"Who are they?" Stark mumbled inside his protective barrier. He had never seen the devil this serious before. The enemies were strong—Stark could feel it. He knew Krul was stronger.

But would they really face him without a plan?

A sense of unease settled deep in his gut. Something about these attackers felt… wrong.

"I’ve become a burden, haven’t I?" Stark exhaled sharply as thick smoke consumed the battlefield. Krul was consuming mana to protect him—mana he should have been using to fight.

He can’t fight at his best while protecting me.

Stark gripped his sword tightly. I need to do something.

Meanwhile, Krul stood still in the smoke. His senses were scrambled, his spells failing. This fog wasn’t ordinary.

"What kind of spell is this?" His sharp eyes scanned the foggy surroundings with a serious look. Footsteps of the knights echoed from all directions, yet he couldn’t pinpoint a single presence.

An illusion? No. If that were the case, my Expel spell would have worked.

Evil Blade.

Nothing. The spell just didn’t materialize.

Interesting… but why aren’t they attacking? He smirked. Are they scared? Or… are they unable to attack as well?

Krul cast Evil Blade again. This time, parts of the spell flickered to life before being snuffed out into nothingness.

Ah...I see now.

A slow grin spread across his face. He understood the workings of the spell.

"I have to admit, this is a genius way to utilize magic. But alas…"

His glowing eyes narrowed.

"You’ve picked the wrong opponent, little girl."

Vivy cast an anti-magic barrier around Krul first, then masked the entire barrier with thick fog. It was a clever way to use Magic and, at the same time, buy time for the knights to regroup.

Anti-magic barriers have its limitations.

There were two ways to break one. The first was to attack it from the outside—these barriers are fragile against offensive magic or direct force. The second was to overload it with more mana than it can suppress.

Each barrier has a mana threshold. If the contained mana exceeds the threshold limit, the barrier would begin to crack from within and eventually disperse.

Krul knew about this.

Without hesitation, he began casting offensive spells inside the barrier. The fourth spell was barely complete when he heard it—a sound like glass shattering.

Crack.

The fourth offensive spell materialized and crashed into the sand as the barrier broke into hundreds of pieces.

Expel. Krul cast instantly, dispersing the illusory fog that clouded his vision. It worked this time and the battlefield was visible to him once again.

The knights had regrouped, Drek and Thalia standing at the front, their weapons raised to attack him at a moment’s notice.

Aura? Krul clicked his tongue as he noticed the faint glow outlining their weapons. No wonder they’re unscathed.

At least they don’t have a Grandmaster in their ranks. He thought.

Vivy looked over at the devil and wiped the sweat from her brow. “Shit… I didn’t expect him to figure it out so quickly.”

Within an instant, Krul cast Zor. A deadly beam shot straight toward Vivy.

Drek stepped in, raising his staff, and deflected the beam away with his aura-coated weapon. At the same time, Thalia closed in on Krul, swinging her war hammer at his head.

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Krul jumped back, narrowly avoiding her strike as it smashed into the ground. The impact split the loose sand in two.

Drek and Thalia had become much stronger than before, likely due to their use of Aura in battle. Aura for knights was similar to mana for the Magus, but being able to wield it was exceedingly rare. It required immense patience and effort, making Aura-wielding knights pretty rare.

In all of Kastar, only a few hundred knights had achieved this feat.

Krul sensed Zarius’s attack from the other side. Without hesitation, he activated the engraved glyph on his palm, conjuring a barrier just in time to block a flaming rock speeding at him.

Drek and Thalia pressed their assault relentlessly, while the Magus unit bombarded him with ranged magical attacks. The remaining knights—each a high-ranking one—capitalized on every opening, attacking in well-coordinated ways.

Shit… I need to break this momentum. Krul began to feel the pressure. Those pesky priests need to be taken out first.

The devil’s power was being actively suppressed by the Zaras’th priests; this made the fight much harder for him.

Krul blocked Drek’s staff and simultaneously drove a powerful kick into Thalia’s gut. Then, turning his focus back to Drek, he gripped the metal shaft of his staff and, with a pivot, slammed him into the ground.

“Ugh…” Drek croaked as his armored back crashed against the sand.

Krul wasted no time. He quickly thrust his sword toward Drek’s head.

Unfortunately for him, Vivy intervened, firing a beam of light. Forced to block the attack, Krul lost his chance to finish Drek, allowing him to regain his composure.

Krul turned on his heel and charged at the knights. As they braced for a counterattack, the devil suddenly veered sharply, using Speed to propel himself toward the priest unit.

“Die, you Zaras’th lapdogs,” he spat, unleashing Evil Blade straight at them.

Zarius swiftly deployed an earth wall to shield the priests, but the spell shattered through the barrier. Two priests were struck directly, their upper bodies severed cleanly. The remnants of the spell slashed into two more, their bodies collapsing lifelessly onto the loose sand, staining it a deep scarlet.

“I knew you’d pull something like this, you filth,” Zarius snarled.

“You’ve grown senile, Zarius—you barely managed to block that,” Krul smirked.

Despite the gruesome deaths of their comrades, the priest unit under Wez did not falter. Wez stood at the center of their formation, ensuring that even if the others fell, the spell's effect would only weaken, not dissipate.

Krul knew he had to eliminate Wez to fully dispel the suppression.

Before he could act, Drek and Thalia charged at him, cutting off his advance. Their relentless assault forced Krul out of the priest unit’s range.

“Tch.” Clicking his tongue in frustration, he skewered a few knights through the heart as he weaved between their attacks, skillfully dodging the Magus unit’s magical bombardment.

Zarius turned to Vivy. “Why aren’t you using it yet? There were plenty of openings.”

“Um… Lord Zarius, it takes time to deploy. We need to hold the devil down for a few seconds.”

“Ah… I see.” Zarius nodded thoughtfully. “I also sense another presence on the battlefield, encased in a barrier. Is that the slave you used to track him?”

“Yes.” Vivy replied hastily. “The devil is protecting him for some reason.”

“Ho… Strange indeed.”

Zarius’ lips curled into a sinister smirk. “Kill the slave. There’s no reason for such filth to exist anyway.”

Vivy hesitated briefly but nodded. Zarius was far more experienced in battle than she was, and she wasn’t foolish enough to risk her knights’ lives for a mere slave. She would do whatever it took to bring him down. Taking the devil down would allow her family to rise back to their original power in the political sphere in Kastar.

“Target the slave,” Vivy commanded.

At once, the knights shifted their focus to Stark, who stood trapped within the cubical barrier cast by the devil.

Krul had anticipated this. As long as he kept Zarius and the two Aura-wielding knights occupied, he was confident the barrier would hold—for now.

The knights surged forward, determined to shatter the barrier and kill Stark.

Inside, Stark watched them charge, realization settling in.

He had become a burden.

Krul was being pushed back, but he had managed to thin the ranks of the knights and some of the Magus. Despite this, he still didn’t have the upper hand—90% of his power remained suppressed.

This isn’t good. I need an opening. I have no choice but to use it.

The devil retreated, creating distance between himself and his enemies.

“Child! Get ready!” he yelled, shifting his gaze to Stark

Krul carved an ominous red glyph—Bond—into the air. A crimson thread shot from his heart toward the barrier, piercing Stark’s chest.

"What is this?!" Stark’s eyes widened as the red thread sank into him. A chill ran down his spine, and blood rushed to his head.

In an instant, Krul carved another glyph—Transfer.

A surge of power quickly flooded Stark’s body. Strength unlike anything he had ever felt before coursed through his veins. Suddenly he could imagine fighting the knights that were attacking the barrier.

"Now you can fight against these bastards," Krul said as the protective barrier around Stark began to dissolve. Stark gripped his broadsword tightly, his eyes sharp as he took a stance to fight.

The devil had granted him a portion of his strength—temporary power transferred through a bond that would expire after a set time. He had no choice. This was the only way to ensure Stark survived.

Krul had given him just enough physical enhancement to match the staff-wielding Aura Knight, but it was up to Stark’s skill and tenacity to make the most of it.

Although the spell drained his own strength, leaving him much more vulnerable to the enemies. Krul knew it was the right thing to do, as he didn’t want to lose someone close to him yet again. The devil was sure that he would regret this very moment for the rest of his life if he failed to protect the human child from harm.

For a brief moment, a memory surfaced—one he had long thought buried.

A memory about a little girl running towards him with a bright grin.

Krul stared at the sky; a sorrowful look flickered across his face.

"I thought I had forgotten you… after all this time. But it seems your face still lingers in my mind, my beloved daughter."

I will not let the same happen once again. Krul promised himself.