My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger Chapter 928 - 929: Here A Potion

A colossal form emerged like a miniature peak surging from the soil, transforming the woodland where they once stood into something that loomed massively overhead.

Trees and scales enveloped the dragon's frame, appearing partially blended with the ground itself. Cracks scarred its hide. A foul decay stench radiated from the beast, intertwined with the crisp aromas of dirt, vegetation, and the wild outdoors. For this dragon, sunlight stretched its shadow far to the rear, while enormous wings shrouded the trailing woods in broad, far-off gloom.

A buzzing hum filled the atmosphere, booming beyond any thunderclap, as quakes rattled Damon's stance below.

Gravewing. That's the name he caught Seras uttering.

One wing looked shredded, as though immense teeth and talons had savaged it, rendering it frayed and battered.

The scouting team bolted with all the velocity their limbs allowed, surging forward at unnatural paces. Was outpacing a living peak even possible?

Dung... rumble... rumble.

The ground quivered violently as a massive talon blanketed the whole zone they fled toward, encompassing the spot teeming with displacement blooms.

Damon halted abruptly when a rotting odor surged upward. Weakness gripped his legs, his pulse halting in terror. He struggled for breath, yet none filled his chest. Fear surged through his blood, chill spreading across his skin, complexion ashen, fingers quivering beyond his will.

His instinct for peril flared wildly, scalp prickling, ears leaking blood.

He pivoted a bit as Seras stopped too, gradually turning toward the enormous skull.

From her storage ring, she drew forth a container, expression grave.

"I greet the great one Rexagon..." Seras declared while her energy surged outward, shielding the entire scouting party from the crushing terror aura the dragon emitted.

Just then did Damon sense ease returning, the pressure easing off.

Only at that moment did Damon notice his body drenched in icy perspiration.

He held the fourth stage of progression, yet even so, insignificance overwhelmed him against this animated peak.

The dragon parted its jaws, a radiant blaze of ruin lighting up its mouth akin to daylight. From his spot, Damon sensed the blaze hovering directly overhead like noon.

"Who dares enter the dominion of Rexagon, who dare cross the lord of the carrion skies."

The proclamation thundered across the firmament as swarms of rotting fowl lifted from the foliage atop its colossal plating. They soared aloft where its cranium and twin protrusions brushed the vapors, shrinking Damon further in his own sight.

Seras responded, her tone resonating deliberately. Noting the damaged appendages, he stayed seated despite the evident harm.

"We beg your forgiveness great one, we were merely passing by, if you can forgive our transgressions."

"Silence, you have disturbed my rest little mouse..." his bellow scattered the overhead mists.

Its skull descended gradually, causing Seras to clench the container harder.

Damon shivered faintly until his Unyielding trait activated. He exhaled steadily.

Seras proved inept at bargaining with such beasts... was she unaware his existence hung by a thread?

'Damn it deathless, I know it’s you, I just know it...'

Thus, survival demanded his utmost ingenuity regardless.

This encounter starkly contrasted his clash with Ashergon. That beast had simply ascended and scorched the whole territory, scattering cinders and demise in its path.

'I am fire. I am death.' Those were its sole utterances. The phrase lingered in Damon's mind even now. Within him, a spark of Ashcroft's hubris ignited.

'One day I will make that lizard my mount.'

This wasn't that occasion. Damon advanced a step. He couldn't resist sighing at how every dragon he'd faced embodied dramatic flair.

"Great one... I am Damon Grey. It is a pleasure to stand in your magnificent presence. Forgive my lowly handmaiden for her lack of courtesy. Before your immaculate magnificence, truly you are the greatest of all dragons."

Seras shot him a look, demoted from leading the team to mere servant.

Rexagon bristled at this insignificant pest. He gaped wide to pulverize him with fang-like lances, though those were far grander than mere weapons—more akin to spiked ridges.

"Great one... What has injured you so..." Damon stated evenly. His remark halted the dragon, its gaze flaring as it truly examined Damon this time.

Then it snarled.

"So it is you... I see, I was almost deceived. I see you... I see you. What do you seek from Rexagon."

Its orbs lowered to meet Damon's height, close enough for him to glimpse his image within. Spotting himself there nearly shattered his poise. In those depths, Damon appeared not as himself, but a fiend exuding serene command, an aura of supremacy.

Damon grasped immediately the figure this beast mistook him for.

'Ashcroft.' Realizing that, Damon knew he mustn't falter, for Ashcroft dreaded naught, not even this wyrm. Why? As Ashcroft the overlord, supreme disdain defined him.

"Rexagon why are you here injured." Damon swiftly deduced the beast's harm, the most obvious trait on its form.

Rawrrrwhggg.

The dragon bellowed in fury, as if replaying the outrage. It dipped its vast cranium to Damon's plane, its putrid exhalation nearly toppling him or rotting his body.

"Who else shan’t treat the carrion king with such dishonor..." Rexagon thundered, his outburst nearly spurring Damon to bolt for safety.

'Dammit I wanna go home...' Damon mused.

He truly wished it wasn't Ashcroft, yet that seemed unlikely. Though the gashes appeared aged and the beast embedded in soil, the injuries stayed vivid, unexplained by lack of recovery.

"I see so it was Ashergon..." The evidence shone clear from the huge bites and scratches across its frame, even its soiled, rugged torso marked by talons.

Its jaws ignited with ruinous force, head rearing skyward to spew a deluge of annihilating gust that split the heavens, birthing voids in space. Darkness cloaked the realm despite the sun's vigil.

Rexagon's wrath appeared to unsettle existence itself. Seras clenched her jaw, eyeing Damon who stayed composed amid searing fragments of the cosmos dropping earthward, forcing the team to scatter from the ruinous fallout.

Damon remained pristine, palms clasped behind. To her, he appeared utterly...

'Amazing...' she whispered to herself, gaze stretching wide in a stupor.

Seras recalled fragments of Rexagon's lore. This wyrm was whispered to hail from a peak's depths. Ages past, rival realms clashed in fury, their wails and gore seeping beneath the stone. Upon the range's stir, the dragon rose, bearing the battlefield's festering reek. Wherever it soared, demise trailed its pinions, decay bloomed from its grip.

Upon learning its title, mortals dubbed it Gravewing, the earth-born harbinger of rotting heavens.

Rexagon the Gravewing.

Tales spoke of countless hunter bands dispatched to fell beasts like him, all vanished without trace while Rexagon endured.

Epochs shifted the world, ushering an era where such dragons might be driven back or vanquished.

Damon lifted his arms gradually.

"I come in peace and I wish for safe passage from your dominion." He reached the heart of the issue at last.

Rexagon hesitated, viewing Damon as Ashcroft. Draconic vanity resisted granting freedom, yet confronting the overlord daunted even him. A precarious balance for the beast.

Damon faced his own bind. Lacking might to challenge such a foe, he might summon the Shadow Codex to ensnare it—provided its silhouette faced him. Regrettably, the shade lay rearward, unreachable before fatal strike.

'At least this one deigns to converse, unlike Ashergon's rush to slaughter.'

"Why should I the great Rexagon give you safe passage..."

Damon inhaled deeply, grinning as he delved into his umbral vault.

"I bring with me a great gift." He produced a flask and raised it high.

"This is my offering for our peaceful passage, I would like to save my strength for when I deal with Ashergon..."

Damon appended measuredly. The dragon stilled, inspecting the flask, then gradually diminished to a modest mound's scale. Its talons extended, and Damon set the flask before them.

"This is the ultimate healing potion, it can cure wounds in an instant." Damon pitched the deal.

With the reduction, Rexagon's grip no longer blocked the exit route.

He laid a palm on Seras' arm as the dragon attempted to ingest the elixir.

"Run."

He dashed away.

It was a scam.