Draktharion felt uncomfortable.
‘Hm?’
Atticus didn’t feel human. No, at this moment, he didn’t feel like a being with any emotions at all.
Draktharion felt as though he were being stared at by something far colder—a machine.
It was as if he was no longer facing a man, but a program filled with nothing but calculations, running countless scenarios, dissecting every move before it even happened.
There was no fear, no hesitation, no anger—just cold, ruthless intent.
Draktharion frowned. He didn’t like this. In his past life, just like this one, he had been a dragon. A being who was the overlord of his world.
But now, being stared at by this boy, he felt small. He couldn’t accept that. He wouldn’t.
Suddenly, the world seemed to pause. The air grew thick, suffocating. The sound of lava flowing in the distance faded as the tension between them reached a breaking point.
Then, with the force of a rocket launching, one of the volcanoes erupted. Flames shot into the sky, spewing molten rock, and in that instant, Draktharion vanished.
The ground buckled under the force of his movement, sending a shockwave rippling across the molten battlefield, splitting the earth and kicking up debris in its wake.
The sheer force of his movement shattered the silence, the ground beneath Atticus cracking.
Before the echo of the blast could fade, Draktharion reappeared, sweeping upward in a vicious kick aimed at Atticus’s face.
But Atticus remained calm. Dangerously calm.
‘Grandmaster- rank strength,’
His eyes flicked toward the incoming attack, his body already moving. His mana surged, water and mana mixing, and with a fluid motion, he slipped past the kick as if made of water itself—formless, untouchable.
The ground buckled under the force of the missed blow, but Atticus was already closing in, his movements smooth.
In the blink of an eye, his mana shifted, the earth element now flowing through him.
His stance solidified, becoming as steady and immovable as a mountain. His fist clenched as power surged through his veins, and then he launched it forward toward Draktharion’s stomach with intense momentum.
The blow landed with the force of a meteor.
A deafening boom echoed across the battlefield, the impact rippling through the ground, sending shockwaves up the mountain and cracking the earth beneath them.
But instead of Draktharion being sent flying, it was Atticus who felt it first—a shockwave traveling up his arm, not from the force of his own punch, but from what he had just struck.
His gaze flickered.
‘Scales,’ Atticus thought coldly, his mind processing everything in an instant.
At the point of impact, scales had covered Draktharion’s stomach, thick and impenetrable.
Draktharion didn’t pause.
His molten eyes suddenly glowed, his slits thinning. Wisps of smoke curled from his mouth as he turned toward Atticus, his chest expanding, and his maw already opened wide.
A deep crimson glow began to radiate from within his stomach, the heat in the air becoming unbearable, searing.
His chest heaved, the crimson light intensifying, and then—he erupted.
A torrent of flames, molten and ferocious, shot outward from his mouth, a fiery explosion that consumed everything in its path, hurtling toward Atticus.
But just before the fire could swallow him whole, Atticus suddenly vanished, bursting into motes of light.
The flames blazed past where he had been, their heat so intense that the rock and earth beneath them shattered, lava erupting violently in their wake.
The blast carved a molten path through the landscape, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake.
Draktharion’s molten eyes flickered, his head abruptly snapping to the side.
But he was too late.
Atticus appeared behind him, his leg imbued with intense flames, hurtling toward Draktharion’s neck with blistering speed.
However, Draktharion’s lips soon curled into a small smile, almost mocking. From his earlier small interaction with Atticus, it was clear that he hadn’t bothered learning about the other apexes beforehand.
While the different races guarded information about their apexes tightly, getting something as basic as his name should have been possible.
However, Draktharion hadn’t bothered, especially for a lower race. He was a dragon through and through, his pride running deep.
Regardless, he would have expected this human to know at least one of the most important things about dragons: their absolute dominion over fire.
While Atticus was right to target a vital spot to offset the use of scales, using fire against a dragon was akin to a drop of water hitting an ocean. Useless.
However, the impossible soon happened—something that made the gazes of Draktharion and every single member of the dragon race watching tremble.
The heat of the battlefield was already scorching, but to Draktharion, it was nothing. He had bathed in molten lava, swam in seas of fire. This? This was cold to him.
And yet, as Atticus’s leg inched closer, for the first time in as long as he could remember—Draktharion felt it.
Heat.
Real, searing heat.
It didn’t feel right. It was wrong.
Atticus’s kick slammed into Draktharion’s neck with terrifying force, bending him at the neck, his body jolting from the impact.
The sheer power behind the blow sent a shockwave through the air, cracking the ground beneath them.
Draktharion’s massive frame skidded violently across the molten ground, fire and debris exploding in his wake.
His eyes widened in disbelief, a thought racing through his mind: “How?” How had Atticus done it?
But Atticus didn’t pause. He didn’t hesitate, his body already moving.
Tendrils of lightning crackled to life, snaking across his form before he streaked forward.
The lightning coalesced at the tip of his pointed palm, sharp and deadly, as he thrust it toward Draktharion’s throat.
Draktharion, still reeling from the strike, struggled to comprehend what had happened.
His pride roared within him, but he was no fool. He was a warrior, a veteran who had survived countless battles. Even as the shock of what had just occurred rippled through him, his instincts kicked in.
His eyes narrowed.
Suddenly, the air shifted. His aura hardened, a weight pressing down on the battlefield. Everything seemed to slow for just a moment, and then—
He roared.
The sound was deafening, a primal bellow that shook the very heavens.
The sheer force of it sent a shockwave tearing through the air, shattering the ground beneath him and pushing back the molten sea around them.
