She has a rank four artifact too!?

The dark grand mage, Theo, Cyrus, and the rest of the dark mages were shocked.

This is bad, very bad!

The dark grand mage began sweating. With the boost from her avatar, she could use her rank three bow to kill his rhino beetle spirit. If she used a rank four artifact now, she could probably kill all three of them at once!

‘No wait,’ the dark grand mage forced himself to calm down. ‘With how much mana it would consume, she won’t be able to use this attack more than once. I just need to block it this one time, then I can get rid of all of them!’

Thinking so, the dark grand mage began preparing. He closed his eyes and called forth a vast amount of mana, channelling it through his palms, and into the rock artifact in his hand. The rock began shining with a brown, earthly glow with a tinge of gold.

At the same time, Sylvia’s ring was glowing brighter than ever before. Behind her, her avatar’s hand was so bright it looked like a miniature sun.

Sylvia locked eyes with the dark grand mage. Simply seeing his face brought intense emotions to her chest. She regretted not using her avatar sooner in their previous fight. They believed Blaze would be able to handle him with his dragon form. He probably could have if not for the rhino beetle’s fractal strike ability, which prevented anyone from getting close. It wasn’t an issue for her long range abilities but it was deadly to people like Blaze and Drake. They were caught by surprise before, but now that she knew the dark grand mage’s abilities, she wouldn’t let him get away. Not after everything he’s done.

“Die you bastard…” she mumbled. Then, she spoke with a loud voice, which echoed across the floor.

“Wind dragon strike!”

Sylvia slashed her hand through the air and her avatar did the same. Three, translucent streaks of winds materialised and shot forth with an unstoppable force.

“Earth shattering wall! Obsidian wall!” the dark grand mage activated two of his rank four artifact’s runes at the same time. A large, black yet semi-transparent barrier appeared before him and his spirits. In front of that barrier, a huge earth wall erupted once again. The two barriers looked imposing and radiated a powerful aura - but it was dwarfed by the energy emitted by the wind dragon strike.

Within a moment, the two collided.

BBBBOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!

A ginormous explosion broke out. The ground shook, shaking everyone and everything. Rocks fell from the ceiling as violent winds battered the surroundings. Drake jumped back, not wanting to suffer collateral damage, and everyone else did the same. From a distance, Drake and the other cultivators watched the battle unfold.

The earth wall was covered in cracks.

‘It isn’t going last long,’ thought Drake. ‘Five… four… three… two… one…’

As if on command, the earth wall shattered just as Drake hit zero.

BOOM!

The wind dragon strike collided with the obsidian wall. Instantly, cracks began appearing on that as well. However, this barrier was semi-transparent so everyone could see behind it.

All three rhino beetles were standing in front of the dark grand mage defensively. Their heads were tilted upwards, and beams of lightning mana were flowing from their horns and connecting midair in front of the central rhino beetle, forming a massive ball of lightning.

‘This is…’ Drake remember the terrifying attack the dark grand mage launched the last time they fought him.

BOOM!

Unable to withstand the enhanced attack of the rank four artifact, the obsidian wall also shattered.

“Arcane…. BLASSTTTT!” screamed the dark grand mage.

The enormous ball of lightning collided with the wind dragon strike. Incredibly violent energy waves burst out, pushing everyone back even at their distance, before battering the walls. More rocks fell from the walls and ceiling, and Drake worried whether this battle would cause a cave-in. Luckily, since this mine contained a vast amount of black iron ore, he reassured himself that it should be much sturdier than normal so there was no need to worry.

Drake poured mana into his robes and a light barrier appeared around him, keeping the energy waves away. Through his barrier, he observed the lightning rhino beetles continue to pour mana into the arcane blast. The collision was causing the arcane blast to quickly lose its size, however their beams of lightning reinforced the ball, allowing it to hold on for dear life.

But, it was only a matter of time. Every second the ball shrunk considerably, but the wind dragon strike pressed forward. In less than fifteen seconds, the arcane blast had shrunk to the size of a tennis ball, before collapsing completely.

A mini explosion resounded out as the last of the arcane blast dissipated, releasing its final waves of mana.

Cough! Cough!

The dark grand mage coughed out blood, before raising his head in terror. With all of his defences gone, he finally felt the full power of Sylvia’s attack - it was nothing like he had ever faced before. The next moment, the wind dragon strike collided with his central rhino beetle.

‘SCCRRREEEECCCCHHHHH!’ cried the rhino beetle spirit. The other two beetles stood close behind, ready to shield the dark grand mage with their lives.

BBBBOOOOOOMMMMMM!

Another enormous explosion resounded through the floor and the other two lightning rhino beetles also screeched in pain. Large dust clouds continually rose and were pushed out by the energy waves released by the collision. Dust and debris began flying, forcing everyone to summon barriers or turn around for cover. All three rhino beetles began screeching in pain, and several more mini explosions resounded out.

Finally, the wind dragon strike released the last of its energy waves. As it dissipated, a huge dust cloud formed and rose to the ceiling. The entire floor became obscured, covered in dust and debris. Nobody could see anything; they couldn’t even breathe without coughing.

As her attack ended, Sylvia felt all the power drain from her limbs. Her avatar disappeared and she collapsed to her knees. She felt far more exhausted now than the last time she used her avatar and the flower of life to heal Helen. Strength left her muscles and she began falling to the side. Just before she hit the ground, a gentle hand grabbed her and placed her on the floor.

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‘Drake… it’s all up to you now…’ her thoughts faded with her consciousness.

Drake was keeping an eye out for Sylvia, knowing that she could collapse at any moment. Not wanting a repeat of Helen’s incident of being kidnapped, he rushed for her the moment he saw the avatar disappear. He took out some of his best pills and fed them to her, before laying her on the ground.

‘Thank you…’ he mumbled. She had sacrificed a lot, and put herself at risk, in order to launch that last attack. ‘If those bloody beetles end up surviving that…’ Drake didn’t know what he would do.

Drake stood in front of Sylvia protectively. As the dust settled, the aftermath of the attack was revealed to everyone.

‘This…’

One of the lightning rhino beetles was gone. A second had half of its horn broken off, and the third carried deep scars all over its body. Not only that, but half of the vulture spirits in the air were also gone, likely dying from collateral damage. Meanwhile, the dark grand mage was standing behind all this destruction, hand clutching his chest, blood trickling down his cheeks, forming a pool next to his feet.

Drake smirked. After so many confrontations, they were finally seeing the dark grand mage in such a state. At the same time, Theo, Cyrus, and the rest of the dark mages also had grim expressions on their faces. They never imagined Sylvia could release such a devastating attack.

“Guess you’re not so powerful after all,” Drake chuckled.

The dark grand mage wiped the blood off his cheeks with his sleeve. Even if he had been in the outside world, he wouldn’t have been able to take that attack and come out unscathed, let alone here.

“Humph! Don’t get full of yourself,” he retorted. “None of you can unleash such an attack again, yet I still have two of my rank three spirits left. With her gone, what can you do now?”

The dark mages’ spirits were uplifted by that response. ‘Yes that’s right. They can’t use that attack again, plus they lost one of their strongest cultivators, but we still have all of us. What can they do now?’ thinking so, they rejoiced. Blaze, Farisa, and the others also frowned.

However, Drake was smiling.

If the rhino beetles were in peak condition, apart from his rank four artifact, there was no other attack in his arsenal which could cause them serious damage, especially from afar. However, that wasn’t true anymore.

Drake willed mana to move from his inner realm and into his palms.

“You! You are a mage!?” the dark grand mage gasped. Theo and the other dark mages were also shocked.

Ignoring their surprise, Drake condensed four balls of mana which floated out of his palms. The next second, they transformed into four, black iron boomerangs.

Seeing this, the dark grand mage smirked. “Hmph! They’re just rank one artifacts. What do you expect to do with them? You can summon a hundred of those… strange weapons and they would still not be able to lay a scratch on my rank three beetles!” he added, unsure of what to call the oddly shaped boomerangs.

As before, Drake ignored him and willed his boomerangs to move. They shot towards the beetles like shadows. The dark grand mage was annoyed at being ignored but didn’t want to take any chances.

“Go!” he ordered his vulture spirits to attack first. Dozens of them swarmed towards Drake, however he chose to press his boomerangs towards the beetles.

“Fool!” the dark grand mage mumbled, urging his vulture spirits to fly faster. In a few seconds, the first spirit reached Drake.

“Solar barrage!”

Drake summoned a dozen fireballs and shot them towards the vulture spirit. The spirit shrieked and tried to dodge but it was too close.

Poof!

The spirit dissipated upon contact with a fireball, and the remaining fireballs continued flying towards the other vulture spirits.

Seeing them fall into battle, the dark mages and the rest of the cultivators also began fighting.

“Arcane blast! Arcane blast!” the dark grand mage ordered both his rhino beetle spirits to use arcane blast and destroy the boomerangs. Immediately, the two beetles drew mana from their bodies and condensed a large ball of lightning at the tip of their horns. The next instant, they released, and the balls of lightning flew towards the iron boomerangs.

Boom!

A mini explosion resounded out as they collided with the iron boomerangs.

‘Humph! That’ll teach you, you-’ the dark grand mage’s thoughts were cut short by an unbelievable sight.

Coming out of that collision, completely unscathed, were the boomerangs!

“How is this possible!?” gasped the dark grand mage. They were rank one artifacts, and his was an attack from a rank three spirit. The former should have been obliterated by the latter!

Before the dark grand mage could understand what was going on, the boomerangs charged, inches away from the beetles now.

The first beetle raised its horn defensively, while the second one with the half broken horn, turned its head to use the thick, defensive shell around its head, neck and body to face the boomerangs.

Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!

Metallic explosions rang out as the boomerangs clashed against the beetles’ thick shell and horn, rotating rapidly. Their runes began shining and all four boomerangs erupted with flames. To the dark grand mage’s utter surprise, the iron boomerangs were actually enlarging the cracks in the beetles’ armour!

What was going on? First the dryad’s avatar was powerful enough to destroy one of his rank three beetles in a single attack. And now, rank one artifacts were strong enough to fight against them?

Had the world turned upside down?

Sure, the beetles’ defences were considerably weakened by Sylvia’s attack, but not to the point where a rank one artifact should be able to do any harm. This didn’t make any sense!

However, the dark grand mage didn’t have time to contemplate. He needed to save his spirits now. He couldn’t afford to summon an additional three rank three spirits in his current condition.

“Fractal strike!”

Upon his command, the two lightning rhino beetles both activated fractal strike. Intense lightning erupted from their horns, branching into numerous lightning bolts, that struck the surrounding air and ground in a frenzy. The boomerangs began escaping, but not before they were struck by numerous bolts of lightning, each shaving off a piece of them.

‘Damn, how strong are those things?’ the dark grand mage wondered, then shook his head and continued to focus. The four boomerangs were floating midair and rotating rapidly, just outside the range of the fractal strikes.

This was not good for him. He couldn’t maintain the fractal strike indefinitely, and the moment he stopped, the boomerangs would attack. Glancing at Drake, he had slaughtered over ten vulture spirits, and was killing the others faster and faster.

‘Damn it!’ the dark grand mage cursed. This couldn’t be happening to him. He was at the peak of the dark grand mage realm. If he went out and cultivated a bit more, he could definitely reach the mage king realm. He couldn’t lose! Definitely not here, not to them!

He decisively reached into his storage pouch and took out a bronze goblet. This was actually the artifact he had taken after defeating Corvus’ party.

Drake was eyeing the dark grand mage closely. He poured mana into the goblet and it began glowing with a black light.

“Shadow chains!” the dark grand mage yelled, and a long, black chain shot out of the goblet, heading directly for one of the boomerangs.

Drake willed and the boomerang moved, but something unexpected happened.

“Split!”

Immediately, the end of the chain split - into ten different chains! They each extended towards the black iron boomerangs, twisting and turning, chasing them relentlessly. With so many chasing after them, Drake couldn’t dodge them all. Soon, one of his boomerangs was caught, then another, then the last two.

“Corrode!”

The shadow chains began releasing a dark red substance. Upon contact, the boomerangs began melting, slowly turning into drops of liquid and falling on the floor.

Both Drake and the dark grand mage were surprised. Drake was surprised that the substance could melt black iron ore, and the dark grand mage was shocked that they could last so long.

‘In any case, it’s over,’ thought the dark grand mage.

Thirty seconds later, all the boomerangs were turned into a pool of liquid. But the dark grand mage didn’t stop there. He willed, and the shadow chains shot towards Drake. The two dozen vulture spirits surrounding him began attacking even more ferociously.

“Drake!” called out Blaze and Elwin.

Seeing the chains approach him, Drake bit his lip. ‘Do I need to use that again?’ He only had one more shot at using his ring. If he did so, he could kill off all the vulture spirits attacking him, and counter the chains. However, he wouldn’t be able to damage the lightning beetles or the dark grand mage, given that he also has a rank four artifact to defend himself. So, once he uses it, he will become much more weak and vulnerable.

As he was thinking, the shadow chains approached infinitely closer.

‘Guess I have no choice…’ he thought, and began pouring mana into his ring.

However, something unexpected happened.

A shadow flew out of the entrance to the floor, emitting virtually no aura at all. The next instant, it appeared on top of one of the rhino beetles.

“Twin sword arts - eclipse blade!”