’But if this sacrificial circle is connected to that big shadow dragon’s location... I can’t use it to teleport there or I might get targeted by it as food...’
There’s no knowing what kind of mental state that shadow dragon king is in right now after being corroded for hundreds of years!
Even powerful people like Ashtel Rex can’t stay in the spirit realm for long times, so obviously that shadow dragon king wasn’t in a good mental state either.
’How do I extract the information without getting in trouble though?...’
After flying around the entire town a few times and not finding anything worthwhile, Rio found a big pillar to sit on and fell into contemplation.
The image of the shadow dragon king Rio saw in the memory of that evil spirit was likely very old and ancient; the current situation of the big dragon could be very different compared to back then.
’Alverto once said that Ellie was considered a disgrace among all dragons and she couldn’t use dragon bloodline magic...’
’But according to what I know, Ellie was never weak... she’s still quite strong even if she can’t use dragon bloodline’s magic...’
Rio has been to the Dragon Valley, and he knew that dragons revered the strong; even if Ellie was incapable of doing certain things, she would still have been respected for her strength.
Yet, she was considered a disgrace of the Shadow Dragons despite being strong; that only means one thing.
’She’s done something wrong in the past to earn that reputation... what could that be, I wonder...’
Back then, Rio didn’t have the ability to sense others’ soul fluctuations with precision like now, so Rio had no idea what Ellie was thinking all the time.
’But one thing is for sure... If I can find what reason gave her such bad reputation, I can find clues to her current location...’
In the dragon valley, the dragons that were clearly more violent and didn’t seem to fit in the society were outcast and sent to isolated places.
The same could be true for Ellie; it might be possible that she was sealed or held captive somewhere in an isolated place.
’Liam really is quite an oddball though... How did he manage to summon a sane shadow dragon among all these mentally broken ones, I wonder...’
All the dragon whelps Rio saw until now barely even had any sanity left in them; they were hunting and gathering food based on their instincts. They had nothing going on in their minds beside food and hunting.
Even rest was only taken when they succumbed to heavy injuries and couldn’t move anymore.
It was almost as if,
’Almost as if they are all brainwashed heavily... but the odd thing is that I can’t sense any such modifications from their soul fluctuations and mental waves...’
Rio himself was an expert in the field of brainwashing and mental manipulation; if these dragon whelps were in a brainwashed situation, Rio would have easily noticed it all.
For him, erasing the mental manipulation and brainwashing from someone’s mind is as easy as breathing, he just needs to poke them with his flute, and they will be okay right after.
’Now that I think of it... how did Alverto knew about Ellie?... Did he meet her summoned form before somewhere?’
’Or did Alverto come to the spirit realm at some point in time and met her?’
Rio had seen Alverto’s memories, but there was no mention of Ellie in them, but Rio wasn’t surprised, as the memories he saw were mostly incomplete.
The memories were only related to the important events of Alverto’s life, and Rio didn’t even get to see the real Demon King in those memories despite Alverto being his son.
At most, Rio only saw the siblings that Alverto slaughtered.
’If Alverto met Ellie in the outside world, then it would mean someone summoned Ellie before Liam and the time frame wasn’t too far back either, as Alverto is only around 200 years old...’
’And if he met her in the spirit realm... that means there must be some way to find Ellie or communicate with her that I am not noticing right now...’
Rio can actually do almost everything that Alverto could do in the past; Rio even saw a lot of Alverto’s personal unique skills, and he can also use them too.
Aside from the legendary skill ’Soul Resonance,’ Rio can copy most of his techniques, and if there was some technique that could help in finding Ellie, Rio would have already been able to use it by now.
’What am I missing?’
Rio looked at the sky covered in miasmic clouds and kept thinking about various skills he had, but even after contemplating for hours, nothing came to mind.
He had long-range communication skills like telepathy, but Rio can’t sense Ellie’s presence anywhere in this place.
’Ellie should be an adult dragon, and just like how every trace of adult dragons is missing from this place, I can’t seem to locate her either...’
In the first place, back then, Rio’s sword intent wasn’t as precise, and his soul-related skills were very lacking.
If Rio had the current soul-related skills back then.
He could have just marked the soul fluctuation of everyone around him, and then he could easily track them down by spreading sword intent strands in thousands of kilometers of area.
’Ugh... this is difficult...’
’Do I have no other choice but to confront that shadow dragon head-on after all?’
Rio shook his head as he got up from his seat.
’F*ck it, We ball!’
Rio took a deep breath before shooting toward the distant plateau with an insanely fast speed!
[Sword Intent!]
[Elemental Sword Art: Space Type: Cosmic Jump!]
Rio used his sword intent and struck the space-time fabric to launch himself forward at an insanely fast speed by using a weaker version of space warp!
*BOOOM!*
Rio shot forward with such speed that the flow of miasma got chaotic, and he pierced right through the dense miasmic clouds in the sky as he rushed upwards!
A powerful shockwave spread in all directions as Rio launched himself up like a rocket, causing the miasmic clouds to blow away from the sheer force of his speed and spatial fluctuations!
If it were any other creature who dared to smash themselves head-on in those miasmic clouds, they would have become vulnerable to miasmic corruption, but Rio didn’t care about it at all.
To him, those extremely dangerous miasmic clouds were as harmless as cotton candy!
After crossing the clouds, Rio reached the top of the giant plateau in one go and landed on the top with a look of determination in his eyes.
’F*ck it, come, big fat dragon! I might get a bit injured but I will definitely stab you at least one time today!’
What Rio didn’t know was that crossing through those horrible and dense miasmic clouds was the best thing he could have done in that situation.
The moment Rio arrived at the top of the plateau, his eyes fell on a gigantic being so huge that Rio seemed like a mere ant in front of its gigantic body!
’What the actual f*ck is this thing!?!?!!!!!’
Unlike what Rio had expected, there was no dragon on the top of the plateau; on the plain barren field, there was a huge disfigured monstrosity twisted and completely distorted in shape!
The huge being had grayish-black scales all over its body, but it was twisted and disfigured in the shape of a weirdly growing Tree!!
Each of those huge dragon scales was almost as big as a skyscraper, and that massive distorted tree-like organism was so enormous that Rio could not even make a proper mental measurement for it anymore.
The aura of that distorted creature was so strong that it seemed even stronger compared to Ashtel Rex’s!
The space-time fabric was constantly cracking and shattering before trying to heal itself due to the sheer soul power and spatial fluctuation created by the mere presence of that humongous creature!
Rio saw hundreds and hundreds of tails and thousands of dragon limbs hanging on that twisted tree; there were thousands of weird distorted organs hanging on that tree like pendulums of a clock!
There were hundreds of eyes located all over that big grotesque tree, but most of them were either rotting or too damaged by miasma.
The entire humongous body was oozing out black filth and miasmic corruption from all over it, and all that miasma was then forming rivers and falling down into the deep valley below like waterfalls!
Rio didn’t notice those miasmic waterfalls before due to the thick miasmic fog and dense miasmic clouds, but it turned out that all the miasma in that deep valley was the blood of this gigantic creature!
Looking at that absolute monstrosity of a being and its bizarre body, only one thought came to Rio’s mind.
’Honestly speaking, F*ck Liam, I am going home...’