He could take on a single one, probably even deflect it, but there were too many of them.

“Tell me, have you joined them out of spite or were you already one of them?”

Conall asked while running towards the figure. Surprisingly, their mouth opened and a raspy voice corroded his ears.

Even in the voice of his true self, there remained the immutable sneer and hubris.

“The only thing you need to know is that you will die.”

“I hope you didn’t take that spar to heart.”

He already closed the distance that separated them in half, however, an unexpected spell stopped him.

A tall wave of dark waters was closing in on him from the front, stretching for a few meters to the sides.

He must have hidden his spells, Conall wondered as the waters scoured him to the ground. No strength could have opposed such a large mass of liquid coming at him with speeds only slightly lower than the water spheres.

The wave scratched him along the rough forest floor. He was stopped only when an old tree protested.

Crushed between two great forces, he couldn't do anything but wait for the spell to finally end.

Soon, it fell apart, and the waters spread across the ground while Conall caught a fresh breath. The majority of his left side broke as he tried to defend himself. Mainly, his arm and ribs. The medallion hanging on his chest cracked slightly after it sensed his wounds, though it mended back up when the boy stabilized himself.

A tingling sensation soon spread across his body, in the areas that were severely damaged. His divine heart quickly started the body’s recovery. Although its power regressed when it was transplanted into his body, the potential the organ held was immense. Once he raised his constitution further, his regeneration was bound to be terrifying.

While he was getting himself together, Richard got behind him already, with a staff that changed shape. A sharp end was about to tear apart his flesh, but Conall wouldn’t get done so easily.

Rolling his body to the side, he kicked his feet off the ground, getting up abruptly. Although it hurt as hell, it allowed him to regain some of the fight’s control.

Richard, having taken off his hood, grinned dastardly.

“It seems like you have gotten stronger since the last time. Good. I will have some fun before the main show.”

“I think you’ve gotten a bit nicer than before. Though that conceit of yours is still there.”

“You can’t hide everything, can you?”

After a brief exchange of words, they clashed together in close combat. To the surprise of his opponent, Conall was equally strong as him. He was supposed to be the weakest knight of all unless he hid his strength the same way he did.

‘Should I just use magic?’

Richard contemplated. He could just end the fight right there, but that wouldn’t be fun. Crushing him in his best domain would be, on the other hand.

So, he coated the staff with mana, to enhance its properties. He did the same with his robes before breaking free from the blade that locked his staff.

With mana strengthening his body, he became both faster and stronger. Unfortunately for him, it didn’t help.

He thrust his spear-like staff, only for Conall to counterattack with a slash of his own after blocking it.

Frustrated with the way the battle was tilting away, Richard sent a kick to his stomach, however, the enemy was ready for it.

With a punch containing his whole upper body, the mage didn’t expect a pain of such magnitude. His robes were enchanted, but the punch was delivered nonetheless.

All of a sudden, his balance was lost, and Conall wouldn’t fail to make use of it.

With a deep swing, he slashed across Richard’s body, and a shallow, but long cut across his torso showed through the rags that were his robes.

“Argh!”

With a painful cry, he tried to distance himself by using his mana. Using the water spells to boost himself, he somewhat flew through the air before eventually crashing into the ground.

“What? Come on, it wasn’t even that painful. Why are you already resorting to spells?”

Conall taunted him, but he couldn’t hear him. Quickly downing a few potions of healing, the torn-apart skin and muscles rapidly mended back up while tears welled up in his eyes.

The staff changed back into the normal version of itself already before shooting out an array of water balls at him.

Anyhow, the opponent was prepared. Getting as close to him as possible before he could send the wave spell, the mage ran away.

Finally, after five minutes of constant running, Richard was broken. At least physically. He couldn’t keep running from this monster that had unending stamina. He also didn’t have enough mana to send another wave since the first one already ate up the majority of his mana.

Without the ability to consume a mana potion since he had a cockroach on his back, he could only give up.

The sword went directly through his shoulder, pinning him down to the tree.

As pain struck him, he couldn’t do anything but groan. Soon, the lights in his eyes went out. Conall watched as his punch put him to sleep, fully unconscious.

Although it was a pain in the ass, he couldn’t kill these guys.

Cutting open his robes, he saw a large, black scar on the back of Richard. Engraved in his flesh and skin, the mark of the heavenly order was proudly there, on all of the skin.

‘He must be pretty devout, huh? He couldn't have joined the academy prior to them, especially with such a brand.’

Leaving him lying on the ground, Conall went on his way. He needed to get somewhere before others could.

As he was slowly getting away from him, Richard’s eyes suddenly opened. Half-conscious, he saw that the red-haired knight was walking away. Was he a coward for not killing him or did he want to truly humiliate him? He didn’t know, however, a great fury boiled up from within him.

Looking at the figure slowly disappearing in the background, he gnashed his teeth. A moment later, a white, small sphere rolled about in his palm before he threw it in his mouth.

With the sound of a hard candy cracking, he bit on it and swallowed.

Abruptly, his body was hit against the hard ground, as though something was pulling him. It started to convulse while his veins protruded, pulsating visibly black blood.

Slowly, the black veins reached his neck before finally reaching his head.

Unaware of his transformation, Conall was running through the forest while killing beasts that stood in his way. However, all of a sudden, he jumped to the side, feeling a vicious energy coming from behind.

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What seemed like a black slash traveled through the forest, cutting apart the trees and ground as though they were made from clay.

‘For Lady's sake, did he wake up after I saw his symbol?’

It only meant one thing. Richard was being treated with high regard in the Heavenly Order. Only their talented youth got to have their brands modified with defense mechanisms.

‘Good thing I didn’t try to kill him.’

Had he even tried, Richard wouldn’t become a normal demon like the rest of their followers. And if Conall had to face a truth-seeker from the get-go, he wasn’t sure even the medallion would be able to save him. Well, it wouldn't nonetheless.

He saw as the lesser demon approached him. Although Richard was already pretty tall, he now stood over two and a half meters.

Pale blue skin engulfed his sinewy body. The earlier robes were almost fully torn apart, large, open gashes scattered everywhere.

There was no emotion on his face. He looked like a robot that came here to do his job and leave afterward. Unlike other demons he encountered, Richard’s new form didn’t have full black eyes. Instead, they were white with a small black dot, as if he lost his irises.

Alongside his imposing aura, a ring of black water encircled him diagonally, though it was most likely him who controlled it.

Standing less than fifty meters apart, the demon stretched out his hand. From the ring around him, a part of the water quickly transformed into slash, aimed directly at the human.

In less than a second, Conall had to already dodge the strike.

Sweat started to gather on his face as he exerted most of his strength. This wasn’t a time to test his opponent’s power. It was clearly well above the first gate, so he had to give it his all.

He ran to the side, countless sharp slashes following right past him while deforesting the whole area around them. Trying to even slightly deplete the water reserves turned out useless, as it seemed unending.

He also couldn’t engage in physical contact like with the necubus. The demon before him was an actual demon Grade B who was strong physically. A simple punch from him would result in torn-apart flesh.

The only thing he could do was wait out until the pure truth bead ran out and Richard came back to his normal body.

However, the demon wasn’t willing to do as he wanted. With steps that destroyed the ground, it closed their distance with terrifying ease.

The surrounding water turned into an enormous hammer, and the demon swung it. Folding like a piece of paper, Conall managed to go beneath the weapon just in time.

Mayhem reverberated throughout the place as countless trees were either uprooted or thrown up into the air during the exchange. Dodging a log that was falling directly at him, he saw the hammer progressing at him from above.

Although he had gotten away from the trajectory, the weapon quickly changed into something completely different. Scattered throughout the air, thousands of small droplets separated from the hammer.

Like bullets, they began to shred the ground away while going after Conall. Even though he hid behind a large tree, they quickly cut it down.

It wasn’t the only thing he had to deal with. Just as he was moving away, he sensed Richard near him. The demon sent a kick at him, and a coating of water condensed itself on his feet, forming what seemed like greaves.

‘How much mana can one have?’

He was astounded, compared to his spar with Richard. At the same time, it was all coming together, especially since he was a talented youth from the Heavenly Order. Richard most likely had the second-best mana core quality, just after the Golden Eight.

Dodging the next couple of kicks skilfully, he was ready for the next weapon switch. And it came quickly. Just as the demon was moving his leg to attack Conall’s side, one of his greaves changed into long chains while the other into a gauntlet on his right arm.

The chains were about to wrap around the knight, but they missed. Instead of moving away, he moved closer to the demon. Although it was risky, especially with the newly formed gauntlet, he was aware of his doing.

He saw the armored fist incoming, but there was no worry in his eyes. Swiftly on his feet, he dodged the strike before seeing the gap in the demon’s body.

Almost instinctively, his sword moved at a fast pace.

The blade struck the blue skin of the monster, however, it resulted in no less than a cut that slowly healed up. It was like cutting up tough leather with a dull knife, he mused.

Nonetheless, with the created occasion, he ran away from the demon, trying to waste as much time as possible.

Though, The demon easily caught up, unfortunately for him. And this time, it didn’t try to kill him with weapons. In the range that didn’t exceed five meters, He saw Richard send out the same slash as the one a minute prior.

He clenched his teeth. Knowing that the demon would resort to this sooner or later, he was prepared for it. Putting his blade up at a specific angle, he let the slash of water hit his sword. Immediately, his body was swung to the side from the weight of the attack.

Spinning in the air, he observed the rotating world, trying to see where he would land. Even though he was flung by the spell, his feet firmly touched the ground a second later.

He couldn’t even check the condition of his sword because another spell was coming his way. Moving to the side, he was once again barely able to dodge it. The previous attack helped him create enough distance to somewhat react. Yet, another attack followed. This time, it was fast, concurrent slashes.

With a silent, deep breath, he focused on the enemy.

…

For fifteen minutes straight, Conall had been put under a test of his nimbleness coupled with stamina. His chest heaved up and down furiously as he lay on the ground riddled with cut-down logs.

On his side, Richard finally came back to himself, plopping down on the hard wood as soon as the transformation ended. He was fully unconscious this time, nor would he wake up for at least a day. Using a pure bead took a heavy toll on the body.

Looking up at the naked sky with pretty white clouds, he waited for a minute before getting up.

Finally, he started moving towards his destination, only restrained by beasts that added up to his medallion.

While he was busy trudging through the forest, a small group of four students attacked a large monster that had its forehead painted in black. It was a unique beast that was worth a whopping 50 points.

The party consisted of two elves, one human, and a beastkin. The human, barring any upper body clothes, screamed in excitement. His voice spread throughout the forest, making the leaves of the trees shake slightly.

A menacing, red energy appeared around him while he tightened the grip on two of his war axes. In the back of their formation, an elf’s staff lit up in a blue light, supporting the other three fighters.

On the left side in front of her, a male elf in robes raised his hands and a mass of fire soon appeared above him. To his right, a male wolf-kin clad in dark, leather armor and two daggers took on an explosive stance, ready to pounce at the enemy at any moment.

“Die!!!!”

The barbarian shouted as he lunged forward the large, but bony gewulf. Standing five meters tall with its body longer than ten, the lanky, gray monster moved with a daintiness that couldn’t be found in normal beasts.

Not exerting unnecessary force, the beast with two heads used its monstrous strength to move forward. The stubborn humans were trying to gather its attention for quite a while in unprincipled ways, causing it to burst out with ire.

The wind around the party stiffened, as though a layer of heaviness had been put on top of them. Nonetheless, the ruthless barbarian, Ogulu, flexed his toned muscles as he jumped at the faces of the monster.

Before the gewulf could react, the blade of the man’s axe penetrated deeply through the tough skin and muscles. In retaliation, the monster tried to bite the barbarian’s head off, only for him to put his arm in its mouth and attack with the free one.

A deep, open wound appeared on one of the gewulf’s heads, stopping it from biting the human any further.

Like a madman, Ogulu shredded through the body of the monster, leaving him with countless gashes and cuts. And, once the gewulf tried to fight back, a fireball hit its head.

If it tried to attack with one of its paws, a man-wolf appeared below it, stopping the sharp claws from going any further.

Soon, one of its heads was shattered, and the beast fell in wrath. Releasing copious amounts of wind in their direction, it tried to deflect their bodies.

However, even that didn’t work. The beast was quickly subdued, its mana not able to help slightly.

With the other three gaining 12 each, Ogulu gained 14 points for his valorous actions.

“You’re probably the best teammate I could have asked for.”

The wolf-kin rouge said to the barbarian that was chugging down a healing potion. The elves on the side nodded silently, approving of what he just said. All of them had already amassed ninety points each, with Ogulu exceeding one hundred and above.

They couldn’t have imagined doing this with even just the three of them, especially fighting off other participants.

“I’m not the strongest for nothing.”

Ogulu flattered himself as they went further down the forest. There was no time to waste if they wanted to be the first in the leaderboards.

As they were going through the trees, they heard something coming from their leader. It sounded as though he was annoyed.

“Tch.”

The barbarian clicked his tongue before swinging one of his axes at the three behind him. In a single sweep, the two elves seemed to have died on the spot, but their bodies disappeared a second later.

Being able to react didn’t mean the wolf-kin would run away. He was so distraught and stunned by the ordeal that he didn’t know what to say.

“Sorry, some annoying pest got in the way. Now, I need my points back.”

Standing in place, frozen, the black-haired rogue shivered. Unable to move away, he watched the war axe come for his head.