Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

Shadow Flames!

Drin was finally able to cast his spell and created a circle of flames to stop Hiram from escaping any further. Since he was not used to his upgrades spell, it took him some time to cast it.

Hiram stopped moving any further when he saw that Drin's shadow element had acquired the properties of flame. The shadow element was derived from the great elements.

The ether would be combined with all the other great elements in differing quantities, enabling the user of the shadow element to acquire the properties of other elements while using the shadow-element mana. Because of his elemental malleability, he was able to take full advantage of his rare element.

Drin also found it difficult to advance into rank because of his element and inherent nature. Due to the uniqueness of elements, he would experience intermittent bottlenecks. There were not many resources available for him to make use of. There were hardly any "shortcuts" available for him to choose from in the form of runic stele or other such things.

This was why Drin was very surprised when he achieved his breakthrough while advancing so far into his elemental attainment. It was as if his legs had been replaced with wheels that just allowed him to run past all his obstacles at breakneck speeds.

Hiram had grim expressions on his face as he turned back. He wanted to lead Drin to his tribe. But it seemed like the human ranker was already aware of his plan. He had stopped him from running at the cost of spending a large amount of mana.

Drin coated his sword in black flames that affected the fabric of space and took a long breath. He looked at his target before speaking up.

"You said Bigua killed more adventurers than you, right? Want to tell me more about him so that we can take care of him after we're done with you?"

Bigua was the Ogre Lord of Hiram's tribe. He had attacked various human settlements when he was just an Ogre Leader, causing the rankers to chase after him. After many close calls and fought battles, Bigua had come to realize that battling with adventurers who could plan things and cooperate in teams was not a wise choice.

Hence, Bigua changed his approach when he was an Ogre Lord. He focused on gaining personal strength by becoming a strong fighter in the Badlands. After becoming the chieftain of his tribe, he suggested to his tribe members that they should avoid causing trouble with adventurers.

Hiram knew about Bigua's trouble-causing past because he was made aware of these things by anybody who compared him with the chieftain from the past. They told Hiram how we were the Bigua Lite even with all his achievements, which pissed Hiram off.

Bigua became difficult to track for adventurers and the kingdom after his reform. But Hiram's activities had put Bigua back on their radar. Thus, Bigua had a much higher price on his head than the amount awarded by the mission itself.

Drin was eager to collect information about such a monster because his team would have to fight Bigua's entire team eventually. Of course, Bigua would be handled by kingdom-affiliated rankers who had been specially dispatched to take care of him. However, Drin didn't want to get caught off guard anymore. He didn't want to put his team's safety at risk regardless of their intentions.

"You want to know about Bigua because you think I was planning to challenge him for the position of chieftain. And now that I'm going to die, do you think I'd be happy to sign the death sentence for my current chieftain as well?

Hahaha."

Hiram channeled his earth element mana throughout his body as he laughed. His limbs were coated in earth-element mana. Stone and mud armor soon covered him.

Hiram had discarded wearing the armor earlier because he didn't want to be restricted in his movements. At this point, he decided not to continue running.

Hiram looked at the shadow-element ranker with narrowed eyes before speaking up.

"You would never understand our customs. Yes, I want to challenge Bigua and get rid of him. But that is not to say I would be happy if someone else did it for me.

I would have challenged Bigua in the future. But that doesn't mean I'm ready to betray him now that my life is on the line. He is still my chieftain. And as long as he is my chieftain or anyone from my tribe, I'd not betray him."

Hiram said and struck both of his earth-element-armor-coated fists against each other. He then charged at Drin intending to carry out a kamikaze attack.

Drin, like every other ranker, wasn't aware of the rules and customs the children of Echidna followed after gaining their clarity. Almost every ranker had thought that the monsters were shrewd and selfish enough to act against each other. But all their actions were based on a culture that had its own rules.

Drin saw that Hiram was approaching him at high speed. He was creating a lot of noise and mana disturbance. The heavy armor was a function of his inherent nature of absolute defense and dominance. As such, it couldn't tap into the anti-gravitational aspect of the earth-element that could have offered him enhanced mobility despite his heavy armor.

But in turn, his defense was a notch above other monsters of his level. Drin had only managed to hurt him because of his unique element. Any other ranker in his position would have had a much more difficult time achieving half the feats against Hiram as he did.

Drin couldn't help but feel his swordplay wouldn't help him much against Hiram now that he was all covered in armor made of earth elements. So he retracted his weapon and coated all his limbs with shadow element mana before casting his spells.

Shadow Steps.

Shadow Flames.

Shadow Chains.

The Adept ranker had cast multiple spells at once, turning them into a spell combo.