Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

"No wonder you know something about this energy. That beast soul inside you should be quite ancient"

In the sky, shrouded inside the faint greyish black miasma, the general laughed when he saw the action of the princess. The next second he extended his hands which had become completely lifeless and grey due to the greyish black miasma and marvelled at its power.

At this moment, his hands looked dull and dead, just like a corpse. Furthermore, there were criss crossing cracks running through his hand and it seemed like his hands would crumble apart any second. Neverhtless, the vast amount of energy contained within it, said otherwise.

"[Hands of Ruin]"

The general slowly muttered under his breath. His face was extremely pale, veins bulged around his forehead and perspiration covered his body. His aura had also dropped visibly. Novel Fire - novelfire.net

Clearly, this power had a lot of drawbacks; however, the General did not care about such things as a fierce smile spread from his lips.

"Using this gift that the lord bestowed upon me, I shall achieve victory for his emperor"

Saying so, the general stepped forward, instantly his figure disappeared. The next time he appeared, he was already behind Cynthia. A grey hand was extended towards her seemingly wanting to touch her.

The latter sensing the danger, dodged to the side and employed a movement skill to open some distance between them. After that, her eyes which had contracted like a cat, gazed at the extended hand.

She could feel some intense dangerous fluctuations coming from that seemingly ordinary hand. Her omen proved to be true the next second when the general opened his hand.

"So you dodged that huh? Good choice, if you hadn't dodged, your outcome would have been just like this hair" The general opened his hand, and a single strand of hair was caught in between his palm.

The volet coloured hair had a lustrous shine to it and it was obvious who it belonged to. Cynthia looked at that strand of her hair when suddenly her eyes contracted. In front of her gaze, that hair instantly lost all of its shine as a greyish energy invaded it and it quickly withered away.

Seeing this, a chill an down her spine. Thankfully, it was just a strand of her hair, had it connected with her body, even she didn't have the confidence to come out unscathed.

"Cynthia use the Beast Materialisation Skill. You cannot let him touch you" The sacred beast Leo spoke inside her head.

"I understand" Cynthia nodded her head and activated the beast materialisation skill. The space around her violently trembled before wave after wave of pure mana that contained traces of divinity spread out of her body.

The next second, they clustered together to form two gigantic claws that looked like the claws of a lion.

The claws looked almost animate and ancient, like two claws that had breached through the barrier of time and appeared before everyone. They possessed their own destructive undulation that was completely different from the general's [Hands of Ruin].

The battle that had come to a pause, erupted once again. This time, it was Cynthia who went into the offensive and clashed against the general. Their battle was fierce and extremely eye catching.

Berserk wind rose, turning into tornadoes that connected the sky with the land, thunder rumbled and hundred foot wide blade auras dropped from the sky like rain. Hundreds of meters of area around them was instantly turned into a disaster area where life would be harvested in an instant if any weak level person approached the area even by mistake.

Many observers watched the fight between their leaders with fear and apprehension in their eyes. The fight between the two would decide the ultimate victor of this long drawn out war. Victory or defeat would be decided the moment when one of them falls.

While Cynthia and the general were locked in an intense battle the shockwave of which could be felt all through the battlefield, in another area of the battlefield, a team of four people were engaged in a fierce struggle of their own.

Alvara, Burg, Marba and Brett zipped through the ground and attacked the enemy with all their might. Facing them was the Perfect Tainted Commander or to say the former Knight Captian of the kingdom of Ellesmere.

CLANG… a powerful noise rang out, Alvara, Burg and Brett who were combining their attacks to stop the Knight captain, were all blown back. Blood flowed down their bodies; nevertheless, they still managed to land their attacks even if they had to incur some damage in the process.

The Knight Captain staggered, at this moment his figure looked extremely battered with sword and wounds dotting his body making him look just like a porcupine. His scarred flesh and half exposed skull made him out to be quite a sorry figure and at the same time made him appear quite menacing.

Even though the knight captain was staggering and had taken a lot of damage, there was no denying the aura he gave off which was still as powerful as ever.

Facing that aura head on, Alvara and her group's faces paled. Although they had received guidance and even sparred with the knight captain before, this was the first time they were fighting him in a serious life and death battle.

There were several instances during the fight where they almost lost their lives and situations where they had to pay a heavy price just to dodge an attack from him.

The knight Captain's attacks were fierce and swift standing up to the reputation of the strongest royal knight of the kingdom. It was not only his attacks, but his defences were also nigh impenetrable with a solid body balance that allowed him to counterattack at the slightest opportunity.

From this, one could wonder how powerful the knight captain was. If not for the fact that he had been turned into a tainted soldier and he no longer possessed his former wits, it would be impossible for them to deal this much damage to him.

In fact, most of the damage seen on the body of the knight captain was done by the air strike earlier. Alvara and the others utilised that opportunity when his attacks became too dull to deal damage to him.

Nevertheless, facing him once again and this time as opponents, they once again realised why this man in front of him was called the strongest royal knight and the shield that stood between the royal family and the enemies.

That said, knowing this and facing him right now, did not make them the slightest bit happy. The reason for that was because the once glorious knight captain was now being made use of in such a cruel way.

How could Alvara and the others bear to see him like that?

"Dammit, even though he is no longer my brother, the strength he possesses is undoubtedly his" Alvara muttered dodging numerous sword slashes that came at her at breakneck speed.

"You are right, this is getting nowhere. At this rate, we will be the first ones to expend our energy and tire out. We need a plan" Burg was of the same mind. As they faced the knight captain, the group gathered together.

"Although it might look like our attacks aren't doing any damage, it can be seen from his slowly deteriorating movements that it is definitely having some effect. Although he might be much more powerful than the other tainted knights, he is no different from them. That is to say, if we attack his weak point, which is his head, he can be defeated"

"However, our blades aren't able to get too close to him and even if it does, the armour stops it from becoming fatal. The only one among us who has enough firepower to ignore the defence of the armour is Marba" Alvara explained the plan.

"Even if she can deal damage to him, I highly doubt that Knight Captain… ahem… former knight captain will sit still and allow her to complete her magic" Brett the assassin spoke. As a former seasoned adventurer, his input was highly regarded within the group.

"You are right, there is no way that man will let Marba complete her spell. Which why we must stop him until then"

When she spoke till here, she could see a pensive look appear on the faces of everyone. If the battle so far taught them something, it would be that dealing with the knight captain was not so easy.

If it was, wouldn't they have already defeated him? Forget about being able to stop him, they had to put their life on line just to contain him. Alvara asking them to stop him while Marba casts her most powerful magic would not only prove to be a monumental task but it would also expose Marba to danger.

Everybody knew how powerless a mage was when they were in the middle of casting their magic.

Even mindless beasts would prioritise attacking the mage after sensing the danger emitted by the magic, much less needs to be said about intelligent opponents. It was common knowledge to take out the mages from the enemy's team before they could unleash any powerful magic.

As such, it was unlikely that the knight captain even though he had been turned into a cold emotionless tool of war, would wait for Marba to unleash her magic. A warrior as powerful as him wouldn't even need much time to cover the distance between him and Marba to swiftly cull her down.