Sylvia clenched her fist.

“Root prison.”

Theo sensed something and jumped back.

A pillar made of sharp and spiky tree roots blasted out of the ground exactly where Theo was a moment ago.

But that wasn’t all.

The moment Theo was about to land, another pillar of roots blasted out from the exact same spot.

Theo rotated midair to barely dodge it, only to be attacked by a new pillar. Theo kept jumping and dodging but new pillars kept appearing everywhere he went.

As he dodged, Theo realised that the pillars were actually creating a giant cage to trap him. Soon, he would have nowhere left to run!

He tried to run out of the cage through the last remaining gap but another pillar appeared.

“Damn it!”

Theo attacked the nearest root pillar to him with his iron chains, making them wrap around. He then poured all of his mana into the chains. Runes activated and the mana transformed into a corrosive, fire-type poison mana, making the whole chain glow a bright red.

The roots in contact with the chains slowly started turning black and decaying.

“This, is for Helen!” Sylvia’s voice boomed.

The dryad projection attacked Theo with its huge palm.

Theo raised his sword in defence just as the palm came crashing down. The weight of the attack brought Theo to his knees, and he was barely able to defend against it while melting the root pillar.

‘Almost… there…’ Theo mumbled in a strenuous voice.

While the two were fighting, Drake ran towards Helen. The dark warrior mage tried to stop him but Blaze intervened to fight him instead. Blaze was much stronger and the dark mage was tired from his fight with Drake so he wouldn’t have lasted long, but the steel body martial artist who was previously fighting Helen joined the dark mage, allowing them to fight more evenly against Blaze.

Drake noticed the large hole in the unconscious Helen’s stomach. It was bleeding profusely.

But he noticed something else; the slow rise and fall of her chest – she was alive!

Just barely, but she was undoubtedly still alive.

If they could treat her immediately, then she might just manage to survive.

Drake took out a bunch of healing pills that he had refined and made her swallow them. The bleeding stopped for a brief moment but it resumed quickly afterwards.

‘Damn it!’ Drake cursed and looked towards the battlefield.

While Theo was being pushed to the ground, the root pillar he was attacking had decayed by more than eighty per cent.

Biting his lip, Theo fought against the weight of the palm and stood up. Using the last of his strength, he pulled on the chains and the pillar snapped.

Sylvia moved her other hand and clenched her fist.

A new pillar started rising at the exact same spot to replace the old one.

Snake walk!

Theo activated his movement technique and jumped. He rolled in midair, his body grazing over the forming root pillar. He made it to the other side just in time as the new pillar rose to the top behind him.

Theo landed on his knees and coughed out blood. He plunged his sword into the ground for support as he gasped for breath.

At this moment, the mage in purple who had left for the last floor returned and helped Theo to his feet.

“We got what we wanted, let’s go back!” the mage in purple cried.

“Oh no you don’t!” Sylvia’s voice boomed.

She took out her bow and a huge bow materialised in the hands of the dryad projection.

Sylvia was about to take aim when an unexpected voice called out.

“Sylvia, wait!” Drake cried.

She turned to look at him, startled.

“Helen… she’s alive, and she needs help.”

Despite her eyes completely green being unreadable, she seemed surprised and closely observed Helen. She was breathing, but very weakly and needed immediate help.

During this time, the two dark mages fighting Blaze took out a small, round artifact in their palms and crushed it.

Blaze recognised it and jumped back while shooting a fire blade, but the suffocating toxic gas broke out and created a smokescreen, temporarily stopping Blaze from attacking further.

The two dark mages dodged the fire blade and regrouped with Theo.

“The bitch is alive?” Theo asked, surprised but he also noticed it.

Drake and Sylvia glared at him.

“Doesn’t matter, we’ll meet again in the future and I’ll kill her then. See ya losers!”

Theo laughed and fled with the other dark mages.

Sylvia wanted to attack but knew that Helen needed her help quickly.

Biting her lip, Sylvia lowered her bow and walked towards Helen. Blaze also returned now.

“Can you help her?” Blaze asked Sylvia, worried.

Sylvia closed her eyes and brought her palms together. A gentle aura was released from her body.

“Flower of life,” Sylvia whispered.

A crack appeared on the ground next to Helen, and a small green stem poked out. Within a second, the crack slightly expanded and the stem grew by several feet. It sprouted multiple leaves from the side, and white petals appeared at the top. The petals gathered to become a closed flower with a small gap in their centre.

A single drop of golden liquid formed inside.

The stem tilted and the flower moved directly above the hole in Helen’s body. The golden drop dripped onto her stomach.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Something miraculous happened.

Helen’s body regenerated rapidly. Her organs, muscles, tissues, and everything else regrew.

Within a few moments, the hole completely vanished!

The flower of life faded away and so did the dryad’s avatar.

As soon as the avatar disappeared, Sylvia lost all the strength in her body and collapsed.

Blaze caught Sylvia as she fell down and gently placed her on the floor.

Drake observed Helen’s breathing improve. He fed her one more healing, stamina, and mana recovery pill. Helen’s face regained its colour, her remaining wounds closed, and her breathing finally returned to normal.

Drake and Blaze sighed with relief.

“It’s… finally over.”

The elderly man, the mine owner, slowly approached Drake and Blaze, anxiously observing his surroundings, as if he thought something might suddenly jump out and attack him.

“Are they… okay?” he asked, upon reaching them.

“Yes, Sylvia is just exhausted and Helen…” Drake looked at Helen and continued, “We managed to save her just in time. She should be fine.”

“That’s good…” the mine owner sighed. He then bowed deeply, “Thank you, and I am very sorry. I had no idea dark mages would suddenly appear, yet you still risked your own lives to deal with them, so thank you all so much.”

Blaze and Drake were slightly taken aback. It’s not like they fought the dark mages to defend the mines, but because they hated the dark mages and didn’t want them to succeed in whatever they were doing. However, they decided to accept the man’s gratitude anyway.

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” Blaze replied.

“I agree,” Drake replied, “But there’s something I don’t understand.”

“What is it?” the man asked.

“What did the dark mages want? Why did they suddenly appear here?”

“I... have no idea,” the man replied, equally confused.

Drake looked into the distance, at the entrance to the lower floor.

Not just the dark mages, it was strange for such a powerful arachne to suddenly appear and make a nest here as well.

Was it attracted by something? Drake wondered.

“Let’s go and see,” said Drake, standing up and walking towards the lower floor.

Blaze followed, carefully putting Sylvia and Helen over his shoulders.

They entered the rocky corridor as before. But now, black remains from the burnt spider webs littered the floor.

Drake walked forwards, carefully observing the surroundings. The corridor led to a small, circular clearing containing so much more burnt spider web remains.

‘This must be where the arachne had made its nest… where the miners encountered it when they started digging through this level,’ thought Drake.

On the opposite end of the clearing was another opening. It was much taller than it was wide, but large enough for the arachne to go through, sideways.

Drake felt dense mana coming from inside the opening.

Curiously, Drake hurried into the opening and the others followed. It was a tight fit, but Drake managed to make it to the end and reached the other side.

Drake walked into a huge room.

It wasn’t any normal room, but it was filled with all manner of magical herbs. They covered every inch of the floor. The centre of the room had a small depression, which led to a spring of water at the bottom.

Drake could sense mana being most dense just above the spring, indicating that a lot of mana was absorbed into the water.

The presence of water and the rich mana from the mana rocks in the mine must have allowed various magical herbs to grow. The magical herbs grew roots close to the spring to absorb its moisture but also transferred some of their mana into the spring in the process. As more herbs grew, more and more mana must have been absorbed into the spring, making its waters rich with mana.

This entire room was a paradise for magical herbs.

‘I see now,’ Drake thought. ‘The dense mana, and the moist environment created by the spring, must have attracted the arachne to this area.’

‘Mystery solved,’ he thought to himself, satisfied. ‘As for the dark mages…’

Drake noticed a patch of ground which had been cleared of magical herbs. He didn’t know what herbs used to be there, but it was clear that they had been recently removed.

The herbs must have been quite important if the dark mages were willing to go through so much trouble to get them.

At this point, the other two had entered the room and were just as surprised to see everything.

“This… this is a miracle!” the mine owner gasped.

“It is! It is truly incredible!” Blaze exclaimed.

…

In a desolate area close to Duskville.

Several carriages were hurrying along a road. They had the symbol of the Ironheart family engraved on their sides, and they were carrying cargo from Basindale to Duskville. A few hunters at the tempered body level were travelling on horses alongside the carriage to protect it.

“Hurry up! We’re already behind schedule!” a man screamed at the driver from within the first carriage.

“Yes my lord, I’ll – wait, what’s that?” the driver pulled the reigns and the horses neighed loudly. They bashed their hooves against the ground and forced themselves to stop.

“What’s wrong with you? Why’d you stop!?” the man complained loudly as he angrily stepped out of the carriage.

A black, hooded figure was standing in front of the carriage, wearing a mask.

Upon spotting him, the man got a bad feeling. “Who are you?” he asked warily.

By this time, the three tempered body martial artist guards had also come around and stared at the figure suspiciously.

However, the figure didn’t respond. Instead, it raised its hands and black mana gathered.

“Dark mage!” the man yelped. Immediately, the martial artists drew their swords and unmounted.

“Blood bats!” the figure spoke in a low voice. The black mana condensed into ten orbs of light that floated in the air before quickly transforming into large, menacing blood bats with venom dripping from their huge fangs.

“Go!” the figure ordered and the bats dashed towards the martial artists. As they began fighting the blood bats, the figure took out a pipe shaped artifact. It held it to his mouth and aimed at one of the martial artists.

The martial artist noticed this and was just about to take out a defensive artifact when his body suddenly froze. A small, black needle had pierced his throat, killing him instantly.

“NOOO!” the other martial artists screamed. However, they were quickly killed by the figure as well.

Seeing his guards get defeated so quickly, the man was overcome with terror. He tried to turn around and run but tripped and fell on his bottom.

“Please! Don’t hurt me-!” before the man could finish his sentence, a black needle pierced his throat and life disappeared from his eyes.

Finally, the figure turned towards the driver. However, he had collapsed in his seat with fear.

Seeing this made the figure smile. He took out his mask, revealing the face of a young man with an eye patch – Henry!

Henry walked over to a nearby bush and dropped an envelope inside.

“WHO GOES THERE!?”

Henry felt a huge aura suddenly appear out of nowhere as the booming voice of a man echoed through the surroundings.

Mage king!

‘What’s a mage king doing here!?’ Henry panicked.

Sensing the aura, Jin Tong appeared out of hiding. He picked Henry up and ran at top speed.

Darren Gold, the head of Duskville’s branch of the merchant guild, was taking a break from work by going on a quiet walk when he noticed a nearby. He sensed someone using dark mana and immediately rushed over. However, by the time he arrived, it was already too late.

The guards and the man were already lying dead on the floor. Darren focused on the surroundings to sense anyone using mana but he couldn’t find anything.

‘Were they already gone? How fast!’ Darren was slightly surprised. As a mage king, he could sense mana in a wide area around him. To be able to escape his range so quickly, the person must have been a grand mage at least. ‘No! I didn’t sense any powerful spirits being summoned. So, a martial artist then? At the undying body level? No wonder they managed to kill everyone so quickly.’

However, even though he didn’t sense anyone, he did notice something odd. Darren walked over to a bush and dug inside, quickly finding an envelope.

‘Did they drop this in their hurry?’ he wondered. Darren wanted to open it when he suddenly heard a groan. He looked up to notice the carriage driver move in his seat.

‘He’s alive?’ Darren gasped, rushing to his side in an instant. He took out a few healing pills and gave them to the driver, allowing him to recover quickly.

The driver slowly opened his eyes. It took a few seconds for his senses to adjust and regain their clarity. When they did, he noticed a chubby man decorated with jewellery. The driver stared blankly at the man for a few seconds. Suddenly, his eyes widened and his expression changed.

“Lord… Lord Darren!” he gasped, almost falling out of his seat in shock.

Darren chuckled. “Let’s forget the formalities. Can you tell me what happened here?”

“Ye- yes of course!”

The man took a moment to regain his composure and then began explaining everything. The moment he mentioned the figure summoning blood bats, Darren furrowed his brows.

That was a summoning mostly only practiced by the Hidden Venom Cult mages.

‘Them again? What are they doing here now?’

Darren finished listening to the man’s explanation before turning his attention to the envelope. He opened it to find a letter inside, folded neatly in half. Darren unfolded the letter and scanned through its contents.

His eyes widened in shock.

…

Meanwhile, in the Myriad Sword Palace, the inner sect competition had come to a close.

Six figures were standing in a row in front of a large audience who were cheering loudly.

One of the figures was a young man with emerald hair and ocean blue eyes. He was standing in the fourth position and observed the crowd calmly. At the front of the crowd was a middle-aged man dressed in white robes – his master, Sion Hart – who looked at Elwin with an expression of pride.

Elwin smiled and then turned his attention to the other members of the group, focusing on the person standing in first place.

He was another young man with black hair wearing black and white leather armour and was exuding an aura of power and grace.

Elwin’s mind recalled fighting that person and he gulped.

What a monster…