Within his hidden facility, an elf with a sharp and serious look glared down at several holographic windows emerging before him, several technological creations were showcased through images, as their blueprints were being upgraded by him manually.
"…"
The elven man seemed to be restless, accustomed to this task, he immersed himself on his own work and seemed to not stop unless someone were to interrupt him.
He began to quickly input several codes through a holographic keyboard, moving around these floating windows around as she continued working hard for his own projects.
And as he immersed on his work, a sudden sensation reached his senses.
For a moment, he stopped working, as he sat there in silence while looking at the holographic windows.
He quickly waved his hand and made it all disappear.
"Black is finally dead? Well, it was very unlikely for him to recover anyways." Sighed the elf.
He looked back into a device on his wrist, and pressed a button on it, another holographic window showed up, as he began to search for secret information he had stored in there.
"We'll scratch him for now. He had already failed once, those that fail once are very likely to fail one more anyways…." He sighed.
Then, he suddenly received a call through the artifact on his wrist.
"So the others already know? They want a group call? Tch… I don't have the time to talk about useless pawns." Sighed the man.
He quickly pressed "accept" and started the video call with the rest.
Several figures emerged within the holographic window, some of them had covered their faces with darkness, and others simply didn't wanted to show their appearances, a few others didn't mind it whatsoever, such as a red-haired Vampiress.
"You know I am very busy right now, right? What do you want? I will not mourn the death of a dispensable unit…" said the elf.
"Green, you're cold as always."
"Right, we shouldn't had expected empathy from him."
"Black was the first of us that was capable of almost reaching the Venerable state…"
"Yes, but he died miserably at the end, weakling to the very bitter end, now he died even more miserably, a second time. What's there to mourn here than only feel embarrassment over being related with such a failure?" asked the elf.
"…"
"Black was perhaps not the best at communicating, but what he did was very helpful."
"We all share the same comprehension of Laws, Green, that he reached so far in his Darkness/Shadow Elemental Law has given us such a comprehension as well."
"Almost a hundred percent… is not something to make us mock at him."
"We were made as fragments so we could collect such comprehension from each one of us."
"I know. So what? That was his duty, this is the duty of all of you, and mine. You want me to clap at him? Why would I care?" asked the elf.
"Please, stop arguing over useless things, I don't care about Black either, I just wanted to adress something else, you group of incompetents." Sighed the Vampiress, Red.
The other colors quickly fell silent as the elf looked at Red.
"What is it? You were in Jotunheim. Do you know who killed his fragment? I assume some sort of Righteous Immortal caught him off guard?" asked the elf.
"…A mortal." Said Red.
The Vampiress revealed the truth as the colors were suddenly left speechless.
"What? A mortal?"
"Did you drink too much blood lately, Red?"
"You must be drunk of drinking too much blood, you've just said another nonsense…"
"It is not nonsense, it was incredibly strong… a beast at that, but it was a mortal beast. It had the qualities of a mythical beast at that, but it was clearly a mortal beast!" said Red.
"That's…"
"A-A mortal could defeat Black's last soul fragment?!"
"But what kind of power…"
"And even more, how can a mortal know how to destroy souls?"
"Was it a death magic user?"
"Even death magic users as mortals shouldn't be capable of destroying souls, it is a very advanced technique that immortals learn…"
The elf looked at the Vampiress with sharp eyes.
"What kind of beast?" he asked.
"It was… well, look by yourself, but I believe it was something of an ice dragon… but it had a very bizarre appearance." Said Red.
She showed the pictures to the others present in the video call, as the elf squinted his eyes.
It was unrecognizable from what it previously looked like…
But the "ice dragon" words really made him think of him.
The one that came back to that one village he destroyed… bringing back the Unique Skill user child back.
His strength was enough to defeat his powerful drones that could even compare to Rank 3 Peak Stage Magus back then, and even this insolent dragon insulted him back multiple occasions.
Since then, he hadn't seen him. Of course, he didn't knew that the one armor-wearing ice giant that defended Lord Ice Moon was also this dragon, because Green had no idea that he could transform into an ice giant to begin with.
But what other ice dragon would be able to do all of this? there was no other ice dragon capable of having this level of power at this mortal stage.
"So it is him… there is no other option… He has… evolved into such a hideous appearance? Fascinating…" said Green.
"Green, you know this thing?!" asked Red.
"You do?!"
"When did you met this monster?"
The elf smiled back at them as his emerald eyes shone with a bright and eerie emerald light…
"Half a year ago… I only met him once but now that I recall, it was an ice dragon… to think there could be another ice dragon just as incredible? It is just most likely the same, he had just evolved… Of course, he was a Unique Skill user after all… Couldn't expect less from this nuisance… If it was able to annoy me, it is definitely a strong being," said Green.
