Chapter 348 - Dragon Spirit

"What's up?"

Mercury looked at the person that now stood next to him as the deafening music kept on playing, needless to say, this was the person he had been forced to train under a few months prior, Mars, wearing silk pajamas, Mercury sighed before he complained

"You know you could have taken the time to get dressed…"

"Yeah I could, but then you would be dead, kid"

Mars looked up at the oriental smoke dragon before he sighed and muttered

"Maybe I should have worn my armor after all? Alright, you can do this, remember Chloe will be pissed if I am late"

Mercury looked at Mars and sighed again, then Mars asked Mercury as he pointed to the oriental smoke dragon

"Who even is that? Oi wispy dragon, what's your name?"

The smoke dragon gazed at Mars, it was clearly intimidated by his presence still it sounded carefree as the overlaid voice once again echoed in the heads of the people of Cana

[Name~ Name~ Name~ What's a name? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA~ Mars, we have heard of you~ Are you sure you want to interfere and keep me from what's mine~?]

Mars showed a slight smile that gave Mercury a chill down his spine, it was laced with killing intent

"So you're saying that a living god is your property?"

[AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I CREATED THAT WEAPON IT'S MINE!]

Mars narrowed his eyes before he muttered

"A member of the dragon council… That means… Oh shit…"

Mercury tilted his head and asked the obvious

"What does it mean?"

Mars sighed before he explained

"It means that this… Dragon Spirit is beyond divine intervention and that it is literally indestructible"

"Isn't that bad?"

"Nah, you might not be able to kill a spirit with a shot to the head… That's why I brought a sword"

Mars slashed out with the bone sword casually, still, that casual swing created a bright tear of light streaked across the sky, in an instance the streak of light hit the dragon spirit severing its head from the rest of its body, however, the black smoke that made up the dragon spirit simply morphed together again before it let out a roar and its eyes glinted with a red light before it began moving as it whipped its tail after Mars, Mercury was blown away by the wind pressure alone and crashed into a building from where he hurriedly looked over to see if Mars survived that and found that he had disappeared, a few moments later Mars' voice sound out from the sky

"That was rude… Well then, I have exactly 4 minutes to beat your scaly ass so let's get this underway!"

Mars' sword arm turned into a blur as he slashed out more than a hundred times a second with the bone sword, sending a solid beam of sword lights flying at the dragon spirit, the raw destructive power could be felt by the entire city of Cana, the dragon spirit let out a deafening roar as its red eyes lit up and fired a beam of red destructive energy at Mars that commented as he effortlessly dodged

"Eye beams!? Even though I appreciate the classics but that one simply lacks imagination!"

[Then how about we start playing for real~?]

The dragon spirit let out a burst of hysterical sounding laughter as the twisted visages of tortured children that made up its scales began screaming, Mercury could feel it, the mana that suddenly was under the influence of the dragon spirit increased exponentially before it opened its maw wide and screamed sending out waves of energy that seemed to violently compress the space around them, the waves echoed out with blistering speed towards Mars that narrowed his eyes slightly before he let out a low growl and responded with his own spell, Mercury and the rest of the city of Cana felt air shake with heat as flame spear's appeared around Mars before they were fired off at the dragon spirit's, meeting its attack head-on, the two might attacks met causing a giant explosion in the air above the city of Cana, Mercury felt awe seeing all this, but the figure that had appeared next to him wasn't so impressed

"He's holding back again…"

"Wait, what?"

Mercury looked over at Victoria that was sitting next to him nonchalantly licking her paw as her horns flashed again

"He's holding back… Well, that's a given since his full output could glass the entire desert in an instant, he's really gone soft with age…"

Mercury felt a chill down his spine after a bit he let out a slightly nervous hollow laugh as he asked

"This is soft?"

"Yeah, you should have seen him in his prime… Well enough about ancient history, I'll go and help him out"

"Sure…"

VIctoria then melted into her own shadow that then disappeared in the sunlight, Mercury looked back up at the fight that was still ongoing and saw the dragon spirit let out another roar before it was suddenly skewered by shadow spears if it was a fair fight before now the odds were definitely on Mars and Victoria's side, Mercury felt his sense of danger fall as he suddenly realized that his hands were shaking, not with fear, but with excitement

'This is a real living god…'

A few minutes later the fight seemed to have drawn to an end as the dragon spirit let out a vengeful roar before the overlaid children voices appeared in the head of the people present

[I'LL REMEMBER THIS MARS! ONCE I AM WHOLE I'LL DESTROY YOU!]

Then the dragon spirit retreated back into the shattered space that quickly restored to normal, Mercury sighed before he showed a smile, then Mars appeared next to him and clapped him on the shoulder

"Good job not pissing yourself"

"Yeah… To be honest I was prepared to die a few times to drive that dragon spirit back…"

Mars sighed and asked

"You haven't leveled up once since we met last have you?"

Mercury averted his eyes, this caused Mars to sigh before he showed a wide smile

"This means its time for some more training~"

"Wait!"

"Wait for what?"

"If you want me to follow with you I have a single request"

Mars nodded and spoke

"Alright since I've just saved your ass it's right that I listen to your request! Did you really think I would say that?"

"Well just listen… Since you like training people so much, why not bring some more people?"

Mars' eyelid twitched slightly before he suddenly showed a knowing smile and spoke

"All right, I'll give you 10 minutes to gather your women, hurry along now"

Mercury instantly disappeared from view as he sped off to get the girls, as soon as he was gone Mars let out a long sigh and muttered

"I really am much too old for this…"

Victoria appeared next to him and rubbed her head against his hand as her horns flashed

"Is it acting up again?"

Mars sighed

"...Yeah, I have to face the truth sometime, our time in this mortal world is about to come to an end"

Victoria's horns flashed again

"Is that why you're so keen on training him?"

"...Perhaps, maybe it's just sentiment that comes with age?"

"Maybe…"

About 7 minutes later Mercury showed up again with the entire group in tow, this included Julia, Marie, Asma, Jey, Ben, and Naila, Julia narrowed her eyes once she saw Mars and spoke

"Don't tell me this is the guy you were talking about Mercury?"

Marie showed a rare frosty look on her face and muttered

"So this is the guy that took Mercury away for a whole month…"

Asma tilted her head and commented

"Pajamas? Old man... Sleepy?"

Mars was unfazed by their comments and showed a slight smile before he asked Mercury

"So… This is them?"

"Yeah"

Then he walked up to Julia and peered into her eyes, Julia glared back at Mars that nodded to himself a few times before he walked over and looked Marie over that also glared at him before he also nodded to himself, then he walked over and looked at Asma and nodded to himself again before he spoke

"Too bad Mercury"

"What?"

Mars showed a smug smile as he declared

"My women are cuter!"

"What! Take that back! Besides they're not all here!"

"Oh yeah? Got a secret girlfriend too shy to come out? Or are you afraid I'll steal her from you?"

"Well, she's a little shy… But she's kind of scared of you"

"Wait… It's not Party is it?"

Mercury averted his gaze, this caused Mars to sigh after a bit of awkward silence Mars spoke

"You know I'm not really mad at Party?"

"Says the guy that decapitated her avatar"

"... That was more to keep my promise than a fit of anger, it's Elsa that hate her guts for what she did to our child"

"...What did she do exactly?"

"Well… Elsa will kill me if I bring up ancient history, anyway you guys ready to go?"

Mercury looked around at the group before he nodded, then Mars nodded and showed a smile as he declared

"Then off we go!"