It had been two weeks since Goetia's arrival in the Nasca Empire.
Goetia walked with his solemn gait, his figure standing out among the passersby — not due to extravagance, but because of the unnatural way his eyes swept over everything.
His gaze, deep red eyes like bottomless wells, slid over merchants, artisans, and laughing children along the cobbled streets. Yet no trace of emotion ever touched his face; only a flawless mask of indifference.
His steps led him to a shop he had frequented over the past weeks: a small wooden establishment adorned with dried flowers and a weathered sign that read "Erun Bakery." As he crossed the threshold, the soft chime of the door announced his arrival.
"Ah, good day, Mr. Goetia," greeted the baker — a gray-haired man with a kind demeanor, his hands dusted in flour. "The usual, I presume?"
Goetia gave a small nod, his deep, harmonious voice resonating after a brief pause.
"Yes. One loaf of rye and a honey bread."
The baker smiled broadly as he wrapped the order.
"You know… ever since you started coming here, my sales have gone up. People seem calmer when they see you walking around the city, even if you haven't noticed." He chuckled softly as he handed over the bag. "Here you go, on the house today."
Goetia took the bag with a measured gesture.
"That won't be necessary."
"Consider it an investment in my peace of mind," the baker replied with a shrug. "See you tomorrow, Mr. Goetia."
After pausing for a few seconds to glance at the baker, Goetia stepped back into the midday light. Just a few meters away, León — the orphan boy who had started following him since his arrival in the city — was waiting.
"You're late!" the boy complained, his tone more cheerful than annoyed.
Goetia tilted his head and handed him the bag of bread without a word.
"I wasn't late. I took precisely the time required."
León laughed and, as usual, began trailing behind him, eagerly devouring the honey bread.
Their path continued through the cobbled streets until they reached the northern gates of the city, where two guards clad in iron armor stepped aside to let them pass.
Both merely nodded respectfully upon seeing Goetia. Despite not being a formal citizen, his aura and demeanor had earned him an odd kind of acceptance.
"Good day, Mr. Goetia. Off for your walk?"
Goetia returned the guard's greeting with a nod, and without another word, they crossed through the gates and into the open fields.
Beyond the walls stretched vast grasslands bathed in a gentle breeze. A few hundred meters away lay a clear stream. There, where the city's bustle faded, Goetia had made a habit of sitting on a rock near the shore.
Both of them sat down. León let his legs dangle over the water as he nibbled on what remained of the bread.
Several minutes passed in comfortable silence.
"Hey, Goetia," the boy finally broke the quiet, glancing sideways. "I've always wondered… where are you from? No one talks like you or moves like you."
Without shifting his gaze from the horizon, Goetia spoke in the same neutral tone.
"From a place very far away. Both in space and in time."
León furrowed his brow, intrigued.
"That far?"
"Far enough that memories fade and eras change more than once."
A brief silence followed before León asked with the childlike frankness that often unsettled Goetia.
"And why don't you smile? I haven't seen you smile even once since you came to the city. People say you should smile sometimes." León hesitated, then leaned closer and whispered,
"People whisper you're not human, and that your presence is what drove the bad spirits away."
Goetia turned his face slightly toward the boy, his sharp eyes observing him with a mix of curiosity and melancholy.
"Does that frighten you?"
León shook his head, smiling.
"No. If you wanted to hurt anyone, you would have already done it. I just… want to understand you. You're always alone, yet you never seem sad."
Goetia slowly closed his eyes. For a fleeting moment, his expression seemed less distant.
"I lost my family, boy. All of my brethren… I saw them die, saw them massacred as they screamed for me to save them. In the end, I watched them reduced to ashes while I could do nothing."
León didn't respond. He simply listened as Goetia's voice drifted — distant, devoid of any sign of pain — yet León could feel it. He could feel the agony, the sorrow, through his [Empathy] skill.
León's gaze drifted to his missing right arm. Goetia noticed the glance and understood the unspoken question.
"Yes, it is a consequence of that battle."
"And you can't make it grow back? I've seen people who can," León asked while pulling out another piece of bread from the bag.
"I could. But it helps me remember my defeat," Goetia answered indifferently.
At that moment, Goetia sharply lifted his gaze to the north. His eyes, two crimson abysses, narrowed with razor clarity.
Without a single audible word, nine translucent magic circles spiraled into existence, enveloping both him and León. The runes etched within pulsed with a cadence that made the very air tingle.
"Don't move," he ordered, his voice low and commanding.
The atmosphere tightened as Goetia watched the sky fracture with a guttural rumble.
A colossal explosion tore through the distant ground. A pillar of dust and debris rose, distorting the light as it surged toward them.
Goetia didn't flinch; the barrier surrounding them shattered the shockwave before it could reach them, leaving only a whisper in its wake. As the dust settled, a figure emerged from the crater.
A tall, dark-skinned man with stone-like muscles. His golden hair flowed like liquid fire, and tattoos resembling bolts of lightning ran across his body like living scars. His mere presence made the mana in the air vibrate.
Without changing his expression, Goetia funneled more energy into the shields protecting León, dissolving his own in a blink.
The man smiled, a dangerous glint in his eyes.
"Interesting… your essence is deep, abyssal. A demon, but not like the ones here." His voice rumbled like contained thunder as he cracked his knuckles, the sound tearing through the air. "I like it. I am Veldora, the Storm Dragon. And I've come to test your mettle, demon."
The last word was a roar. Veldora vanished in a flash of blue light. Goetia merely twisted his wrist as his fingers traced an intricate pattern, raising his arm just as Veldora appeared before him.
Fist met fist. The impact shattered the ground beneath them, the stream collapsed, and trees were uprooted with their roots. The shield protecting León cracked slightly from the force of the clash.
Veldora was hurled backward, letting out a wild laugh that echoed across the valley.
"Ha! So you're not fragile after all… excellent."
Wasting no time, Goetia raised his hand. Magic circles appeared around him, the runes glowing like compressed constellations.
From them burst chains as black as obsidian, interwoven with golden flashes of arcane codes. The chains shot forward like ravenous serpents toward Veldora.
Veldora tried to dodge, but the chains moved with meticulous precision, wrapping around his limbs and torso. Soon, his body was imprisoned, vibrating under the pressure.
Goetia didn't waste a breath. He appeared beside León in a blink.
"Leave. If you stay, you'll die," his voice brooked no argument.
The boy hesitated, his lips quivering with indecision.
"Are you… going to fight that alone?"
Goetia met his gaze with cold, calculating eyes.
"Don't worry about me. We'll meet again, boy."
Without waiting for a reply, he placed his hand on León's shoulder and teleported him away in a crimson flash to the safety of the city.
He had barely turned back when a whistle split the air. Veldora, with his chains shattered like fragments of glass, appeared above him, his arm wrapped in a crackling cyclone as his punch struck like a meteor.
Goetia was flung like a shadow, flying hundreds of meters before crashing into the mountainside. The rock fractured, and an avalanche of rubble buried him.
An instant later, his figure emerged with superficial wounds, his black robe billowing as the dust faded.
Before him, Veldora had assumed his true form — a colossal dragon, scales like obsidian and eyes like raging storms.
His mere presence caused the clouds above to gather and lightning to dance like furious whips.
"Miserable demon! You dare chain me like a mere slave? I will tear you apart!" He roared, and his voice shook the mountains. The thunder condensed into a halo of pure devastation.
Goetia narrowed his eyes. His mind analyzed each variable with utmost coldness.
—Chances of victory: 61.5%. Insufficient.
Sighing—not from exhaustion, but from acceptance. Goetia's figure vanished. A crimson flash tore across the sky, and he appeared before the colossal dragon.
Before Veldora could react, Goetia's fist—infused with a vortex of magicules and structured mana—crashed into the dragon's jaw.
The crack echoed like a torn thunderclap.
Veldora was catapulted backwards. His body plowed through several mountains as if they were mere mounds of sand, leaving a trail of devastation in his wake.
Goetia floated midair, his robes billowing. His gaze shifted toward the city.
"Safe… for now."
With a blink, he vanished again. He reappeared precisely where Veldora crashed down, his feet sinking into the fractured ground.
Veldora rose from the rubble, shaking off slabs of rock as if they weighed nothing more than feathers. His draconic wings unfurled in full magnificence, cloaking the sky like a living storm.
The dragon's amber eyes sparkled with a mixture of exhilaration and fury.
"Hah… HAHAHA. Now that's more like it," Veldora roared, his voice rumbling to the mountains. "You actually hit me. This is starting to feel like a real fight."
Goetia raised his arm. Around him, twelve golden magic circles emerged, spinning like gears inscribed with ominous glyphs.
His voice remained cold, never rising in pitch.
"I have no interest in entertaining you. I am merely neutralizing a threat that crossed my path."
Veldora curved his lips into a sharp grin.
"A threat, huh? Well… wouldn't be me if I didn't seem like one."
The sky roared as he dove down, wreathed in lightning.
Goetia didn't dodge. Instead, he raised his hand toward the heavens. Circles spawned dozens of spears of black light, each vibrating with a frequency that made reality itself crackle.
He hurled them with flawless precision, every projectile tracing impossible arcs toward Veldora's vital points.
Veldora beat his wings with a cyclonic blast, deflecting many—but not all. Three spears embedded into his scales, fracturing them and tearing bursts of draconic energy.
A guttural growl of pain reverberated from his throat.
Yet instead of recoiling, The wind ceased. The earth stopped trembling. Even the air seemed to thicken.
Veldora dropped his shoulders, relaxing his stance—but what emerged wasn't laxity… it was ominous calm, the prelude to an abyss.
His amber eyes narrowed. The smile on his face vanished.
"Enough games."
Veldora's voice flattened, stripped of all jocularity. His aura, which had previously fluctuated like a wild torrent, condensed. Every inch of his body began to emit a deep radiance, like white fire wrapped in purest darkness.
The dragon took a step. The ground beneath his feet didn't crack—it collapsed, caving in as though reality couldn't bear the weight of his existence.
Goetia's brow furrowed slightly. His internal calculations reconfigured at blistering speed.
Victory probability: 0.0047%
Acceptable margin of error: none.
Result: inevitable defeat.
And yet, he stood firm. A faint smile bloomed on Goetia's face.
Veldora disappeared. He didn't run, didn't fly. He simply vanished… and reappeared before Goetia, his fist slamming into Goetia's abdomen.
The impact was so brutal that Goetia shot off like a projectile, soaring across kilometers of terrain, piercing mountains and ranges as if they were soaked paper. Each collision left behind a shockwave that shattered the landscape.
Before his body could touch the ground, Veldora was already upon him. His knee drove into Goetia's back, shattering a dozen bones.
"You're strong, demon… but you are not me," he murmured, without a shred of arrogance, merely stating a fact.
With a twist, Veldora hurled him into the air and, in a blink, ascended after him. His tail lashed against Goetia mid-flight, propelling him toward the ground like a meteorite. The impact carved a crater several kilometers wide.
For the first time in eons, Goetia gasped for air. His body regenerated at a frantic pace, but the damage was severe. His skin had cracked, his robe was nearly gone, and he was bloodied.
From above, Veldora descended, his fist encased in an incandescent core of pure Draconic Will—a manifestation of his authority as a True Dragon.
Goetia had no time. His calculations confirmed the obvious: insufficient physical resistance.
For the first time since arriving in this strange, unfamiliar world, Goetia cursed his current weakness. He could reveal his true self, but that wouldn't change how fragile his core currently was.
It wouldn't help much—bringing more drawbacks than advantages. Taking all this into account, Goetia sighed in resignation.
His voice, cracked yet retaining the pride of what he was:
"Let me test this new spell on you, dragon. Rejoice… for you shall be my first subject," Goetia whispered with a chilling voice that reached Veldora's ears, making his scales bristle.
With determination, he raised his bloodied arm toward the sky.
"Inane. Tabula. Columnae. Genesis. Exitium. Sapientia."
As he finished his aria, above—beyond the visible stratosphere—hundreds of magical circles deployed in the void, connected by filaments of pure mana spanning dozens of kilometers.
It was a network of magical processing so colossal that its activation altered the structure of physical constants. Yet it was an enormous burden on Goetia.
Goetia opened his eyes, now golden like dying suns.
"Animusphere."
Hundreds of conceptual meteors began to materialize in low orbit, aiming directly at Veldora.
Veldora's expression remained unperturbed… but a spark of caution flickered in his gaze.
"…Hoh. Planetary ritual magic? No… it's more complex. This… this is interesting."
Soon, hundreds of meteors descended upon the planet—more precisely, upon Veldora.