I couldn’t see well, because I was fitting wholly into the dragon’s claw, making it a perfect cage for me with almost no light reaching inside. All I could do was wait for the dragon to land. Of course I tried freeing myself at first, but even if I managed to get out of its claws I would fall from a tremendous height.

The second factor was I couldn’t really scratch the dragons scales. I tried biting it to inject poison, but ended up hurting my fangs instead. It was as if I tried to bite a stone, but even the stone would be chipped by my strength, the dragon however was unfazed by my attempts. I’m not sure if it even noticed my attempts of getting free.

Not having anything better to do, I put all my energy into creating a thread. Decreasing its thickness, for the maximum cutting power, while making sure it retains its durability, so it doesn’t disintegrate on first hit. I also charged the thread with my mana, and imbued it with darkness creation.

The thread turned black in color, and while it was my first time using this skill, I got a gist of what it does. Apparently it was supposed to suck mana from all enemies hit by it and channel it to me. Not really useful for me who didn’t use mana, but against magic casters it would be a deadly weapon.

I’m sure darkness had more uses than this, but it was the only effect I was able to get. Maybe with more experience I could expand the range of debuffs and maybe increase its overall deadliness, but for now that had to suffice.

Sensing that the dragon was ready to land I readied myself. I knew that I could try strengthening my body by morphing it via [Spirit form] and [Transform spirit], but even if I knew how to do it perfectly, the mana drain would only put me in an disadvantage. The reason for this was that even if I didn’t really use my mana, when my pool gets empty, then the exhaustion comes.

Soon after we landed I was free from the dragon claw. It didn’t seem to be aware of my intent of attacking it, so I could easily take it by surprise. I readied myself for the attack, sending even more mana to the thread I was holding, while simultaneously using [Thread manipulation] to make sure it would fly in exact way I wanted.

Not that I needed it, since with [Thread mastery] there was almost no way that my thread would act in any other way I wanted it too. It was just a small preventative measure against some unforeseen circumstances. It would also have more power if I used manipulation to increase the swing’s speed.

Then I saw my opportunity, the dragon just turned its back to me. It seemed as if it ignored me for some reason, just after napping me from the safe zone. I had no idea why did it do this, but didn’t really want to become a dinner and this seemed to be the most realistic fate for me.

I took a full swing, manipulating mana in my body sending it to my muscles. I had no idea if this actually strengthened me or not, but after learning how to do it, I just couldn’t resist. I could almost see the aura emanating from me as I overfilled my body with mana in this one moment.

I felt like this was the fastest and strongest swing I’ve ever done, even if in almost every fight I try to make it the strongest as possible. I felt the air actually slowing me as I was immersed deep inside this millisecond. It felt like the time was slowed for me.

[Proficiency reached. Gained skill [Speed thinking lvl. 1] ]
[Proficiency reached. Gained skill [Concentration lvl. 3] ]

I felt like I broke some sort of a barrier while making this one attack. I felt like I surpassed everything I’ve done until now. I felt my muscles screaming as they made an impossible move, but I knew, that this one swing would be the most devastating attack I’ve ever seen.

I saw this happening in single frames, happening one after another, slowed by the effect of my intense concentration. I knew that it would hit and I knew that no matter how strong the dragon was, it would still take damage.

Then it happened. The dragon turned around. It happened instantly, even in the extremely slowed time I was experiencing, it looked like he just teleported to face me again, even if it didn’t move from its place.

And it grabbed my thread. It just extended its claw, and then just like catching a feather in the wind he just grabbed it instantly killing any momentum the thread had. I froze. My brain stopped working, not wanting to accept the reality.

I was just standing there, not having even a single thought about what happened. My thinking literally stopped that moment and didn’t want to return. I’m not sure how much time has passed but I continued standing while looking at the dragon.

I later found that I was in this state for over an hour, but when I finally snapped out I cried telepathically.

[“Give me back my strongest attack! Why are you catching it like that!? Have you no shame!? Do you like destroying other’s hope like that!? I was so pumped up to see the results!]

The dragon was stunned. Even more that I thought it would when I suddenly started trying to communicate. Then it did something I wasn’t expecting at all. It literally facepalmed.

[“Couldn’t you use telepathy earlier?”]