'Hmm..this is troublesome.'

Elena stood not far from where she originally defeated the assassination squad.

It hadn't been too long since the battle ended, and though she tortured the man named Dylan for over an hour already, he didn't seem to want to spit out any information.

And along with that trouble..

"You Black Dragon Clan guys are seriously annoying," Elena muttered.

Surrounding her were over 200 assassins, a group assembled to counter her the second the original 19 were teleported back to wherever they went.

The part that annoyed Elena, however, was the fact that none of them were nearly strong enough to make a difference.

"Let's just get this over with." She sighed.

"Damon, take care of them yourself. I'll give you two moves."

Upon Elena's words, a figure appeared before her like a blur.

The Valhalla Soul named Damon panned his gaze over the crowd, the blue flames that acted as his eyes flickering in arrogance.

He raised his sword without hesitation.

The assassins moved at the same time.

But the outcome was already known. It was impossible for these troops to do anything.

Damon's sword slashed once. A beautiful white sword pattern formed in the air, depicting a world-devouring wolf howling into the void.

The wolf looked down upon the world below with eyes indifferent to all things.

And then, it slammed down its paw.

RUMBLE!

BOOM!

The earth exploded. Half of the assassins that were in the middle of their charge were skewered by claw-like protrusions that rose according to the wolf's will.

Damon's sword swang once more.

This time, the effect was a single line cut through the air. It was a seemingly simple attack, however, as soon as the remaining assassins moved to avoid it, the attack split into countless branches that chased them to the ends of the earth until they were pierced.

Just as Elena ordered, they were slaughtered in two moves.

"As I thought, it was a terrible idea to send those wastes."

A voice resounded. A woman with beautiful black hair and golden eyes walked into the scene, unaffected by the surrounding gore.

"You are?" Elena asked.

"Hm, you can call me Dalia." The woman responded as she glanced at the corpses on the ground in disgust.

"You're here for them?" Elena questioned again. historical

Dalia sneered inadvertently. "Don't lump me in with these useless wastes. The clan elders seem to value these lower-level troops, but what's the point in having them if they'll just die randomly like this?"

"I am indeed a member of the Black Dragon Clan, but I'm not here on the clan's orders."

She turned her gaze to Elena with a condescending smirk.

"Today, I've come to see whether or not you're worthy of our clan's attention."

Elena's eyes narrowed. "And are you worthy of judging me?"

"Don't be so hostile from the start. I'm also a believer in give and take. If you manage to impress me, I'll tell you some of the information you're probably looking for right now." Dalia spoke convincingly.

"Impress you? Don't make me laugh. A brat like you can do nothing but spout bullshit and act high and mighty. Instead of impressing you, I think I should teach you a lesson for your parents!" Elena sneered.

"I don't know if you know this, but I don't like uncooperative people."

"And I don't like pretentious bitches, so I guess we're on the same page."

Dalia glared at Elena, clearly taking offense to her words.

"I wanted to talk a little before we started fighting, but you're just itching to be killed, aren't you?"

Elena rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Are you a practitioner or a storyteller? If you want to fight, then just fight!"

Elena no longer entertained conversation.

The aura radiating from this Dalia was far stronger than the men that'd just died. It was obvious that not only her strength, but her status and access to information were much greater than theirs.

Elena's sword came down on her head incredibly fast, moving as a blur in the air. The fluctuations of mana on the sword were intrinsically different than what Elena had shown thus far, evidently containing more profundity.

Dalia's eyes narrowed as she stepped back and avoided the strike. She waved her hand and summoned a beautiful black and gold fan, swiping it through the air and clashing it against Elena's sword.

Clang!

A dull metallic collision rang out. Despite its size, the fan was able to hold off Elena's sword with ease.

However, Dalia was well aware of the nuances of her weapon. Head-on collision wasn't it's strong suit.

Keeping her body in a mostly laid-back posture as if she had no desire to entertain the fight, Dalia scraped the edge of her closed fan across Elena's sword and pushed the latter weapon out of the way.

When Elena's guard was broken, she immediately struck out, piercing the fan into Elena's body.

Elena dodged easily, bringing her swords up to counter. However, Dalia was clearly aware of how she would move. When the fan was only a centimeter away from Elena, Dalia snapped it open, slamming her arm to the side with an extremely energetic motion.

Shing!

The sharpened fan blade cut across Elena's stomach and created a terrifying gash. Blood spurted into the air and covered Dalia's vision.

And as she waited for the counterattack to come through the blood fog..

'Yggdrasil.'

The ground under her feet rumbled.

BOOM! BANG! BANG!

A thick tree trunk burst out of the earth and encapsulated her, growing high into the sky.

Dalia's eyes narrowed as she observed her new prison. She still had minor mobility, and using that, she attempted to destroy the tree trunk entirely and escape.

Unfortunately for her, it wasn't that simple.

'Siphon.'

Elena gave a command and the divine tree Yggdrasil responded. Its branches glowed with greenish-white light and its trunk went alit with complex patterns,

Dalia immediately felt the change. Her life force, her blood vitality, was slowly being sucked away by something.

"You actually played such a dirty trick?!" Dalia yelled in fury.

"What dirty trick? Did you expect me to hold back while fighting you?" Elena replied with a smirk.

Dalia's eyes sharpened into daggers that pierced through her enemy.

"Fine, if that's how you want to play, let's play then!"

ROOOOAAAAAR!!!

Dalia opened her mouth and roared into the heavens, producing a sound that absolutely shouldn't have been possible with her small throat.

Her body expanded, wings exploded out of her spine, a tail extended itself from her lower back, and most of all..

Dalia's figure morphed into something else entirely, growing bigger and bigger until even Yggdrasil could no longer hold it.

BANG!

The manifested tree burst into a rain of splinters, and out of it emerged an enormous black dragon that looked down on the world in contempt.

Elena grinned when she saw it.

Really, she loved prideful beasts the most.

A 4th class beast's human form was a compounded version of their power, their greatest and most powerful form.

However, beasts were extremely prideful.

It genuinely wasn't rare to see them return to their beast forms in battle, even if it did make them comprehensively weaker.

And while it was true that their familiarity with their bodies would give them greater skill than they had in human form..

A bigger target was just a bigger target.

And now that Dalia had turned herself into a bigger target, how could Elena just leave her be?