The Villain's Story

My strategy to clear this labyrinth was not complicated or anything of the sort. In fact, it could even be said to be extremely simple.

But sometimes, Simple is best.

Most of the Minotaurs here, according to the scan I did with my dragon eyes, said that they were A-rank, with a few a rank above.

The knights I led, which were all A rank, would be the main fighting force of this mission. Each would isolate a Minotaur and fight them alone. Which wasn't hard because that is how their nature is.

The Jade Spear men would help and 'poke' the Minotaur, inducing flesh wounds whilst it was occupied by the knight, and 50 of the mages I had brought would do the same, assist the knights in taking the Minotaur's down as fast as possible.

The rest of the 50 mages were divided into two groups, each with 25 mages. One group would focus on buffing and healing the injured soldiers, whilst the other would be busy in maintaining a large scale magic… Their own version of my specialty, Glacial Collapse.

It was for an emergency, where a rabid S-rank Minotaur might appear while I wasn't here to take care of it. That would decimate my plans. So, I had that spell ready just in case. The group dealing with the buffs and heals would be overworked, but they could deal with it if they were given sufficient breaks.

My strategy was simple, but it was also time-consuming…which was honestly perfect for me. I didn't mind at all if this took a few days or not. In fact, I welcomed it.

The reason for such was…

"Now…how did I do that?"

I muttered to myself as my army advanced forth, I let the commanders take complete control of the situation and stayed behind, pondering.

I stimulated the aura in my body and made it cover each and every inch of it, suppressing my mana as well.

I had done the first step…now comes the second.

The reason why I didn't mind if this took some time was because of my desire to learn two abilities I had showcased during my aura awakening.

The first was to completely vanish. My spatial manipulation could manage this with the help of mana, but it was subpar to what I had done with aura. With spatial manipulation with mana, I would still be seen easily by beings who were highly sensitive to mana, or had great senses… But with aura, it was different.

It was as if, instead of manipulating the surrounding space, I distorted it, completely. Distorted it and created a realm of my own, isolated from the rest, thus others would have a hard time trying to find me…

'I know…let's call it spatial distortion!'

As I toiled around with my aura, trying to perfect, or at least achieve, the ability. I heard the sounds of battle ahead. Curious, I raised my head and smiled proudly.

It was working, we had encountered the Minotaur that resided in the first layer, well a group of them anyway. My knights rushed forth first, engaging in solo fights as my spear men and mages took their positions, The knights succeeded in pulling the Minotaurs away from one another, the labyrinth was big enough… So it wasn't too hard.

And then, my spear men rushed forth as my mages froze their feet, they poked with their little spears and littered the minotaurs with injuries. Ridding them of their vitality.

It was working, and for that I was thankful. The minotaurs here were different from the Lavataur I had faced back at the labyrinth. Although the Lavataur was a weaker subspecies of these guys…if it was here instead my plan would be for naught.

It had the element directly opposing mine, and if it was at a similar strength, my knights wouldn't be able to hold on without extended support.

"Phew."

Breathing a sigh of relief, I went back to my own business, leaving the army to do their own work. I'm still here, if any situation arises I can still deal with it.

********

As we made progress with the raid, liberating about half of the first layer, I got to work on two things, mastering the skill I named Spatial Distortion, as well as building another portal. Richard had already given me the materials, so I called in a few workers from the city and made them start building it.

The army continued to advance, and I was ready to go there instantly if a problem occurred that my commanders couldn't handle. Particularly the appearance of multiple S-rank monsters.

The Labyrinth has a total of 9 layers, and the S-rank monsters reside in the 7th layer and below... But one can't be too careful.

'I wonder if I'm being this cautious because of prior experiences...'

It...was definitely a possibility... The lavataur and I met under such a circumstance...and that experience haunted me. Not because of the foe I had faced, but what I, or rather another individual taking control of my body, had done when facing it. The recordings of my boisterous...'Yeehaw' were still rampant around shield.

"Ugh..."

I shuddered at the thought of it... It was an embarrassment I couldn't live down, The amount of times Sabrina taunted me with that was too many to count.

"Maybe I have a vendetta against the Minotaur race..."

I stopped thinking about it anymore and focused more on spatial distortion. I followed the same principles as when I used mana to do it, and thankfully it succeeded.

Aura and mana function roughly the same way, but their properties are entirely different. My aura can do this, but my mana cannot. It's a weird thing.

As a dragon... I should be able to do it easily, manipulating the mana to achieve my desired result...but it seems my aura is more suited for it.

I was able to do the same thing, taking into account every angle my body could be viewed from and finally creating my own space. My workers couldn't notice me anymore...and the little shits even decided to slack off a little.

"..."

Ignoring it, I tried to stand up. But the distortion was broken and my workers all looked at me with surprised eyes, hurrying back to work.

"Go work on building that portal..."

Well, I was still satisfied with the concealment effects. I should try it out on the Minotaur's... But the problem is I have to remain stationary for it to work as intended.

"How do I fix this...?"

I racked my brains, and did the same thing a couple more times, I found out that the movement of my body destroyed the space I had built around me, and so I thought to expand it, but that didn't work.

Then it struck me...

"Maybe I shouldn't expand it too much all of a sudden..."

It would lose control, therefore, I first stood still and cast the distortion once again, This time, prior to moving my feet, I extended only the space there, and when I finished. I moved that extended space to other parts of my body, allowing me to finally move whilst having the skill cast.

"... It's good, But I can't use it efficiently in battle."

Unlike what I had done during the fight with Night Lady... It would be difficult to use this in an actual battle, although sneaking up on opponents won't be too hard.

"I should really learn an aura-breathing technique..."

I had asked Lanesha for it, but those breathing techniques were practically non-existent in the empire ruled by my kind. We dealt it mana...and besides, the techniques, the good ones, were hard to come by.

Nonetheless, I tried practicing it on my own, the skill 'Spatial distortion'. But I wasn't able to make much progress.

'I should ask Master for help when he is free...'

The man had studied aura a lot longer than me...he should know a thing...or two...

*Thud*

My head collided with the floor, the distortion skill was broken, and I struggled to stand up, resisting the urge to vomit, as nauseous as I was...

"Ugh...what the hell?"

That day I encountered a problem similar to mana drain, something faced by every species except dragons... just the aura version of it, Aura drain. Where all the aura in my body was used up.

I puked.