With Ash still over his shoulder, the Bishop took the single step remaining between them and crouched down.

He grabbed the burnt ends of his hair and lifted him up, observing his body.

“What a cruel art you've learnt.”

He looked emaciated and had various wounds and burns across his body. One would think he was a corpse left behind in a raided village rather than an adventurer.

“But I suppose, with this, I'll have completely eradicated the Agirow family. (Though there was one body I wasn't able to account for… Tch, if I'm being realistic, one of those bastards must have taken it for themselves.)” He thought as he examined the body of Tibaut.

He lifted his hand and brought it back. He soon aimed at Tibaut’s neck.

“(One thrust is all I need to end this…)

I wonder if his bounty is still valid, it was a decent chunk of change after all. More importantly, I imagine the king will be quite pleased with this. He's likely the last person alive who could possibly turn our nation's people against the king.”

As he prepared to impale Tibaut he noticed an odd sound whistle through the wind. He moved his head and moved Tibaut farther forward. Something imperceptible to the naked eye pierced through the veil and the shot passed the space between Tibaut and the Bishop. The Bishop quickly dispersed the veil to get a better look at his enemy and the wind dragged by whatever shot passed, instantly blew all the hot air away, followed by an earth-shattering boom.

The sound immediately woke Tibaut up and he struggled to release the Bishop's grasp on him.

He shot a fireball at the priest and managed to have it contact his hair. It seemed his hair was solid to give resistance to the fireball as a moment later it blew, creating an explosion at the back of his head.

Tibaut began struggling to escape his grasp and finally escaped. Or more accurately, the priest let go.

(“The little bastard, is this a friend of his?”)

He thought as another of the supersonic projectiles scraped against his helmet, causing a spark and leaving a gash in it.

(“It marred my helmet and went through my flames… that's no simple alloy of Disiponium. And to use them for arrows of all things…”)

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The wind of the arrows blew away the smoke that obscured his vision and the figure that attacked soon came into view.

Approximately a kilometre away on a white horse was a man with a bow in hand. The bow was simple and made of what looked like birch wood. Its power however was otherworldly.

(“Based on what my eyes are seeing, I thankfully didn't jump the gun.”)

The animal beneath him wasn't any old average stable horse. At its shoulder, it was taller than the average man, its body was comparable to a bull with legs as thick as its neck.

The beast cleared distance better than anything in the modern world and the rider stood on the horse's back, trying to aim at the man in the black armour.

The man watched as the rider on the horse rapidly approached, entering the town.

(“It takes about twenty seconds for the horse to clear a kilometre by my estimations. Arrows of an expensive alloy and a horse that moves at those speeds. Who is this? This can't be anyone this boy would know. Was I tracked?”)

He thought as he awaited the approach of the rider. To pass the time he dodged the fireballs of Tibaut while staying on his guard. The fireball he had been hit with earlier had done nothing to him other than briefly hinder his sight and burn the hair that may or may not have been his exiting his helmet.

With a few more seconds, the rider of the horse shot an arrow at the Bishop, only a few metres away and the Bishop pulled out his sword.

It took on a white light and the arrow he shot at the priest instantly evaporated. Both the metal and the wood were reduced to vapours simply by touching the sword.

(“You're not the only one with a fancy alloy.”)

The Bishop thought as the man jumped off his horse. He pulled three arrows from his quiver and shot them upwards far quicker than he did his other arrows. The moment the Bishop approached his strike zone, he pulled out a short sword and tried to trade blows with the Bishop. But narrowly avoided the other's blade and the man with the short sword stabbed into a sack on his side.

(“Poison I assume?”) The Bishop thought as they closed the distance again.

All Tibaut could do was watch as the two fought, well aware of how out of his depth he was. With those first strikes he couldn't make heads or tails of the blades they used or how far or close their blades were from each other. The worst part was that Tibaut knew what they were doing.

They were feeling each other out. And he couldn't even tell what they were doing. It was almost laughable how much this bastard was holding back against him.

He fell to his back, exhaustion from the heat still present in his body.

(“N-no… NO I HAVE TO KILL HIM!”) He thought as he tried to force his body to get up.

With Bishop having the advantage with the sword that vaporised anything it touched, the man with the bow whistled, and an arrow came down from the sky. The reason Tibaut could tell this happened was due to the arrow now on the floor. He didn't see nor hear a sound from it yet the Bishop dodged it so naturally, that he briefly thought the arrow was there from the beginning.