"Who

  are they?" Stark mumbled inside his protective barrier. He had

  never seen the devil this serious before. The enemies were

  strong—Stark could feel it. He knew Krul was stronger.

  But

  would they really face him without a plan?

  A

  sense of unease settled deep in his gut. Something about these

  attackers felt…

  wrong.

  "I’ve

  become a burden, haven’t I?" Stark exhaled sharply as thick

  smoke consumed the battlefield. Krul was consuming mana to protect

  him—mana he should have been using to fight.

  He

  can’t

  fight at his best while protecting me.

  Stark

  gripped his sword tightly. I need to do something.

  Meanwhile,

  Krul stood still in the smoke. His senses were scrambled, his spells

  failing. This fog wasn’t

  ordinary.

  "What

  kind of spell is this?" His sharp eyes scanned the foggy

  surroundings with a serious look. Footsteps of the knights echoed

  from all directions, yet he couldn’t

  pinpoint a single presence.

  An

  illusion? No. If that were the case, my Expel spell would have

  worked.

  Evil

  Blade.

  Nothing.

  The spell just didn’t

  materialize.

  …

  but why aren’t they attacking?

  He smirked. Are

  they scared? Or…

  are they unable to attack as well?

  Krul

  cast Evil

  Blade

  again. This time, parts of the spell flickered to life before being

  snuffed out into nothingness.

  ...I

  see now.

  A

  slow grin spread across his face. He understood the workings of the

  spell.

  "I

  have to admit, this is a genius way to utilize magic. But alas…"

  His

  glowing eyes narrowed.

  "You’ve

  picked the wrong opponent, little girl."

  Vivy

  cast an anti-magic barrier around Krul first, then masked the entire

  barrier with thick fog. It was a clever way to use Magic and, at the

  same time, buy time for the knights to regroup.

  Anti-magic

  barriers have its limitations.

  There

  were two ways to break one. The first was to attack it from the

  outside—these barriers are fragile against offensive magic or

  direct force. The second was to overload it with more mana than it

  can suppress.

  Each

  barrier has a mana threshold. If the contained mana exceeds the

  threshold limit, the barrier would begin to crack from within and

  eventually disperse.

  Krul

  knew about this.

  Without

  hesitation, he began casting offensive spells inside the barrier. The

  fourth spell was barely complete when he heard it—a sound like

  glass shattering.

  Crack.

  The

  fourth offensive spell materialized and crashed into the sand as the

  barrier broke into hundreds of pieces.

  Expel.

  Krul

  cast instantly, dispersing the illusory fog that clouded his vision.

  It worked this time and the battlefield was visible to him once

  again.

  The

  knights had regrouped, Drek and Thalia standing at the front, their

  weapons raised to attack him at a moment’s

  notice.

  Aura?

  Krul

  clicked his tongue as he noticed the faint glow outlining their

  weapons. No

  wonder they’re

  unscathed.

  At

  least they don’t

  have a Grandmaster in their ranks. He

  thought.

  Vivy

  looked over at the devil and wiped the sweat from her brow. “Shit…

  I didn’t expect him to figure it out so quickly.”

  Within

  an instant, Krul cast Zor.

  A deadly beam shot straight toward Vivy.

  Drek

  stepped in, raising his staff, and deflected the beam away with his

  aura-coated weapon. At the same time, Thalia closed in on Krul,

  swinging her war hammer at his head.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Krul

  jumped back, narrowly avoiding her strike as it smashed into the

  ground. The impact split the loose sand in two.

  Drek

  and Thalia had become much stronger than before, likely due to their

  use of Aura in battle. Aura for knights was similar to mana for the

  Magus, but being able to wield it was exceedingly rare. It required

  immense patience and effort, making Aura-wielding knights pretty

  rare.

  In

  all of Kastar, only a few hundred knights had achieved this feat.

  Krul

  sensed Zarius’s

  attack from the other side. Without hesitation, he activated the

  engraved glyph on his palm, conjuring a barrier just in time to block

  a flaming rock speeding at him.

  Drek

  and Thalia pressed their assault relentlessly, while the Magus unit

  bombarded him with ranged magical attacks. The remaining knights—each

  a high-ranking one—capitalized on every opening, attacking in

  well-coordinated ways.

  …

  I need to break this momentum. Krul

  began to feel the pressure. Those

  pesky priests need to be taken out first.

  The

  devil’s

  power was being actively suppressed by the Zaras’th priests; this

  made the fight much harder for him.

  Krul

  blocked Drek’s

  staff and simultaneously drove a powerful kick into Thalia’s gut.

  Then, turning his focus back to Drek, he gripped the metal shaft of

  his staff and, with a pivot, slammed him into the ground.

  “Ugh…”

  Drek croaked as his armored back crashed against the sand.

  Krul

  wasted no time. He quickly thrust his sword toward Drek’s

  head.

  Unfortunately

  for him, Vivy intervened, firing a beam of light. Forced to block the

  attack, Krul lost his chance to finish Drek, allowing him to regain

  his composure.

  Krul turned on his heel and charged at

  the knights. As they braced for a counterattack, the devil suddenly

  veered sharply, using Speed

  to propel himself toward the priest

  unit.

  “Die, you Zaras’th

  lapdogs,”

  he spat, unleashing Evil

  Blade straight at

  them.

  Zarius swiftly deployed an earth

  wall to

  shield the priests, but the spell shattered through the barrier. Two

  priests were struck directly, their upper bodies severed cleanly. The

  remnants of the spell slashed into two more, their bodies collapsing

  lifelessly onto the loose sand, staining it a deep scarlet.

  “I knew you’d pull something like

  this, you filth,” Zarius snarled.

  “You’ve grown senile, Zarius—you

  barely managed to block that,” Krul smirked.

  Despite the gruesome deaths of their

  comrades, the priest unit under Wez

  did not falter. Wez stood at the center of their formation, ensuring

  that even if the others fell, the spell's effect would only weaken,

  not dissipate.

  Krul knew he had to eliminate Wez to

  fully dispel the suppression.

  Before he could act, Drek

  and Thalia

  charged at him, cutting off his advance. Their relentless assault

  forced Krul out of the

  priest unit’s

  range.

  “Tch.”

  Clicking his

  tongue in frustration, he skewered a few knights through the heart as

  he weaved between their attacks, skillfully dodging the Magus unit’s

  magical bombardment.

  Zarius turned to Vivy.

  “Why aren’t you using it

  yet? There were plenty of openings.”

  “Um… Lord Zarius, it takes time to

  deploy. We need to hold the devil down for a few seconds.”

  “Ah… I see.” Zarius nodded

  thoughtfully. “I also sense another presence on the battlefield,

  encased in a barrier. Is that the slave you used to track him?”

  “Yes.” Vivy replied hastily. “The

  devil is protecting him for some reason.”

  “Ho… Strange indeed.”

  Zarius’

  lips curled into a sinister smirk. “Kill the slave. There’s no

  reason for such filth to exist anyway.”

  Vivy hesitated briefly but nodded.

  Zarius was far more experienced in battle than she was, and she

  wasn’t foolish enough to risk

  her knights’ lives for a mere slave. She would do whatever it took

  to bring him

  down. Taking the devil down would allow her family to rise back to

  their original power in the political sphere in Kastar.

  “Target the slave,” Vivy

  commanded.

  At once, the knights shifted their

  focus to Stark,

  who stood

  trapped within the cubical barrier cast by the devil.

  Krul had anticipated this. As long as

  he kept

  Zarius and the two Aura-wielding knights occupied, he was confident

  the barrier would hold—for now.

  The knights surged forward, determined to shatter the barrier and kill Stark.

  Inside, Stark

  watched them

  charge, realization settling in.

  He had become a burden.

  Krul was being pushed back, but he had

  managed to thin the ranks of the knights and some of the Magus.

  Despite this, he still didn’t

  have the upper hand—90% of his power remained suppressed.

  This isn’t

  good. I need an opening. I have no choice but to use it.

  The devil retreated, creating distance

  between himself and his enemies.

  “Child! Get ready!” he yelled, shifting his gaze to Stark

  Krul carved an ominous red

  glyph—Bond—into

  the air. A crimson thread shot from his heart toward the barrier,

  piercing Stark’s chest.

  "What is this?!" Stark’s

  eyes widened as the red thread sank into him. A chill ran down his

  spine, and blood rushed to his head.

  In an instant, Krul carved another

  glyph—Transfer

  A surge of power quickly flooded Stark’s

  body. Strength unlike anything he had ever felt before coursed

  through his veins. Suddenly he could imagine fighting the knights that were attacking the barrier.

  "Now you can fight against these

  bastards," Krul said as the protective barrier around Stark

  began to dissolve. Stark gripped his broadsword tightly, his eyes sharp as he took a stance to fight.

  The devil had granted him a portion of

  his strength—temporary power transferred through a bond that would

  expire after a set time. He had no choice. This was the only way to

  ensure Stark survived.

  Krul had given him just enough

  physical enhancement to match the staff-wielding Aura Knight, but it was up to Stark’s

  skill and tenacity to make the most of it.

  Although the spell drained his own strength, leaving him much more vulnerable to the enemies. Krul knew it was the right thing to do, as he didn’t want to lose

  someone close to him yet again. The devil was sure that he would regret this very moment for the rest of his life if he failed to protect the human child from harm.

  For a brief moment, a memory

  surfaced—one he had long thought buried.

  A memory about a little girl running towards him with a bright grin.

  Krul

  stared at the sky; a sorrowful look flickered across his face.

  "I thought I had forgotten you…

  after all this time. But it seems your face still lingers in my mind,

  my beloved daughter."

  Krul

  promised himself.