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“Here,” Erin said as she handed Amyra a greatsword she had constructed with Bespoke.

“Are you sure, m’lady?” Amyra questioned, though she accepted the greatsword regardless.

“The ensuing battle will be disorderly. I need no concentration, just conviction and vigour.”

“Here they come!” Nivia shouted.

The three clothed figures lunged at Erin and her companions, their weapons drawn and raised. The one who lost their sickle had recovered the chain, forgoing the sickle-head under Amyra’s foot. It was melted into an unrecognisable state due to Amyra’s Fire Magic.

The dual wielder swung its swords and sent out a small wave of Aura Shots. Nivia released an arrow, imbued with Wind Magic, and the arrow struck down the Aura Shots in a single trip. The arrow exploded into thousands of tiny splinters after it was exhausted of its durability.

The chain user attacked next. Its titular weapon swerved and weaved around the battlefield, avoiding Nivia’s attempt at stopping it with her arrows. Amyra tried cutting the chain down but it veered around Amyra’s swing and went straight for Erin behind her.

As Erin prepared to retaliate, Aera moved in front of her. The chain struck Aera but it only touched the fiery aura around her. The chain bounced right off of Aera’s translucent blazing protection. Before Amyra could seize the chance and cut the chain off for god, the entire length of the chain was back in the clothed figure’s hands in the blink of an eye.

Amyra tutted. “Shadow Viper Art,” she grumbled. “An evolution of the combat art, Chain Mastery.”

Nivia’s brows were raised. “An evolved ability? Those three must not be mere disposable foot soldiers of the Covenant then.”

“These ones certainly are different from the ignorant thralls we faced before.”

“Irrelevant,” Erin said and threw herself right at her enemies.

“Erin, what are you doing!?” Nivia yelled.

“How reckless,” Ruyo remarked under his breath. His hand gripped his sword’s handle tight. But before he could draw it, hundreds of lightning bolts rained down on him from Erin.

The three clothed figures moved in front of Ruyo. They thrust their palms forwards and a large incantation circle appeared before their open palms. A large torrent of dark energy was unleashed from the magic circle. The beam ploughed right through the Lightning Barrage but Erin split the beam apart and erased it with a single slash.

“Now I can see why Marduk contributed so much of his resources into counteracting your abilities.”

Erin’s slash didn’t end with just obliterating the beam. It destroyed the incantation circle too and it continued travelling towards the clothed figures. The three didn’t hesitate or dither in their decision. They leapt out of the way as Erin’s slash carved deep into the ground where they had stood just seconds ago.

When Ruyo saw the destruction from that single slash alone, he felt bitter. He might have won when it came to a clash of swords but if it was a no-holds-barred, it was clear who the victor was and how quickly the fight would have ended. He was never her opponent. He thought it would be a close fight even if she didn’t hold back but he was wrong, terribly so.

“This battle is my loss,” Ruyo muttered. “But the war is still undecided. All in.”

The three clothed figures nodded. They then proceeded to cast away the pieces of cloth that were concealing their bodies from others.

“Huh, how banal.” Amyra scoffed.

The figures, no longer clothes, exposed their spell-forged metallic bodies for all to see. At a glance, one would think they were carved out of wood but that was simply a trick of the mind. The rugged and dull surfaces of the three figure’s bodies certainly gave off the impression of wood.

“Puppet golems,” Nivia muttered with mild astonishment. “But their movements are very… lively.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Aera said and charged straight at the golems without any heed to what her opponents might have schemed. She had held her rage back long enough for the sake of Erin but no longer. She was the Apostle of Wrath and her aspect demanded her to sate her desire.

Ruyo unsheathed his sword with a slash that reached up to a radius of a few dozen yards. His broken blade was repaired in a similar fashion to his right arm. Half of the blade was now as black as the abyss. The golems had leapt into the air to avoid becoming collateral and at the same time, aiming for Erin. Aera became the only one heading towards Ruyo’s far-reaching slash, but it was no concern for her. Her fiery aura deflected Ruyo’s attack and also prevented the storm of unseen blades from fencing her in.

“What the hell… This is impossible,” Ruyo groaned upon realising Erin was not the only wrench in the plan.

“It is possible,” Erin suddenly said from behind him. She had warped behind him before he knew it. She slashed but Ruyo swiftly dodged her blade but not her spell, Rend. It was a very costly spell but it was nigh unstoppable, unless one had an overwhelming edge in stats value or Magic Art level. Ruyo had neither of those two. However, he did have a trick that Marduk bestowed upon him.

As Erins swiped her hand across the air, it was not Ruyo that was decapitated by Rend but the puppet golem that was using studded gauntlets. When she looked at where the puppet golem was supposed to be, she discovered Ruyo had switched places with it.

[Experience gained +30% - Level Progression: 70%]

“Slippery bastard,” Erin cursed.

“Your tongue has turned foul, Lady Erynthea.”

“And what’s so wrong about that? Everything about this battle is foul. Your employer is foul and so is everything your affiliation stands for. I don’t want to hear that from you.”

Ruyo tittered. “Fair enough.” He flourished his sword around before tossing the blade into its scabbard with a loud click. Suddenly, the entirety of his surroundings seemed to close in on him. Erin, Aera, Nivia, and Amyra were all pulled towards him, along with the two puppet golems and a few of the brick tiles on the road. Everything that could be pulled was converging onto him as the epicentre.

When he drew his sword, it wasn’t just a single slash that was released. It was as if he was pushing back the fabric of reality itself, sending everything he had pulled towards him throttling away from him, including the puppet golems. The ground beneath him was also pushed away, forming a shallow but vast crater below him.

“To think I would have to utilise so much of this… Demonic power,” Ruyo mused. “You are truly a worthwhile opponent, Lady Erynthea. It’s truly a pity that this shall be our one and only acquaintance. Fate is cruel and callous.”

“Oh, shush,” Erin’s response came from his right before he even picked up her breathing.

Ruyo turned as fast as he could but Erin’s blade was faster. His left arm flew off from his shoulder but he bore it with a wince and retaliated with a thrust of his sword. Erin reversed her grip on her sword and swung the way she had initially swung from. Her blade clashed against the blackened blade of Ruyo’s sword and it severed the Demonic-forged blade all the same.

“Hell be kind to me,” Ruyo muttered. Within a heartbeat, his shattered blade regrew to its former glory. The blackness consumed the entirety of his sword. In the same instance, Erin’s blade was trapped within the formation of the Demonic blade. Though her blade couldn’t be contained for longer than a few seconds, it delayed her enough for Ruyo to retaliate.

Ruyo gained a new left arm, as Demonic as his right. A pair of short horns sprouted from his forehead. Spikes jutted out all over his body. His canine teeth turned into fangs. His ears grew long and pointed. He growled at Erin as if it was his instinct to do so. His nails transformed into claws. These changes all happened in under two seconds. Ruyo thrust his claws towards Erin while her sword was still trapped within his own.

Erin grunted and undid the conjuration of her spell sword. She was free but it wasn’t stopping Ruyo’s claws that were coming for her. She cast an intense gaze on Ruyo’s approaching claws and used the most recent spell he acquired under Spatial Magic, Absorb. It was the most mentally tasking spell yet. She used it for only a second but she immediately stopped.

Though it was only a second, it was enough to sever Ruyo’s claws from his arm. More precisely, she absorbed his wrist.

Ruyo had stopped feeling the pain once he had used his Demoid powers, so he didn’t cry out or shout in agony over the loss of his hand. Still, it was a very unsettling sight to him. Unsettling it was, he didn’t falter. He lashed out his Demonic blade at Erin.

But Erin obliterated Ruyo’s blade once more with a single swing of her sword. Before Ruyo could hop away to retreat, Erin closed the remaining gap between them with Lightning Rush and sliced him apart from the right shoulder to the left waist before he could show her his next Demoid trick.

Erin didn’t stop there. She brought her sword around and bisected Ruyo from the head to the balls. She then spun around and cleaved him in half through the waist. She continued carving, slicing, and dicing him up a dozen times before she finally relented.

[Experience gained +60% - Level Progression: 130%]

[Erynthea: Level 58 increased to Level 59]

[Skill Points gained +2 | 4]

[Ability Points gained +2| 8]

[Level Progression: 30%]

Erin heaved a huge sigh of relief but he didn’t let her guard down just yet. Be that as it may, she was nearing her limits. This was the longest she had ever used Lust and Mystic Blade. After she heard the notification, she deactivated Lust and Mystic Blade. Her whole body instantly felt like its weight had tripled. Her breath was sparse and ragged.

Once the adrenaline of her battle lust subsided, her carnal lust would take over. But before that, she needed to deal with the remnants first. She was sure the remaining two puppet golems wouldn’t be as strong as Ruyo but they would still at least pose some challenge, especially now that she was running on fumes.

“Speaking of which… where is everyone?”

Erin looked around and found that her companions and the two puppet golems were nowhere to be found. She used Life Sense and immediately found a hint of life from underneath a wreckage nearby. It was the carriage which Ruyo rode here. The bicorn was nowhere to be found and the reins had snapped. She quickly cleared away the wreckage and discovered a coffin-like crate buried underneath. It was slightly dented but not too severe of damage.

Erin opened the lid and found the unconscious viceroy inside. There were bruises all over his body but he was not drastically harmed or wounded. She was mildly surprised that the viceroy stayed unconscious throughout the commotion. She appraised him and was relieved over the results. He was in a magically-induced coma.

“Everything worked out well in the end,” Erin muttered to herself. She was glad. Not because the viceroy was safe but of the fact that she didn’t need to go out of her way to save him. “Thank the gods… Well, I suppose I should be thanking you, Nyx.”

Erin half-expected Nyx to respond but her Divine Guardian didn’t.

“Alright, this son of a bitch is fine,” Erin mused and put the lid back on, closing the crate. She lightly kicked at the crate with a sneer. “Now, where are the others?”

Just as Erin was about to search for them using her skills, a pillar of fire was erected from afar, around three hundred yards away, behind a small pile of debris.

“Hmm, thanks for the assistance, Amyra.” Erin chuckled to herself.