Randal still felt absolute incredulity as Umbra, the beast he had cut in half and killed, somehow came back to life with Time Essence. He had never imagined something like that being possible at all and somehow here it had happened right in front of him.

Ning tilted his head and raised his eyebrow. “So… are you going to answer me?” he asked.

“I… I am Randal Tarmon,” the young man quickly said. “I am a High lord of this Country.” He stood straight and proud after introducing himself.

“Good to know,” Ning said. “Now, why did you kill my beast? I don’t suppose someone as big as you can be paid to do what you did.”

“I came here to find out what was happening,” the young man said. “And found that there was a beast here killing all these men. I had to act. Anyway, why am I explaining this to you? Who are you exactly?”

“I’m the owner of this shop,” Ning said. “And you are trespassing right now.”

“The owner?” Randal asked. “Then… you’re the one that made those recent popular weapons.”

“I did,” Ning answered.

“Oh, I actually came to meet you. I—”

Ning put up his hands to stop him. “You killed my beast after trespassing on my property. Do you think you can leave just like that?” he asked.

“What? What do you want then?” Randal asked, his face growing serious. The source of ths content is o(v)elꜰre.et

“Compensation,” Ning said. “Either kill yourself for what you did to Umbra or give us something of equal value to your life.”

Randal looked confused for a second. “There’s no way I’m doing that,” he said.

“If you won’t do either, then I’ll have to act,” Ning said, cracking his knuckles. “Umbra, can you bring us into your Shadow World?”

Umbra, still dazed, found herself nodding and activating her technique. Immediately, the three of them and the other dead bodies disappeared into the Shadow World once more.

Randal immediately brought out his Essence Soul, the Lord of the Skies, and prepared for a fight. Ning looked toward him and gave him a smile.

“A Dragon, huh? Didn’t think one of those existed in this world,” Ning said. “No, one doesn’t exist here. Where did you come to see that beast?”

Randal’s eyes widened in surprise. It grew fierce when he heard Ning talk about other worlds and grew suspicious.

“Well, let’s start then.”

Tendrils of black escaped from under Ning, using the Shadow around them to hide their Darkness. They shot out toward Randal, who quickly created a spatial barrier around him, stopping all the black tendrils from reaching him.

To his surprise, the attack was… weak. So very weak. He frowned a little.

‘Is he really just in the Essence Manifestation realm?’ he wondered. He decided to test by creating a small spatial anomaly next to Ning to test.

Space expanded next to Ning, then broke, and then collapsed on itself to destroy everything it touched.

Since it was space itself being manipulated, Ning didn’t have any way to stop himself from being dragged along and had his left hand instantly destroyed into a thousand pieces.

Randal was taken aback by how easily he hurt the man in front of him. ‘Why didn’t he dodge? Why didn’t the beast help him?’ He couldn’t make sense of the situation.

When the space healed, however, Ning’s hand returned to how it was. Not a single wound or even a drop of blood remained on him.

“No way!” Randal cried out in surprise. “How did you… how…”

“Not bad,” Ning said softly, before grinning. “It seems I’ll have to be a tad more serious. I can tell Darkness won’t work on you, and I don’t have much Time to work with. I’ve gotta change my tactics then.”

Ning’s core changed and another one came to the front.

Randal’s eyes went wide as he realized that other than Time and this Shadow-like Essence core, the man was using another one.

Another core… how could that be possible at all?

A loud ringing sound filled Randal’s ears, immediately causing him to cringe and grab his ears. The dragon behind him fidgeted as well, trying to use space to manipulate the sound, but it didn’t work.

Without focusing, Randal couldn’t make a vacuum with his space powers as that especially needed quite a bit of concentration. He did manage to do it in the end, finally relieving himself of the constant pain.

Once he was free, he started attacking Ning with his Space Essence, creating more anomalies and spatial slashes to deal with him. He didn’t want to kill a man such as that, but if he was to try and kill him, then Randal wouldn’t hesitate for a second.

Ning gave a mocking grin and suddenly Randal felt Ning’s Essence Core change once again. This time, it was something else.

Ning pointed his finger toward Randal and shot something invisible.

Randal tried to use his Space powers to divert the projectile, but when he used his Space Essence, he found it to not do what he wanted it to. It was as if all Essence he had sent to do the task had suddenly gone Inert.

The projectile came close to him, and Randal tried to disappear. But, Ning had changed his core to a fifth one, one that Randal knew very well.

“Space Essence!?!?!” he shouted out loud, unable to believe his own senses. He tried to teleport away, but space firmed around him, making him force the teleportation just that much.

By the time he was ready to teleport though, the ball of nothingness was on him.

Randal finally realized what it was that had struck him.

Void Essence.

“Dammit!” Randal cried as the power around him failed. “Void essence? How do you have that?”

Ning walked closer. “Oh, I have many,” he said and then his Core changed once more.

Randal’s face paled at the arrival of the new core.