"Claustrine, wipe that dust cloud." Mateo's order.
Claustrine didn't say anything and just summon a ball of wind then throw it to the dust cloud. It hits the intended target to no effect but it manages to remove the cloud by exploding on impact and sending high pressure winds everywhere.
The Knight answers the hostility by dashing on Claustrine's direction. Mateo and Beltran quickly position themselves to defend Claustrine.
"I block her attack and use that time to do something." Beltrand said to Mateo. Mateo nods.
The Knight thrust her sword, intending to stab Mateo but Beltrand successful blocks the attack using his shield. The shield caves in a little due to the Knight's absurd power applied in a single focal point.
Mateo waste no time and empowers her sword. Using the short moment, he creates momentum and swing his sword to the Knight's neck.
But Mateo's powerful decapitation strike doesn't even make a dent to the Knight's neck who seems unbothered.
The Knight use more power to further pentrate Beltrand's shield. The shield cave's in even further and as it happens, Mateo just continued to unleash barrage of attacks to the Knight. Each strike didn't leave a scratch.
"Mateo! I can't hold her any longer!"
"I trying my best!" Mateo screams.
Beltrand's shield cave in deep enough the he can now feel the sword slowly getting closer to his arm. Beltran have no choice but to give up.
"Trinne!"
As Beltrand preparing to abandon the plan. An earth spike appears on the Knight's side and tries to stab her. The Knight just slams it to pieces but more earth spikes appears in different directions.
"Leave that area now!" Claustrine shouts. Beltrand and Mateo follows. The Knight is now stucked in the bindings of numerous earth spikes.
Suddenly. Familiar bottles starts falling to the knight. The bottles breaks as they got hit by arrows, releasing light green fluid that starts to thicken.
It turns out that the bottles contains a very sticky substance used to entrap large monsters. The Knight's situation is now a mess as she tries to set free but the mix of the earth prison and the sticky binding makes het attempt difficult.
Beltrand takes a look on her shield which is now unusable. He throws it to the Knight's head out of frustration but the Knight is unfazed.
Claustrine points her staff at the direction of the Knight and starts to chant...
"God of fire of Volcano Balvafir. Lend me your strenght and power to vaporize enemies who wish to taste the power of the Gods..."
Claustrine summons a small ball of fire. At first, it has normal coloration.
"Me, Claustrine Evergreen will dedictate our victory in this battle in your name us our deepest form of gratitude and devotion."
For a short period of time, the ball of flame change its color to deep crimson.
"Deistic Magic: Burning blood!"
Claustrine throws the deep red ball of flame to the Knight with great speed. It creates explosion upon impact and scatters everywhere. It creates a very huge deep crimson flame that engulfs the Knight.
Mateo notices that the flame is weird on its own. It still have the motion of a fire burning but he can clearly observe that the flame moves like a fluid and it scatters some sort of liquid everywhere. When the scattered liquid hits the ground, it also burns. And the fact the flame have some sort of viscosity makes Mateo believes that it was some sort of liquid fire.
But the dark red flame only last for 20 seconds before disappearing. It reveals that everything is melted and it creates a shallow crater to the ground... Except the Knight and hear gear who visibly gets burnt a little due to her dark coloration. But there's still no visible damage despite recieving such nasty attack. And the dark coloration seems to be just the burned substance Shirna thrown to her.
At that point. Grand Ecstasy is not even surprised when they already seen many instances of the Knight's tenacity.
Suddenly, the Knight banishes from their sight making Grand Ecstasy in shock.
"She's attacking!" Mateo screams.
Claustrine notices something moving fast to her location and with the brief moment she cast a magic barrier to herself, the Knight appears in front of her with her blade already smashed to Claustrine's barrier. Claustrine is visibly shocked to the Knight's sudden growth in speed.
Mateo, Beltrand and Shirna do their best to rush and defend Claustrine who casted more barriers inside of her barrier.
The Knight raise her left fist and punch the barrier with intense speed and strenght that each punch breaks a layer of Claustrine's shield.
It only takes seconds before the Knight reach Claustrine. She proceeds to raise her hand in attempt of punching Claustrine. Claustrine meanwhile cast the thickest barrier she can make in attempt of blocking the punch but...
CRASH!
The barrier is destroyed and Claustrine recieve a punch in the face that makes her fly several meters away. Everyone can see Claustrine knocked unconcious.
"CLAUSTRINE!" Mateo screams!
"You son of a-" Beltrand is really mad. Shirna also feels the same.
"Mateo, check if Shirna is ok." Shirna said.
Mateo runs toward Claustrine and checks her condition. Claustrine is really unconcious and her right cheek swells with small bruise forming. But despite the devastating attack, Claustrine seems alive.
The barrier she cast to protect herself cushion the force and prevents the Knight's punch on becoming lethal. But still, the fact that it still manages to knock Claustrine unconcious makes Mateo angry.
Meanwhile, Beltrand and Shirna are having a hard time facing the Knight head on. Not only they need to avoid getting hit by its sword but also the Knight is now also using amazing hand-to-hand combat as a compensation when the two manages to reach close distance that makes the Knight's long sword unusable.
And the fact the all of their attacks still doesn't do any sort of damage.
Shirna attempts to do a jumping attack only for him to get kicked in the stomach and sent flying and landed far from everyone.
"Aughhh!!! Ahhh!" Shirna screams in pain while he hold his stomach and coughing.
Beltrand sees what happened and smash the Knight's head with his mace to no effect. The Knight counter attacks by punching Beltran who manage to dodge. Then he swing her mace upwards, hitting the Knight in the chin.
Beltrand creates space by jumping backwards. But the Knight, still unfazed on the recent attack dash on still on-air Beltrand.
The Knight swings her long sword, aiming to slash Bertrand but Mateo manages to block the attack and parry the sword upwards.
"Thanks!" Beltrand said.
Mateo didn't answer, instead decides to fight the Knight head on despite knowing that it's futile.
Mateo is now aiming on the Knight's eyes. Believing that his sword might penetrate her eyes. The only chance to make any damage.
But the Knight just effortlessly dodges all of Mateo's stab attempts while also giving mix of heavy slashes, punch and kicks. Mateo dodge or parry all of them but the increase on power is getting noticable. Mateo is now having a hard time trying to avoid all of the fast attacks.
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Seeing that Mateo is now getting overwhelemed. Beltrand enters the fight. Yet, despite the fight being a 2-vs-1. Mateo and Beltran is clearly slowly beaten in contest of speed and power and the Knight is clearly on offensive.
Shirna finally recovers from the kick he recieve and quickly helps his friends. He picks the remaining two bottles on her dimensional storage and run towards the three.
"Get out!" Shirna screams as he throws the two bottle above the Knight.
Mateo and Beltrand leaves the close combat and then Shirna picks two piece of hard debri came from the destroyed floor and throws it to the bottles. The bottle is broken releasing its content to the Knight below.
The Knight is again Coated on some sort of sticky substance. But its different to the one he used to restraint the Knight as the substance then starts to smoke a little bit. Yet the Knight is still unfaze.
"Even Corrossive Concoction doesn't even affect her weaponry?!" Shirna is shocked that the Knight's armor and weapon coated with the substance doesn't dissolved.
Mateo and Beltrand is given another grim reminder on how dangerous the Knight is. If her gears doesn't melt, it means that her armor and sword is comparable to Hero level gear.
Absurd growing power.
Amazing fighting skills
Steel hard skin
And Hero level gear.
For Grand Ecstasy. Fighting the Knight is comparable to a deathmatch with a top Hero ranked adventurer.
In short, a suicide.
But with no choice. Shirna, Mateo and Beltrand continues to attack the Knight. Despite using all of their best, nothing can stop the Knight on its rampage.
And another power spike happen.
"Shirnaaaa!!" Mateo and Beltrand screams.
Shirna is fast, but with the prolonged battle, the Knight finally outmatch Shirna's speed and manages to stab his abdomen. The Knight pulls out her sword and Shirna cough up blood then falls on his knees.
"Beltrand! Bring Shirna into safety!"
Beltrand quickly follow Mateo's order and rushes to Shirna. Then gently carry Shirna away from the fight.
But the Knight sees it and rushes towards Beltrand.
"Shit!" Beltrans scream as the speed of the Knight can easily catch up to him.
Suddenly. A thick wall of rock blocks the Knight's path then numerous rock spikes sprouts on the wall, hitting the knight but none of it penetrates its hard skin and armor.
Another wall of rock with spikes arise behind the Knight and it crash towards her. The Knight is now sandwitch between the pillars.
While it happens. Beltrand sees that Sophia is now waking up.
"Sophia! Emergency!"
At first, Sophia is confused but she's go back to her senses when she sees the bloodied Shirna being carried by Beltrand.
"Oh my goddess!!! Please hurry!!" Sophia panics.
Beltrand reach Sophia and gently put the now unconcious Shirna in front of her. Sophia waste no time and instantly do healing magic.
"Leave this to me! Help the others!" Sophia said. Beltrand nods and prepares to go back to combat.
The Knight is unharmed on Claustrine's attack and using her immense strenght, she managed to destroy the rock walls that tries to trap her.
Claustrines, still disoriented due to the punch she recieve earlier prepares for the worse as she sees the Knight rushing down on her again. The Knight jumps and slams her sword. Claustrine shifts the floor she standing, dodging the attack but the impact of the Knight's sword is proven difficult itself as debris gets flunged all over.
Claustrine counter attacks by summoning numerous icycles and throwing it all to the Knight. The Knight just side steps all of the Icycles while running towards Claustrine. Claustrine shifts the ground beneath her again to dodge the impending stab attack.
"!!!"
Claustrine is shocked as the moment she shift the ground and leave the area, the Knight is like instantly teleported and now in front of her, ready to swing her sword.
CLANG!
The moment the Knight swing her sword, Mateo is also rushes in-between and block the Knights attack.
Despite using all of his mana to his body and big portion to his sword. Mateo is clearly getting overwhelmed with the sheer strenght the Knight possessed. Until...
.
.
.
CRACK!!!
The Knight manages to penetrate Mateo's mana coating and proceeds to cut the sword in half and reach Mateo's shoulder where it manages to cut deep.
"MATEO!!!" Claustrine screams as she watch Mateo falls down. The Knight for some reason seems didn't completely cut Mateo in half.
The Knight after seeing the injury she inflicted to Mateo knows the he's in death's door, kicked him away and proceeds to slowly walk towards Claustrine who still in shock.
But her shock turned into wrath as Claustrine unleashes barrages of random spells. Fireball, Icycle, Earth blasts and other spells that doesn't required casting time. All of it doesn't work and the Knight just catch the attacks with no care. And then.
.
.
.
The Knight just casually swings her sword, Claustrine recieves a shallow cut in front. Not deep enough to damage any organs but fatal enough that she might die through blood lost.
Claustrine falls on her back. Unresponsive and slowly getting unconcious.
Beltrand watches how Mateo and Claustrine are defeated. Enraged, he rushes towards the Knight but suddenly.
"Huh?" Beltran is genuinely confused as he suddenly feel that something just stabbed his stomach. Only to see the Knight already in front of him with her sword already penetrated him all the way on his back.
"Heh... This is absurd." Beltrand just said and laugh when he sees that the Knight finally reach power surpassing their own limits. Out of annoyance, Beltrand spits on her face.
The Knight slowly pulls her sword and fling all the blood away with a quick slash, splatting the accumilated blood to the ground. Beltrand falls to the ground, holding her stomach.
.
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.
.
Watching from the distance, near the staircase is Sophia. Crying as she watch her friends get defeated one-by-one. Despite doing her best, she can't properly heal Shirna due to her lack of mana as all of it is used during the Purification arts.
Sophia already grieving as she knows that all of her friends are slowly dying on that point on. Even trying to bring Mateo, Claustrine and Beltrand to safety is futile as its sure the Knight would kill her instantly.
.
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.
.
"I-I-Im s-so s-sorry! S-sorry!!!" Sophia can only apologize and cry.
Remarkebly, the Knight doesn't make any move and just walk back to the middle of the room and stand still just like the first time Grand Ecstasy see her.
The room is only filled by Sophia's cry and the buzzing of many magical apparatuses. The damages in the room and the manipulation Claustrine did change the before flat and clean arena.
.
.
.
.
*Sob*
Seeing that everything is futile. Sophia loses hope and her eyes went blank. With silence, Sophia slowly stand up and intended to just walk towards the Knight to end it once and for all.
"At least, I can join you guys." Sophia softly said with zero emotions.
.
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"Stop it young miss."
Sophia hears an unfamiliar voice and notices that someone is holding his shoulder. She looks back only to see a new face. The only alive person she see since the first day they become stranded in the cave structure.
The man is finely clothed that he looks like a noble. Partnered by his pretty face and long tied hair. Sophia think that he's someone that out-of-place on such barren environment.
"Who... Are... You?" Sophia asked. Still no hope in her eyes.
"My name is Gilmore. But right now, let's save your friends ok?"
After hearing such work from the man calling himself Gilmore. Sophia's eyes lighten up but before she speak, Gilmore instantly dissapears in front of her.
She look arounds only to see Gilmore quickly pick Claustrine, Mateo, and Beltrand and places them near Shirna carefully. After that, Graham opens his dimension storage bag and picks 4 small bottles the size of a thumb and opens them all.
"THOSE ARE-" Sophia is in surprised as she recognized the said bottles.
Gilmore pours the bright dust contained on each bottles into Mateo, Claustrine, Beltran and Shirna's wounds.
After the dusts makes contact with the wounds. It reacted quickly, releasing bright light that spreads througout the wounds of the four injured. After 5 minutes, the wounds are closed with only marks are the cuts inflicted to them.
"Ok. We just need supporting healing magic to finally finish the healing process. Also, lots and lots of sleep." Gilmore said. Before walking towards Sophia.
"Don't worry miss, they're still alive and the dust gives them energy to survive but.. Do you still have mana young miss?" Gilmore asked. Sophia shakes her head slowly.
"That's bad." Gilmore said with sad expression in his face?
"Wait? What would happen if they're not healed completely?" Sophia asked, anxiety engulfs her as she was scared on what Gilmore said.
"The effects of Miracle dust is temporary and can only last for a single day. If not supported by healing magic, the wounds will reopen violently." Gilmore explained.
Sophia falls on her knees. It would take 2 days for her to completely regain her mana and the fact that they're stranded means there's no way for Sophia to save her friends. Despair sets in again.
Gilmore kneel and pats Sophia's head. He looks at her with promising sincerity.
"Trust me young miss. We going to leave this maze alive. I promised as all of you are the reason why I manage to reach this place easily."
Getting promised by the genuine kindness of the man she just met. Sophia trust Gilmore and determination sets in as she stand proudly.
"That's the spirit. What is your name young miss?"
"Sophia."
"Sophia. Care to share any vital information about that girl?" Gilmore asked as she points his thumb to he Knight who seems not interested on them. Sophia nods."
"She was immune to poison. Tough as we deal no damage to her. And also for some reason, she's also not an undead."
"But she looks like one."
"Yes. But I tried purification arts on her. It doesn't make damage at all. That's also the reason why I used all of my mana." Sophia said with sad expression.
"I understand. If such powerful magic doesn't work."
"She's also strong. And the most dangerous thing is... Its like she becomes stronger the longer you fight her. At first, we manage to dodge all of her attacks until we reach the point of her strenght that cause all of these defeats." Sophia explained. She shivers as she remembers the speed of the Knight and how she defeats her friends one by one.
"Now that's interesting. Thats all?"
Sophia nods.
"Thanks. Leave this to me and stay on your friends' side. They need your support the most."
Gilmore walks towards the direction of the Knight and unsheath his decorated sword.
"Mr. Gilmore. Th-"
"Thank me later once we finally leave this cursed place." Gilmore said. Sophia agrees and proceed to walks towards her friends.
Meanwhile, as Gilmore walks. His face turns scornful, giving a piercing look on the Knight that slowly notice his prescence.
"Tsk. Now we finally found you but... To think that you going to end up on that state. What the hell happened?" Gilmore said.
Gilmore unsheats his rapier.
Now in distance, Gilmore and the Knight just look at each other. Already ln their combat stance, just waiting who's going to make the first move.
"It's an honor to fight you and, let me give your eternal rest...
My ancestor."
Thus, Gilmore initiates the fight. A fight between two swordmaster connected by bloodline.