Karen gave the heavily injured Arakeya time to rest until he was finally able to speak again.
Then, while staring at the dark clouds gathering overhead during the pause, Arakeya spoke.
"I am immortal."
The moment he finished those strange words, the hand resting on his abdomen began glowing with a blue-green light.
Karen instantly became alert.
A few seconds later, Arakeya stood back up as if he had never been injured at all. He rolled his neck and stretched his arms casually, making the previous battle look like nothing more than a warm-up.
But Karen knew Arakeya hadn't been warming up.
The blood on Arakeya's face had disappeared, and his complexion looked perfectly healthy again.
Realizing a certain possibility, Karen's expression turned serious as he cautiously asked,
"What did you do? Is that a dragon healing magic?"
"Correct. "I Am Immortal" is a dragon healing magic. You didn't know, did you? Just like the light magic used by the Brave and the Saintess, dragon magic can also heal the user."
"I honestly didn't know that."
Karen answered truthfully. He had never imagined dragons possessed healing magic.
Arakeya then said proudly,
"It's normal that you didn't know. When you hunted down Samidoride, you cut off his wings immediately, so he never had the chance to use it."
Arakeya's words confirmed Karen's suspicion that a dragon's wings were the source of their magic. Their wings were incredibly important.
"So you're planning to transform back into a dragon?"
Karen assumed Arakeya intended to fight him in his true form this time, though unlike Samidoride, he clearly wouldn't recklessly expose his wings to be severed.
"Impossible."
However, Arakeya immediately denied Karen's guess. He simply didn't want to repeat Samidoride's tragedy.
Gripping the Qilin Grave Spoon once more, Arakeya took that same amateurish sword stance, signaling the start of the second round.
Karen and Arakeya both prepared themselves, waiting for an opening to attack.
Then, as if the storm itself understood the tension between them, the first raindrop fell into the space separating them.
At that exact moment, man and dragon charged at each other once again.
The instant they entered striking range, the metal staff and Qilin Grave Spoon collided over and over again at blinding speed, as though they had exchanged nine blows within a single second.
Not a single part of their bodies remained still.
At times Karen advanced while Arakeya retreated.
At other times Arakeya pushed forward while Karen stepped back.
But the sound of weapons clashing never stopped for even a moment.
Yet this still wasn't Karen's full speed.
He gradually accelerated, turning his attacks into a relentless storm like raging tidal waves.
Arakeya slowly began falling behind.
At first he had still been able to block and counterattack, but now he couldn't even retaliate anymore. All he could do was desperately defend himself while his body accumulated countless injuries.
Realizing things were going badly, Arakeya attempted to use "I Am Immortal" again to heal himself and drag Karen into a battle of attrition.
He believed Karen's stamina would eventually run out. When that happened, he could finally switch from defense to offense.
"I am imm— Guh?!"
Just as Arakaya tried to chant the healing spell, Karen suddenly smashed the side of his neck with the staff.
"Don't even think about using magic."
"You litt— Urgh?!"
Arakaya became irritated and tried to curse at Karen, but Karen assumed he was trying to cast the magic again and immediately struck the other side of his neck.
"I said no magic."
"But— Gah?!"
"How many times do I have to repeat myself?"
At this point, the moment Arakeya opened his mouth, Karen interrupted him with another strike regardless of what he was trying to say.
After getting hit three times, Arakeya finally understood.
He immediately held the Qilin Grave Spoon horizontally in front of his neck and used all his strength to keep it from being knocked away. This time, Karen's side strike was blocked by both ends of the spoon.
Then Arakeya shouted the healing magic at the top of his lungs.
"I am immortal!"
The magic name was completed.
Blue-green light burst from both his hands as the injuries covering his body rapidly healed.
At the same time, Arakeya leaped backward over ten meters, creating distance between himself and Karen.
But instead of pressing the attack, Karen stopped where he was and pointed the magic-core end of the staff toward Arakeya.
Overall, I was honestly shocked.
In terms of raw strength, the general couldn't even overpower eighty percent of my power. As for speed, it wasn't even close. At the start of the fight, I'd only been using around thirty percent of my speed to deal with him.
I'd held back because I wanted to test his strength, speed, and defense first. I was worried he wouldn't survive a full-powered strike from me.
But now it looked like my restraint had been the right decision.
Still... what the hell was that Qilin Grave Spoon made of?
I'd hit it countless times, yet there wasn't even a crack on it. Just what kind of absurd material had it been forged from?
And dragon magic had shocked me too.
Before the fight, I'd even gone out of my way to think about healing the general after forcing him into submission. Turns out that concern had been completely unnecessary.
Still, the name of that magic was painfully cringeworthy.
When the general shouted it out loud, he looked like some arrogant teenager who'd never been beaten down by reality.
And yes, I could've kept chasing him down.
But he'd already realized he couldn't beat me physically, so he deliberately created distance to shift the battle into a field where he held the advantage.
The reason I didn't pursue him was because I was already sick of this endless cycle.
I beat him half to death.
He healed himself.
I beat him half to death again.
He healed himself again.
It was basically an infinite loop.
And a prolonged fight was bad news for me too.
The longer Enhancement Magic stayed active, the more unbearable the pain would become once I canceled it. By the end of it, I'd probably be crying my eyes out, screaming for my parents, and rolling around on the ground in agony.
The only reason nobody had seen that side of me before was because I never let them.
Especially Lina.
If she saw me like that, she'd definitely lose all respect for me.
But while all those thoughts passed through my head, only a few seconds had gone by in reality.
The general had already fully recovered and was now pretending to be tough again.
"If I'd eaten breakfast first, I wouldn't be at a disadvantage."
"Good thing you didn't. Otherwise you'd just be vomiting everywhere."
I immediately fired back.
I was absolutely certain the result would've been the same even if he'd eaten.
The general angrily pointed the spoon at me.
"You little brat...!"
"What?"
I tilted my chin upward slightly, continuing to provoke him.
Then the next thing he said genuinely surprised me.
"Are you really human? You surpass me in every category."
"Of course. One hundred percent pure human. No mixed blood from any other race. You can trust that."
I raised both thumbs while still gripping the metal staff.
"Then explain why a human can overpower a dragon like me."
"Secret."
There was no way I'd tell anyone about Enhancement Magic. That was a secret I intended to take to my grave.
Then the general suddenly said something strange.
"It's because the god, right?"
"Huh? What do gods have to do with this?"
"I can distinguish the scent of every race. Those with the royal constitution possess a scent I've never encountered before. I know they're pure humans, so I concluded it must be the scent of a god I've never met."
"Do I have that scent too?"
"You do."
"Really? Anyway, since you claim to know every race... do you know where the Mystic Sea Domain of the merfolk is?"
Who cared about scents? What mattered was the location of the Enchanted Sea.
"Kill me, and I'll tell you."
"The hell are you supposed to say it after you're dead?"
The moment I heard that completely illogical statement, I immediately shot he down.