Nexias didn't bother trying to escape from the mines, instead blasting his way out by launching a barrage of shadow lightning, the charge from the mines being absorbed by them and crashing into the elder dragon. It didn't hurt much, but it did cause a big explosion, clouding the dragon's vision long enough for Nexias to blitz him in his compact form, going for a physical bombardment of blows. Normally, it would do nothing, but Nexias had coated his arms in a large amount of Energized shadow, and each hit caused an explosion shadows to burst forth, doing actual damage to the ToRaNe. It seems Nexias was giving it his all and taking advantage of a dragon's reliance on distance. While dragon's were no slouches in CQC, they weren't that well versed in it for the most part. 

Nexias was an exception, as he sent a great part of his early 200 years to learn a variety of fighting styles, thus making him very dangerous in his compact form, and when ever ToRaNe tried to claw or bite at him, he'd lither along their scaly hide as a shadow before reforming to unleash another rain of blows. Soon, To had enough, and called down a barrage of lightning strikes on to himself, causing Nexias to  get shocked off of the dragon, only to be smacked by a tail straight into the forest.

"Damn," To said working his jaw a bit to numb the ache, "I didn't expect for him to be this good. I don't think he's quite GrandFather level yet, but-" Before he could finish, a cacophony of maddened laughter echoed from the forest, a purple aura surrounding it. The trees became twisted and gnarled, the leaves became decayed, and the bark split open to show fanged laughing, that maddened laugh, and crazed red eyes, all focused on the elder. "well then, that can't be good."