As the last of his shields broke apart, Corvus reached the rhino beetle.

BOOOMMMM!

A deafening explosion occurred, even bigger than the first. Waves of mana surged and physically pushed back everyone who was spectating the battle.

Shadow and fire elements combined and transformed into an unstoppable blade that shattered the rhino beetle’s shell and pierced through its body.

BOOM!

The beetle shattered into a million pieces and dissipated into mana while Corvus crashed into the ground below. A huge dust cloud rose into the sky. Fierce winds struck the surroundings like a mad storm, forcing everyone to use their defences to prevent themselves from suffering collateral damage.

It took several seconds for the impact to die down. The winds slowed and the dust settled, revealing Corvus who was standing on his feet.

Cough! Cough!

Corvus suffered backlash from having so many of his shields break. He reached into his storage pouch and pulled out several recovery pills. After consuming them, he felt the effects of the backlash wane, and his strength return.

Theo was stunned seeing this sight.

‘He… actually, did it!’

Alistair chuckled. ‘He really is a monster!’

Seeing his strength, all the lone cultivators beamed with joy while the dark mages felt cold sweat trickling down their backs.

The dark grand mage saw Corvus standing there, open mouthed. He thought the dragon and the dryad would be the strongest in this inheritance grounds, but even Blaze only had the strength to defeat one of his rhino beetles.

Now, seeing Corvus stand there almost completely unharmed after defeating his rank three rhino beetle spirit made him speechless.

‘How is this possible!?’ he gasped.

This wasn’t good for him. Due to the mask artifact’s effects, and the restrictions placed on him by the inheritance grounds, summoning spirits, especially rank three spirits, consumed a lot more mana than normal. He couldn’t summon a lot of them like he could with the rank two vultures.

Although he was sure he could eventually wear down and defeat Corvus, he didn’t want to waste so much energy now. He needed to get the secret inheritance before anyone else managed to find it, and he had to conserve his strength for whatever trials were prepared there.

The dark grand mage ordered the vultures to attack Corvus in full force. They obeyed immediately and swooped down on him from above. At the same time, the rhino beetles activated arc blast but, instead of shooting out individual lightning balls, they were combining their beams of lightning to form one massive ball of lightning like they did when fighting Drake’s party.

Of course, with one less rhino beetle, the strength of the arc blast they could build up was less, but the dark mage needed time to summon another one. So, while the vultures were keeping Corvus busy and the rhino beetles were building up the arc blast, he also gathered his mana to summon another rhino beetle.

Seeing the vultures attack, Corvus began preparing. He poured mana into his swords and they erupted with flames and shadows once more. Then, he activated his martial technique and they began glowing. The fiery sword emitted a red light, and the shadow sword glowed dark.

He raised his swords and released his grip, but they kept floating in the air. As soon as Corvus released them, the two swords started rotating around each other and moving forward.

“Twin sword arts - twisting fury!”

Immediately, the swords began glowing even brighter and shot forward at an unbelievable speed. Fire and shadow danced in unison as arrays of swords appeared around them, quickly multiplying to over a hundred. The swords flew into the air and rained down upon the vultures like falling meteors.

This was the same martial technique he had used earlier to clear the demon horde, but he also activated the fire and shadow elemental runes in his swords to increase their destructive power. Corvus could combine the elemental powers of his swords with any of his sword martial techniques to take its power to the next level as he did with octane blast and eclipse blade earlier.

The vultures shrieked in fear and tried to dodge, but there were too many swords falling down on them. Moreover, the fire and shadow elements of the swords spilled into the surroundings as well, so even if they didn’t take a direct hit from a sword, the vultures would suffer damage if one just passed close by.

Every second, several vultures cried in pain as their bodies were severed by a sword, before dissipating into mana. In less than thirty seconds, the over twenty rank two vulture spirits were all dead. The swords returned to Corvus’ hands, leaving hundreds of craters on the ground.

Corvus glanced at the rhino beetles building up the arc blast and frowned.

‘That is not good,’ he thought, before glancing at the dark mage. Seeing the enormous amount of mana he was gathering, Corvus’ expression darkened.

‘Is he summoning another one of those beetles? How many can he summon!?’ Corvus got a bad feeling from this.

Not only him, but Alistair and the lone cultivators watching their battle also noticed this and their faces paled. All of them had the same thought.

‘We can’t keep fighting this guy!’

At this moment, the rhino beetles stopped shooting out beams from their horns and a huge ball of lightning floated above their heads. They then tilted their heads so their horns pointed towards Alistair, and the ball of lightning shot towards him!

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Alistair’s face paled.

“Bastard!” Corvus cursed and activated sword dash. He appeared in front of Alistair in an instant but the huge ball of lightning would be upon them in a few seconds.

Corvus acted as fast as he could. He raised his swords to make them touch above his head and activated his martial technique. As before, fire and shadow elements erupted and combined into one, forming a giant sword above his head.

“Twin sword arts: eclipse blade!” he yelled.

Corvus slashed his sword diagonally and a huge blade of shadow and fire shot forward, vibrating with mana.

The eclipse blade and arc blast collided midair.

BOOOMMM!

An enormous explosion resounded through the atmosphere. Fierce winds swept across the battlefield, pushing everyone back. All of them except Corvus, instinctively covered their eyes with their elbows and turned their heads to avoid the dust and debris from falling into their eyes.

A few seconds later, the dust settled.

The eclipse blade was just powerful enough to counter the arc blast from the two lightning rhino beetles. If the third one had also been there, the arc blast would have definitely broken through.

However, successfully cancelling the arc blast did not make Corvus happy. Appearing from the falling dust, was a third rhino beetle. It walked forward and stood in the middle of the other two once more.

Seeing this, the cultivators’ faces paled, and the dark grand mage laughed.

“You guys surprised me! Especially you… Corvus Fang was it?” the dark mage asked in a mocking tone. Corvus didn’t reply and the dark mage chuckled before continuing. “I’ll remember you. In any case, as much as I’d love to destroy you all, I don’t have the time to play with you right now. Why don’t you all turn around to head over to some other place? I’ll let you go if you scram now.”

Alistair hesitated, and so did the lone cultivators. None of them wanted to continue this battle; but, they all looked towards Corvus. With his strength, Corvus had earned their respect and they now looked at him as their leader. They would leave the decision to him and follow whatever he said.

Corvus stared at the dark mage unblinkingly. No one could tell what was on his mind.

A tense few moments passed.

“Let’s go,” he whispered.

Everyone became internally happy and rejoiced. They gathered as a group and began retreating.

Seeing their backs disappear, the dark grand mage sighed with relief. Theo walked up to him with the rest of the dark mages and asked, “Are you sure letting him go was a good decision? That guy is dangerous. This might have been a good opportunity to kill him.”

“Humph!” the dark grand mage snorted and started to walk. “If we were in the outside world now, that boy would not be seeing the light of day again. But, given our current circumstances, we don’t have the time or energy to waste on him, especially for just some rank three artifacts.”

As he said the last word, the dark grand mage reached the rank three artifacts on the ground. He picked up the double-headed axe but didn’t put it in his storage pouch. Instead, he practised swinging while observing it closely.

“Well, if he ends up working together with the dragon’s party,” Theo spoke casually while placing his hands on the back of his head. “Then we’d have a real problem on our hands.”

The dark grand mage’s expression darkened.

‘Don’t you think I know that?’ he wanted to retort but didn’t. Instead, he looked into the distance in a particular direction.

“Maybe, but I have ways to deal with them when the time comes. First, we have an important matter to take care of.”

In the same direction that the dark grand mage was staring in, a young boy and girl were fighting a pseudo commander class naga demon.

Both the boy and the girl, as well as the naga demon, were all gasping for breath.

Drake and Sylvia had been fighting the naga for a while. Last time they fought a pseudo commander class demon was when both Blaze and Helen were present. However, they had grown in strength since then, especially Drake, so the two were slowly getting the upper hand against the naga.

The naga was covered in injuries all over its huge body. Unfortunately, none of them were serious and only served to make it angrier. All three of them were panting for breath while staring at each other.

“Why is a naga demon here again?” asked Drake.

“I heard that when the two leaders of the sect were still young, they actually visited the eastern desert and returned successfully. When they left, they were only at the shadow body level, but when they returned, they had reached the astral body.”

“Really!?” Drake gasped.

The eastern desert, home of the snakemen, was very isolated from the rest of the continent, even more than Eldanor in the west, where the elves lived, which was covered by the beast woods. That was due to an extremely large river which separated the eastern section of the continent from the rest. Not only was it very turbulent, but it connected to the ocean and was home to numerous, powerful sea demons.

All that to say, very few people manage to successfully make a round trip to the eastern desert. This made Drake even more excited about the final inheritance of this place.

‘Maybe it would have some unique treasures from the eastern desert?’

“Ssss!” the naga hissed menacingly, interrupting their conversation.

‘It’s time… to end this,’ thought Drake.

Shadow steps!

Drake snorted and moved rapidly, leaving a trail of dust and sparks.

“Rain!”

Sylvia shot over a dozen arrows at the naga as a distraction. The naga used its sword to easily deflect all the arrows, but due to its injuries and exhaustion, it was slower than normal. By the time it finished, Drake appeared to its right.

“Crescent slash! Crescent slash! Crescent slash!”

Drake repeatedly activated his rank two martial technique and shot out several crescent blades. The naga didn’t have time to dodge so it slammed its sword down and used it as a shield.

“Decimate!”

Sylvia shot out her most powerful arrow.

“SSSSsssss!” the naga hissed once again. It released its grip on its right sword and was about to escape. However, Drake poured all his mana into his left hand and slammed it down at the last moment.

“Water pillar!”

A massive pillar of water appeared in its way, forcing it to a stop. That one second was enough. The mana arrow was extremely close and it was too late for the naga to dodge.

The naga hissed and brought its other sword forward.

BOOMMM!

A huge explosion resounded as the mana arrow collided with the sword. The naga was launched by the force of the impact, violently bouncing against the ground as it flew across. It came to a stop dozens of metres from its initial position and began spitting out blood.

However, they weren’t going to miss this opportunity.

Drake poured mana into his boots and activated shadow steps, pushing his speed to the limit. As the naga was getting up, Drake appeared above and raised his right hand.

“Chain lightning!”

Several lightning bolts jolted out of his glove artifact and arrived before the naga in the blink of an eye. However, the naga was still faster. It bent backwards so most of the lightning bolts passed above it, however, one still scrapped its shoulder, causing it to shriek in pain.

“Rain!”

Before the naga could recover, Sylvia shot over twenty arrows at the naga. Suffering from the previous attacks, it was not able to dodge fast enough. So, it used its sword to deflect the arrows.

“Solar barrage!”

Drake landed on the other side, summoned a large number of blazing fireballs and willed them to shoot towards the naga. Seeing attacks coming in both directions made the naga panic. Moreover, the decimate arrow from before had damaged its sword and so, blocking the rain of arrows now was causing it to develop numerous cracks.

The naga hesitated, and then came to a decision. It dropped its sword and sprinted!

“SSSSsssss!” the naga hissed in pain as several arrows and fireballs caught its shoulders and back, however, it managed to dodge the majority of the attacks.

The naga became weak and slowed down after a few metres. It was bleeding profusely from its shoulder and back.

Sylvia readied another arrow while Drake poured mana into his boots. But something happened.

Suddenly, they felt several auras approaching them from the distance.

‘Dark mages!’