Hitman with a Badass System

Only Nightmare was able to sleep on Gaya's lap, curling himself into a ball. They two were deep in thought. For Gaya, it was her mother. For Michael, it was Victoria and everything the thusians did to him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the burning sanctuary. He heard his friends scream only to get slaughtered by the thusian soldiers. Those soldiers didn't show any mercy, not even to the little ones. In Michael's mind, the elders weren't blameless either. They had a divine power source for centuries, yet they didn't even bother to use it. The Cosmic stream remained useless in the sanctuary. Michael decided long ago not to make the same mistakes the elders did. The moment he destroyed Thusia, he would absorb the Cosmic Stream, or if he couldn't, he would destroy it so no one could use it in the future.

"Do you have any clues about finding this Wise Dragon?" Gaya leaned forward,

"The last time you came here, did you see any pathways, hidden entrances, or any signs of a dragon?" she asked.

"My drones are searching this place as we speak. If a dragon is living here, we will find it," said Michael.

"You better find a cure for my mother. I don't want her to suck my blood when I am asleep," Gaya chuckled.

"I am telling you again, the cure will only get rid of a vampire's blood lust and weakness for sunlight. Their abilities like immunity to magic attacks, speed, and strength will stay the same,"

"So she will be like us?" Gaya asked after giving Michael's words a little thought.

"Let's find another vampire and try that cure first on him. Then, we can move on to your mother,"

"We should definitely do that,"

They spent the following minutes discussing Eve, Thusia, and Adelia. Then, their conversation slowly moved toward the Blood prince. To be honest, Michael didn't have a solid plan to deal with the Blood Prince. First, he needed to gather more information about the Blood Prince. It was a pity he left Mazeroth. Professor Lane and Gilrine seemed to have a lot of knowledge about one. Fortunately, they had Lord Information to turn to.

As they were conversing, the ground suddenly trembled in a rhythm as though something huge was stepping toward them. Michael immediately rose from his chair. He sensed a Soul Refining stage being appear in the Environmental Scanning. Judging by the tremor, Michael knew whatever that's coming their way must be a colossal size monster.

"Michael, what the hell is happening?" Gaya held Nightmare in one hand and tried to balance herself. They quickly shot into the air. When they reached the sky, they were stunned by what they saw. A colossal skeleton was on its way toward them. It was a dragon, not just any dragon, a skeleton dragon. With each step the dragon took, the ground trembled. The dragon had an overall length of four hundred feet, a wingspan of three hundred and fifty feet, and a height of almost eighty feet.

Compared to this skeletal dragon, Nightmare was a puppy. The dragon moved his head left and right as though it was searching for something. Michael looked into the two holes where the eyes should have been and saw no light of life. He never expected to encounter a mutated dragon this early in the journey.

"Damn, it'd be a pity to smash this dragon to pieces. We could sell it for millions," Gaya sighed. Despite the dragon's colossal size, it was only a Soul Refining stage level 4 beast. With her Soul Refining Stage level 6 Cultivation, she could smash into pieces. Of course, she would have a difficult time defeating it, but Gaya was absolutely positive she could beat the dragon.

Michael shared the same thought as Gaya. In the Aqua Auction, Lailah bought a full dragon skeleton for a whopping four billion gold coins. Since this skeleton was at the Soul Refining stage level 4, Michael could at least get one billion, auctioning the dragon. But first, he must defeat the dragon without smashing it into pieces. Luckily for Michael, unlike undead, these mutated beings had souls. Their souls were corrupted and twisted to the point there was no fix for their souls. Corrupted or not, they had souls. If they had souls, Michael could use Soul Eater to preserve their physical bodies. In this case, he could kill the dragon without destroying its body.

Thanks to Michael's recent upgrade spree, the Soul Eater could devour the soul of any cultivator under the Fusion Stage. Some weak-willed enemies' souls could be devoured immediately. The others who had strong resolve and powerful souls required Michael to weaken them before devouring their souls. The spell was meant to be used when Michael was in his complete Lucifer form, where the Cloud of Darkness and death range would weaken an enemy's resolve.

But even though Michael was in the treacherous ocean, he still didn't use his Lucifer persona. What if someone was watching him? According to the system, there were no more surveillance spells around him. Still, Michael wanted to be safe rather than sorry.

The skeleton dragon slowly approached them. Gaya turned her head to the side to see Michael looking at the dragon nonchalantly. He cracked his neck,

"Stay here," said Michael. Just a thought about casting the Lightning dash spell resulted in himself being surrounded by golden lightning bolts. They danced around his body. Gay heard the low-pitched sound of crackling lightning bolts around him.  In a blink of an eye, he dashed toward the dragon, leaving a trail of golden streaks. Sending Michael's presence, the dragon locked its gaze on Michael. Its thunderous roar echoed through the treacherous ocean. When Michael reached closer, the dragon opened its mouth to swallow him.

Michael looked tiny in front of its jaw.

"Wind Blast," Michael cast the wind blast to disorient the dragon for a moment. The blast of wind created a deafening boom sound when it collided with the dragon's head.

The dragon jerked its head to the side due to the wind blast's force. Michael punched the dragon right between the two holes in its head without giving the dragon any time to react. Several cracks formed in the dragon's head despite Michael suppressing his strength.

From afar, Gaya saw the dragon stumbling. Michael didn't stop with one punch. He flew to the side and punched the dragon in the jaw. His punch created a thunderous shock wave. He continued to rain down punch after punch.

"Cracked skeleton is better than no skeleton, right?" Gaya said to herself. Any oblivious man could tell Michael was using the dragon as a punching bag to vent his anger. It was indeed a good outlet for the anger raging within him. The dragon's colossal size had become its ultimate bane. It couldn't keep up with Michael's speed. A normal Fusion stage cultivator would have fought the dragon in a bloody battle, using all their strength and spells. But even a prodigy like Lailah couldn't have fought like Michael. He bullied the dragon. The darkness in the treacherous ocean, coupled with his anger, boosted his power to the point he almost destroyed the dragon's head with just punches alone.

Finally, the dragon's roar sounded weak. It exhausted its strength, trying to bite Michael. When the dragon was at its weakness, Michael landed on its head. He stared into its eyes, feeling the corrupted soul residing within. The dragon started to shake its head left and right frantically. It tried to throw Michael away. But Michael held onto its head, continuing to stare into the dragon's eyes.

The dragon roared, looking at the sky. Seeing the dragon violently shaking its head, Gaya threw Nightmare into the air,

"Wake up, damn lizard," she dashed toward Michael. Meanwhile, Nightmare woke up in shock. Despite the dragon's roar and all the commotion, Nightmare was sleeping peacefully. When Gaya threw him in the air, he was forced to wake up. He was taken aback by surprise. A huge skeletal dragon was wiggling its body. When Nightmare looked closer, he saw Michael standing atop its head. Now, Gaya joined the fight. She punched the dragon in the side of its face. She went under the dragon's chin and grabbed the bones using all her might. As a result, the dragon's wriggling slowed down. Michael was able to feel the corrupted soul once again. Still, the corrupted soul fought against Michael's soul-eating stare. Michael didn't give up. He focused more on devouring the soul more.

He elbowed the dragon on the head to weaken the dragon further. Finally, a grayish smoke slowly rose within the two dark holes. It was the corrupted soul.

[Soul Transferring initiated...]

The dragon roared. Its roar was much weaker than earlier. Michael tightened his grasp and opened his mouth, rapidly devouring the soul. The white smoke shot straight into Michael's mouth. Eventually, the smoke stopped, and the dragon collapsed to the ground, moving no more. Once the dragon hit the ground, it created a tremor several times stronger than a typical earthquake. Additionally, it created a thick cloud of dust around the dragon.

[Ding! Congrats to the host for killing a Soul Refining stage, level 4 mutated dragon. The reward is 300000 experience points as well as 20000 Badass points]

[The Soul Eater has absorbed the soul of the mutated dragon. The host has received 100,000 Experience points]

In total, Michael received four hundred thousand experience points. Compared to Wilkas's soul, he received five times the experience points by devouring the skeletal dragon's soul. It was several times eviler and more corrupt than Wilkas. Hence, the increase in experience points. Killing the dragon was the easy part. Now the real trouble began when Michael thought about transporting the skeleton from the treacherous ocean to Awor where he could auction it in the Aqua Palace.

"I feel creeped out when you use that spell," Michael heard Gaya's voice behind him.

"You've only seen me using it once," said Michael, staring at the dragon from above.

"You have a plan to move that thing?" Nightmare came to their side.

"System,"

Still trying to learn how to transport the skeleton, Michael turned to the system.

[The skeleton is too big to teleport ]

[The host can pay 100,000 badass points to dismantle the skeleton. Another 100,000 for teleporting the bones to a choice of your base of operation. And finally, another 100,000 badass points for assembling the skeleton. So a total of 300,000 badass points]

Michael was surprised by the system because the system quoted an amount way less than he had actually imagined. So Michael quickly agreed.

"Dismantle and teleport it to the dark forest. I will assemble it later,"