In the dark and quiet dungeon, the duke and his son were still dazed from seeing the unexpected new foe floating in front of them, while Ariel, in the mean time, put all of his strength into his aching body to firmly stand up and chug another Mana potion.

Only when Ariel threw down the potion bottle onto the ground, making a large amount of noise, did his opponents finally awaken. While keeping one eye on the shade and the other on him Revor spoke loudly. “Is this your trump card? If this is all, I think your only outcome is death.”

Although at first the duke has been shocked by the newcomer, after gathering himself up, he evaluated the situation and came to the conclusion that even though Ariel’s familiar was rare and had great potential, currently it didn’t pose much danger, so he managed to easily calm his beating heart.

However Ariel wasn’t interesting in making small talk. Right now he didn’t want to give the duke a chance to once more start casting a powerful spell, since this time there wouldn’t be anything that could stop it, so the only option he had was to engage him first.

Ariel actually didn’t have any finisher or super move he could use, which left him contemplating, but due to his creative mind he soon found a way he could attack and put the duke into a difficult spot. The duke cautiously watched from the side as Ariel manifested dozens on ice spears which he is fond of using, and most of the time had several in reserve.

Although this time the amount he manifested shocked even Revor, making him start to brainstorm, thinking about how Ariel going to try to use them to wound or kill him, but soon he understood what was the boys plan and he felt slightly regretful for the over caution he displayed before.

At this moment an abnormal scene began to play out, the many spears that have been created started to slowly gather into one place and stick to one another. At first, no one would be able to understand what was happening, but as time passed the spears created a more distinct form, all the ice spears combined into an actually much larger one.

Of course it was not some kind of perfect merge, but it served the intended purpose. Ariel’s plan was to create a bigger spear by gathering the small ones, making it so that they could regulate each other’s temperature.

Naturally the closer to the centre of the spear you go the colder it gets, and this is the main effect Ariel wanted. If he simply let these loose at the duke, Revor’s flames would easily melt each individual spear, however if it is shot like this, at least some small part would definitely get trough.

The duke hadn’t expected such a move from Ariel and just when he understood what his opponent was about to do, Revor quickly began to prepare his own defence as fast as possible. Ariel didn’t know how he was trying to defend at first, with his fire magic, but latter seeing the duke took out some small pieces of paper, he quickly understood.

The fire element had explosive power, but one thing they lacked was duration, Unlike Ariel’s ice wall, flame walls would quickly disappear after a moment of use, so a fire mage would be unable to create long term defences.

However, one way of by passing this is by using spell talismans. Any mage can engrave a spell onto a piece of paper at a cost of loosing some of his Mana capacity in the while that the talisman still exists, making it a useful trump card.

Like this a person can have some spells ready that could be used at the same time on combination with his other spell or just when the caster didn’t have time to cast. The point is that Revor was planning on casting several spells like this, just when Ariel’s attack reached him, giving the duke a chance to escape alive.

Even though Ariel saw this he didn’t stop his attack and continued stabilizing it, since he was confident that the duke will still be unable to stop it completely. After only a moment it was prepared and he shot it straight towards Revor’s chest in hopes of giving him some damage. Just when the great ice spear was at the half mark distance, the duke made his move.

All of his previously created engraved spells were activated together with his own spell he was casting. The next moment the entire area around him became complete hell, as the spell he cast himself was called flame field, an AOE attack which attacks everything at a certain distance of the caster.

The engraved spells also weren’t weak all of them were the few defensive spells a fire mage could have, like fire wall or flame barrier. As the great ice spear entered the area of effect it began to become smaller and smaller at a rapid rate, by the time it was only a couple of meters away, the spear was already at its normal size.

However, Ariel had somewhat expected this and in the end put a much larger density of Mana in the most centre spear, in hopes it gets trough. Thankfully it paid off, the ice spear, even if it was a smaller one, stopped melting at a rapid rate and obviously had more tolerance of to the fire than the great ice spear itself.

Noticing this, the duke felt a chill in his heart, but unfortunately for Ariel, Revor’s experience was too rich compared to his. The duke quickly regained his calm in a split second and erected another fire wall while at the same time dodging around the spear. When Due to the lack of vision, event though the fire wall wouldn’t be that effective to stop his attack, Ariel could don anything like directing it and so Revor easily dodged the attack.

When the wall came down and the attack ended, Ariel and his opponent didn’t continue attacking each other and only continued staring at one another. Ariel took the time and reached for another Mana potion since he wanted to keep his optimal state, but as he was about to take on out he thought about something.

Looking at his opponent, he could see that the duke still held his arrogant and despising look on his face, however now it was much more tired and kept breathing, roughly at regular intervals. Seeing this sight Ariel confirmed his theory was correct, this fatigue of his opponent meant that the duke used up a large amount of his Mana.

This also meant that he hadn’t used any Mana potions yet which made him think. He took out a Mana potion and kept his eyes on the duke’s face, just as expected, when Revor saw the potion a slight flash of frustration had appeared on his face before disappearing again.

From this Ariel began to speculate that the duke had been too overconfident and even when expecting a fight to occur, he still hadn’t prepared any potions. This was an enormous advantage for him which could end up being a way to beat him.

Although the duke’s Mana reserve probably still held more Mana than Ariel’s simply due to the quality leap between Elite and Master rank, Ariel still had many more potions in his back and it was more than enough to continue this fight of attrition.

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The duke in the mean while was thinking of a quick way to end this just as Ariel was thinking the same. This stalemate the most disadvantageous to him, he had to quickly take care of all of the evidence that connected him to this case, before any bigwig arrives.

After both of them standing there like this for a while, finally the duke made his move, not being able to think of any distinct strategy in this situation ,he decide to simply over power Ariel, but just as he was about to do something, the ice shade also attacked once more.

Revor was always keeping one of his eyes on it so it didn’t take him by surprise and he simply dodged it to the side while letting out a sneer. However as the icicle flew by, he suddenly heard a scream behind him.

Turning to look he saw his son, get pinned to the wall by the icicle, straight through the chest. Vern started screaming and wriggling in pain as the blood started flowing like a fountain and his skin became paler and paler.

Becoming white from fright, the duke rushed up to his son in a matter of seconds and pulled out the icicle without any hesitation. His son fell into his arms like a doll and when the dike checked his pulse, he saw that it was already as silent as the night.

It took several moments for him to comprehend that his son was already lifelessly sleeping in his eternal rest in his embrace, and when he finally did there was no more any expression except utter rage on his face. He started trembling as he shouted out. “VERN!” However there was no response and he didn’t move a muscle.

Two tears started going down his check as he put the corpse on the ground and turned to look at Ariel with deep hatred which couldn’t be described. The duke slowly spoke while not moving his eyes from Ariel. “You took the life of my son, but I won’t kill you, I will torture you to the point you beg to be killed, I will make you experience torment worse than hell itself.” As he spoke, flame s started dancing around him as if responding to the duke’s feelings.

Ariel only stood there and looked at the raging duke with no sympathy or care, to him the duke is already a mortal enemy and doesn’t deserve pity. However his judgmental eyes seemed to anger the duke, even more. Revor’s already red eyes turned redder as Mana began to gather around him.

With no warning he started launching one spell after another at Ariel’s direction and unlike before he didn’t seem to be careful at all. None of his spells were meant to defence so if you look at it from the outside view it is obvious that the old duke discarded any thought of protecting himself and was only trying to completely destroy Ariel.

The barrage of all the spells Revor was dishing out, was definitely taking its toll on Ariel. There were times where he would defend with a spell, but usually he didn’t have time and had to try dodging them. Although there weren’t any serious wounds, there were several places on his body that have been burned and singed.

Fortunately it looked like the duke would run out of Mana going like this, before Ariel falls. Of course that’s, if he doesn’t get hit by one of those spell. Wanting to lift off some pressure, he decided to return fire so he wasn’t the only one, who was dodging around.

Like that he started shooting out frost bolts and ice spears, quite accurately, at the duke. This was very effective and the duke who abandoned his defences, started jumping around just like Ariel. Unfortunately every second was extremely, mentally taxing and due to this ongoing fight, Ariel and even Revor, found it harder and harder to cast spells, the shade had also exhausted its reserve for Mana and left, since the duke had always kept an eye on it and would sometimes attack it..

Soon both of them felt it was difficult to even move, much less use spells. Looking at one another while having troubles standing, both of them didn’t have even a single thought to give up, since this battle decides the death of the loser.

However at this time the duke let out an unexpected smile as he began to laugh. “It looks like it will be soon over. I think it is time to finish up this fight, you lasted much more than I expected.” His laughter dumbfounded Ariel as he didn’t understand, why was he speaking like this.

The next moment he saw a large amount of flame converge around him as he started chanting, it was the same spell that the ice shade had interrupted before, “Flame strike”, but Ariel couldn’t comprehend, why was the duke, so sure of himself. Even though it was powerful, the distance between the two was also quite far.

Unfortunately it didn’t take long for him to understand when he saw which side the duke was facing. It wasn’t aimed at him, but at the defenceless Erna who had her ice wall unknowingly melted in the previous exchange of spells.

Ariel stopped all his though processes and directly charged towards her without any hesitation. He understood that it was exactly the duke’s plan, however he could never make himself to leave her like this, the whole reason he came here was to save her.

Revor looked at this scene and seemed to even slow down his chanting, just so Ariel would make it into his shot, and just when he was on target, the duke finished casting. A giant, meteor like fire ball started crashing down towards the two.

In the mean time, Ariel was desperate to do something, but all he could manage, was to gather as much ice as possible with his Mana manipulation and try his useless struggle. Not long after a tremor once more shook the manor. The collision was so grate that even the duke was surprised.

However he soon he forgot about it and focused on the place Ariel was standing before. As smoke cleared, a silhouette came into vision. Surprisingly it wasn’t too burned and Erna behind him was completely safe. Apparently Ariel had managed to stop the flame aspect of the spell, but the shock was to strong and left lethal injuries inside.

The duke began to laugh hysterically while watching the scene, while Erna who was chained to the wall kept screaming Ariel’s name over and over again. Both of them thought it was the worst outcome, but unknown to them, they were wrong.

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