An hour later.
The sun shone on four figures huddled together in the inheritance grounds, wearing dark, hooded robes. They were sitting crossed legged while meditating, recovering their mana and strength.
Two of them were noticeably more muscular, with one of them also being much taller than the other, whereas the other two had a more average physique, indicating that they were martial artists and mages. One of the mages had the ends of his long, black hair poking out of his hood, whereas the other had short hair which was fully covered by his hood.
Suddenly, they opened their eyes and looked in a particular direction. Two shadows were rapidly approaching them.
The hooded figures stood up warily as the shadows drew close within a few seconds, before stopping several metres away. As they stopped, the figures of a young boy and girl were revealed.
“It’s you!” the dark mage with long hair gasped. “How did you find us?”
Drake ignored him and raised his right hand, pouring mana into his glove.
“Solar barrage,” he said coldly. Immediately, a large number of fireballs appeared in front and shot towards the dark mages.
“Rain!” At the same time, Sylvia also shot out a rain of mana arrows from her bow, following closely behind Drake’s fireballs.
The dark mages shrieked and reacted instinctively.
“Poison ivy!” yelled the short-haired dark mage. The remaining dark mage also made his move.
“Miasma wisp!”
The two mages summoned their spirits which created shields to cover them. On the other hand, the martial artists took out their bell and disk artifacts and poured mana into them, creating shields as well.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The sound of explosions rang throughout the surroundings as the fireballs and rain of arrows crashed against the dark mages one after another.
“Solar barrage!”
“Rain!”
Just as the first round of attacks reached the dark mages, Drake and Sylvia launched a second volley of attacks. Seeing this, the dark mages gritted their teeth and continued pouring mana into their artifacts and spirits to hold their defences up. However, taking so many powerful attacks non-stop was quickly wearing down their shields and cracks began appearing.
The tall martial artist who wielded the disk artifact had the greatest number of cracks in his shield, making him worry about the attacks breaking through. But he spotted that the last of the fireballs and arrows were shooting towards him and relaxed.
‘If it's just this much, we can handle it,’ he thought to himself.
BOOM!
As the last of the attacks crashed against their shields, another explosion rang across the surroundings, raising a mini dust cloud.
Cough! Cough!
The tall martial artist coughed from inhaling the dust but quickly forced himself to recover. Seeing the attacks having come to an end, he heaved a sigh of relief.
“Watch out!” the other martial artist yelled. Immediately, he became alert and poured more mana into his shield.
However, it was not enough.
“Finger thrust!” Drake whispered, standing inches away from the martial artist’s shield. His index and middle fingers were bursting with an immense amount of mana as they crashed into his shield. Having already been weakened by the numerous attacks, the shield shattered instantly, and Drake pressed his attack forward, aimed directly at the dark mage’s stomach.
The tall martial artist watched Drake’s fingers approach him like a knife. He wanted to dodge, but the backlash from his shield being broken temporarily dulled his movements. But that instant was enough for Drake.
“Ah-!” the dark mage gasped as Drake’s fingers stabbed into his stomach. He felt like he was hit by a cannon, only much worse.
But Drake didn’t give him time to recover. He pulled his hand back and raised his leg high into the air. He poured mana into his boots, encasing his leg in lightning, before crashing it down on his head.
“Lightning metal leg!” he yelled. Drake’s leg became as hard as metal and smashed into the martial artist’s head at an unbelievable speed.
Boom!
The martial artist slammed against the ground, the force of the impact creating a crater around him. Mini lightning bolts zapped around his head. His eyes turned white, and he was knocked unconscious.
‘He’s… defeated!?’ the dark mages were in shock. Only a few seconds had passed and one of them was already down.
How could they be so strong?
But although it was hard to believe, the proof was right in front of their eyes. The tall martial artist was on the floor, his face implanted into the ground. Stepping on top of his head was a young boy, who was now looking at them expressionlessly, emitting a cold aura.
Suddenly, they felt a large amount of mana condensing. They looked forward again to spot the young girl grabbing her bow firmly with her left hand, while her right was pulling on the string. She was pouring mana into her ring and, in between her fingers, a powerful arrow was forming. Feeling its aura, the dark mages went pale.
‘Breathe…’ Sylvia told herself. The next second, she smirked and released the string.
“Decimate.”
Sylvia’s most powerful arrow blasted towards the dark mages. It required all four of their efforts to block the arrow last time. Now, with only three of them, they didn’t want to face it head-on.
The dark mages dashed off in three different directions to dodge the arrow just in time as it crashed into the ground they were just standing on.
BOOOMMMM!
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An enormous explosion resounded across the surrounding and a large dust cloud rose into the air.
However, the dark mages had no time to recover as Sylvia aimed another arrow at a dark mage.
The remaining martial artist felt an intense blood lust behind him and jumped.
“Hammer fist!”
Drake dived from the air, punching the ground just as the martial artist dodged.
“Oh no you don’t – thorn blast!” the dark mage facing Sylvia noticed Drake and acted instantly, attacking him from the side. However, Drake didn’t even turn around.
“Light barrier!” he poured mana into his robe and a barrier appeared on his side.
Even though the poison ivy was a rank two spirit, his robe was a rank three defensive artifact. So, it could easily take several attacks from the spirit before breaking.
The poison thorns collided with his light barrier and fell down harmlessly.
“Damn it!” the dark mage cursed, seeing his attack be rendered ineffective. However, he needed to focus on Sylvia so forced himself to turn away from Drake’s battle.
“Crescent slash!”
Drake activated his rank two martial technique and a crescent blade flew towards the martial artist.
“Swift stride!”
Just before the blade was going to reach him, the martial artist disappeared.
Acute sense!
Being a late stage steel body martial artist, his movements would normally be difficult for Drake to follow as just an early stage steel body martial artist. However, with acute sense, he could easily track him.
The martial artist appeared behind Drake to his right. He was carrying the bell artifact in his hand and was pouring mana into it. He was about to point it towards Drake when he noticed Drake’s lips curl into a smile.
“Shadow steps!” Drake whispered.
The next instant, the martial artist saw Drake disappear, leaving behind a trail of dust and sparks.
So fast!
He knew that Drake was just an early stage steel body martial artist, so he didn’t expect Drake to be so fast. Unfortunately for him, Drake’s rank two boots gave him a large boost to his speed, catching the dark mage by surprise.
Oh no!
The mage screamed in his head as he felt an intense blood lust appear behind him. However, it was too late.
“Chain. Lightning.” Drake’s voice bellowed in his ears, followed by an overwhelming amount of pain.
“Aaaahhhhh!” the dark mage screamed as the bolt of lightning struck him at point-blank range. The lightning split into numerous branches which then twisted and attacked him further.
While Drake was fighting the martial artist, Sylvia was engaging the two dark mages.
The long-haired mage with the miasma wisp spirit willed it to move.
“Choking gas!”
Immediately, a black gas began spewing out of all the holes at the ends of the spikes on the wisp spirit.
‘Not this again,’ Sylvia thought to herself, remembering the poison cloud summoned by the dark grand mage’s vulture spirits. She reached into her pockets, took out a couple of detoxification pills, and consumed them immediately.
The pills released a purifying mana throughout her body. By the time she breathed in any choking gas, there was enough healing mana in her body to immediately neutralise it, rendering it ineffective.
“Now then, let’s see what else you got,” Sylvia licked her lips and equipped two arrows simultaneously.
“Seek!” she whispered. The two arrows shot out, aimed at the dark mages.
The dark mages instinctually dodged. However, the explosion they were waiting for never came. Slowly, the dark mages tilted their head backwards to spot the arrows chasing them instead of crashing into the ground.
‘What the hell?’ they screamed in their heads. However, realising that running was useless, they immediately ordered their spirits to defend them.
“Thorn shield!”
“Cloud shield!”
While the dark mages were defending against her attacks, Sylvia gathered mana from her inner realm and focused. A second later, two wind elemental imp spirits appeared next to her, each emanating a rank two aura.
Just as the dark mages finished defending against Sylvia’s seeking arrows, they noticed her spirits and their expression became slightly dark.
“Go!” she ordered. Immediately, the imp spirits flew and attacked the poison ivy and miasma wisp spirits.
With their spirits held back, Sylvia focused on the dark mages again and equipped a mana, fire, and wind elemental arrow at the same time. She pulled back the string as much as she could, took aim, and released.
“Rain!”
The three arrows shot into the sky and multiplied into dozens and dozens, forming more than sixty arrows. There were so many arrows in the sky that they blocked the sunlight, casting a large shadow over the dark mages.
“Iron shield!”
Both of them simultaneously summoned several iron shield artifacts and willed them to float before them, one after another. The moment they were done, the arrows began raining down.
Clang! Clang!
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Each collision sent metallic vibrations ringing throughout the battlefield. Cracks quickly appeared on the foremost iron shields, before they shattered. The following shields quickly followed. The last two shields held on for dear life as the dark mages continued pouring in as much mana as they could.
Boom!
As the last of the arrows collided against the shields, they too exploded, unable to bear the assault any longer.
Cough! Cough!
The dark mages coughed, suffering backlash as their numerous summons were forcefully destroyed. However, they quickly recovered and faced Sylvia again. They began gathering their mana to summon new spirits when they heard a cry.
“Aaaahhhhh!” the martial artist fighting Drake screamed as he was hit with chain lightning.
Hearing this, their expressions darkened. A bad feeling rose in their chest.
A shadow quickly approached from the direction of the scream and stopped a few metres away from the dark mages, revealing itself to be Drake. He was holding the unconscious martial artist in his hand and dropped him to the ground, causing him to land with a thud.
“This… is not possible!” the dark mages gasped.
Two of their members had been defeated so quickly. If they couldn’t beat Drake and Sylvia when it was four against two, how could they beat them when it was now two against two?
Seeing them despair, Drake spoke calmly.
“Do you want to surrender?”
The dark mages glanced at each other and came to a silent agreement. They raised their hands and mana gathered from their inner realm.
“Dark crow flock!” they yelled together. More than twenty orbs of light floated above them before condensing into crows that appeared with blood-curdling screams.
“I see,” sighed Drake. After fighting dozens of rank two spirits and multiple rank three spirits, twenty rank one spirits seemed like nothing to them now.
“I see,” sighed Drake.
“Go!” the dark mages ordered, responding to Drake with their actions instead of words.
Immediately, half of the dark crow spirits darted towards Sylvia, while the rest continued floating above the dark mages, looking at Drake warily.
“Poison bullets!” yelled the dark mage. Immediately, the crows opened their mouth and fired a round, black substance at Drake.
In response, Drake raised his left hand and murmured, “Water bullets!”
Numerous bullets made of water shot out of his palm and collided with the poison bullets in midair, neutralising all of them. As he shot the bullets, Drake also walked forward. Each step he took made the dark mage tense up even more.
“Go! Don’t let him come close!” the dark mage ordered the crows in a panicked voice. The crow spirits obeyed instantly and flew towards Drake. Once they were close, they began shooting out more poison bullets, while also trying to attack him with their beaks and claws.
“Light barrier!”
Drake summoned a barrier of light that covered and protected him from all the attacks and continued walking towards the dark mage calmly.
Previously, when the dark mage he faced in the mines summoned these spirits, Drake had found them much more difficult to deal with. But now, with rank two and three artifacts, fighting rank one spirits was nothing to him.
Only someone like Theo, who could not only summon numerous rank two spirits, but also carried various, equivalent, rank two and three artifacts, and had powerful martial techniques, would be his equal.
Seeing Drake walk towards him while casually ignoring the attacks of all of his spirits made the dark mage panic even further.
“Wait! Stop! Don’t come so close!” the dark mage panicked. However, his cries fell on deaf ears as Drake continued walking towards him.
Steeling his resolve, the dark mage quickly consumed a mana recovery pill and gathered his mana once more.
“Miasma wisp!” he yelled.
Another rank two miasma wisp spirit appeared above him and shot towards Drake.
Drake stopped walking and poured a large amount of mana into his right hand.
He undid his barrier and spoke in a low voice.
“Solar barrage.”
Immediately, a large number of fireballs appeared around him – over thirty of them.
‘Go!’ Drake ordered in his mind. The scorching hot fireballs dashed forward. None of the dark crow spirits were able to dodge the attack and were instantly killed. The miasma wisp spirit fared better. It was fast and able to dodge the attacks more easily while summoning a cloud shield to protect itself from any fireballs it wasn’t able to dodge.
However, all this left the dark mage wide open.
Drake smirked.