Several vultures swooped down with joy, ready to tear Farisa into pieces.

“Ah!” she cried as vultures bit her from the back and spat out corrosive venom which began melting her skin. She grit her teeth and held on, focusing on the wall.

Boom!

A few seconds later, the lightning spear exploded and the nearby vultures retreated, not wanting to be caught up in the explosion. Farisa undid her wall and gasped for breath. Her back was torn open by numerous claw and beak strikes, along with their corrosive venom.

Drake wanted to help but was helplessly surrounded by over a dozen vulture spirits. Moreover, he glanced at the dark mage and realised he was nowhere near done. Another three storm spears had almost finished condensing and would be upon them in a second.

“Go!” the dark mage ordered. The spears shot out ferociously again.

Seeing this, Sylvia contemplated using her Dryad’s avatar but was hesitant. After she used it, she wouldn’t be able to fight for a while, and Blaze may be in the same position too once his dragon form wore off. In that case, if the dark mage was still undefeated, then Drake, Farisa, and Helen would be left to face off against him alone. Or even otherwise, they’d have to fight against the demon hordes in their exhausted states while protecting Blaze and Sylvia till they recovered.

‘It’s too risky,’ she concluded, as a lightning spear approached her at an unbelievable speed.

Wind walk!

Sylvia jumped back to avoid the lightning spear and yelled, “We need to retreat!”.

Everyone heard her as they barely dodged the second volley.

‘She’s right,’ thought Farisa, as she ate some pills to recover. ‘This dark mage is probably even stronger than him.’

The dark mage began preparing another round of lightning arrows.

“AAAAHHHH!” screamed Blaze, ignoring Sylvia and breaking out of the encirclement of over twenty vultures.

“Dragon step!” Blaze became a fiery mist as he dashed towards the dark mage.

The three lightning beetles moved in front of the mage and shot their storm spears at him.

Blaze brought his dragon arm forward defensively and the three lightning spears crashed into him creating a huge explosion.

“BLAZE!” Drake, Sylvia, and Helen screamed simultaneously.

However, they didn’t need to worry.

The next second, Blaze jumped out of the dust cloud and appeared over the lightning beetle previously injured by Sylvia. His figure blocked the light of the blood moon and cast a large shadow over the beetle.

“Dragon claw!” he cried, swiping his arm across the air, and releasing a fiery claw strike.

The beetle reacted instinctively and summoned another spear very quickly. The two other beetles also joined and quickly shot another three lightning spears towards the claw strike just as it was closing in.

They made contact midair, creating another loud explosion and generating huge mana waves. However, the claw strike was even more powerful and broke through.

BOOM!

Blaze landed on the ground as the claw crashed heavily against the beetle’s shell, digging in deeply. The beetle cried in pain as its shell cracked everywhere and the fire assaulted its insides.

‘Impossible!’ the dark mage thought in his head.

Despite having a powerful offense, the lightning beetles boasted powerful defence too through their tough shells. Only rank three artifacts would be able to damage them, barely.

‘Just how strong is that dragon arm!?’

“AaaahhhhhH!” Blaze screamed as he charged at the injured lightning beetle again.

Some vultures attempted to fly towards Blaze and stop him, however, the rest of the party launched a barrage of attacks on them, stopping them in their tracks.

“Fire blade!” Blazed yelled as he jumped high into the air and swung his sword. A powerful blade of fire shot towards the injured beetle. The other two beetles once again gathered their strength and shot two lightning spears at the fire blade. They collided midair once more, but the fire blade was not as powerful so it could not break through.

The spears and the fire blade exploded spectacularly in the air. Blaze shot down from the resulting dust cloud, his dragon arm outstretched towards the lightning beetle.

“This is it!” he yelled; it was too late for them to react now.

Or so he thought.

The dark mage smiled.

Sensing his will, the beetle raised its horn and a large amount of lightning mana gathered. The other two beetles retreated as if not wanting to get caught in what was going to happen.

Blaze saw the lightning beetle rapidly become bigger in his view. He could feel the intense lightning mana gathering in its horn and had a bad feeling. However, it was too late for him to stop as well.

“Fractal strike!” yelled the dark mage.

Immediately, the lightning mana exploded and an enormous amount of lightning struck the surroundings. Similarly to Drake’s chain lightning, each bolt of lightning split into many. But while his chain lightning formed a couple more lighting streaks, the beetle’s lightning bolts fragmented into hundreds.

A flurry of lightning struck the ground and air in a wild dance. Their light blasted the entire area which was previously only lit by the dim blood moon.

Blaze saw hundreds of lightning bolts strike the air before him and clenched his fist.

“This is not going to stop me…” he muttered to himself and opened his eyes with a renewed vigour.

Stolen story; please report.

Blaze released a battle cry as he fearlessly charged into the cloud of lightning.

“NOOOO!” everyone yelled as they watched Blaze be assaulted by an uncountable number of lightning bolts. They wanted to rush to his aid but were still held up by the vulture spirits.

Blaze activated dragon step and used all his mana to increase his speed to the maximum, trying to dodge his way through the lightning bolts and blocking what he could with his dragon arm.

However, there were too many of them.

“AHHHH!” he screamed as his body was bombarded by the extremely powerful lightning. However, each time his body was hit, his eyes burned even more fiercely.

‘I’ll show you… the true power, of the dragons!’ Blaze screamed in his heart. Even though his body was being battered by lightning, his cry of pain transformed into the roar of a dragon. Blaze cut through the bolts of lightning and arrived on top of the lightning beetle.

“Dragon fist!” he mumbled and punched the beetle with his dragon arm using all his might. The already cracked beetle shell could not bear the pressure and shattered completely, revealing the beetle’s vulnerable back.

Blaze pulled his arm back and smiled wickedly.

“Takeeee THISSS!” he yelled as he punched its back heavily once again.

The beetle screeched in pain, its cries echoing across the entire battlefield. All of its legs broke under the pressure and it collapsed onto the ground.

But Blaze was still not finished.

“AHHHHHH!!!!” he screamed, twisting his fist and exerting even more pressure.

As everyone watched, Blaze’s dragon arm punched through the large beetle, creating a huge hole in its back.

BOOM!

The beetle exploded into a million pieces and Blaze crashed onto the ground. His dragon arm reverted to normal. He almost collapsed but held onto his sword for support and managed to stay on his knees. His armour had been charred and torn beyond recognition and his back was bleeding all over. It was a miracle that he was still conscious.

“Un..believable!” the dark mage gasped in shock and stepped back. He didn’t think that they would actually succeed in defeating one of his rank three spirits.

By this time, everyone else had defeated most of the remaining vulture spirits.

“BLAZEEE!” screamed Drake as he cut through the vulture spirit next to him, finally freeing himself of his encirclement. “Shadow steps!”

Drake transformed into a shadow and appeared next to Blaze. Drake immediately fed him some of the most potent healing pills he had, but Blaze would still need time to recover his strength.

“Not bad!” the dark mage laughed sarcastically, recovering from his surprise. “The dragon race really does live up to their reputation!”

“Shut up!” Drake stared at the dark mage but the remaining two lightning beetles immediately stepped in front to protect him. He still would have attacked, but he didn’t want Blaze to get caught in the crossfire.

“Ha!” the dark mage laughed. “You and your party may be very powerful, however, one of your strongest members is now defeated. In that case…” the dark mage smirked and continued, “How will you stop this?”

With that final word, he raised his hand a huge amount of purple mana gathered once again.

‘Oh no!’ Drake’s face paled.

“Stop him! I’ll take care of Blaze” he heard a girl’s voice next to him and realised that Sylvia had appeared as well.

“Thank you,” Drake replied and charged.

“Solar barrage!”

Dozens of large fireballs appeared behind his back and charged at the beetles. Just as they got close, the beetles activated fractal strike again. Lighting struck the surroundings from their horns. Before the fireballs could even get close, they were shredded by the lightning.

Drake froze. He knew how strong his chain lightning was, and yet he could feel that the power contained within each of those lightning bolts was many times stronger.

‘Just how the hell did Blaze survive that?’ Drake thought as he watched the dark mage helplessly.

“Lightning… beetle!” lightning struck against the dark red sky as the dark mage’s mana condensed into a blue ball of light. Lightning struck again and the orb of mana condensed into another, bus-sized lightning beetle before the dark mage. The beetle slowly walked and stood in between the others.

“This...” Helen and everyone else’s face paled. After everything they had to do to defeat one of those things, the dark mage summoned another!? How could he summon rank three spirits so easily?

By this point, they were sure of one thing - this dark mage was in the grand mage realm.

They didn’t know how it was possible, but there was no other explanation. There was no way for any warrior mage to be able to summon rank three spirits so easily.

The dark mage smiled wickedly.

“Arc blast!”

The beetles lifted their horn and a large amount of lightning mana gathered at their tips.

‘This... is the same attack as before!’ everyone gasped.

“Everyone, RUN!” Sylvia screamed as she had her wind elemental imps carry Blaze and retreat.

No one ignored her this time.

Drake also turned and ran back instantly. However, the attack came much faster now.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Drake slightly tilted his head to spot three balls of lightning shooting out of their horns.

Shadow steps!

Drake activated his martial technique and barely changed direction in time as the ball of lightning crashed explosively onto the ground where he was just standing. Just as Drake sighed in relief, alarm bells rang through his head again.

“WATCH OUT!” Sylvia yelled, catching up with Farisa and Helen.

However, Drake had been very close to the dark mage already, and was also the last to start retreating.

“Water barrier! Light barrier!” Drake activated his robe artifact, instinctively realising he didn’t have time to dodge. Two barriers materialised around him and the first shattered just as soon as it appeared, causing Drake to suffer a backlash.

‘What the hell?’ Drake thought. Ignoring the pain, he looked at the lightning beetles and his eyes widened.

Before, since the vultures were keeping their party occupied, the beetles combined their lightning mana to create the huge ball of lightning – hence it took them a long time to form the attack. Now they were just shooting out lightning balls one after another, even faster than the speed with which they had shot out the spears.

“Hahahaha! None of you can escape!” the dark mage laughed as another two lightning balls shot towards Drake while even more flew towards the others.

Drake cursed and forced his body to move. He poured mana into his boots and activated his martial technique.

“Shadow steps!”

He moved as fast as he could, while keeping an eye on the attacks coming from behind.

However, the dark mage was still not done. While the group were dealing with the lightning beetles' attacks, he had summoned another fifteen vulture spirits.

He could summon more if he took some pills but, despite being at the peak of the grand mage realm, summoning so many rank two and three spirits had already exhausted him too much.

His power was restricted in this inheritance grounds, to begin with. While he could use the vast amount of mana in his inner realm, and the powerful spirit summons he knew, however, his spirits, especially the rank three ones, cost him a lot more mana than usual to summon, and more mental strength to maintain. Hence, he wanted to preserve his strength and pills for the rest of the inheritance too.

“Go!” he ordered.

Drake caught up with the others and turned back. Everyone watched in fear as over a dozen rank two vulture spirits flew towards them gleefully, behind a barrage of lightning balls.

“Earth wall!”

“Light barrier! Water barrier!”

“Impenetrable wall!”

Everyone activated their defensive techniques again, but they were all very exhausted.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The numerous balls of lightning crashed against their defences, eventually shattering all of them. They all suffered a backlash and stepped back, coughing blood. However, they had no time to recover as the over a dozen vulture spirits immediately surrounded and attacked them.

The dark mage calmly walked towards their party, with one lightning beetle in front, and the other two on his sides. They continued attacking with arc blasts, shooting out numerous lightning balls. However, the beetles were more careful now so they wouldn't accidentally kill the vulture spirits. Despite this, in their exhausted states, the group was barely holding on.

In less than a minute, the dark mage came close and ordered the lightning beetles to focus their attacks on Drake, Sylvia and Farisa. The three felt the pressure on them increase even further, while Helen felt slightly relieved.

However, that was short lived.

The dark mage suddenly disappeared and Helen felt a cold voice whisper in her ear.

“Wind blast!” the dark mage spoke softly, appearing to her right. Helen’s face paled as she spotted a hooded man in her peripheral vision.

Boom!

The dark mage hit Helen at point-blank range with a rank two wind artifact. Helen flew across the air and landed heavily. Her body rolled over the rough ground before crashing against the foot of one of the lightning beetles.

“NOOO!” everyone screamed, but they were helpless.

The dark mage disappeared again and reappeared next to Helen’s limp body. He grabbed her roughly by the neck and lifted her up, before turning to the others. He willed the vultures to stop attacking and they formed a defensive line just in front of the trio.

“She’s coming with me,” the dark mage said casually.