Everyone froze in shock.

How could he summon so many rank two spirits? No matter how powerful they were, a warrior mage wouldn’t be able to summon and control so many rank two spirits so easily. Could this man be a grand mage? But how could that be possible?

The party no longer underestimated him and faced him seriously. The man pointed his hands forward and the vultures darted towards Drake’s party. As they flew, they breathed out a toxic gas which quickly covered the battlefield.

“Careful!” Drake yelled, but it was too late.

The vultures spread out and exhaled the gas from all directions, making it impossible to dodge. Everyone began coughing heavily upon inhaling the gas, making them unable to focus. Taking this opportunity, the vultures also started attacking.

“Water barrier! Light barrier!” Drake yelled and summoned the two barriers from his robe to cover his party as an inverted dome.

The vultures crashed into the barrier in masse, forcing Drake to his knees as he struggled to hold on. Luckily, he consumed a poison recovery pill immediately after seeing the vultures, recognising their poison element. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to react in time.

Still, he needed to help the others. He reached into his storage pouch and tossed out a rank two poison recovery pill to everyone. Despite coughing and struggling against the toxic gas, they caught the pill and quickly swallowed it.

Warm mana flowed through their bodies and helped fight against the toxic gas entering their system, but it wasn’t perfect. The gas was still very potent and remained in their bodies, but they managed to recover enough to be able to focus and fight again.

In the few seconds it took them to recover, the vultures broke the barriers. Drake clenched his stomach and spat out blood, suffering a backlash. He would have been easy prey for the vultures, but luckily, the others sprang into action and began fighting them.

After a few seconds, Drake recovered and stood up.

Looking around, his party wasn’t in great condition.

His pill couldn’t neutralise the poison completely, so they were still suffering and unable to fight at full strength. Moreover, a cloud of toxic gas covered the area they were in, severely reducing their visibility. Given that the flying vultures could attack from three dimensions, it was all the more difficult to deal with them.

Not to mention that every single one of these vultures were rank two spirits!

Even individually, their power and abilities would be stronger than the servant class demons they had been fighting until now. Under normal conditions, they might still be able to fight them off fairly easily, but their condition was far from normal now and there were so many of them.

‘Not to mention…’ Drake activated acute sense and peered through the toxic cloud to look at the dark mage. He was standing casually with a smile on his face, hands behind his back. Drake had a bad feeling that this still wasn’t his true power.

“Firestorm!” Blaze exclaimed as he released a whirlwind of fire. The vultures reacted quickly and easily dodged out of the way, before attacking Blaze again. However, the fierce winds summoned by the whirlwind helped disperse the cloud of toxic gas a little bit.

Farisa saw this and also made a move.

“Crushing maelstrom!” her hammer shot out in an arc while rotating rapidly. She managed to kill a few vultures, but her focus was on clearing out the cloud which dispersed further.

After a few more moves, the group managed to clear the toxic cloud and kill almost a dozen vulture spirits. However, they were all covered in scratches and bruises. Nothing too serious, but it was the first time they had been injured to this extent after entering the inheritance grounds.

The dark mage saw this and clapped his hands sarcastically. “Well done! I didn’t expect you to clear the cloud and kill so many of my vultures so quickly.”

“We’ll kill you too, just as quickly!” Sylvia snapped and shot a probing arrow at him.

The dark mage activated a movement technique and easily dodged the arrow.

‘So he’s a martial artist too?’ Drake observed and became more concerned.

However, the dark mage ignored Sylvia and her attack and continued his sentence.

“I’m quite impressed by your performance. Let me give you all a reward!”

After saying that, the dark mage raised his hands again. Black clouds gathered and obscured the blood moon as an even larger amount of purple mana gathered into his palms.

Everyone had a bad feeling.

“Lightning beetles!” he exclaimed.

Thunder rumbled in the sky. Within a few seconds, all the mana condensed into three orbs of light and floated in front of him. The next second, they emitted a blinding white light which forced everyone to turn and cover their eyes. A few seconds later, everyone turned back to see what the dark mage had summoned.

This time, their faces paled.

Three large rhino beetles, the size of a bus, had appeared in front of the mage. They had extremely thick, purple shells painted with black spots on their backs, and a huge black horn protruding out of their face, which had electricity buzzing around it.

Each radiated the aura of a rank three spirit!

‘How could this be possible?’

‘Was this man, actually a grand mage?’

Their minds were filled with questions, but they didn’t have time to think as the dark mage made his move.

He raised his hands and lightning crackled within clouds, painting the dark red sky with streaks of white. The lightning beetles lifted their heads and a large amount of electrical mana gathered at the tips of the horns. Soon, the build-up was so much that they shot out a beam of lightning mana.

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But that wasn’t all.

The three beams collided midair and started forming a gigantic ball of lightning.

“Decimate!” Sylvia acted instantly and shot her most powerful arrow at one of the lightning beetles. To everyone’s surprise, the beetle didn’t make any attempts to dodge and allowed the arrow to collide directly with its back.

BOOM!

The arrow crashed explosively against the beetle’s shell. However, the beam of lightning the beetle was shooting out didn’t decrease in the slightest. As soon as the dust cloud faded, everyone gasped. There was a small crack in the beetle’s shell, but that was it.

Despite taking Sylvia’s most powerful arrow directly, almost nothing had happened to the beetle.

‘Just how strong are those shells?’ thought Drake, but soon realised that the huge ball of lightning was very close to finishing.

“Everyone, watch out! Water barrier! Light barrier!” Drake yelled, summoning two large barriers to cover everyone.

Sylvia acted next and summoned her rank two earth elemental imps. The imps created several layers of earth walls in front of Drake’s barriers. Helen poured mana into her armour to summon another earth wall in front of all of Sylvia’s layers.

Farisa dug her hammer into the ground and poured mana into it, making it glow a deep blue.

“Impenetrable wall!”

A translucent barrier of mana spread out of the hammer and formed another layer behind Drake’s barriers.

“Firewall!” Blaze exclaimed as he summoned a wall of fire behind Farisa’s.

“I see you’ve completed your preparations,” smiled the dark mage. An enormous ball of lightning, the size of a double-decker bus, had formed in the air before him. “Since that’s the case…”

“Arc blast!” he yelled.

Upon his order, the ginormous lightning ball blasted forward.

It broke through Helen and most of Sylvia’s barriers like butter, slightly reducing in size with each impact. It stopped for a second longer at the last earth wall, before destroying that as well.

Helen and Sylvia fell to one knee and coughed as they suffered a backlash from their spells being broken through.

The lightning ball collided powerfully with Drake’s light barrier. It began cracking immediately and Drake kept pouring in more mana to keep it intact.

However, it was futile.

A few seconds later, the light barrier shattered and the ball collided heavily with the water barrier. In another five seconds, this barrier was also broken through.

After his barriers broke, Drake felt a force push him several steps back. He clenched his stomach and started coughing out blood and panting for breath.

Farisa was next. Colliding with her barrier sent loud echoes throughout the battlefield. The ball had decreased to half its original size now, but it was still extremely powerful.

Soon, cracks started appearing on her barrier as well. Farisa felt immense pressure and was forced to one knee, but she kept pouring mana into her hammer to help maintain the barrier. However, the combined attack from three rank three spirits was too powerful. Soon, numerous large cracks appeared in her defence. It managed to last thirty seconds before collapsing, causing her to suffer a backlash too.

The ball was only thirty per cent of its original size when it crashed against Blaze’s firewall. Blaze stared at the ball fiercely as it started slowly tearing through his wall as well. He could tell that his barrier would also inevitably collapse, after which everyone would have to face its power directly.

“Not… today!” gasped Blaze, before making a decision.

He closed his eyes and focused on his inner realm. The mana in his body sensed his will and moved. They left his inner realm and started flowing through his left arm. Blue streaks could be seen under his skin where they were still exposed by his loose leather armour.

Just as his firewall was about to break, Blaze whispered two words. However, his voice was filled with mana and echoed across the battlefield.

“Dragon. Form.”

A huge amount of mana exploded from his left arm. The mana formed long streaks and coiled around his arm, rotating faster and faster. As they rotated, Blaze’s arm began to glow and enlarge. Scales began to form one after another, covering the entire arm.

BOOM!

The ball of lightning broke through the firewall and charged at them ferociously. Blaze opened his eyes and a wave of fiery red mana was released from his body. His left arm transformed to be much bigger and muscular, and was covered in thick, red, dragon scales.

Blaze rotated his arm towards the incoming lightning ball. The ball crashed against him like a truck and pushed Blaze several steps back. He dug his huge sword into the ground and held onto it with his other hand for support, gritting his teeth.

Dragon scales were among some of the hardest materials in the world. Despite its power, the ball of lightning could not even crack them. Some of them lightly turned black, but they held firm.

Still, Blaze felt immense pressure. The ball had considerably reduced in size now and, with the protection of his powerful scales, he didn’t feel much pain. However, the collision placed an enormous tension on his bones and muscles.

“Almost… there!” Blaze whispered, as he fought against the pain and faced the powerful attack directly.

Everyone looked on in shock. They had never seen Blaze use his dragon form before but being able to take on that lightning ball directly, showed just how powerful it was.

By this time, Sylvia recovered. She was about to summon a healing pixie and send it to Blaze for support when another loud explosion occurred.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ball of lightning exploded and released a wave of mana that pushed everyone back. A large dust cloud rose into the air. Drake coughed a couple of times as the dust entered his lungs. A few seconds later, the dust cleared, revealing Blaze holding the hilt of his huge sword buried in the ground, with his other arm transformed into the massive arm of a dragon.

Seeing him, the dark mage licked his lips with an evil smile.

“Not bad, not bad. As expected of someone from the dragon race,” he said sarcastically.

“Humph!” Blaze snorted and charged at him.

The remaining vultures reacted and rushed at Blaze.

“Dragon claw!” Blaze yelled and slashed his dragon arm across the air. Three, large, claw-shaped streaks of fire shot out towards the oncoming vultures. Some of them dodged, but almost ten vulture spirits were immediately killed.

The dark mage smiled and consumed a pill. His aura rose as his mana recovered back to its peak. With a smile, he raised his arms again and another huge amount of mana gathered.

“Stop him!” Blaze cried. Everyone else finally reacted.

“Rain!”

“Crushing maelstrom!”

“Chain Lightning!”

“Wind blade!”

Everyone attacked the vultures, trying to reach the dark mage as quickly as possible. However, the dark mage was faster.

Black orbs of mana floated out of his palm one after another, until over fifty of them rose into the air! They each condensed into a rank two vulture spirit and glared menacingly at their party.

“Go!” the dark mage ordered, and the vultures charged at their party, creating a new poison cloud.

He watched them struggle while slightly panting for breath.

Even though he had consumed a mana recovery pill, summoning so many rank two spirits wasn’t easy, even for a grand mage like him, and controlling them along with the lightning beetles was a lot.

‘These brats are more troublesome than I thought, but… I don’t want to use that yet…’ thinking so, he reached into his pockets, took out another few pills and consumed them. After a few moments, his mana, body, and mind recovered, and he opened his eyes calmly.

He looked at the party slowly clearing off the poison cloud and killing off some vultures, and then at the lightning beetles which were still waiting by his side for his command and smiled. He focused back on their party and willed the lightning beetles to make their move again.

“Storm’s spear!”

Lighting mana gathered at the tip of beetles’ horns and then extended outwards several feet like a rod. The outer end of the lightning rod gathered even more mana and transformed into a sharp arrowhead. All the beetles acted at the same time and after a few seconds, three spears of lightning floated above their heads.

“Go!” he ordered, and the spears shot out.

Everyone had been keeping an eye on the mage but were helpless to stop him as they were being constantly attacked by the vultures. The spears travelled extremely fast, aimed at Sylvia, Drake, and Farisa. Sylvia and Drake jumped back just in time as the spears crashed into the ground explosively and formed large craters.

However, Farisa was surrounded by many vulture spirits which prevented her from moving.

“Tst,” she cursed and dug the end of her hammer into the ground again.

“Impenetrable wall!” a translucent veil of mana extended out of the hammer and blocked the arrow’s path. This spear was much weaker than the lightning ball from earlier but it was still an attack by a rank three spirit. The wall was able to block it but the spear didn’t dissipate so easily.

Several vultures seized the opportunity. They swooped down with joy, ready to tear her into pieces.