As expected, it wasn’t enough. Soon after, the mess that I created was cleared with a powerful wave of blue mana. In the middle of it all stood Luo Jin. The ground was gouged from my beam, then split at the place that Luo Jin stood, leaving the same destruction to his sides while behind him the ground was still untouched.
He was much stronger than expected… However, it seemed like his barriers couldn’t stop my power, since the top of his clothes was destroyed, leaving his body half-exposed, and showing the same metallic scales that covered his arms, spreading up to his neck.
“That was… How? Darkness and Hellfire Magic shouldn’t be this powerful…” He said, grabbing the piece of cloth that remained from his chest and ripping it off completely. “Is there something wrong with the system…?”
As it had been so far, I refused to answer as I simply readied my weapon and my stance. I’d have to spend much more effort to defeat him. I pointed my weapon at him, and at the tip of my weapon, a dark ball formed. I gathered as much power as I could into it, causing the sphere to grow in size, but only for a moment, after which it started shrinking.
“Oh…!” Luo Jin exclaimed, acting as if he was impressed. “That’s an interesting spell. I want to see how it goes.”
He spread his legs and arms in a defensive position, standing as if he was getting ready to catch something big, but my sphere stopped changing size when it was about the size of a soccer ball. Things started falling from the bar nearby, decorations were flying off the walls, and the rubble that our bout had created lifted off the ground, all of it coming closer to my spell. Once it was ready, purple lightning ran through the dark ball and then I took a sharp step forward, launching the Dark Gravity Ball with as much speed as I could muster.
Everything turned and shifted around the ball. Rubble, decorations, bottles, and plates all circled around the path of destruction that my spell was leaving behind. Luo Jin still appeared unconcerned, as with a smile, he stood in place and readied himself to catch my spell.
Soon enough, the spell caught up to him, which is when it exploded. A jet-black sphere quickly expanded from the point of impact, covering half the hall, and swallowing the few White Knights that still remained. I could even feel myself being pulled, but as the spell’s creator, of course I wasn’t going to be pulled by it. Still, things all around me were flying to crash into the dark ball, and the things that didn’t, were destroyed by the purple lightning that fired from it and hit the walls, the floor, the ceiling and everything that was close to it.
“Arrrrggghhhhh!” I heard Luo Jin shout from within the spell.
And yet, somehow, I could still sense the man’s magic signature. He was able to endure my spell's crushing power… To make sure that he didn’t come out of it alive, I did something I hadn’t done in years: I prepared a lot of magic circles. They spread to my sides and over me, covering the space around me and making it seem like a wall of them.
I needed as much firepower as I could, so several blood-red circles appeared in the air, all of them with the intricate design of the spell I wanted to use in the original language of Leyfall—something I hadn’t seen in my time of living in this world.
While the circles formed, the dark sphere started losing form, looking as if parts of it were being removed and turned into nothing. It grew more in size, but as it did, it lost more of its power, until eventually it puffed into a dark mist.
In the middle of the burning hole that remained from my spell was Luo Jin, floating in the air and heaving as the metallic scales all over his body glowed in a red light. “W-what?! It shouldn’t be this strong! The system is wrong about you, those spells have way too much—”
He quieted down when he realized that, as the dark mist disappeared, there was a wall of blood-red circles, causing him to look stunned at them. From the circles, Hellfire Beams were fired, all of them targeting the man as if someone was shooting them at him. He quickly moved to cover himself, but I dashed forward, my blade ready to slash.
The magic circles moved with me, shifting in position to get the best angle to shoot the Hellfire Beams at Luo Jin, making it so they were like a set of ‘automatic weapons’. Luo Jin moved to dodge them, but like my eyes, the magic circles snapped to him, launching beam after beam that exploded in a mess of fire in the places where he was just a split second ago.
And at the same time, I was also slashing my darkness and hellfire empowered sword, leaving streaks of red and dark in the air in the places that he managed to dodge. I could tell from the look on his face that he was getting worried. Soon enough, I was going to overwhelm him and he would fall under me.
Quickly realizing that reality, Luo Jin reacted to all the overwhelming spells I was throwing at him, and from his body, several metallic spikes popped out. Similarly to how my Magic Circles snapped on his position, his spikes snapped on the red circles. The spikes exploded in the direction of every red circle, piercing the hellfire beams in the process and doing the same to the circles.
It was while my spells were being destroyed that I noticed how Luo Jin no longer had all the metallic armor as before, leaving the man half-exposed, so I used as much power as I could to enhance my speed and split him in half. He looked with wide eyes at my blade getting closer, but right as I was about to hit him, each magic circle exploded in an overwhelming sea of Hellfire that engulfed the whole hall, burning everything inside.
Magic Barriers were activated all over the hall for a moment, only for them to tremble and shatter under the Hellfire, which then burned the walls, shattered glass, and melted both steel and stone. I was sent flying to one of those walls, but I did feel my blade cut something, so as I was crashing into a wall, I turned my senses to find what happened to Luo Jin.
The fire faded, and as it was going away, I found that he had crashed into another wall not too far away from me. There was blood pouring from a large gash that went across his chest… but he was still alive, and like me, he was also looking this way with a fierce glare.
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The metallic spikes that exploded from him, suddenly popped from all over the hall and instead of reforming on his body, they snapped to point at me. Without warning, they all started coming my way, breaking the air as they got closer. I reacted by lifting a darkness and hellfire barrier around me, where the spikes crashed and caused the barrier to shake.
I thought I had managed to block his attacks, but from the front where I had been looking at Luo Jin, the barrier suddenly broke down; a bloodied fist pierced right through it, followed by the man himself. I quickly swiped my blade to cut him down in his path, but all I cut was an afterimage, as he lowered his body faster than I could move, and in that same move, he threw a punch at the side of my torso.
“Ack!” I exclaimed, letting out a breath and some saliva as the punch hit much harder than I expected, bypassing both my shroud of darkness and the armor.
Such a moment of distraction also caused the large darkness barrier around me to crumble down, allowing the metallic spikes to rain down on me. But Luo Jin didn’t move out of the rain of spikes, as when they touched his body, they appeared to either just phase right through him or move around him to hit me directly; just like the punches that followed from him.
I tried my best to keep up with him, but he was much faster this time, and his punches carried a heavier weight than before, making it so that every hit that I missed to block with either my power or with my weapon would give me wound—despite the armor, which was also cracking under each punch.
Seeing no other option, I accumulated as much darkness as I could into the shroud surrounding me, creating a completely dark mist. Luo Jin didn’t stop his assault, as the punches and kicks, combined with the metallic spikes that kept raining on me, were pushing me further and further into the wall.
“Ahhhh!” I shouted, letting out all the power that I managed to condense into my body.
From the wall, an explosion of darkness and hellfire followed, crumbling the ceiling, the walls, and the floor all around me. I couldn’t see what happened to Luo Jin since the amount of power I forcefully let out was so much that I was feeling staggered, making it difficult to sense the man’s magic in the dense air of darkness that remained.
But I managed to hear a crashing sound coming from somewhere further ahead of me. Without thinking, I burst ahead, allowing myself to be led almost by instinct as I moved to the direction of the crashing sound. I raised my blade and quickly slashed down.
“Gah!” I heard the man’s voice in the middle of the darkness.
“Agh!” I exclaimed in turn.
From the side of my torso, something had pierced me. But now that I knew that I had hit him, I pressed further as I continued to slash. In return, I was also getting attacked all over my body. Without being able to properly see each other, we were trading blows, causing damage to accumulate in our bodies with each passing moment.
Eventually, the staggered feeling faded, and I accumulated even more power inside my body. Luo Jin’s blows got weaker, and I used the opening that one of those weak hits gave me to turn my power into a hellfire beam that I fired from my forehead.
It crashed with a barrier for a moment, and I heard the man shout, “H-how can this be?! T-The system—you’re—you’re—” But I ignored his words, pushing ahead, until I heard the barrier crack, and then hit flesh. “Ahhhhhh!” I heard Luo Jin shout, and his attacks stopped.
I leaned forward, forcing the beam deeper into the screaming man, until his voice faded, and all movement completely stopped. With a final stab, I pushed my blade into whatever was ahead of me. A sound of metal hitting metal was heard, after which there was a sound of something splattering on the ground, followed by the distinct iron-like smell of blood.
The darkness surrounding us started fading, and with it, I managed to get a look of what I did. Luo Jin’s face was caved in with a burning hole being the only thing left in the middle. My blade was stuck right in the middle of his stomach, surrounded by the metallic scales that were now crumbling to the ground.
I pulled the weapon out of his body, and with a swipe to the side, cleaned away the metallic scales that clung to it, the blood, and finally the darkness that was surrounding me. As I was heavily heaving, I finally turned my attention away from the man and to what remained of the hall.
There were nothing more than ruins, where fire burned, pieces of steel and concrete fell to the next floor below, and the cold wind of the night was entering from the large, shattered windows.
Such a mess… The people of the city must be aware of what was going on here by now…
“S-Salrak,” I said as I tried to regain my breath.
“You’ve got—” the sound cut off for a moment. “—But I can’t say—long.”
“Huh?” I asked back, slowly walking over to the opening where the large doors at the back of the hall used to be as I tried to heal my body. “I couldn’t hear you.”
“—blocking the building's communications. There will—a delayed response. Hurry—end this,” was all I could hear.
But I guess that even with all that mess, I still had time to finish the mission. With a nod, I jumped over the rubble that managed to get into this hallway and moved over to where my targets were supposed to be.
I still had to climb over a few sets of stairs, walk past a few expensive decorations and artifacts, to eventually reach another long hallway. It was similar to the place where I just fought with Luo Jin, only that the floors were covered by thick carpets, the ceiling wasn’t as high, the tall windows weren’t destroyed, and there wasn’t anyone waiting here for me. Thank the Gods.
Among the many large doors that there were on one side, one of them slowly opened. I paid close attention to it, and after a second, I saw a woman walk out. As soon as she did, she noticed me and her expression froze. She appeared to be older, with wrinkles in her face, but her hair was completely black, similar to Luo Jin’s, and her stance and the way she was dressed suggested that she was still an active woman, though, not a fighter.
“Executive of the Global Magic Technologies,” Salrak said in my ear, his voice sounding a bit grainy. “Bribes… Strange parties… Friend with powerful people… but overall—besides corruption—she hasn’t done anything directly to anyone.”
“And yet, she’s aiding the groups of people that do…” I whispered back, my voice only audible to me and Salrak.
“W-what is the meaning of this!?” she shouted, and I could hear steps coming from inside the room. “Who are you!?”
I considered what to do with her for a moment, but in the end, I didn’t see a reason to harm her, so with a wave of my hand, a blade of darkness flew out of it, catching her and the people that were coming out of the room by surprise as it passed right by their head. Their eyes turned black, and then they just fell to the ground, unconscious.
As I approached the group, I stopped for a moment to have a look at their faces. Salrak explained to me who they were as quickly as he could, but in the end, these people seemed to just be related to Global Magic Technologies and were here simply because that was their job. They had little to do with what the Followers of Leyfall did… If I were to ignore the research they were helping them with. Still, I decided not to kill them and simply leave them where they were.
I quickly moved through the hallway, reaching the last door which supposedly led to the place where the leaders of the Followers of Leyfall were. It looked like a stronger door than the other ones, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t break down with Hellfire. So after burning it with a beam of said power, I tore it down, catching by surprise the handful of people that were inside, as I simply walked in to confront them.