The Author's POV

"You handle the weaklings."

Taking a bite of the fruit, black threads of demonic energy sprung forth from Angelica's body. Her clothes fluttered accompanied by her glossy black hair that wildly flung around.

With cold and apathetic eyes, she eyed the duergars standing opposite to her before her delicate foot gently pressed onto the ground and her figure disappeared.

Swooosh—!

Once Angelica made her move, turning to face Waylan, I pointed towards one particular duergar whose aura was incomparably stronger than any of the other duergar present.

"Can you stall that guy?"

With his eyes already locked onto the duergar, I was talking about, Waylan nodded his head.

"…I should be able to. Although I can't defeat him, I think I should be able to stall him. Especially since that demon companion of yours should be able to somewhat weaken his strength."

"I'll leave it to you."

Nodding my head, I took out a small circular device from my dimensional space and threw it on the floor.

The moment the device touched the floor, four retractable claws extended from the bottom of the device, hooking themselves onto the ground.

Fine miniature crevices appeared on the ground as the device hooked itself firmly on the ground.

Walking up to it, I waved my hand over it.

Vooom—!

Moments after I waved my hand over it, the mana in the surroundings started spiraling towards it stopping right at the very top of the device.

Slowly, with each second that passed, the mana spiral would become bigger and bigger. Before long, a miniature portal had started forming.

Bending down quickly, I inserted the coordinates of the room I had previously used when I was disguised as Karl.

'…Alright, I'm done setting this up.'

Once I was done setting up the device on the ground, I looked at the timer and noticed that it had moved up all the way to 13%.

Once the dampening system would deactivate, I shouldn't have a problem using the portal since there was no longer anything blocking the portal from connecting with the other portal I had set up before and where Waylan had come into the building from.

BANG—!

An explosion suddenly sounded from behind me.

With the metal rod in my hand, turning to face the direction of where the fight was happening, I clenched my right hand slightly.

'Still not good…'

Some of the feelings that I had lost had returned, but it was still not in the state where I could use it properly. My right hand was now more of a liability than an asset.

Clenching onto the metal rod with my left hand, I put all my mana into it until the lightning started revolving around it.

Kracka! Kracka!

Once lightning started to formulate around the rod, channeling wind psyons at the bottom of the soles of my shoes, my toes pressed onto the hard ground and my body shot towards the weaker duergars in the distance.

Kracka! Kracka!

"Huuup!"

In an instant, I appeared before the nearest duergar and slashed downwards diagonally.

As I slashed down, a diagonal blue line formed in the air, tracing my attack.

Caught off guard, the duergar was unable to react in time and so the moment I slashed down, the rod instantly hit him in the shoulder.

Bang—!

Although the force of the attack wasn't very strong as I was only using one hand, the moment the rod touched the duergars body, the electricity that come from the rod, swiftly entered duergar's body and stunned him.

Clank—!

Taking advantage of the situation, I raised my foot and kicked him in the head.

Swoosh—!

Drawing a beautiful arc in the air, my kick hit the duergar right in the head, sending his head crashing into the hard ground.

Bang—

With a bang, his body planted face-first onto the ground. Following that up, I raised the rod and stabbed it downwards.

Fresh blood spurted everywhere and what remained of the duergar was just the body.

'…that's one of four.'

There were a total of eight duergar present. Of the lot, there was one <S> ranked one, two <A> ranked ones, one <B> ranked one, four <C> ranked ones, and one <D> ranked one.

The duergar I had just killed was one of the four <C> ranked ones.

At the moment, Waylan was handling the <S> ranks duergar, while Angelica was holding back the two <A> ranks and <B> ranks.

With her bloodline advantage, she was able to keep them in check…but just barely.

Catching a glimpse of her fight, I noticed that she was currently in a bit of a disadvantageous position as the three duergars attacked her from all sides. They were relentless as they didn't even leave her any room to catch her breath.

Fortunately, all she had to do was stall them, not beat them. Although she was at a disadvantage, she was still handling it well. Without a doubt, she should be able to hold on for the next thirty minutes which was all I asked for.

Swooosh—!

Sensing something, my head snapped toward my left where I saw the pointy tip of a cold blade heading for my eyes.

Clink—!

"Huuah!"

Reacting almost out of instinct, I stabbed the rod upwards, hitting the bottom of the blade. Once the top of the rod hit the blade, it redirected it upwards and the tip of the blade narrowly missed my eyes.

Cold sweat trickled down my back as I realized just how close of a call that was.

Focusing my attention towards the perpetrator, I found a duergar standing not so far from where I was. Next to him, were the other four duergars.

Staring at them, and glancing toward my right arm, I silently cursed.

"…well shit."

Xiu! Xiu! Xiu!

Without giving me a chance to properly analyze the situation, one of the duergars, the weakest one, raised his gun and shot in my direction. Almost at the same time he started shooting, the three other duergars also began to act.

Following behind the energy blasts that shot from the gun, they quickly headed towards my direction.

Stomping my foot on the ground, the ground beneath me cracked apart and my body shot back.

Despite doing so, my body was still slower than the incoming energy beams as they easily gained ground on me.

Staring at the incoming energy beams, rather than panicking, I raised my left hand, the one that held onto the metal rod, and channeled all my mana into it.

Within seconds, a translucent green hue enveloped the body of the rod. Once the hue completely enveloped the rod, my body soon came to an abrupt halt.

"Haaa!"

Crying inside of my heart, I twisted the rod in my hand in a circular motion.

Once I spun the rod in my hand, a sort of translucent circular shield appeared in front of me. Taking a step forward, I met the attacks head-on.

Clink! Clink! Clink!

A strange scene followed suit. The moment the energy blasts met the body of the rod, instead of hitting it, they changed direction completely, shooting away from me.

Before I knew it, all three beams shot away from me.

'As expected, all my training with Waylan wasn't for nothing.'

I inwardly muttered as I looked at the rod in my hand which was currently coated by the same green glow as before.

The trick I had just used was a trick that I had learned from fighting against the demons during the waves.

By coating my weapon with wind psyons, I could essentially create an effect in which the wind psysons would act as a repellent for anything that touched them.

It had to be noted that this sort of thing was not something I could've pulled off before. Although it looked easy, it was nothing but easy.

What I just did required a high level of control over psyons and if not for Waylan and Douglas's teaching over the past month, I would've never been able to pull off such a move.

Swoosh!

Not even a second after I managed to redirect the attacks away, the three other duergars were already upon me.

But I was prepared.

The moment they arrived before me, lowering my left hand, the green glow enveloping the rod disappeared.

Turning my head, I stared at the duergars right in the eyes and inwardly muttered.

'The one…'

The atmosphere instantly froze and the bodies of the three duergars came to an abrupt halt.

Following this, their faces paled, and their body trembled.

With my eyes locked on a particular duergar, putting the rod away, I raised my hand and enveloped his face with the palm of my hand.

Crack!

The sound of a skull breaking sounded and blood spurted all over my face.

At the same time I squeezed my hand, twisting the heel of my right foot, I twisted my torso and my body spun. As my body spun, I raised my left leg and kicked with it, further adding to the momentum of the spin.

Crack!

Midway through the spin, I felt a slight force on the heel of my left foot. What followed after was the sound of something breaking sounded.

Thud! Thud!

Once I managed to stabilize my body, the bodies of the two duergars I killed fell onto the ground with two small thuds.

Without even looking at where the sound originated from, I focused my attention on the last two duergars who were stunned by what they saw.

I, of course, took advantage of this.

Extending my left hand the rod once again appeared in my hand.

Lightly throwing it in the air, I once again twisted the heel of my right foot at an angle of 45 degrees. Simultaneously, I raised my left foot and kicked.

Xiu!

My foot soon connected with the tip of the rod, and the rod disappeared from my vision.

As I had not channeled mana into the rod, no lightning formed around it. But, that didn't really matter.

To only deal with a <D> rank, that was enough.

Swoosh—!

Using the momentum of the kick, once my foot kicked the rod, it did not stop as it quickly headed towards the last duergar that was close to me.

Raising both hands, the Duergar tried to block my attack, but it was in vain. Once my foot connected with his arms, the sound of his arms breaking sounded and he fell backward onto the hard ground.

"Hieeek!"

Bang—!

Once the duergar fell onto the ground, the rod appeared before the other duergar and hit him directly in the head. Whether he had lived or died, I wasn't sure.

Raising my foot, I stomped down and killed the last duergar.

Spurt—!

Blood once again sprayed everywhere.

"Haaa…haaa…"

Once I killed the last duergar, I noticed that my breathing was quite heavy.

Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, and wiping the sweat that had accumulated on my forehead, I moved towards the main room and checked the holographic map.

[Data synchronisation.]

0%_________[94%]_100%

"Haaa…94%? That's go—"

Booom—!

But just as I was about to rejoice at the fact that the dampening system was about to deactivate, a terrifying explosion sounded near me.

Turning my head, my face paled considerably and what replaced it was a look of horror.

All forms of fighting stopped, and the atmosphere froze completely.

"Oh…shit..."

With a blank look on my face, my head stopped working as a feeling of death enveloped my entire being.

"You…"

A blue skinny hand pointed in my direction. Following this, a high pitch voice sounded across the entire hall.

"You....because of...you!"

Standing over Ultruk's body, with disheveled hair, and half of her entire face burned, was Durara.

Raising her staff and stabbing it right into Ultruk's heart, blood spilled all over her entire body.

"I...will...kill...you!"

Before I could even react, Durara aimed her staff in my direction. A bright white light shot in my direction, and time froze.

...or should I say, I wished for it to stop.

Coming at me like an unstoppable tsunami, the bright light came towards me, enveloping my entire body.

There and there, although I couldn't tell for real, I felt my whole existence disappear like that.

...It all happened too fast.

What followed after the white glow was total darkness.