Drake began emitting a dark and icy aura, mixed with an unbelievably dense blood lust and killing intent.

The Silver Crane Sect disciples had never felt anything like this before, not from any dark mages, or anyone else. It paled in comparison even to the killing intent surrounding Theo.

Or rather, it was different.

Theo enjoyed battle and bloodshed, so his killing intent was mixed with his sick and twisted sense of delight.

However, the killing intent they felt from Drake was pure and unadulterated, like a machine that wanted to kill for the sake of killing itself, deriving no joy or anything else from it.

Drake stood up and the Silver Crane Sect disciples gulped. If he didn’t have the body of a young boy, none of them would believe that such a killing intent was being emitted by someone so young.

But suddenly, as soon as it appeared, the killing intent vanished.

Drake turned around and saw the Silver Crane Sect disciples staring at him. He ignored them and looked at the lightning beetles, and then at the rank two vultures fighting Blaze.

Blaze had already finished off more than half of the vultures, but Drake could tell that he was extremely exhausted. He knew that using dragon form would consume a huge amount of mana. Keeping it active for this long must already be well beyond Blaze’s limits, and he was only able to do so due to being overcome with emotion at Helen’s death, which wouldn’t last long.

Thinking so, Drake stepped forward. The moment his feet touched the ground, he disappeared. The next second, he appeared next to the Silver Crane Sect disciples, almost making them jump back in fright, before disappearing again, and finally reappearing close to Blaze.

Drake slammed his left hand on the ground.

“Water pillars.”

Ten water pillars appeared all around Blaze, forcing the vultures surrounding him to retreat. A few vultures were caught by the pillars and died, but most managed to dodge and looked at Drake wickedly.

Once he had their attention, Drake stood up. He poured mana into his boots and jumped, leaving a trail of thin lightning bolts.

The next second, he appeared in the air, in the middle of the vultures. Drake raised his hands on either side and poured mana into both his gloves at the same time.

“Chain lightning. Water bullets.”

The surroundings transformed into blue and purple as his gloves activated.

Dodging his sudden attack at such a close range was not easy. The vultures close to him were pulverised before they could react. The ones further away released toxic gas or shot poison bullets to retaliate but they couldn’t fully neutralise the attack. They were ripped apart by the powerful bullets or incinerated by the lightning. Only the vultures which were at the back managed to fly away in time.

After instantly killing almost ten vultures, and severely injuring even more, Drake landed on the ground, knees bent, and raising a small dust cloud.

Seeing Drake finally appear, Blaze rejoiced and felt relieved.

Unfortunately, as soon as his intense emotions and adrenaline waned, Blaze could no longer maintain his dragon form. Long streaks of red appeared around his left arm and began rotating. As they did so, his arm glowed and reduced in size while his scales began disappearing one after another.

Within a second, Blaze’s dragon form came undone and Blaze felt all the strength leave his body, making him finally realise how exhausted he was. Blaze collapsed to the floor and gasped heavily.

“Noo…” he mumbled, trying to fight against the onset of darkness, but it was futile. Soon, he became unconscious.

Seeing this, the Silver Crane Sect disciples sighed. Although dragon form was powerful, its cost was too high. If not for that, Blaze would be too powerful.

Drake focused on the vulture spirits again who were floating in the air, as well as the lightning beetles which were eyeing Drake cautiously from a distance. However, neither of them made a move.

‘I see… if I don’t attack, they won’t either…’ he realised.

Drake wanted to slaughter all of them but realised that it was pointless. He clenched his fist.

Theo… dark mages…

The Silver Crane Sect disciples slowly approached the duo. Before they could ask anything, however, Drake answered their question.

“Let’s retreat.”

A couple of hours later.

New dawn was almost upon the inheritance grounds which was swarming with demons. The closer the cultivators moved to the black structure, the denser the demon hordes became.

A small group just came out of an inheritance, when they were quickly surrounded by such a demon horde. Being composed of hundreds of demons, it could be described as a small army.

One of the cultivators in the group was a woman in purple wielding a large hammer.

“Crushing maelstrom!” exclaimed Farisa, spinning and launching her hammer into the horde.

The hammer flew in an arc while rotating rapidly, crushing any demon in its path, before returning to her hand. Farisa sighed in relief, thinking that she could catch a break however, every demon she killed was quickly replaced by two more and surrounded them.

“This is ridiculous – there is no end to them!” she cried to her companions.

Sylvia activated her rain of arrows while the Silver Crane Sect disciples used their own artifacts and martial techniques.

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The group fought relentlessly for several minutes and finally defeated the horde.

Farisa rested her hammer on the ground while Sylvia lowered her bow to the side. They both consumed some recovery pills while panting for breath, hoping to recover some energy, along with the rest of the Silver Crane Sect disciples.

However, less than a minute later, the group felt powerful vibrations reverberating through the ground, followed by distant cries.

Sylvia’s eyes widened.

“A huge demon horde is approaching, even larger than this one! We need to leave!”

No one had to be told twice. Everyone picked up their weapons and ran into the horizon as quickly as possible.

At the same time, another group of five were also fighting through a demon horde.

“Solar barrage!” Drake exclaimed.

Twenty large fireballs immediately appeared and vapourised dozens of demons around him.

Drake looked around to see that everyone had gotten split up and were fighting their own battles surrounded by dozens of demons.

“AAAHH!!!” screamed a voice.

Drake recognised that voice – Jordon!

He quickly turned to spot Jordon, who was previously heavily injured by Theo, being surrounded by demons, one of which was a boar.

The boar demon attacked Jordon from the back. Jorden sensed the boar’s blood lust and tried to pivot on his feet to dodge but was a little slow. Hence, the boar’s tusk turned into a deadly spear and stabbed through his leg.

Drake’s eyes widened and he rushed towards him.

“Chain lightning! Chain lightning!” he yelled, destroying any demons that came close while running as fast as possible.

The others had also spotted Jordon’s situation and were rushing to help him. However, the demons surrounding him weren’t going to let this opportunity go.

Several demons attacked him from the back, biting into his shoulders and thighs.

“NOOOOOO!!” screamed the Silver Crane Sect disciples. Despite all their efforts, they still needed a few seconds to reach Jordon.

Jordon bit his lip, resisting the urge to succumb to his pain. Before more demons could pounce on him, he took out a horned shell artifact from his storage pouch.

The artifact could release a sound attack that could frighten and stun enemies. It would be effective for a few seconds and only on demons close to the user, making it mostly useless, but it was perfect for his situation.

Jordon held the artifact to his mouth and blew.

The sound of a loud siren spread out from the shell. All the demons that heard it became temporarily stunned. The ones nearest to him roared and screeched in pain while turning tail and running as if an unfathomably powerful monster had appeared.

Jordon finished blowing the shell and fell to his knees, gasping for breath. He quickly returned the artifact to his storage pouch and took out a few recovery pills instead. They wouldn’t be able to cure his serious injuries, but they were better than nothing. By the time he finished, Drake, Blaze, and the other Silver Crane Sect disciples regrouped with him and covered him on all sides.

“Are you okay?” one of the Silver Crane Sect disciples asked worriedly.

“Never better,” Jordon coughed, standing up. It was clear that he was in no position to fight.

“We need to cover him while moving through this demon horde,” the Silver Crane Sect disciple announced.

Looking at the hundreds of demons around them slowly getting closer again, everyone felt gloomy. However, no one had any objections – none of them wanted to abandon one of their own.

“Wait, what’s that?” Drake gasped, his acute sense picking up on a small movement from the air in the distance. Whatever it was, it moved very fast and reached them quickly. Everyone noticed an orb of light slowing down above their location, before revealing itself as a pixie spirit.

“It’s Sylvia! The others must be close!” everyone rejoiced.

At the same time, Sylvia was running at top speed with the others. She was situated in the centre of their formation, with Farisa and the Silver Crane Sect disciples covering and protecting her from all directions, allowing her to shoot down demons from a distance without worry.

Suddenly, to everyone’s surprise, Sylvia came to an abrupt stop. Everyone turned to spot her face drop into a frown.

“What’s wrong?” Kurt asked worriedly. As the only mage and scout in their group, Sylvia was always the first to detect threats, so seeing her change in demeanour made everyone concerned.

“I just spotted Drake and the others… they’re in trouble,” said Sylvia.

“Really?” Kurt gasped. “What kind of trouble?”

However, Sylvia didn’t reply immediately but was lost in thought.

‘Why isn’t Theo with them… or Helen?’

The Silver Crane Sect disciples didn’t know about their plan to capture Theo and rescue Helen, so Sylvia didn’t voice her concerns.

A moment later, Sylvia sighed. “It appears that they are exhausted. Plus, one of them is heavily injured and the others are trying to protect him, making it difficult for them to flee. The battle is attracting more and more demons… there must be almost a thousand demons surrounding them now!”

“WHAT!?” the Silver Crane Sect disciples gasped.

“Which one of them is injured?” Kurt asked, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his heart.

Sylvia looked at him and spoke. “It’s one of your friends…”

She didn’t know his name so described his appearance instead. One of the Silver Crane Sect disciples shouted out, interrupting her halfway.

“JORDON!?”

“Must be…” Sylvia sighed, looking at the one who had called out. She recollected others calling him Ivan Flame.

Ivan rushed up to Sylvia till he was inches away from her. “We need to help them! Which way are they?”

Sylvia sighed and looked in a particular direction. “That way, but I’m not sure if we’ll make it in time.”

“WE HAVE TO!” exclaimed Ivan and started sprinting in that direction before anyone else could react. Kurt and the others followed him quickly. Farisa and Sylvia also shared a glance, before deciding to trail along.

A little while later, Drake’s party were making slow progress.

Jordon, due to his numerous injuries, couldn’t fight or move very quickly. As the number of demons surrounding their party rapidly increased, they decided that they had to prioritise escaping the demon horde as soon as possible. Otherwise, it didn’t matter how strong they were, they’d eventually get worn out and eaten by demons.

Hence, one of the Silver Crane Sect disciples, Derald Forge, decided to carry Jordon on his back. However, this reduced his mobility and ability to fight. So, although their group was pushing through the demon horde, with one of their party members out of commission and another focusing on helping him, and everyone exhausted and far from their peak, their progress was slow.

Drake observed that Sylvia’s pixie spirit was still following them from above.

‘They should be coming soon,’ he thought hopefully, but he wasn’t sure when they would arrive, and if it’ll be too late by then.

“Crescent slash! Crescent slash! Crescent slash!” exclaimed Drake, slicing nearby demons in half, before pausing to catch his breath. He glanced at Derald on his left and noticed the two Silver Crane Sect disciples guarding him to his left and back, with Blaze taking the front.

Suddenly, a herd of demon boars charged from the left. The two Silver Crane Sect disciples stood side by side to meet their charge. As soon as the first boar arrived, the one on the right threw a punch and sent it flying.

Unfortunately, that boar was quickly replaced by dozens. The two Silver Crane Sect disciples threw all manners of punches and kicks, using their martial techniques, killing a demon with every attack. However, there were too many and some still passed through, charging gleefully towards Derald and Jordon.

Seeing this, Drake wanted to rush to help. However, alarm bells suddenly blared in his mind. Drake jumped to the side, just as a huge demon ant slammed its mandible down on the spot he was just standing in.

Over forty demon ants were following closely behind it.

“Solar barrage! Solar barrage! Solar barrage!” Drake exclaimed, summoning over thirty fireballs and sending them flying towards the demon ants. The servant class demons couldn’t take an attack from a rank two artifact so easily. The ants incinerated upon making contact with the fireballs, and the almost four dozen demon ants turned to ash within a few seconds.

Drake began panting for breath again.

He reached into his pockets, took out more mana and stamina recovery pills, and consumed them. Drake felt his body slowly recover, and his breathing began returning to normal. However, a slight burning sensation began forming in his stomach.

‘I can’t keep consuming so many pills,’ thought Drake.

If we continue like this, we’ll surely…

Drake didn’t want to complete that thought.