Only Nightmare was able to sleep on Gaya's lap, curling himself into a ball. They two were deep in thought. For Gaya, it was her mother. For Michael, it was Victoria and everything the thusians did to him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the burning sanctuary. He heard his friends scream only to get slaughtered by the thusian soldiers. Those soldiers didn't show any mercy, not even to the little ones. In Michael's mind, the elders weren't blameless either. They had a divine power source for centuries, yet they didn't even bother to use it. The Cosmic stream remained useless in the sanctuary. Michael decided long ago not to make the same mistakes the elders did. The moment he destroyed Thusia, he would absorb the Cosmic Stream, or if he couldn't, he would destroy it so no one could use it in the future.

"Do you have any clues about finding this Wise Dragon?" Gaya leaned forward,

"The last time you came here, did you see any pathways, hidden entrances, or any signs of a dragon?" she asked.

"My drones are searching this place as we speak. If a dragon is living here, we will find it," said Michael.Witness the debut of this chapter, unveiled through Ñôv€l--B1n.

"You better find a cure for my mother. I don't want her to suck my blood when I am asleep," Gaya chuckled.

"I am telling you again, the cure will only get rid of a vampire's blood lust and weakness for sunlight. Their abilities like immunity to magic attacks, speed, and strength will stay the same,"

"So she will be like us?" Gaya asked after giving Michael's words a little thought.

"Let's find another vampire and try that cure first on him. Then, we can move on to your mother,"

"We should definitely do that,"

They spent the following minutes discussing Eve, Thusia, and Adelia. Then, their conversation slowly moved toward the Blood prince. To be honest, Michael didn't have a solid plan to deal with the Blood Prince. First, he needed to gather more information about the Blood Prince. It was a pity he left Mazeroth. Professor Lane and Gilrine seemed to have a lot of knowledge about one. Fortunately, they had Lord Information to turn to.

As they were conversing, the ground suddenly trembled in a rhythm as though something huge was stepping toward them. Michael immediately rose from his chair. He sensed a Soul Refining stage being appear in the Environmental Scanning. Judging by the tremor, Michael knew whatever that's coming their way must be a colossal size monster.

"Michael, what the hell is happening?" Gaya held Nightmare in one hand and tried to balance herself. They quickly shot into the air. When they reached the sky, they were stunned by what they saw. A colossal skeleton was on its way toward them. It was a dragon, not just any dragon, a skeleton dragon. With each step the dragon took, the ground trembled. The dragon had an overall length of four hundred feet, a wingspan of three hundred and fifty feet, and a height of almost eighty feet.

Compared to this skeletal dragon, Nightmare was a puppy. The dragon moved his head left and right as though it was searching for something. Michael looked into the two holes where the eyes should have been and saw no light of life. He never expected to encounter a mutated dragon this early in the journey.

He elbowed the dragon on the head to weaken the dragon further. Finally, a grayish smoke slowly rose within the two dark holes. It was the corrupted soul.

[Soul Transferring initiated...]

The dragon roared. Its roar was much weaker than earlier. Michael tightened his grasp and opened his mouth, rapidly devouring the soul. The white smoke shot straight into Michael's mouth. Eventually, the smoke stopped, and the dragon collapsed to the ground, moving no more. Once the dragon hit the ground, it created a tremor several times stronger than a typical earthquake. Additionally, it created a thick cloud of dust around the dragon.

[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Soul Refining stage, level 4 mutated dragon. The reward is 300000 experience points as well as 20000 Badass points]

[The Soul Eater has absorbed the soul of the mutated dragon. The host has received 100,000 Experience points]

In total, Michael received four hundred thousand experience points. Compared to Wilkas's soul, he received five times the experience points by devouring the skeletal dragon's soul. It was several times eviler and more corrupt than Wilkas. Hence, the increase in experience points. Killing the dragon was the easy part. Now the real trouble began when Michael thought about transporting the skeleton from the treacherous ocean to Awor where he could auction it in the Aqua Palace.

"I feel creeped out when you use that spell," Michael heard Gaya's voice behind him.

"You've only seen me using it once," said Michael, staring at the dragon from above.

"You have a plan to move that thing?" Nightmare came to their side.

"System,"

Still trying to learn how to transport the skeleton, Michael turned to the system.

[The skeleton is too big to teleport ]

[The host can pay 100,000 badass points to dismantle the skeleton. Another 100,000 for teleporting the bones to a choice of your base of operation. And finally, another 100,000 badass points for assembling the skeleton. So a total of 300,000 badass points]

Michael was surprised by the system because the system quoted an amount way less than he had actually imagined. So Michael quickly agreed.

"Dismantle and teleport it to the dark forest. I will assemble it later,"