Chapter 54 - Phased Dragon

Hearing the fearful tone of Tai's voice along with the rather distasteful news he uttered, Urusla raised an eyebrow in both anger and curiosity; she didn't even bother saying a word, her expression was enough to signal him to continue.

"I believe you should follow me to the dungeon," he said, still hanging his head low, afraid to meet her eyes.

Heaving a sigh and taking a handful of cherries, she proceeded to follow behind him. As they walked, Tai stared dead in front of him, although Urusla was happy at the moment due to the fact that she loved cherries, she still emitted a frightening pressure.

Minutes passed and they reached the dungeon, Urusla was out of cherries and was getting impatient. After sarcastically asking how Aegis, who had regained conciousness, was doing, she returned to the matter of the setback Tai spoke of.

The other demons watched in anticipation as she walked over to where they stood, they all thought Tai was quite brave to bring this matter to light.

"Well… you see… the setback is that…" Tai thought carefully before finishing, "we don't have the dagger which holds Lord Kotsukuo's spirit."

Silence crept in after, although Tai still kept his head down, one could tell that Urusla was seething with anger. Her eyes were widened as eyebrows furrowed, the colour of her eyes greatly enhanced her frightening demeanor; they all expected her to go ballistic with rage when suddenly she vanished from her spot, then…

*bam!~* *crack!*~ *bam!~*

She reappeared in front of Tai. Looking around he started to see what had just occurred; in a split second, Urusla managed to run towards the female demon and deliver an ending blow to her head. The sheer speed and power managed to completely dislodge it from her neck, depicted as the decapitated body flopped to ground followed by the crushed head sliding off the wall behind them.

Aegis saw this high level of power and almost puked, for a brief moment she doubted if anyone could hold a candle to Urusla's strength.

"Now then," Urusla began, her victim's blood dripping from her fist, "Make preparations, I'll be visiting my home town in a month."

The remaining demons were quite surprised, they hadn't bet on Urusla having this reaction; but what they really couldn't bet on was Daichi hearing every word.

***

After Takumi's check up with Kirika, he was heading home when he was stopped by Misao who put forward an offer to break through to the second growth. Seeing that he had nothing else to do, along with the desire to grow stronger, he accepted.

They met on the training ground, weapons in hand and ready to begin. Takumi had removed the top of his robes allowing it to hand beneath his waist; Misao had done the same, showing her bosom tightly wrapped in sarashi, revealing her chiseled torso muscles, looking intimidating but at the same time, alluring.

As Takumi was about to insert his finger and activate the slot, he heard a familiar voice shout: "wait!" as trotting could be heard.

"You're late," Misao said with a playful glare as she greeted Ichika.

"Ichika darling! To what do I own the pleasure?!" Takumi shouted extravagantly as he walked over to her with arms spread out in a hug.

Ichika harrumphed before released her newly trained berserk Dragon Ki of the ninth scale [Glacial Fortification].

Takumi gasped as he could feel the killing intent coming off her, although the last thing Ichika would want is to kill him.

Misao explained that this was the reason she had been so absent over the days, she had been busy training Ichika and bringing her closer to the breakthrough point. After congratulating her on her achievement, Takumi proceeded to activate the slot.

As soon as he injected the energy, he felt something extra passing through him, which was isolated to a point on his back. Turning around he noticed it to be Misao resting her palm on his back.

No way, not her too?! He thought, misunderstanding the actions.

"It's called a 'Force Link'," she explained, "it allows Dragon Hosts to fuse their dragon force, just watch."

The ground rumbled and golems were summoned once more, but they had a different appearance than before. Along with the original design, they had sheets of wind infused into their bodies acting like joints; The scale activated was [Wind Dragon | Fifth Scale: Tornado Battalion]

The three of them each attacked a group of golems, circulating the dragon force through their bodies but not with enough precision to condense it themselves.

「Kōri no ha!」(Ice Blade) Ichika took a downward swing of her katana, creating a cold energy slash which sliced three golems to bits.

"What do you think will happen when we break through?" Takumi asked, raising his palm while using [Spacial Reign] to act on the gravity of a golem, crushing it.

"I don't know," Mizuko answered, "there hasn't been a single dragon host to reach the second growth, I don't know why though.

Shrugging, he continued to fight, it seemed that there were no records of dragon hosts breaking through.

"I think it's going to be some sort of evolution," Misao took a wild guess as she executed her favoured way of killing: decapitation.

Half an hour passed and the golems were cut down to three giant golems, the dragon force in each of them had now condensed a great deal in the pit of their stomachs, reaching critical mass; As they charged at the golems, using their strengthening scale to enhance their power, the energy erupted.

They each arrived at the tenth scale and broke through it.

The three of them lost their footing as they were greeted by a wave of pain so severe they fell to the ground, the golems shattered as there was nothing powering them anymore. Ichika and Takumi growled in pain while Misao just gritted her teeth.

As they writhed in pain on the outside, a transformation was taking place on the inside. The energy flowed roughly through their channels, slicing through each of their breath points as it invaded their breathing chamber, mixing with the ki inside.

An unknown amount of time passed and the pain subsided, with beads of sweat on their bodies, they rose from the ground; there were some miniscule changes to their bodies as they had successfully broken through to Phased Dragon. Their skin was just a bit darker and eyes brighter, besides that, the true change took place on the inside.

They felt pleased with the achievement and decided to have Reiki check on their state later, but now it was time to celebrate.