and parried the blow. The monster’s eyes went up, breaking its line of sight. Vincent flashed behind the creature and jumped onto the monster’s back.

The barbarian felt his presence and tried to form a connection with the monster, but it was a mess of hunger, confusion, and fear. Controlling it with his presence was out as his feet touched the monster’s back. He wanted to take it over God of War style and use it to break open the gate before killing it on the other side. That wasn’t possible. All he could reasonably do was crush its skull. Vincent slammed his club dragon down on the uber drake’s head, and the monster dropped like a lead weight. The monster groaned, so Vincent raised a monster card and captured it. Unconscious meant they didn’t have much fight left in them.

Vincent turned over one of the raptor corpses and slit its throat over his weapon. The black wood swallowed the blood greedily until the corpse ran empty. He felt a tentative connection to the weapon through his presence, something that was still infantile coming from his club.

“More,” rang out from the weapon.

Vincent pulled back on the string, and the draw increased. That wouldn’t do much for his need for arrows. Vincent frowned and stared at the scared elves tripping over themselves to climb the wall. A hill of dead had helped them almost reach the lip of the structure. 30ft was really high up then; they had to hope the hoplites didn’t cut the limb bridge connecting the striatum.

He searched through the packs of cards and found a structured deck for gathering resources. A Dungeon structure deck appeared in his hand at the price of 2000sp.

12 x C Corpse

12 x C Animal

8 x UC Animal

8 x UC Corpse

5 x UC Companion

3 x R Area

2 x R Animal

Cards were extremely important; they were how he transferred items, companions, and places from one world to the next. For 100,000SP, he could purchase a subspace to store his collected items outside their cards. That would take all of his funds.

He already checked the system wouldn’t let him keep the challenge going beyond the world it appeared in. Creating a pseudo-challenge area in a sub-space was impossible.

Vincent looked over the side to see Uber drakes climbing up the side of the tree leading to the third stratum. The barbarian looked from the gate to the tree and knew the elf nobles were spinning their wheels. If they were smart, they would have gone to ground.

With the gate’s enchantments down, Vincent jumped 31ft in the air and landed atop it. The hoplites thrust their spears at him but hit empty air. He was already running up the limb to the 3rd stratum.

Halfway up, he saw hundreds of hoplites facing where they could not see the incoming drakes. Vincent ran past them as arrows thudded on his body before falling out uselessly.

Before he found Windy, he stopped in front of a familiar mansion. His go-pro was still on, and he added Glory to his collection. Vincent hit a barrier keeping him from the manor’s grounds. The barbarian took a few steps back and held his club with both hands. The blue scales glowed a bright blue, and he felt the energy of meaning and purpose empower the club. He created what some people called mana. Vincent rushed to the barrier and slammed his club into it.

Cracks erupted across the barrier’s surface.

“Cuck, I’m here for your wife.”

He pulled his club back and hit the barrier a second time. The mansion shook, and the barrier shattered like glass.

Vincent shot into the grounds and hopped up to a balcony on the second level. He entered from Fall’s room to see the elf he remembered dressed in hoplite armor etched with mysterious symbols. One of his eyes was gone, replaced with a red flower, and green vines flowed through the man’s body instead of veins. The elf swirled what smelled like shit in a whine cup before drinking it, slowly tasting it like fine wine.

“I expected this meeting to mirror the first. You would be on your knees while I turned your life upside down. Sorry about the smell, but plants have different needs than animals. If you’re looking for my wife, you're too late.”

This felt like a boss battle, but elves were always chatty. Maybe if he kept things simple, they could get on with it.

“Where is Glory?” Vincent asked.

“What a disgusting shortening of her name. Mud men have no respect for the fairest race. Did you know you were once our slaves?” The shit-drinking elf said.

Vincent was guessing he did some horrible shit to her out of revenge for what Vincent did. Maybe the shit-eating elf wanted revenge on her for enjoying being raped.

The barbarian ran the numbers and thought he could settle things well.

“I don’t care,” Vincent said and raised his club.

“Yes, you short-lived races always talk about how important history is but never seem to heed it.”

He crossed the distance and slammed his club down, hitting a shield above the man’s bronze armor. Thorned vines shot out of the man’s arm spraying acid all over the room. Vincent moved in and uppercut the elf launching his malformed head into the ceiling. The barrier had appeared but failed to account for his attack. The barrier protected the elf’s head from the ceiling, but the elf was still rattled around inside the barrier.

Numerous elves rushed into the room, and Vincent swung his club. Barriers shattered, and elves were broken. A spear pierced his side coming up through his chest. Vincent felt his heartbeat continue unimpeded. The poison on the spear failed to stop his regeneration. He snapped the tip off and tossed it through a nearby elf’s barrier. That made him freeze at the implication. Friendly fire was possible, most likely in case one of them went rogue.

One elf on the left pulled a bowstring back, and Vincent turned to the elf in the distance and jumped through the wall leaving a man-shaped hole. The elf archer fell on her back, and he took her quiver before tossing her in a card. Vincent took out his bow, and all 12 remaining elves and their leader raised their hands at him.

“Arise,” they called together, and his bow remained hungry for blood.

He knocked an arrow and pieced an elf through the eye. Vincent repeated his attack pinning the elves to the ground for later. Their leader shot out of the manor, body shifting. Brown fur erupted from his skin, breaking his bones before taking on a bear-like shape. Larger than the short-faced bear, the elf bear hybrid stood nearly 15ft tall, rippling with muscle with glowing green vines slithering through its body like hookworms.

Vincent hopped on his toes, moving from side to side in different patterns to throw off archers.

The monster fell through the floor as its mass increased. Vincent heard a bellow as the cuck struggled to move. An arrow whizzed by his ear, exposing another archer. He shot forward and took the elf’s quiver before smashing his head like a grape.

“Monster, you took my wife.” The bear roared.

Vincent stayed on the roof and peppered it with arrows. Why would he go out of his way to fight an opponent fairly?

A few arrows hit true, sinking through the shoulder, joints, and limbs. The bear fell on its face when its charge stalled.

“I don’t really care.”

Vincent jumped off the roof and landed without a sound dancing on his toes. Quietly he put away his bow and club. He approached the massive creatures and reached and touched the bear without the barrier emerging. The bear froze but couldn’t move its front legs.

“I learned how to handle bears with powerful healing factors long ago.” Vincent pulled a knife from his bag of holding and hopped on the bear’s back. Vince emerged too slowly to matter. “Speed becomes more important when fighting against enemies with high regeneration and damage output.” Vincent placed the knife’s point against a gap in the bear’s vertebrae and punched the butt of the handle with his palm. The back legs collapsed as the bear twisted its head back and forth to bite him. “Leaving shrapnel in a wound, even with regeneration, is a problem. Was that what the vines were for originally? Did you repurpose them into something offensive, thinking they would be more useful in distracting your enemies? That’s what those slow-moving vines are, a distraction, or did you repurpose them for intimidation. Either way, they failed to stop me. Your barrier doesn’t protect from a slow-moving attack, or was it only attached to the armor.” Vincent said.

He kicked the bear’s side throwing it over on its back. Vincent heard the knife’s handle snap, but that didn’t matter. The barbarian raised his club overhead.

Vincent captured the corpse in a card for later use. On the second floor, he used the elves to strengthen his bow more.

He looked out the window to see rich elves running through the streets chased by raptors. Vincent stopped collecting elf blood and shot toward the large tower belonging to the chief.

When he walked in, Vincent saw an egg with a green halo hovering over it and a crying Windy. He tapped his club on his shoulder, waiting for the girl to look up. He coughed, but Windy didn’t look up, so he captured her and the egg.

With most of his worries out of the way, he jumped into the fray, killing drakes with his club as he returned down the stratum. In the first stratum, he saw something odd. Uber drakes were fighting Uber drakes and drinking the blood of the fallen. Vincent slammed his club down on the body of a fallen Uber, and his club did something similar. Small vines poked into the corpse of the crushed Uber and sucked it dry. Most of the dragon features of his club were gone leaving a smooth 12ft club with a mix of blue and green scaled patterns and a mouth on its end.

It had only gotten heavier as the day dragged on, and he descended to the first stratum killing drakes. White pill numbers were picking up. By his estimation, he might be able to hit the hundreds in meaning and management before long. Unfortunately, without purpose and presence to even out his stats, crazy things can happen.

Vincent stepped back from a breath attack, taking off an Uber drake’s head. Vines shot out from his club and quickly sucked the corpse dry. It felt good to have most of his worries taken care of. He thought about trying to run for the north since he had a hundred days, but that might be asking for trouble. There were more elven cities than bronze and more elves to turn into drakes. Restarting was the best plan if he wanted to keep breathing.

He waded into the carnage slapping away vicious claws, dodging powerful breath attacks, and pulverizing the drakes. After his first hundred fights with them, he figured out how an Uber drake attacked. They focused on their claws and teeth and saved their breath as a last resort.

Uber Drake

PL 100

Vincent turned off descriptions and focused on the fight. His club pulsed blue as the kills stacked up; something pricked his hand, but he barely felt it. Something was dumped into him.

+1Strength

+1 Speed

+1 Regeneration

+1 Presence

+1 Purpose

That update stopped him cold. He pushed his presence into his weapon and felt it rumble with satisfaction. Vincent felt thorns digging into his hand. He could feel every inch of his club, including the vines puncturing Uber drakes. The club absorbed most of what was taken, but a tiny portion was saved and then given to him.

He quickly shoved his weapon into his bag of holding as the three strongest uber drakes froze and their bodies calcified.

“Message what’s going on.”

“They are becoming fluffy bunnies.” Message said.

“Be serious,” Vincent said.

“Would you believe they are so terrified of you they are playing dead?”

“Hell no,” Vincent said.

“Well then, most likely, they are going through a metamorphosis to become dragons.” Message said.

“Fuck,” Vincent said.

He scanned them.

Calcified Uber Drake

PL 980

PL 999

PL 1021

PL 1200

He swung his club with all his might, and it bounced off. Pain throbbed in his hand and the calcified uber drake was undamaged. Vincent turned towards camp and jumped from the first stratum.

…

The guards were in the cards before they blinked, and Vincent didn’t slow down. He carded anyone he saw, focusing especially on the command staff. Dead drakes were piled high outside the camp, and many had fallen already.

Hector galloped up. “The fuck are you doing? These are our men.”

Hector vanished in a card, and Vincent went to work on the horses.

Mavis stepped out of the tent to an empty camp. The vampire glared at him before her eyes widened, and his arm was gone. The limb holding his club fell on the ground in pieces. Blood flooded down his side from open arteries. The dragon’s massive head snapped over Mavis’s body, stopping at her legs. Bloody calves were left behind as the dragon raised its head and opened its mouth. He heard Mavis’s screams before the dragon’s mouth shut to the sound of crunching bone.

He put some pressure on his shoulder until the blood slowed. The dragon was built like a t-rex with a helmet-shaped head. Parts of its skull were elongated like the heads of lord house elves. A stripe of purple scored down the dragon’s head breaking up the blue. Greedy yellow eyes narrow into slits at his arm. Its tongue struck like a snake, wrapping around his limb and dragging it in the monster’s maw. His arm felt slimy, and then it was gone. Vincent felt a crawling pain mercilessly lance up his shoulder. Then the dragon spoke.

“I must thank you not only for the snack but thanks for your efforts; decades of research have finally paid for the time investment.” He lunged for his club, and the dragon’s paw shot out at blinding speed. A claw ripped a hole through his body, and he screamed. An electrifying pain shot up his spine as he felt blue petals fall from the dragon’s claw and enter him. “What a strong lifeforce, perfect for the little ones. Oh, how rude of me. My name is Lance of Stars, but you can call me Eldar.” Eldar said.

Another claw rose and cut his arm off.

Eldar

Sex: Male

Rank: Dragon

Type: Dragon/Artifact/Nature/Vampire

PL: 2500

Description: Behind the scenes using a crisis to his advantage, this acolyte of magic played Arise to perfect his research. Once his plans were set, he gifted a blue rose to the chief for use against the user. The crisis you caused was his opportunity; this enemy is unlikely to make the same mistake.

He passed out from blood loss after reading the description.

…

Vincent came to in a pool of blood and looked around. Beside him was the acid-burned half-digested form of Mavis's eyes wide open and face frozen terror. The half-chewed bodies of humans were piled around him. He was about to scream when a drop of water fell on his face from a stalactite overhead. A rumbling shook the cave as two dragons entered the place. One of the monsters tromped over to him and opened its mouth. The smell of rotten meat hit his nose, making him retch as the monster gagged. The meaty remains of a bear spilled out of her mouth and fell on him like rain.

Massive claws delicately moved flesh, forming a nest. It hit Vincent then that the eggs were partially plant-based. They most likely used animal flesh to grow.

Vincent tried to move, but his legs weren’t obeying him. He thought the dragons might have cut them off, too, until he saw the cow atop them. That didn’t make sense.

He was superhuman; a cow only weighed around 1200 lbs. That should have been nothing to him. Vincent tried to move again but still couldn’t get the cow off. Another regurgitated cow twitched, and the dragon’s eyes narrowed in on it. Its head lunged, and arm-sized teeth took the animal’s head off. The dragon rolled its head back into its mouth after chewing and swallowing. Vincent stopped trying to escape.

“Our husband told us not to kill you unless you try and run away. But maybe I can take a bite out of your legs.” A feminine voice said.

The dragon licked her chops before chuckling. “No, you’re living body will make our young strong. We want you to last as long as possible. Better eat some of the meat while it's fresh.” The dragon said.

Vincent reached out with the only tool left in his presence. He barely scraped against the dragon and felt thunderstruck by her powerful maternal instincts. The sheer emotions paralyzed him for most of the day.

He returned to himself when Eldar joined his three females, and their blue bodies became difficult to define in the low light. Eldar shoved his massive ribbed and knotted dragon cock into the flower-like cloaca of the dragonesses. Every mating ended with a flood of white and a flexing pulsing blue dragon cunt gripping for more. He felt like puking from the smell alone.

Mating meant there would be egg laying soon enough, but at least he could get ahold of some of the emotions the females felt. This time he tried a lighter touch.

When the sunset, he felt his arms dissolving in the dragons’ stomachs. The phantom pain never ended, leaving him a pain-filled wreck for most of the night. Sleeping more than a few hours was impossible.

On the second day, he tried something that worked. Vincent focused on a piece of bone with the combined force of his meaning and purpose and demanded it to move. He knew he had the power; all he needed was the practice.

Blood dripped from his nose as he imagined the dragon hatchlings ripping him apart. Vincent felt the phantom pains and used them to fuel his hatred of the dragon. Despite his hate, the bone chip didn’t move.

That night the dragons mated again, and he captured more of the emotions they felt. Dragons felt emotions in powerful absolutions. His meager presence couldn’t handle them, but he could study them.

On the third day, the largest of the dragons eyed him. “I don’t know what to think of you human.”

Vincent trickled the tiniest feeling of pleasure the dragon had felt during mating. “You are beautiful.”

“Do you truly think so? What if my singing voice is the best?”

“Yes, your voice is the choir in heaven.” He pushed more pleasure into her. “Could you help me?”

Vincent pushed more pleasure into her through his presence, and the dragon snorted. His channels into her emotions shattered, and the dragon chuffed.

“I won’t help you escape.”

“Where would I go? I’m safer here.” Vincent reestablished his presence as more blood leaked down his nose and inflicted pleasure. “I need help with the cow on my legs. It has been rotting on me for 3 days.”

“What will I get in return?” The dragon asked.

“I could rub your scales,” Vincent said.

The dragon swished her tail back and forth with a predatory smirk on her snout.

“I would rather you feed me hatchlings well.” Her pleasure spiked more from his fear than from what he could feed her with his presence. “Stay where we can see you.” She lifted the cow off him, and he saw hair moving in a sunbeam.

Vincent used his meaning and purpose to move a hair out of the sunbeam. The tiny hair froze; it was everything he could do to maintain consciousness. Buckets of sweat poured down his face from the effort.

“You look to be in pain. I hope you survive long enough to see the laying.” With those words, she turned around, flashing him her swallowed blue cloaca and body heavy with eggs. “My young are hungry. I can already feel them.” The dragon said.

He was going to kill them all.

Vincent waited until one of the dragons regurgitated a deer and dug into it with his teeth. He ripped the animal's genitals off and drank the clotted blood.

On the fourth day, he managed to control a few hairs at a time before his nose needed a tampon. Vincent struggled through pain and headaches while struggling for tangible results. His strength hadn’t returned; something was wrong with his body. Even if he escaped, he wouldn’t make it far.

On the fifth day, he moved the bone chip.

“Who were you before you became a dragon?” Vincent asked.

“I think you should become the best food for my children you can be instead of focusing on such eccentricities as questioning my past. Eldar named me Nog, and that is enough for me. Did you enjoy your deer? It excited me to see you tear into its vagina? If you had dug in further, you could have tasted its unborn fawn.” Nog said.

Vincent would have puked at the thought only days ago. Hunger had changed his priorities. He felt hungrier than before. Something was very wrong with him.

“How long until you lay your belly seems to swell more daily?” Vincent asked.

Vincent took note of the pleasure running through her and planned to continue giving her pleasure highs when speaking with him. Not that it would stop her from feeding him to her young her mother's instinct was strong.

“My time will be in two days, Tia in three, and Fran in four. If you planned to try your daring escape while we were busy, don’t bother. All of you already belong to my children.” Nog said.

That would not happen, but he needed to strengthen himself further. His glasses still worked, and they were self-cleaning. They told him his club and bag of holding were in the cave near a small pile of treasure Eldar slept upon.

Nog turned her head, matching his gaze. “That lazy lizard only cares about his hoard after the fun part of breeding ended,” Nog said.

Vincent felt her slight disdain and filled it with as much of his pain as possible. It barely affected her, but it was a start.

On the sixth day, Vincent moved two bone chips, then three before his head started pounding. The more he practiced, the faster he developed. The dragon challenge lasted 143 days; the timeline would reset if Vincent could outlast them. He could hide if he could get strong enough to cut his way through stone.

More bone chips lifted under his will as he trained the hours away until Nog regurgitated another deer.

This time he didn’t hesitate to bite his way into it and increased her pleasure with his own satisfaction. He touched her more firmly, but not like he had the first time. This time he was able to push away her maternal instincts and make the emotions he projected more tangible.

“I like seeing my children’s future meals fatten up.” Vincent pushed pain into her, and she shook her head and stared at her paws before returning her gaze to him. “You are behaving better than I expected; when are you planning to escape. If you leave while I lay my eggs, I will be cross with you.” Nog said.

Vincent redoubled his efforts and rolled a bone across the ground with telekinesis using a kick as a cover. After his last training day, Vincent realized he was using shapeless energy to move things. Of course, it was hard; he was trying to move objects by blowing in them.

He thought about what he wanted in a telekinesis spell. He found his mind farm more receptive to keeping shapes than he expected. When he couldn’t keep more than a few images in his mind’s eye at once, management multiplied that number. A hand had been his first idea for a shape, and it fell apart like a cloud barreling into a mountain. Vincent still planned for a hand, so instead of just the shape of a hand, Vincent made bone, muscle, and flesh. It took hours to build, and it crumbled when it touched a piece of bone.

Blood dripped from his nose for the rest of that day as he struggled to develop a form for his telekinesis.

No matter what he tried, nothing worked. Shapes fell apart no matter how packed he made them. Vincent had never tried this level of magic and shouldn’t have gotten to it for months. He didn’t have a foundation, and that forced him to take a step back.

The dragon clawed deep rivets out of the stone with her massive claws like a child digging in a sandbox. Nog’s actions reminded him that time wasn’t on his side. Dragons were unbelievably strong; if only he had known before.

A smile spread across his face, the first one since losing his arms. He was trying to put the car before the horse. At first, he thought he needed a form like an arm, but then he tried to complicate the problem further. In the darkness of the cave, Vincent took a chance. His mana resembled vapor more than wind. While forcing a ton of it at a problem-granted movement, it was simple. So, what if he condensed his mana? Would it become like water, impossible to condense?

Vincent collected the energy and held it in his presence. Another limiting factor of his mana was his presence. He couldn’t manipulate it outside his presence in any way. The armless man gathered the energy in his presence and pulled it together. The closest thing he could compare the feeling to was suffocation.

Terrible migraines lanced his brain as he struggled against the inevitable. Desperate tears fell from his dirty face as his shaking body thrashed on the maggot-covered ground. The energy that filled his presence to bursting fell in on itself, and he felt a barrier. Like a man trying to fly by attaching chicken feathers and jumping off a cliff, he realized his current course might not work. Even as he dreamed of soaring across the sky, the reality was cruel in its apathy.

His mana fought him the entire time he pulled on it until he felt something snap, and it stopped responding. Vincent felt the ground and opened his eyes to see Nog staring down at him. Vincent was armless, but gazing into the monster’s eyes, he could feel his arm in the monster’s gut. The scar on his chest burned and itched, but he couldn’t scratch it.

He saw glittering blue scales, sleek feminine form, and the grace of a predator. The emotions that weren’t his own were tossed out without a second thought. Seeing and feeling were two sides of the same coin; he felt what he saw and the meaning the dragon tried to force into its very being. Even a human would find Nog a sexy beast despite the species barrier. Vincent thought it had something to do with the ass. He could see the slightest human traits in her. It must have been the Stockholm syndrome.

“We are what we wish to be when meaning and purpose take form,” Vincent said.

“What was that I couldn’t hear you?” Nog said.

“Your scales are more beautiful than a king’s ransom, and you have an ass even I want to fuck.” Vincent said.

“Oh, you are so sweaty. I could eat you up. But I’m saving you for my dears.” The dragoness turned her body, exposing her rear to him. Blue inner flesh pulsed around light blue scales exposing a moist opening. “I am erupting with anticipation,” Nog said.

Dread crawled through his eyes and settled in his stomach, and he struggled to feel his mana and use it as a safety blanket. The allusive energy answered him faintly. He pulled it to him like a safety blanket. There was too much he didn’t know about how to use it. He couldn’t just make a shape and expect it to stick or condense it. Or he couldn’t’ in the amount of time he had. At some point, the mana rebelled and left him powerless.

Vincent lay on the ground while the dragon showed off to him, and his mind left to find safety in anime. With his management, it was possible to leave reality and watch his past memories, including those of shows he’s seen. From the beginning, he watched the Naruto series and froze at the balloon scene.

Was that really his answer. He wasn’t wielding chakra, but it acted almost like the stuff if he squinted. So, what would happen if he tried to spin his mana into a tiny unit?

The armless man couldn’t make a water balloon out of hide and blood, but he could feel every bit of the mana in his presence. So, he started to spin. His management wasn’t focused on taking any shape, only spinning in multiple directions until the mana took his hint. More spinning joined until the mana did it on its own. It took hours, but he witnessed the phenomenon. Once mana did something long enough, it could take on the shape. He altered the curvatures of the spin slightly into spirals. The mana no longer needed his input, only spinning as it pulled the newly created mana into itself.

To his mind’s eye, a small violet sphere of mana appeared denser than anything he had created. After hours of focus, the process stopped. A tiny pearl of dense violet mana hovered within his presence, no larger than a pearl and dense.