The Crowned Greed: Transmigrated into a Demonic Dragon

Everything landed simultaneously.

CRACK!

The barriers finally shattered. The internal layers resisted for only a second before the molten hands and the flaming dog fists tore through.

Fafnir felt too small, standing in front of what looked like a rain of different burning attacks.

The insane heat and light made him shrink subtly and become weaker.

'...Again?'

Desperately, Fafnir enhanced his own body with Ether and coated it with a thin layer of Ether.

BOOM!

All the different attacks landed on him with no mercy.

The molten hands threw him left and right, slammed him into the floor, and coated him with magma.

The flaming fists crushed him like angry dogs, burned him alive, and treated him like a weak bone to be thrown around.

The more that continued, the more the cracks spread across Fafnir's body. Several parts of him were being destroyed, and his natural regeneration was weaker than the damage.

He wasn't durable enough.

He wasn't strong enough.

He wasn't fast enough. He wasn't experienced enough. He wasn't smart enough.

Nothing was enough.

"Got you!"

Eventually, Adrian closed the distance and caught Fafnir by his head.

Before Fafnir could escape, Adrian caught different parts of him.

Two of his arms held Fafnir's arms.

Two other arms held Fafnir's legs.

One arm held his head.

And the last arm dug its fingers into Fafnir's chest before pinning him into the burning floor.

"Now I want to see you dismantling yourself again!"

Unfortunately, Fafnir couldn't.

He couldn't escape.

He couldn't cut himself into pieces and run. The parts that would remain weren't going to be enough for Fafnir to live long enough to regenerate.

Suddenly, Adrian's mask split, revealing a familiar face with a pair of green eyes.

The green eyes brought some memories he didn't want to remember.

Adrian was gritting his teeth to the point that there were faint cracks on them. His face now had some orange tattoos that covered the sides of his face and his neck.

"I gave you many chances over and over. I'll finish you and go search for that bastard myself! Let my face be the last thing you remember in hell!"

BAM!

Without hesitation, Adrian hit Fafnir's skull with his own head.

All Adrian's arms began to become hotter, or to be precise, began to shoot flames right into Fafnir's body, burning him internally and externally.

At the same time, they released demonic orange energy that tried to invade Fafnir's body, which was blocked by Fafnir's demonic energy.

'Flames…?'

Fafnir couldn't feel pain… but he had a memory.

The green eyes, the familiar face, being burned by flames, being overwhelmed by sheer physical strength.

It was all the same.

'Beatrice?'

He wasn't just a classless kid anymore.

He wasn't just a weak, exiled demonic dragon.

He didn't reveal any essential secrets to the wrong person.

He was Rank 2, and one who was stronger than most people around.

24% of his body was draconic, and another 25% of him was demonic.

He had experience, he had talent, he had a unique body, he had semi-immortality, he had two great aspects, he had everything!

'Then why is it the same? Why did nothing change?!'

Fafnir felt afraid, weak, vulnerable, pathetic.

Was there anything he could do now?

Silver Ether Spell — Ether Cannonball!

The Ether cannonball shot directly toward Adrian's head, but before it could land, the mask returned to cover Adrian's head fully again.

BAM!

The cannonball landed on the mask and threw Adrian a few meters backward.

However, Adrian kept holding Fafnir with arms of steel, continuing to burn and absorb him slowly. Fafnir's demonic energy was losing.

And the aftermath? Just a scratch to his mask.

That left a small hole that showed scratched green eyes, looking at Fafnir as if looking at a pathetic prey.

'I should have given up.' that thought struck Fafnir like a hammer. He felt intense regret.

He could have just given up and been satisfied with the rewards of the third place.

But no.

He wanted some meaningless things like revenge, more rewards, killing a threat, and showing off.

He felt like his master would be disappointed if he learned about that.

'He will know about that…'

If Fafnir died here… he would simply spawn as Dante's shadow in the Abyss. Dante would immediately know everything about this failure.

It wasn't only about failing to gather recourses, but also failing to protect Ruby!

Without Fafnir, anything could happen to her!

'I can't allow this. Think, think, think!'

Any trick, any ability, any spell. He had to figure out something, and quickly!

Fafnir tried to use chaos energy, but Adrian's armor somehow blocked it.

He tried to attack Adrian's mind, but he seemed to act on instinct when his thoughts were chaotic.

He tried to analyse the armor, but he didn't understand the runes enough to do that quickly.

He tried to turn into a liquid shadow and escape, but Adrian's grip didn't allow this.

'Think, think, think, think, think!'

His body was already very close to death.

"...!"

But on the verge of collapsing, something snapped in his head.

It was like an instinct.

As a loyal shadow who was supposed to have no personal emotion… he committed the most humanoid act any person could do.

He reacted without thinking about the consequences under heavy emotions.

And before he could know why, thousands of dark crimson particles manifested around his demonic arm.

SLASH!

Adrian's eyes widened in disbelief for the first time since the beginning of the fight. A dark segmented blade severed one of his arms like it was nothing.

Under the threat of death and with no time to think about what was happening, Adrian caused a molten hand to burst from the floor and take Fafnir away.

The molten hand pinned him to the wall and closed around him, then several other hands attacked the same place, becoming a cage of giant hands.

"What was that?!"

Adrian looked at his severed flaming arm with a dropped jaw. That arm was a manifestation of one of his gauntlets' abilities. It was almost as strong as his normal arms when enhanced, and maybe even better when the flames covering it were considered.

And with the Force Aspect, Fafnir was supposed to scratch it at best.

"Holy shit, it's really him!"

"I told you!"

"There is no time for that."

The old man's voice in his head returned, but his tone kept changing with every sentence.

Now, it was dark and cold as the old man said: "Kid, if you're interested in living, you better finish him off as fast as possible or just deactivate the domain and give up. We should have known that his technique looked familiar."

Adrian's brows furrowed: "Old man, elaborate—"

All of a sudden, right under Adrian's gaze, something began to happen at the spot where Fafnir was trapped.

Violent surges of crimson energy erupted beneath the molten hand as if a bomb was about to explode. After only a second, everything returned to its original calm state…

But Adrian knew that it was wrong.

Something definitely happened in that second, and he didn't have to wait for long before knowing the truth.

Because the next moment, a segmented blade burst from the hand cage, covered in crimson demonic energy.

Before Adrian could attack with more hands, the segmented blade extended further before moving like a living centipede and slicing all the hands into hundreds of pieces.

Yes, hundreds!

Every single segment and even the chain connecting moved with blurry speed and in highly precise directions, slicing the hands into as many pieces as possible.

One slice wasn't enough. Nothing was ever enough.

"Kid, listen to us and deactivate the domain!" The voice in Adrian's head urged again.

"Damn, damn, DAMN YOU ALL!"

Clenching his fists firmly, Adrian closed his eyes and deactivated the domain.

…

Or so was the plan.

When he opened his eyes, the domain was still there.

"W-what?!"

Adrian looked around, his eyes catching a subtle detail.

The walls, the floor, and the ceiling… there was something flickering on them.

It looked like hidden sparkles of silver energy, the same energy that deflected his attacks, and crimson demonic energy added to them.

Adrian tried again.

"..."

Nothing happened.

Adrian looked at the spot where Fafnir should have been.

"..."

Nothing was there. He couldn't even sense his heat, which was supposed to be impossible after everything he had done to him.

The voice in Adrian's head clicked his tongue, sighed, and spoke simultaneously: "Yeah… consider yourself dead. None of us can help you, unfortunately. Blame yourself!"

Just then, when Adrian was starting to become nervous, he heard something.

"Hehehe— HAHAHAHA!"

"Oh… it's been soooo long. No number of words can describe how much I missed this feeling."

A shiver ran down Adrian's spine immediately.

That was a voice… and his opponent wasn't supposed to have a voice.

'Wait… that sword…'

Adrian finally remembered the sword that cut his arm. It was the same sword that was used by him!

"He finally switched!"

A surge of excitement spread through Adrian's body. That was the whole reason why Adrian was here. That was finally his chance!

"Show yourself!" Adrian roared at the top of his lungs.

However, he didn't notice that the voice didn't match.

"Hmm? Did bullying a little kid give you confidence to shout in my presence?"

Adrian scanned his surroundings cautiously.

The voice seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere simultaneously.

"...!"

While he was scanning around, a shadowy figure appeared out of thin air and coiled a segmented sword around him.

It tied him like a centipede, squeezing his whole body and leaving a few scratches.

"RAAAAH!" Surges of flames began to release from Adrian's body.

At that moment, the shadowy figure pressed a finger against Adrian's mask, covered in a mixture of crimson and silver energies.

CRACK!

A small piece of the mask, barely visible, shattered and revealed a small entrance.

"Fafnir… watch and learn. You'll need that in the future."

Multiple thin shadow threads came out of the shadow's finger and went into the mask through the hole.

They moved rapidly until they reached Adrian's nose, cutting the distance until they found their way to the brain.

At the same second, Adrian's flames were extinguished.

"Eh?"

He tried to channel his mana, his demonic energy and his spiritual energy.

…Nothing worked.

He tried to move his body and roar, but faced the same result. He couldn't do anything.

The only thing he could do was keep staring at the shadow who controlled his life with a single finger.

He was nothing close to Fafnir that he was fighting.

His hair was short and combed backward like a gentleman.

He wore an elegant outfit of shadows that looked like a suit that Adrian had never seen before. It had elegant pants, a shirt with buttons, a pair of gloves, a pair of formal shoes, and a tie wrapped gently around his neck.

It was a style that didn't exist in this world.

And finally, the thing that sent chills down Adrian's spine, the featureless face that had only a wide, terrifying grin.

"Haha… it's really Greed."

"He will spare the kid, right?"

"...Hopefully."

That shadow was none other than one of the original Seven Deadly Sins, a person whose words were enough to make the world shake, whose segmented sword stole millions of lives without guilt, whose hands possessed everything he believed was his.

He was the Sin of Greed.

The Sin of Greed laughed coldly, his voice echoing everywhere in the subspace without coming from his mouth: "I forgot to thank you, Adrian. You and your mother were useful to my plans, and I hope you continue to be like that."

"..."