Outside this dead silent room, screams of soldiers holding back the enemy, swords clashing creating sparks with each attack and, the last words that many would ever say. Sounds of slaughter could be heard as it approached near.

Despite Zane's men coming closer to where he was, he didn't pay attention to it rather he couldn't.

Right in the front of him were three people who have a hand in what the outcome may be.

Zane stood in the middle of the room looking directly at Adam and asking, "What's going on?"

Adam directly answered Zane's question, "You see, he wanted to prove himself and I agreed. Technically, that Underworld Envoy is part of this kingdom so the bet still stands. Are you up for it?"

"Where are they?"

"Oh them? They're safe, here."

Adam immediately used a device and a holographic screen could be seen. It showed the women and children who were kidnapped.

"To where they are, I don't know but I can guarantee you that they are still safe, for now."

Zane glanced at the Underworld Envoy that had caused him so much pain over the past few days and couldn't help but clench his fists. When the Underworld Envoy looked at Zane he started to eerily smile and picked up the spear that was beside his throne.

He looked like a miniature mountain with his seat barely fitting him. He was easily twice Zane's height with Zane's torso equaling the Underworld Envoy's biceps. When he stood up, the ground quaked a little but there wasn't a single crack under his feet. This either showed how much control he has over his body or it spoke volumes on how sturdy this room was.

Zane looked at the gigantic spear even taller than the Underworld Envoy himself. It had bloodstains clearly visible at the edge of it, there was even a single drop of blood that dropped when the Underworld Envoy aimed his spear at Zane.

Zane, on the other hand, started sapping the mana in the surroundings and started to force it into his body. The condensed mana within his body was so dense that a light blue hue could be seen with the naked eye.

He brought out his sword and started to infuse half the mana he had gathered and forced it into the sword causing the sword to leak out mana. Zane took his stance and waited for the battle to start.

Adam looked at Zane with glee in his eyes, he then gestured to Eve to come to him.

"I told you didn't I? Right now, Zane is on equal grounds with that trash. You need to master this technique faster or you'll lag behind."

Eve nodded and understood the sheer difference between them. While Eve had just started training Adam's mana technique, Zane had already mastered the basics. Despite her learning Basic Martial Arts while training, Zane had already mastered Intermediate Martial Arts.

"Oh, almost forgot." Adam then snapped his fingers and the throne room slightly quivered as if something changing within it. A looming force entered the walls and floors and then quietly disappeared.

"Absolute Barrier."

Zane could feel the floor beneath him harden to an unimaginable degree. Even the Underworld Envoy steps didn't even crack the floor beneath him. Trying to see just how sturdy Adam's spell is, the Underworld Envoy infused a dark substance into his spear and directly slammed the floor with his spear.

There was the expected loud sound of impact but after looking at it again the floor wasn't even scratched. Despite how unbelievable it looked, no one in the room was surprised except for Zane.

The Underworld Envoy spoke up, "The name's Garan, etch it into your skull. It's the name of the person who'll kill you."

Immediately after introducing himself, Garan threw his spear towards Zane. Zane didn't dodge, instead opting to test out his strength against Garan.

Zane reinforced his sword with mana and tried to slash away the spear but only managed to deflect its course to his side. Garan appeared right behind Zane and picked up his spear immediately striking Zane in the back.

Zane jumped up with enough force to instantly disappear from where he was and ended up in the ceiling. As he was in the air he grabbed the chandelier in the middle of the room and stayed above there as he reorganized his thoughts.

Garan once again threw his spear aiming not for Zane but instead the chain that's holding the chandelier. As soon as Garan's spear hit the chain, the spear was immediately stopped causing it to limply fall to the ground.

Garan couldn't help but say, "Even this?"

Seeing this opportunity, Zane jumped down using the chandelier as a platform to increase his descent. He enlarged his sword and directly aimed for Garan's neck. Finishing this fight as soon as possible would be best.

Garan looked at this and simply smiled, "Did you really think that spear was my real weapon? Hahaha! Come at me then!"

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Garan strained his hands and a dark substance like earlier covered his hands causing it to look golden black. Zane's momentum was unstoppable at this moment rendering Zane unable to back out even if he wanted to. As Zane was about to slice Garan's neck, Garan threw out his hand and caught Zane's blade.

The impact from stopping dazed Zane for a bit when Garan then shook the sword around causing Zane to release his grip flinging him to the side of the room, still not damaging the throne room even a little bit.

Garan laughed while sarcastically saying, "Is this all he can do? With this, I don't even think he could've killed Haze. Looking at this scene, one would really think that Garan had already won the fight.

Adam was leisurely watching the fight when he commented, "Zane when are you going to stop playing?"

Zane slowly rose while resting on his knee, the impact from earlier was quite brutal but nothing his natural regenerative abilities couldn't fix. When Zane finally stood up he was essentially good as new but he now had a much darker blue hue around him.

Zane then immediately dashed forward and landed a clean hit in Garan's stomach, his speed increased to such an exponential amount that it even caught Garan in surprise.

Garan, faced with this sudden attack, unconsciously released his grip letting Zane's sword free. Zane didn't hesitate to grab his sword and deliver another wound. Zane thought about whether to pierce his heart or head but decided against it.

He used his sword and sliced off Garan's hands clean off, just before the golden black substance covering them. Right after getting his hands sliced off, Garan frantically kicked Zane away in hopes of increasing the distance between them.

Fortunately for him, Zane didn't expect Garan to react this way and managed to increase the distance between them.

Zane was kicked away by a significant distance all the way to the other side of the room. While he was mid-air he regained his senses and as he was about to hit the wall, he used the wall as a platform to jump back to Garan.

During his jump back, he picked up the spear that fell earlier. He was now wielding his sword on his right hand and a spear on his left. Garan was a little startled on how well Zane was adapting to his situation.

Garan just chuckled, "Heh, too bad."

Zane felt something was off when Garan said that. Instinctively he threw the spear he picked up and tried to embed it into the ground in hopes of turning back but the ground was too hard to be pierced, all it managed to do was slow him by a bit.

All Zane managed to do was slow down but that ominous feeling hit him. It was an arrow from the elite soldier's side.

An arrow pierced his shoulder barely missing his neck by a few inches. Zane glared at where the arrow came from while taking out the arrow that had just pierced him. The pain of his flesh getting ripped apart by the arrowhead was painful but was quickly fixed up by his regenerative abilities.

Getting hit by an arrow was painful and this was Zane's first experience of this. Zane threw his spear towards Garan instead of the soldiers since, in his eyes, the Underworld Envoy was a much bigger threat.

Zane's instinct was correct, just when the spear was about to pierce the Underworld Envoy's chest, Garan's hands grew at that exact moment and caught his spear just in time.

"Thanks for giving it back."

The elite soldiers went out and surrounded Zane. Garan was in the middle being the direct fighter while the others were just supporting him, landing a few hits, and disrupting Zane's momentum.

"We're done playing right? I'm going all out."

The golden black substance that was covering Garan's hands started to spread all over his body and started to change his body.

Zane confirmed his suspicions with what he was seeing, "As expected, another devil."

With a growing monster in front of him and archers around him covering all his blind spots, this was an exponentially worse situation than before.

Garan who had now turned into a grotesque looking monster with one horn and unexpectedly smaller body than before, has turned even more terrifying.

Zane thought, if it was just Garan I could possibly win but looking at this situation surviving is all I could do.

Garan's smaller frame was still bigger than Zane by a head but was now much more agile than before. Their speeds right now are nearly identical with Zane barely being faster than Garan.

There were mages within their ranks but due to Zane's favorability with mana in the throne room, the mages couldn't even cast a single spell due to the lack of mana supporting their spell. Some did manage to gather a bit of mana before all of this and cast a few spells but there wasn't enough mana to do any significant damage.

An arrow could be heard flying through the air, exactly where Zane's blindspot was. Thanks to Zane's mastery of Ruler of Mana, he could barely sense changes around him and barely managed to dodge the arrow but failed to dodge Garan's spear.

There was now a sizable wound on Zane's chest but was healing at a rapid rate. This wasn't a good situation that keeps getting worse. The mana that Zane had accumulated earlier was getting expended at a rapid rate to the point that he starting to slow down.

Zane was getting desperate, each time he dodges an arrow he gets sliced by Garan, and each time he dodges Garan's attacks he gets pierced by an arrow. Right now he was starting to regret not learning about Adam's mana technique, Ruler of Mana.

The next step in this technique was cutting off the process of gathering mana and using mana directly from all around him.

It's unfortunate that he won't be given the time to refill his mana capacity with these constant attacks.

After a few hard-fought minutes, Zane was looking quite bleak. He had a few holes and slices in his body still visible and not healing. He could barely hold his sword and even the soldiers who had a sword and spears were starting to attack him since he was at his weakest.

Zane looked at Adam with a pleading look and Adam filled in the gaps, "Technically you are staging a rebellion and the king's soldiers are fighting back, can't do anything about it."

Zane felt disheartened when he heard this, he thought Adam was on his side when he caught a glimpse of what Eve was doing. Eve was siphoning mana from Adam's spell and internalizing it into her own.

Zane instantly thought she's training at even at a time like this. Wait a minute, what if I do the same?

Zane started siphoning mana from Adam's Absolute Barrier slowly and used that to rapidly heal himself. As his wounds were healing and his vision started to clear out, he finally started to feel it, the strain of forcing his body to rapidly heal.

Zane now knew that he had to do something drastic to shift the tides. He feigned weakness and dropped in front of an enemy soldier, seeing that he had his chance, he tried at slash Zane's neck.

As Zane was about to be struck, Garan pierced his spear towards Zane in an even faster manner, and then Zane dodged. Garan's spear cared not for allies nor enemies as he had struck one of the soldiers in the chest, causing collateral damage.

The king grew a little frustrated at this but still kept his mouth, these soldiers, although looked extremely weak, were still elites, they could each slaughter a platoon of enemy soldiers by themselves. Angering Garan wasn't worth saying his piece.

Zane looked at Garan's reaction but it was still the same, apparently, Garan didn't care if the soldiers helping him were killed or not, although heartless, this was something Zane needed to tip the scales in his favor.