Snapping his neck and stretching his back as the flaming monster rose from the rubble on the horizon, the young man with gray hair glanced sideways.

However, he did not necessarily seem concerned with the grotesque ten foot shadow who wielded two flaming swords in his direction. And even though he was coming towards him as it came out of the rubble at the end of the street, something else was taking priority. Briefly stealing his attention from the enemy.

"I can’t believe this, please not again ..."

His yellow eyes quickly scanned his waist in confusion. His fingers desperately moving towards his body, feeling his waist in search of something.

“Where did it go?”

"Oh shit."

"What?"

Bringing both hands together to his mouth he whispered: “Don’t tell this to the beheamoth over there but… —I think I forgot my spear back at the inn.”

"Mind if I borrow yours?"

“Go ahead and take it. ” Was what Jin wanted to say.

Instead — all he managed to do was nod his head in approval while vomit relentlessly came out of his mouth, staining the ground with filth as he felt sick to his stomach.

“I’ll make sure to bring it back in one piece to you soon brother, don’t fret about it.” Taking the steel blade from Jin — who had averted his gaze to the ground as to stop puking —was Vendrick. Grabbing by the handle, the steel blade was slowly being swung in the wind. Grabbing a feel for how it moved against the air, like a child playing with sticks, he smiled.

"This will do."

Dust sprung up as his feet left the ground in a dash. Leaping at once towards the flaming swords without a question on his mind, no hesitation before the fire that burned bright in the dark of the night. The Devourer, with his vast amount of stamina from his torso and up, kept swinging as the yellow-eyed swordsman approached.

Although it was dark for Eliza to catch every glimpse of what was ongoing in the distance, the landscape was favorable to her view. The flaming swords being swung around gave enough contrast to her eyes that it was more than enough to process what was unfolding. As the action began, with the corner of her blue eyes she could see Jin whispering something. He too was dazzled by the ongoing fight, but there was something on the tip of his tongue.

If she had focused enough attention on what was being said, she would have heard it. An expression that was stuck under all the disgust and rage that Jin was feeling, but after all was expelled it kept coming back to the tip of his tongue.

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"Vendrick, please achieve victory for Faust, avenge his loss for the sake of his memory." All eyes were on the combatants. The flaming swords sketched a semi-circle, painting a sudden swing across Vendrick —

However, in the gap shorter than the blink of an eye, Vendrick nullified the sword slash coming from both sides. Vendrick— who was positioning himself backward and sideways—changing stances each time a different flaming sword slash came his way couldn't contain the thrill pumping through his muscles. And although the Devourer seemed to be taking his opponent seriously during all this time — The tip of his blades could not meet their target not even once. As the blade harshly came down one more time cutting the atmosphere on its trajectory, even against the proceeding slashes, Vendrick’s complexion did not show the slightest change. Covering halfway of distance, he had not even been grazed.

"—"

And Vendrick had not even swung once with the steel blade of his own. Eliza could not overstate how huge the power gap between the both of them seemed to them. She was an Elemental Warrior, a chosen human with distinctive abilities passed down by the gods themselves but even then, she could barely slow down that monster with her 『Nail Shot』. Eliza didn’t tell anyone, she didn’t plan on telling it to anyone.

Individual training should be kept in secret, that was what the Elders had told her. You could never know if the day would come where your companions used that knowledge against you. And therefore she hadn’t, but it still made her uncomfortable to no end. Before their departure from Sanctum, she had asked the instructors one step above her—Disciple Rank— on how to improve the piercing power of her elemental skill. And they had advised her to gather energy and transfer to her quiver of it.

As long as the arrows were drawn from it, they would have been imbued in Geno ’s energy. And the amount of power gained surpassed anything she had ever seen from veteran archers under the Belkor Theocracy, piercing both wood and concrete alike as long as the arrows were bathed in elemental energy. She could not grasp the amount of dedication and training that it must have taken Vendrick to tap that overpowering potential. There was much she still didn’t know about Sanctum and how their social hierarchy was organized, but swordsmanship aside, it would be sensible to assume Vendrick had at least tenfold of her agility.

She just could not see herself staring death on the face like that gray-haired man was — dodging flaming swords with ease, wearing nothing more than a white hood and a serene look on his face. The Devourer’s sword slashes were harsh, once more directly they sailed upon the mortal below. Not taking his yellow eyes away from the tip of each flaming sword slicing towards him, Vendrick didn’t falter. Tracking every single inch of movement from the blades with the corner of his eyes, the lightning-fast reaction made most of the work for him.

Across the battlefield, wreckage and broken bricks were scattered everywhere along the main street. Ferris Village had been the stage of a battle that was ensuing since the afternoon. And now aside from the combatants, all they had watching them was the moonlight. Bearing witness to the duel that took place on the center of the main square. Vendrick’s sword was yet to enter the trajectory of a swing.

But the time had come.

“You are relentlessly powerful, oh Feral Devourer, but for the carnage that you have brought upon this village… It is I —'Vendrick of Norkrus' who shall bring your foul existence to an end!”

—Jin almost missed it.

A single swing, Vendrick's blade was soundlessly swung, and before the flaming swords could reach the ground along with the fallen Devourer — his blade, as if in flow, settled within the scabbard. With just that, the battle of Ferris Village came to an end.

It was the end.