[Distant Universe]

“Yes, we can start.”

Along with this sentence, the form of a young man not even of age that Vunreon chooses to use as appearance its avatar appeared. Or at least it appeared like that mostly by choice, with the age it could appear as being limited by the young age of its consciousness. Only when reaching a universe will's equivalent to adulthood would these last limits vanish, though that would still take millennia.

“We're all ears.” Irsyr said, inviting Vunreon to start.

“I would hope so, I'm bringing good news after all.” Vunreon replied.

“Oh, what?” Idaia asked intrigued.

Most of the other dragon gods also reacted similarly, visibly shifting in place as they leaned forward in interest. The exception to this was Irsyr and to a lesser extent Azeal, with the latter noticing the short flash of worry on the former's face.

Irsyr meanwhile was concerned that Vunreon might have noticed Darganth's rebirth despite his efforts to shield what happened in Ikrus even from its notice. Because though he believed Vunreon would see it as advantageous if Darganth returned to his former glory, he wasn't entirely sure and didn't want to risk it.

And while he didn't have such worries with his fellow dragon gods, there were good reasons why he didn't even share the knowledge of Darganth's rebirth with Azeal when they were still alone. After all, a conversation that never happened and will never happen is the only one that can't be listened in on, especially in such a public space.

Even now he could feel thousands of other individuals in this universe, all scattered across its different planets. And though Vunreon created it to allow different gods and other equivalent beings to meet on neutral ground and naturally implemented some measures to aid in this, its privacy protections were only good and not infallible.

With that in mind, Irsyr waited nervously for Vunreon to continue.

“New dragons have joined your ranks.” Vunreon said a second after Idaia's question.

At the reveal, Irsyr silently sighed a breath of relief. Leaning back with a smile, he was just about to join the voices of celebration of his fellow dragon gods when he fully processed Vunreon's words. Freezing up, he slowly turned his head to lock eyes with its avatar.

“Dragons, as in multiple?” He asked in utter disbelief.

“Yes.”

Hearing Vunreo's confirmation Irsyr had to focus to keep his celebratory facade up. Internally, his thoughts were meanwhile racing as he thought about the implications of this.

But before he could get far with this, Vunreon's avatar had already created two more portals behind himself.

Immediately, two different draconic presences washed over the gathered group, with their owner's dragon's authority following immediately after. Both carried the unmistakable mark of a dragon god, causing the disbelieve that had spread among them in response to Irsyr's question to immediately vanish in the face of irrefutable evidence.

However, as the seven dragon gods focused closer on their two newcomers, they noticed a particularity. Whereas one of the two dragon authorities had the characteristics of an authority belonging to a mid-tier dragon, the other one was a novelty among them in that it belonged to a low-tier dragon species.

“This is going to cause an upheaval among certain groups and I'm all here for it.” Azeal said with a grin as he noticed this.

“Agreed.” Irsyr responded.

At that moment the first of the two new dragon gods stepped out of the portal Vunreon had conjured for him. Freezing up for a moment as the undivided attention of all seven already present dragon gods fell on him, he felt a bit relieved when a woman stepped out of the other portal a moment later and temporarily shifted the attention away from him.

Unlike the man who had transformed into a human without any extraordinary features, she took the form of a vampire with pale gray skin and glowing red eyes. Furthermore, she wasn't uncomfortable under the attention of such revered beings as the dragon gods were, instead relished it.

“Nice to finally meet my colleagues.” She said arrogantly as as looked around, earning herself a mix of amusement and annoyance from the old dragon gods.

In that moment Vunreon's avatar stepped forward, bringing the attention back onto himself.

“Let me introduce, Terima and Metrail. As only recently risen gods both still haven't gotten the usual introduction so as per my agreement with Darganth I ask of you to ta-” Vunreon's avatar said, only to abruptly stop in the middle of a sentence.

Turning to look at a row of the seats a few rungs up from the ground, he narrowed his eyes and frowned. This confused most of the gathered dragon gods, though a few among them had noticed the same as he had.

When they did, Irsyr's and Azeal's reactions were even more pronounced. Releasing a low growl of anger and staring at the same spot as Vunreon did with hateful eyes, both were visibly shaking as they struggled to stay even remotely calm.

A few short seconds later the reason, or rather reasons, for this appeared as three figures appeared at the spot they were looking at. Initially only appearing as a mass of their respective element that rose from the stone surface beneath them, three of the primordial soon stood just thirty or forty meters away from the gathered dragon gods.

“How fortunate that we noticed, we can't have you lot meet without supervision after all.” Araquios, the primordial of water, said once he fully materialized.

“Now then, ho-” He tried to continue only to be cut off as a bolt of lightning struck him squarely in the chest.

“Don't talk down on us you fuckers.” Edriza cursed, her outstretched arm still crackling with electricity after she had launched the bolt of lightning from it.

Following her words, a tense silence reigned as both sides processed what she just did. Even Araquios didn't seem angry but rather confused.

For a couple of seconds after this nothing happened, at least until Araquios suddenly started crackling madly. Stepping forward again after having stumbled back from the lightning hit and straightening his back, he looked at the dragon gods below with disdain.

“I've never tested whether your immortality has a limit now that Darganth is dead, didn't I?” He said before launching himself at Edriza.

Arriving before her in the blink of an eye, he had already conjured a sword made out of pressurized water whose hardness didn't lose out to one made from solid materials. Aiming it at her heart, he thrust out with it as soon as she was in reach.

Seeing him rapidly close in with his sword aimed at her, Edriza's eyes widened in shock. Leaning to the side in an attempt to dodge, she immediately realized that she was too slow so she gave up on it. Instead transforming her hand into a claw, she struck out at Araquios in the hopes of wounding him in exchange.

Though just before either of the two attacks could find their mark, she suddenly vanished from where she stood as Irsyr teleported her out of harm's way.

This caused Araquios to strike only empty air and harshly crash into the stone ground. This impact caused an explosion of derbies as the surface of the stone cracked open, showering the surroundings with it as Araquios's momentum made him carve a meter-deep hole into the steps.

This was immediately followed by tens if not hundreds of tendril-like constructs made of the same green energy that covered Idaia's wings rushing after him. Impacting Araquios's surroundings in rapid succession, they bored their way through the stone with such ease that they could have punched holes multiple meters deep into it if Idaia hadn't stopped elongating them further.

Instead, they whipped toward Araquios, hitting his skin with the crack of a whip striking and winding around him one by one. In doing so, they also got tangled up with other tendrils causing a web to form around him, trying to hold him in place.

Straining against the bindings for a moment, Araquios managed to rip his left arm out of the hold after just a short second.

Tearing the tendrils holding it to pieces as he did so, he immediately conjured a second sword into his left hand. Swinging it at the remaining tendrils, he carved through nearly half of them with one try.

Directly following this up with a second swing from the sword in his now freed right hand, he just managed to free himself when the damaged tendrils rapidly shot back at him as they regrew to their original length. As they did they wound around his body like a constrictor snake, binding his right arm to his torso as he just finished his swing.

Reacting calmly, Araquios reeled back the sword in his left to cut through the new tendrils. But the moment his hand came close to the nearby wall, over a dozen further bindings broke out of the stone behind him. Winding around his wrist before continuing down along his arm, they held on tight even as he started straining against them.

Shocked, he slowly slowly turned his head to look at his bound arm in surprise. Tugging at the tendrils a couple of times, he discovered that he couldn't break out as easily this time.

Looking back toward Idaia, his demeanor shifted as he started taking her a little more seriously.

Ceasing to struggle against the tendrils extending from her arms and the tail that was now emerging from her lower back, he started utilizing his mana.

Immediately, thousands of liters of water rushed out of his body, blasting the tendrils holding him apart.

Once freed, Araquios dashed forward and down toward Idaia. Behind him the conjured water followed closely, gathering into the shapes of spears to shoot out at his command.

Unlike Edriza, Idaia managed to react to his assault. Stamping her foot onto the ground, she froze a small strip of the ground. From its end, massive spikes of ice rose into the air to block Araquios's path.

In response, the spears hovering behind shot out, with all aiming for a small section of the ice. In the blink of an eye, they punched nearly a dozen holes into the structure, weakening it enough that Araquios could simply break through it without extra effort.

Meeting his charge head-on as he broke through in a shower of ice shards, Idaia formed a spear made from interwoven vines that had a massive thorn as a tip. Along with her, hundreds of massive thorns shot into the air to strike him down while she met Araquios in a clash.

Reeling back her spear, she thrust out with it a moment before the two would collide. A moment later Araquios slashed out with his swords, completely ignoring the spear heading for him.

Just as the first strike was about to land, Araquios suddenly stopped in mid-air, with neither his arms continuing to move nor his momentum carrying him further.

A moment after he was frozen in time, Idaia's spear struck him. Impacting his torso with a light thud, its shaft trembled as its movement was abruptly halted when it failed to pierce even his clothes. And as Idaia's momentum kept carrying her forward, the spear quickly slid off to the side as the pressure on it increased.

Recognizing what had happened as she instinctively twisted her torso to not collide with Araquios, Idaia frowned as she watched most of the thorns she had conjured shatter harmlessly on his skin. Only by the last dozen or so did the time stop effect end, though these few were barely even an irritation for Araquios and were swiftly destroyed when just as many small beads of water speared around him from which blasts of water were fired to intercept them.

Changing her transformation to unfurl a pair of wings on her back, Idaia caught herself before slowly gliding back down. Simultaneously, Araquios landed a few meters behind her with a strong impact, slightly cracking the ground.

Before he could recover, Krezegor appeared next to him. His fists already reeled back, managed to land two strong blows before Araquios could weave to the side.

Ignoring the already rapidly healing broken bones in the places he was struck, he swung his sword with the momentum of his turn. Hitting Krezegor's unguarded back with his strike, his attack was stopped similarly to Idaia's as Krezegor also became momentarily frozen in time.

Wincing slightly as the full force of his blow rebounded through his sword and into his arm, he retreated as he saw Krezegor resume his movement.

At the same time, Azeal lowered his outstretched arm back down with a frown. While he hadn't managed to test it during Idaia's attack, when he had protected Krezegor with one, he had also attempted to affect Araquios with a time-stop spell.

Though unlike when he targeted him before and with Krezegor, this one was supported by an auxiliary circle that made it possible for the stopped area to still be influenced. This meant that unlike with the base form of all time stop spells, individuals and objects affected aren't essentially invulnerable due to the impossibility of moving even parts of a stopped object, meaning that cuts can't split it apart and blunt force can't transfer the impact energy into it.

In return, this auxiliary circle makes resisting the effect much easier, drastically cutting down the time it is active if it even takes hold in the first place. Thus, though Azeal could affect Araquios with a normal time stop, this time his spell failed to even take hold.

Pondering for a moment whether to attempt the same test on one of the other primordials as they were weaker, he was ripped out of his thoughts when Vunreon's avatar appeared between Araquios and Krezegor right as their attacks were about to clash.

“Enough!” He roared.

Simultaneously, both men were thrown back as he made a flicking motion in their directions, sending them crashing into the sides of the pit they were in.

“I thought I made it clear often enough, no conflict in this universe!” He added enraged.

“Fine, then do something, there's the agitator.” Nemeus, the primordial of wind, commented, pointing at Edriza as he did.

“Yes, she attacked first. But you barged in here uninvited and unwanted, so stop being a disturbance or face the consequences.” Vunreon's avatar said.

Raising an eyebrow at the threat, Araquios let out an amused chuckle.

“You need us, just trying to reclaim our divinities would cost you more energy than you can currently spare. Not to mention the time and effort it would cost to bring a replacement to our level of power.” He said dismissively.

“You're right, it's difficult for me to replace a primordial.” Vunreon said, nodding slowly in acknowledgment.

“But at least I can replace you at all.” He added after a short pause, turning to Araquios with a dead serious look in his eyes.