Ren Ming paced the perimeter of the circle, his sneakers crunching softly against the conjured grass of the dimensional pocket. The air was still thick with the residual psychic sludge of the Death Trial—a heavy, suffocating miasma that smelled of phantom blood, ozone, and the brine of a deep, dark sea. It was the scent of terror.
He stopped, his gaze sweeping over the area. He looked at Tiamat, who was feigning disinterest on her rock but watching closely; at Grayfia, whose stoic mask had cracked just a fraction; and finally, at his trembling students.
They looked like crash test dummies that had survived hitting the wall at Mach 2, only to realize the car was gone. They were pale, shaking, and soaked in cold sweat. Their eyes were wide, seeing threats that weren't there.
"Here is the lesson for today," Ren began. His voice dropped the earlier playfulness entirely, replaced by a gravity that seemed to increase the atmospheric pressure of the entire dimension. "The secret to the Dao Heart."
He tapped his temple with a single finger. The gesture wasn't instructional; it felt like a command to rewrite their operating systems.
"Facing death isn't about being fearless. Let's get that straight right now. Only idiots, broken robots, and sociopaths are fearless. And it sure as hell isn't about accepting helplessness."
He crouched down, meeting Issei's hollowed-out gaze. The boy was still clutching his chest, waiting for his heart to stop again.
"It is about choosing to face the end, looking it dead in the eye, and calmly walking toward it, knowing that you will live even if you die."
The group stared at him. The silence was deafening. The concept was alien, a linguistic paradox that their terrified, adrenaline-flooded brains couldn't process.
"Live... even if we die?" Asia whispered. Her voice was barely audible. She was clutching her Twilight Healing rings so tightly her knuckles had turned bone-white. "Is that... a riddle, Ren-san?"
"It sounds like Zen nonsense," Kiba muttered, rubbing his temples as if trying to massage away the phantom sensation of razor blades slicing his skin. "Like a koan meant to distract us from the pain."
"It's not a riddle. It's a state of being," Ren Ming replied.
His voice shifted. It took on a strange, ancient cadence, a resonance that seemed to vibrate in their chests. It was the echo of the Immortal Soul Bone, channeling memories of cultivators who had stared down the collapse of stars and laughed.
"When your Will is strong enough, death becomes just another mechanic. A glitch in the system. You don't freeze because you know that your existence—your 'Self'—is heavier than your biology. You convince the universe that you are simply too stubborn to end. You force reality to acknowledge that your story isn't over."
He saw the blank looks. The confusion. Truthfully, Ren Ming wasn't expecting them to download this philosophy instantly.
In the cultivation worlds he drew power from—worlds like the Nine Worlds or the Eighth Desolate Era—lives were cheaper than rice. Cultivators walked a knife's edge where a wrong glance at a Young Master could result in nine generations being exterminated by a casual wave of a hand. The Gremory peerage had lived in a bubble of aristocracy, high school drama, and structured Rating Games with safety measures.
He was planting seeds in concrete, hoping they'd eventually crack the surface.
Ren Ming laughed, the sound breaking the heavy, funereal atmosphere like a sledgehammer through glass. "Okay, I see your faces. You think I'm speaking in fortune cookie quotes or trying to sound deep for the 'Gram. That's fine. You don't get it yet. But you will."
CLAP.
The sound was thunderous, startling Issei into a yelp.
"Alright, pity party over! Stand up! Your bodies are pumped full of adrenaline and survival hormones. We're going to use that cocktail before it turns into trauma. We're converting fear into fuel."
The rest of the day wasn't training; it was a reconstruction.
Ren Ming didn't let them rest. He didn't let them think. He threw them into a gauntlet of precision drills designed to override their panic with pure, unadulterated focus.
"Rias!" Ren Ming barked, pointing to a floating boulder the size of a minivan hovering fifty meters in the air. "I don't want you to blow it up. Anyone can blow it up. A stray devil with a stick of dynamite can blow it up. I want you to erase the center. Leave the shell intact."
Rias Gremory, sweaty, disheveled, and still trembling, extended her hand. Her Power of Destruction, usually a chaotic crimson torrent that screamed like a banshee, was flickering instability.
"I... I can't control the spread," she gasped, her magic flaring wildly.
"Tighten the core, Rias," Ren Ming corrected, walking past her with his hands in his pockets. "Your Destruction is leaking like cheap plumbing. It's wasteful. Imagine the energy isn't a bomb, but a needle. Thread it."
Rias gritted her teeth, her crimson hair whipping around her face as her demonic power surged. She closed her eyes, visualizing the void she had seen in her 'death.' She channeled that fear, compressing the chaotic energy of the Bael clan until it stopped screaming and started whining—a high-pitched frequency like a dying jet engine.
A beam the thickness of a pencil shot out—silent, dark, and terrifying.
It didn't explode. It didn't shatter the rock. It punched through the stone, simply deleting the matter it touched. The boulder remained hovering, but now, a perfectly circular hole existed through its center, the edges smooth as glass.
"Better," Ren Ming noted, his eyes scanning the energy signature with the Immortal Soul Bone. "You stopped trying to overpower the rock and started commanding it to cease existing. Good."
He moved to Issei, who was vibrating with the effort of holding the Boosted Gear in a state of flux. The red gauntlet was glowing ominously, steam hissing from the vents.
"Issei, stop thinking about boobs for five seconds," Ren Ming deadpanned, slapping the back of the boy's head lightly.
"Hey! I wasn't—"
"You were. I can see your aura, kid. It's pink. Cut it out." Ren's expression hardened. "The Dragon is angry because you're distracted. You're treating the Boosted Gear like a gas pedal that's either floored or off. You need to feather the throttle. Maintain the 'Boost' in a loop without releasing it. Let the power double, then hold it. Then double again, and hold it."
"It... it burns!" Issei grunted, veins bulging on his neck like thick cords. The heat radiating off him was intense enough to wither the grass at his feet. "It feels like my arm is going to explode!"
"It's supposed to burn. That's the weakness leaving the body," Ren Ming quipped, sounding like every gym bro he'd ever met in 2019, but with the menacing aura of a primordial god to back it up. "If you can't hold the fire inside, how are you going to burn anyone else? Suck it up."
He turned to Koneko. The Nekomata was punching a slab of granite three times her size.
Thud. Thud.
The rock cracked, but it was messy.
"Wrong," Ren sighed, shaking his head. "You're hitting the surface. Koneko, don't punch the rock. Push through the rock. There is no rock. Only your fist and the space behind it."
As he walked among them, correcting forms with casual taps of his finger that felt heavier than lead, Ren Ming analyzed their metrics.
Most beings in the DxD universe were horrifically inefficient. They were like sports cars driven by toddlers, wasting 90% of their energy as heat, light, or excess noise. Yesterday, the Gremory peerage was operating at maybe 15% efficiency—leaking power like a sieve.
Today? They were hitting 40%.
Their adaptability was frightening.
'It's not just the Scripture,' Ren Ming mused, watching Kiba effortlessly switch between sword styles, his movements becoming fluid, almost watery, as he generated swords not from the ground, but from the air itself. 'It's them. They have that protagonist energy. I've seen 'geniuses' in the Heavenly Dao Academy memories I inherited... kids with divine bloodlines and sect resources that would make the Vatican look broke. These guys? They're catching up to that standard in three days.'
Ren leaned against a tree, popping the tab on a can of sparkling water he'd pulled from his inner void. He liked this. He liked the grit.
In the Emperor's Domination universe, people were obsessed with bloodlines, ancient treasures, and destiny. But Ren Ming, with his modern American mindset, valued something else: The Grit.
And these high schoolers, despite their trauma, were grinding hard.
His gaze drifted to the jagged rock formation near the edge of the clearing.
Tiamat was still there. She wasn't filing her nails anymore. The arrogant posture of the Karma Chaos Dragon was gone. She was sitting in a meditative lotus position—a posture alien to a Western Dragon King—her chest rising and falling in a bizarre, syncopated rhythm.
In... hold... condense... spiral... out.
A faint, azure mist was gathering around her nostrils. The chaotic, poisonous energy of the Dimensional Gap—energy that usually corroded lesser beings—was being pulled into her. But instead of wild absorption, it was being refined. The breathing technique Ren Ming had tossed her was acting as a filter, stripping the impurities and sinking the pure power into her core.
It was a crude imitation of the Myriad Origin Scripture, but for a Dragon King to learn it this fast? It was terrifying.
She opened one eye, the vertical slit dilating as she caught Ren watching her.
She expected a smug comment. She braced for him to call her a lizard again. She prepared a retort about how his teaching methods were barbaric.
Ren Ming just gave her a subtle, blink-and-you-miss-it nod of approval. He raised his sparkling water in a mock toast, then turned back to shout at Issei.
Tiamat felt a strange warmth in her chest that had nothing to do with her draconian fire. She closed her eye, her jaw setting with renewed determination.
'I will master this,' she thought, the Azure energy swirling denser around her scales. 'I will become a Dragon God without the help of the Ophis snake or that Red idiot. And then, I will make this human acknowledge me properly. I will make him say my name with respect.'
By the time the artificial sun began to hemorrhage purple light across the horizon, signaling the end of the day, the group was exhausted. But it was a "good" tired. The terror of the Death Trial had faded, replaced by the endorphin rush of survival and the tangible, heavy sensation of improvement.
Ren Ming gathered them one last time.
"Good hustle today," Ren Ming said, sounding like a varsity coach after a winning game. "You faced the Reaper, stared into the abyss, and didn't wet yourselves too badly. I'll take it as a win."
He looked at Rias. She was sweaty, her Kuoh Academy uniform stained with grass and dirt, her hair a tangled crimson mess. Ren Ming thought she looked infinitely better like this than she ever did in a fancy dress or a carefully curated photoshoot. This was raw. This was real.
"You guys are adapting fast," Ren Ming said, his tone devoid of his usual sarcasm. "Tomorrow, we finish the foundation. If you keep this up, Riser Phenex won't just lose. He's going to need therapy."
Issei pumped his fist tiredly, a grin splitting his dirty face. "Hell yeah. I'm gonna smash that turkey's face in."
He reached down, offering her a hand.
"You good, lightning queen?" Ren Ming asked.
Akeno looked at his hand, then up at his face. His expression was open, relaxed. There was no lust, no scheme. Just a guy helping a girl up.
"I'm... better," Akeno said softly, taking his hand.
He pulled her up effortlessly, his grip firm and warm.
"The nightmare... it was cold," she whispered, stepping closer to him than strictly necessary. "Being erased... it felt like I never mattered. Like my existence was a mistake. But your voice pulled me back."
"I have that effect," Ren Ming winked, keeping hold of her hand for a beat longer than necessary, his thumb brushing over her knuckles. "I'm loud. Hard to ignore. Plus, it'd be a waste of a pretty face if you got erased."
Akeno squeezed his hand back, and for the first time in a long time, her smile reached her violet eyes. It wasn't the flirtatious mask of the Priestess of Thunder; it was just Akeno.
"Thank you, Ren."
"Don't mention it."
Ren Ming released her hand and turned to the group, his silhouette framed by the violet twilight.
"Go wash up. Eat something heavy—carbs and protein. Sleep. Tomorrow..." Ren grinned, and his teeth glinted with a predatory promise in the dim light. "Tomorrow we're going to get even more serious. I hope you like pain, because comfort is the enemy of progress."
As the peerage groaned and shambled off toward the conjured showers, Ren Ming stood alone in the clearing.
"Live even if you die," he whispered to himself, looking at his own palm where the lines of fate seemed to blur. "Easy to say. Hard to do. Let's see if I can teach them to actually believe it."
Rias stayed behind after everyone left for the showers.
She stood alone beside the shattered floating boulder—the one she managed to pierce clean through. Her fingers hovered over the clean, erased hole in the stone, feeling the lingering resonance of the Power of Destruction.
Ren Ming approached quietly, hands in his pockets.
"You look like you're thinking too hard," he said, his voice breaking her trance. "That rock isn't going to file a complaint."
Rias inhaled deeply but didn't turn around. "It's frustrating. I'm improving, I know that. But every time I try to refine the Power of Destruction, I feel like I'm wrestling my own lineage. I'm supposed to have perfect control, but…"
She clenched her fist, her nails digging into her palm. "I've always relied on instinct. On being a Gremory. And today made me realize I've been coasting. My brother... in the vision, he turned away from me because I was weak."
Ren stepped beside her—not close enough to crowd, but close enough to be present. He projected a calm stability that countered her anxiety.
"You know what I see?" Ren said, pointing at the crater. "Precision. Discipline. Intent. That wasn't bloodline talent. That was you."
Her breath hitched slightly. "You… think so?"
Ren turned toward her, his voice softer. "Rias, a princess who only wins because of her surname is boring. Honestly? That's cliché trash. You? You're interesting because you're terrified of failing—but you push anyway. That takes guts. That takes a Dao Heart."
Rias glanced up at him, her blue-green eyes shimmering faintly in the dim violet light. The vulnerability in her expression was something she never showed the peerage.
"You're the first person who's talked to me like that," she whispered. "Not as a noble. Not as a symbol. Just… me."
Ren brushed a stray lock of her crimson hair behind her ear—a movement slow enough that she could pull away if she wanted.
She didn't. She leaned into the touch slightly.
Her cheeks warmed, flushing a shade lighter than her hair. "You're strangely gentle when you aren't insulting us."
"Don't get used to it," Ren smirked, though his eyes remained warm. "But… yeah. I see you, Rias. And I like what I see."
For just a second, her hand grazed his—an intentional, searching touch.
"Thank you, Ren," she murmured.
And she meant it.
...
As everyone was winding down for the night, the dimensional gap's artificial sky shifted to a deep, nebulous indigo. Ren Ming sensed someone lingering back a bit near the edge of the camp. He lightly smiled and walked over to her.
Koneko sat on a fallen log, eating a protein bar like it had personally offended her. She was chewing with a ferocity that suggested she was imagining the wrapper was an enemy.
Ren walked over, tossing her a bottle of water.
She caught it without looking, her reflexes sharp as ever. "Thanks."
"You punched through six inches of granite today," Ren said, sitting down on the grass near the log. "Your form's cleaner than most newbies from where I come from. The shockwave propagation was solid."
Koneko blinked at him. Compliments weren't her natural habitat. She was used to being treated as the mascot or the little sister.
"…Not good enough," she muttered, looking down at her small hands.
Ren sat beside her. "How is that not good enough?"
Koneko's ears twitched under her white hair. She didn't answer immediately. "I froze. In the trial. I fell, and I just... waited to hit the ground. I didn't fight back."
Ren nudged her shoulder with his own—light, respectful. "You don't have to outperform your trauma in one day. Just outperform yesterday."
Her golden eyes softened. Just barely.
"You say weird things," she murmured.
"You listen to them," Ren replied with a grin.
She stared at him for a long moment, expression unreadable. Then she did something rare, something she rarely did even with Rias:
She leaned her shoulder against him.
Small. Quick. Barely a touch.
But intentional. It was an anchor in the storm.
Ren didn't move. Didn't comment. Didn't tease.
He just allowed it, being the solid wall she needed.
After a moment, Koneko whispered, almost too quiet to hear:
"You make the world feel… less heavy."
For Koneko Toujou, that was practically a confession.
Ren tilted his head toward her, his voice low and vibrating with genuine promise. "Stick with me, my dear. I'll teach you how to lift more than the world. I'll teach you to throw it."
Her ears twitched again—but she didn't pull away.
...
Hours into the night, the camp was silent. Ren Ming was casually resting on a high tree branch, one leg dangling as he pondered the various timelines and plot points of the future. As the night went on, his students were mostly settling into a deep, exhaustion-fueled sleep.
All but one.
Asia Argento sat alone within the dim night, hugging her knees near the dying embers of the campfire. Even after trying to sleep, she still looked shaken. Her shoulders trembled with silent sobs.
When Ren dropped down from the tree, landing silently, she straightened like a startled rabbit.
"Relax," he said, sitting beside her in the grass. "If I wanted to scare you, I'd start talking about taxes or the housing market."
A tiny giggle escaped her—soft, involuntary.
Ren leaned back on his hands, looking up at the false stars. "How's the head? Any nightmares?"
Asia hesitated, then nodded. "I kept dreaming of the darkness… the water filling my lungs. But it didn't swallow me this time. Your words kept echoing in my mind. 'Live even if you die.' I-I still don't understand it fully, but… it made me feel safe."
Ren looked at her, genuinely surprised. "Safe, huh?"
"Yes," Asia whispered. "Because… when you say things, I believe them. I believe you."
That hit differently. In a world of devils, fallen angels, and gods, simple faith was a rare currency.
She fiddled with her cross necklace, fingers trembling. "When I was erased in the Trial… I thought everything I am—every kindness, every hope—meant nothing. But then I remembered how you looked at us. Like… like we mattered, even when we were weak."
Ren reached out and placed his hand gently over hers.
Not firm. Not flirtatious.
Warm.
"Asia, listen," he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft, shedding the layers of irony and toughness. "Your power isn't destruction, or swords, or dragons. Your power is that you don't give up on people—even when everyone else does. That kind of heart? In cultivation terms, that's worth ten Fate Palaces. That is a pure Dao Heart."
Asia's eyes widened, glowing with emotion in the firelight. Tears welled up, but they weren't tears of fear this time.
She squeezed his hand—a timid, grateful squeeze.
"Ren… I'm really glad you're our teacher," she murmured. Her voice trembled with sincerity. "And I'm… really glad I met you."
He didn't tease her. He didn't make a joke about being the best.
He just squeezed her hand back.
"Get some sleep, Asia," he said softly. "I'll keep watch. Nothing gets past me."
...
The artificial violet moon of the Dimensional Gap hung high, casting long, twisted shadows through the canopy of the conjured forest. The silence was absolute, save for the rhythmic humming of the barrier Ren had erected.
The Gremory peerage was fully asleep now. It was a deep, coma-like slumber—the kind that only comes after your brain has been marinating in cortisol and adrenaline for twelve straight hours.
Ren Ming sat on the highest branch of a gargantuan dead tree, looking down at their sleeping forms. His Immortal Soul Bone was active, the runic patterns in his grey eyes spinning slowly like gears in a cosmic clock. He monitored their recovery in real-time. Their veins were pulsing, repairing the micro-tears from the day's training, and the ghostly outlines of their Soul Palaces were solidifying with every breath they took.
He took a sip of his coffee—which he had conjured black, hot, and tasting like a cheap diner roast from 2019—and sighed, letting the steam curl into the night air.
'Man, I really don't want to be one of those cryptic old masters,' Ren mused, swirling the dark liquid. 'Those damn white-bearded dudes in Xianxia novels who sit on a mountain drinking tea, tossing their disciples into a pit of vipers and saying, "Figure it out, junior." That's just lazy writing. If I'm going to be their teacher, I need to actually facilitate the growth, not just watch them trauma-bond.'
He crushed the empty mug in his hand. Instead of shards, the ceramic dust dissolved into pure energy, absorbed back into his pores.
He had broken their egos. He had forced them to stare into the abyss of their own mortality. But a Dao Heart wasn't just about taking a hit. It was about hitting back. It was about knowing you could bite the throat out of the universe if it tried to swallow you.
'They need punching bags,' Ren Ming decided, his eyes narrowing. 'And not the summoned familiars Rias uses. Those things are weak; they have no killing intent. They need something that actually wants to murder them. Something primal. Something that doesn't care about the Gremory name.'
Ren Ming stood up on the branch, balancing perfectly. The air around him distorted, bending away from his presence.
Down below, near the dying embers of the campfire, Tiamat's eyes snapped open. As a Dragon King, she never truly slept when potential threats were nearby—even if the threat was the teacher.
Grayfia, leaning against a tree trunk with her arms crossed, also opened her eyes, her silver gaze piercing the shadows.
"Where are you going?" Tiamat hissed, her voice low so as not to wake the kids, but laced with suspicion. "Leaving your whelps unguarded?"
Ren Ming dropped from the branch, landing silently in the soft grass. He adjusted his jacket, smoothing out the "Support Your Local Cryptid" logo.
"Relax, Tiamat. I'm just making a grocery run," Ren said, his voice casual, as if he were heading to a 7-Eleven at 2 AM. "We're out of training equipment."
"Equipment?" Grayfia asked, her perfectly arched eyebrow raising slightly. "I can conjure targets if you require them, Ren-san. My ice constructs are quite durable."
"Nah. Your targets are too polite, Grayfia. They stand there and wait to be hit," Ren Ming waved her off, grinning. "I need something with a little more... spicy attitude. Something that hits back. I'll be back in five. Don't let the bedbugs bite."
Before they could ask what "spicy attitude" meant in the context of magical warfare, the space around Ren twisted. He didn't use a magic circle. He didn't use a teleportation spell.
He simply stepped forward, and the Ancient Ming Bloodline devoured the distance between point A and point B. Space didn't fold; it was consumed and regurgitated behind him.
He vanished.
Ren reappeared deeper in the Dimensional Gap. Far deeper.
This wasn't the stabilized zone near the Gremory training ground. This was the chaotic frontier—the badlands of reality. Here, the "sky" was a kaleidoscope of shattered colors—toxic greens, violent magentas, and deep, abyssal blacks that swirled like oil on water. The gravity shifted randomly; one moment you were heavy as lead, the next, you were floating upside down.
And it was loud. The sound of space tearing itself apart was constant, a grinding screech like metal on bone.
Ren Ming floated in the void, his hands in his pockets, his grey eyes scanning the horizon with boredom.
'Okay, let's see what the local wildlife looks like,' he thought.
He activated the Immortal Soul Bone. His vision zoomed in, piercing through the iridescent fog and reality distortions.
Miles away, drifting through a storm of shattered dimensions, he saw them.
Primal Elemental Stormlings.
They weren't animals. They were sentient clusters of chaotic energy—living natural disasters born from the friction of the Dimensional Gap. He saw a massive, swirling vortex of jagged rock and gravity magic, easily the size of a skyscraper. Next to it was a serpent made entirely of corrosive lightning, crackling with enough voltage to power a continent.
'Mid-to-High Class in terms of raw output,' Ren analyzed, a feral grin spreading across his face. 'No brain, just aggression. Perfect.'
Ren Ming flashed forward.
He didn't bother with stealth. He slammed into the middle of the Stormlings like a human meteor, the shockwave of his arrival clearing the toxic fog for miles.
The Lightning Serpent hissed, a sound like tearing the sky in half, and lunged at him. Its jaws, composed of chaotic plasma, snapped shut around Ren.
Ren Ming didn't even dodge. He just held up his hand.
"Sit," Ren commanded.
Hell Suppressing Immortal Physique.
The atmosphere instantly became heavier than a neutron star. An aura of absolute, crushing authority descended—not just gravity, but the conceptual weight of a hellish prison designed to bind gods.
CRACK-BOOM!
The Lightning Serpent froze. Its chaotic energy trembled, then collapsed. The creature was smashed flat against the "floor" of the void as if an invisible mountain had been dropped on its head. It writhed, pinning under the sheer pressure of Ren's physical existence.
The Rock Vortex roared, spinning up to grinding speeds, firing shards of obsidian at him. Each shard was moving at Mach 20, carrying enough kinetic energy to puncture a battleship.
Ren Ming yawned, catching a shard between two fingers. The kinetic energy dissipated instantly upon touching his skin.
"Cute," he muttered, crushing the obsidian into dust.
He extended his right hand. The Ancient Ming Bloodline roared to life. A black vortex opened in his palm, dark enough to swallow light itself. It exerted a terrifying suction force, a predator opening its maw.
"Get in the bag," Ren muttered.
The massive elemental constructs were dragged, screaming silently, toward his hand. The Rock Vortex clawed at the fabric of space, but against the devouring power of the Ancient Ming, it was like a gnat fighting a hurricane.
Ren Ming compressed them, folding their spatial coordinates, shrinking these kaiju-sized monsters until they were trapped in a pocket dimension stored within his sleeve.
One. Two. Five. Ten.
In less than a minute, Ren Ming had captured a dozen High-Class monstrosities. It was a harvest.
He dusted his hands off. "Easy peasy."
Just as he was about to turn back, he paused.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Not from fear, but from the sheer magnitude of a presence drifting in the far, far distance.
He looked into the infinite darkness of the Gap.
He felt it. The Infinite. Ophis.
And deeper still, swimming through the void like a red ocean... The Great Red.
Ren Ming's heart gave a single, powerful thump. The Ancient Ming Bloodline surged, hungry. It wanted to devour even them. It wanted to challenge the concepts of Infinity and Dreams. It wanted to consume the True Dragon and make that power its own.
'Chill, big guy,' Ren told his own bloodline, suppressing the urge with a mental slap. 'Not yet. I'm strong, but I'm not 'fight the literal concept of Infinity' strong. Let's wait until I hit the Enlightened Being stage. Then we can go poke the bear.'
If he were to meet either Ophis or Great Red now, Ren Ming wouldn't fear them—his bloodline was too arrogant for fear—but it would be a battle with zero gains. He could hide his presence from them thanks to the Ancient Ming stealth capabilities, but starting a war with the apex predators of the universe right now was just bad business.
Ren Ming smirked at the void. "See you later, oversized lizards."
He turned around, the pocket dimension in his sleeve humming with the angry vibrations of trapped monsters.
Back at the camp, Tiamat and Grayfia blinked.
A ripple in space occurred, and Ren Ming stepped out, looking exactly as he had left—hands in his pockets, bored expression—except he was holding a weird, glowing orb of compressed space in his hand.
"I'm back," Ren Ming announced, the sound of his voice cutting the tension. "Did you miss me?"
"You were gone for three minutes," Tiamat deadpanned, though her blue eyes were glued to the orb in his hand. She could feel the chaotic screaming coming from inside it. The raw elemental power contained within that small sphere was enough to level a city. "What... what is that?"
"Party favors," Ren Ming winked. He tossed the orb up and caught it with a casual swagger. "For tomorrow. Go back to sleep, Tiamat. You need your beauty rest. Those scales won't polish themselves."
He walked past her, humming a pop song that wouldn't be written for another ten years, completely unbothered by the fact that he was carrying a dozen natural disasters in his pocket.
Tiamat stared at his back, her tail twitching in irritation. "Insufferable human."
But she didn't attack him. She just watched him go, a strange curiosity warring with her ancient pride. He was arrogant, rude, and infuriating... but goddammit, he was strong.
And in the world of Dragons, strength was the only currency that mattered.