Arriving at the Athenaeum, Raven quickly enters the towering building and heads toward the basement.

While going toward the elevator, Raven's footsteps echo throughout the spacious white hallway, a full-colour contrast to the outside building.

'Even the inside of this one is empty. I thought the SOM would try to guard this place as best as possible. But it seemed I was wrong." Raven thought, 'Or maybe….'

"A trap...?" Coming to a sudden halt, Raven looks left and right, trying to figure out whether this is a trap.

"You finally arrived." Coming from the other side of the hallway, the voice of a young man rings out, gaining Raven's attention and causing him to stay on high alert.

"We finally meet, Raven." says the young man.

"Well... If isn't one of the five Grand-General himself?" Raven says with a smirk, "I didn't expect they would send one of their best dogs to deal with me."

"You know me?" The young man says, raising his eyebrows at Raven.

"Everyone knows you, General. The youngest of all five Grand-General, Kai Malaki. There is no way I would miss all of the propaganda the SOM spread." Raven responds, "But enough talk. Get the hell out of my way. Even if you are a Grand-General, I will not be stopped by you!"

"That is something we can agree on," Kai says before seemingly opening up his hand, summoning something into his hand.

In Kai's hand appears a long red spear with all red markings. The spear gives off a very subtle red aura, and the space leaps around it by little.

"Ardentis Lux: Longanimis." Kai says, "Be grateful that your last sight will be that of this weapon."

"One of the Arch Magia? As expected from a Grand-General." Raven says, and with his left hand, he pulls out his gun from its holster using his left arm. Revealing a pitch-black gun with a rectangular body and no visible cylinder or magazine slot can be seen.

Aiming it at Kai, he immediately pulls the trigger.

Instead of a bullet coming out of the gun, it was pure black energy with a green outline coming out of the barrel. Quickly flying through the air, Kai dodges it by stepping aside, avoiding the energy bullet.

Kai wastes no time and rushes forward in a blur. Raven does not panic and starts firing more bullets at Kai; the latter easily dodge them while using his spear to deflect some of them. Kai quickly closes the distance between him and Raven.

When Kai comes close to him, Raven quickly leaps back to make a distance between him and Kai, but Kai becomes even faster and follows Raven, clearing their reach in a matter of a second.

Thrusting his spear forward, Kai delivers a barrage of thrusts toward Raven, the latter starting to dodge left and right, trying his best to avoid the spear thrusts.

'Dammit, he fast!' Raven grits his teeth while trying to create a distance between himself and Kai.

Thinking fast, Raven brought up his gun and used it to redirect the spear thrust downward, causing it to stab the ground. Raven raises one of his feet and moves it toward the spear body, stopping Kai from moving the spear.

Raven then aims his gun at Kai's face. Still, before Raven can even pull the trigger, the spear starts to glow bright red, and its temperature starts to rise dramatically before the flame suddenly bursts out of the spear itself, causing Raven to jump backwards, avoiding the flame quickly.

Raven clicks his tongue in annoyance, seeing how he missed his chance to finish the fight right then and there. Kai pulls his spear from the ground before twirling it around, leaving a trail of flame behind from the spear.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Blazing Moon!"

Swing his spear upward, Kai sends a crescent flame blast toward Kai, whose eyes widen in surprise at the sudden attack, but he can still react fast enough and dodge the attack. But Kai did not stop there and delivered more barrages of attacks.

"Blazing Moonsong!!"

Sending a wave of crescent shape flame forward, the barrage of attacks burns everything in its path; anything that these crescent shape flame touch starts to melt rapidly, including the ground itself that starts to melt, leaving a trail of burning marks behind.

Raven saw the wave of attacks coming toward him. Trying his best to avoid all the attacks, Raven tries to shoot Kai while dodging them, but all of the shots are missed, or Kai would react fast enough to escape them.

Seeing how his attack is not working and only leading to a stalemate, Kai makes a quick decision and rushes forwards; following behind his trail of attack, Kai leaps up into the air and swings his spear downward at Raven, who is still trying his best to avoid the wave of crescents flame.

Raven, of course, sees this and tries to shoot Kai out of the air, but all of his shots miss because he is still trying to dodge the previous attacks from Kai. Seeing how he will not have time to make a distance between himself and Kai, Raven quickly grabs his sword using his right hand to block the downward swing from Kai's spear.

Despite blocking the attack, Raven's sword was still firmly in its sheath.

"What the point of having a sword if you are not gonna pull it out of the sheath!!" Kai says toward Raven while their weapon clashes and lock with each other.

"That is none of your fucking business!!" Raven curses back while trying to push Kai away from him.

Raven raises his left hand, still holding onto the gun, and aims it at Kai. However, Kai's spear, Longanimis, starts to glow red again, and flame blasts out of the lance at close range, trying to burn Raven right then and there.

Seeing this, Raven quickly puts his gun back into the holster and grabs hold of his sword handle with both hands, and with a roar, he pushes Kai back, creating a distance between him and Kai.

But while he is in the air due to him being pushed back by Raven, Kai sends another flame blast toward Raven, the latter swinging his sheathed sword at the flame, dispersing it.

Knowing how trying to fight Kai from a distance wouldn't work, Raven also rushes forward while only holding his sword with his left hand. When Kai landed on the ground, is already close to him; however, instead of trying to attack Kai with his sword, Raven clenched his hand into a fist before reeling it backwards.

The right-hand start to glow with black, and green energy comes out of it before forming a shape that looks like a green flame.

"Serpent-!!"

Raven throws his right fist forward, leaving a black-green flame behind, aiming it straight at Kai; however, Kai is fast enough to block the attack by using his spear; however, the force of the attack is hard enough to send Kai slightly up into the air.

"-Spike!!"

But Raven did not stop there; he followed up his attack by thrusting his hand upward, followed by a wave of black-green energy that seemingly took the shape of what seemed to be the head of a monster; with its jaw opened wide, it moved forward trying to devour airborne Kai.

Kai twirls his spear before sending a single wave of flame toward Kai's attack, causing both attacks to collide, creating a small explosion that is strong enough to send both combatants backwards.

Both of them quickly land on the ground, and wasting no time, Raven and Kai rush forward again, continuing their combat.

Raven-owned sheathed swords clashed with Kai Arch Magia, creating a clanking sound, and their weapon locked with each other again. Raven glares directly at Kai, who still has a stern and emotionless feature on his face.

"Is this all you have to offer, Grand-General?!" Raven says while pushing his weapon forward, causing Kai to step back.

"I will admit, I have underestimated you. It seems I have to take you more seriously!!" With a mighty roar, Kai pushes Raven back, breaking their weapon locked, before a magic circle appears beneath Kai's feet.

Raven stabs his sheathed sword into the ground directly, stopping himself from flying too far back, before looking back at Kai, eyes widening.

'What the hell is he doing?' Raven thought

"Arch Magia restriction, release!" Kai starts his chant. A chant that Raven can hear very clearly, causing him to launch himself forward, trying to stop Kai from finishing his chant; even though he does not know what will happen, Raven at least guesses that it will not end well for him.

However, it was futile because when Kai started his chant, the area around them began to heat up intensely, with the wind also starting to pick up, creating a gust of wind so strong that it pushed the incoming Raven backwards. At the same time, Kai still stood tall on the ground.

No matter how hard he tries, Raven cannot get close to Kai, yet he still tries to get close to Kai.

"Manifesting dimensional disruption field! Deploying Zether utilisation area!" Kai says before being consumed by a pillar of flame blasting out from the ground, covering him, but Raven can still clearly hear what Kai is speaking next, "Arch Magia, Install!!"