"Ah… I miss Asael." Kaden couldn't help but mutter as he stared at the deep darkness around him, thick as smoke.

Sora was beside him, her ferocious eyes looking at the darkness with anger and deep irritation. Her lips curled into a tight line, as golden flames enveloped her fists, making them look like molten lava dripping down.

Reditha flashed in Kaden's hand, her crimson blade glowed with intensity in this shrouded place.

Soon, they started to hear the growl of beasts all around them. They couldn't see if they were approaching, but they instinctively knew that they were.

The shadows were so dense that even Kaden couldn't sense them properly.

Kaden tightened his grip on Reditha, his eyes focused and cold.

"Are you sure it's only peak-Master-ranked level difficulty?" He inquired.

"For a person with moon aspect, yes. For the others…" Sora didn't continue her words, it was obvious they were not going to like them.

Kaden fell silent then parted his lips.

"Golden voice," he said, his eyes scanning their surroundings, "I know you don't like me — for no reason by the way — but, let's call a truce to deal with this situation first, okay?" He proposed, finding it safer.

But even though Sora didn't want to cripple herself by killing him — not discussing the fact if she was even able to do so — and found herself alone in this dreadful place, she certainly didn't want to fight alongside him.

So instead,

"I won't attack you behind your back. And you won't attack me behind my back." She said, then without waiting for his response, she bolted towards the darkness, looking like the sun shining brightly in a shaded world.

Her eyes were glowing with a fiery spark, making her able to sense the heat of the beasts surrounding her like a snake.

Though it barely helped. Still…

She snapped her head towards one side just in time for a deep, tenebrous wolf — with a half moon tattoo on its forehead — to emerge from the shadows like ink being pulled out, leapt toward her, its mouth opened wide, sharp teeth gleaming under the moonlight, ready to munch on her head.

She shifted her position to face it, her left hand glowing with deep, scorching fire, she curled it firmly into a fist, then aimed directly at the beast's right cheek.

The air hissed as her fist traveled to the wolf with accuracy.

But it twisted its body midair, evading the punch, and raised its clawed paw, slashed at Sora.

The sound of wind being torn apart reverberated through Sora's head, as her instinct took over, she ducked down, the claws cutting off her stray golden hairs above her.

The wolf growled, howled, its red eyes burning with viciousness as it charged toward Sora who was still on the ground.

She glared at the beast with scorn, and when it was an inch from her.

"Ignite." She growled like a starved beast.

Instantly, a pillar of scorching-hot fire erupted from her body and engulfed the beast. Golden fire penetrated deep inside its body, melting its flesh, muscles and tendons.

A deep, harrowing howl crashed through the boundless darkness as the beast twisted in pain inside the fire.

When the fire died down, all that was left was a hideous liquid of flesh slightly twisting on the ground.

Sora sucked in a ragged breath, as she looked around her. Multiple other wolves and bats were emerging from the shadows, encircling her in a circular fashion. All of them with a half moon tattoo on their forehead that glowed with black light.

She slowly stood up from the ground, her body leaking white steam as she stared daggers at those beasts.

"I will burn all of you." She muttered darkly, golden flames started to flicker around her body.

The bats opened their mouths wide and let out a deafening sound that raised the twisting shadows from the sky like approaching waves, before it slammed down on the ground, propelling Sora as she snapped backward, the wolves pounced on her with vicious eyes.

Above, a cataract of fireballs began to plunge down towards the approaching beasts like a waterfall, burning the shadows and turning them into grilled meats.

Kaden watched briefly Sora's fight before focusing on his own. He looked around him, and saw nothing, but he could sense that he was being watched.

They used the darkness to hide and attack.

Even with his perception, Kaden still couldn't sense them clearly but he didn't need to do such a thing.

If Sora had her incandescent hot fire that helped her to burn these beasts with terrifying ease, then he had his own flame as well.

But one that burned the very lives of his enemies.

Black flames started to flicker around Kaden before embracing him completely like fire under oil.

He then took hold of it and spread it in a circular manner with him at the center, creating a zone of black flames.

Soon, he started to hear the cries of the beasts as they noticed their lives being burned. Using them as a guide, Reditha flashed with dreadful intent every second, killing them with cruel efficacy.

Kaden continued to use these tactics, and soon the ground was littered with severed heads alongside their headless corpses.

The black blood smeared the carpet of corpses as Kaden used them to detonate the surrounding, intending to kill as many as possible.

The contrast was a stunning one.

A golden-haired woman, her body shrouded in sunlit flame, burning everything in her path with ferocity and anger. While a black-haired man, was severing the head of the beasts with his crimson sword as if butchering simple chickens.

Soon, the ground was teeming with steaming corpses and severed bodies spread all around like a tapestry of gore.

But even after all this killing they didn't stop, or rather… they couldn't.

The beasts were unreasonably numerous.

They were not particularly strong, only Intermediate and Master-ranked ones.

Kaden had faced worse than this and Sora was an Asterion.

They were able to kill them quite easily, but the shadowy beasts seemed endless. They killed again and again, but there was always more.

Sora began to slow down, her fire began to lose its luster, having consumed too much of her mana.

They have been going for at least two hours, nonstop.

She gritted her teeth, wanting to get out some mana potion in her space ring but the beasts were relentless, leaving her no time to do so.

Her luxurious robes have been torn in multiple place, her skin scarred and bleeding by the claws of the wolves, her ears dripping some blood because of the detonating sounds of the bats.

Exhaustion started to swell inside her body, her movements started to be sluggish, her breathing ragged. Sweat started to seep down from her face, despite the coldness, even going as far as seeping down into her eyes making her unable to see clearly.

A wolf appeared from the shadows as its claws snapped the air before landing on her ankle, causing a spray of golden blood to emerge.

A deep groan escaped her lips as she staggered, unable to keep her footing, then fell on the twisting shadows beneath her.

The wolf emerged completely from the ground, pounced on her, its mouth wide and gleaming with shark-like teeth, aiming directly at her throat.

A barrier of flame flickered between them, and broke instantly as the wolf's jaw crashed on it, then continued its way towards her throat.

Her eyes were wide open, fear evident on them… but more than fear, there was a bottomless seething anger that threatened to burn the world down.

She gathered all the remaining flames inside her mouth, opened it wide, and breathed all of it straight inside the beast's open jaw.

It instinctively closed it shut, its red eyes wide in horror, its body started to convulse as steam began to erupt all over its body, its eyes melting, before it fell down on Sora, all its insides burned down.

"Ah… ah… ah…" Sora breathed heavily. Her throat dry as drought soil, her lungs burning as if on fire as she tried to suck in the air inside of her. Her eyes were hazy with exhaustion and depleted mana, but she sensed approaching wolves ready to chew her like delicious meat.

She tried to push away the corpse of the wolf on her and get up but her body was so weak it looked like she had the strength of a newborn baby.

It was maddening.

A growl of anger but also terror escaped her mouth as she saw the jaws and the claws aimed at her.

She mustered the fire inside her, but they only flickered before disappearing like dying embers.

She was utterly spent.

A step.

A flash of crimson.

And all the wolves around her fell on the ground, lifeless.

Kaden appeared beside her, his own breathing ragged, though he was faring better than Sora.

He spared her a glance before turning dismissively away.

Sora gritted her teeth at this.

He took his stance, Reditha raised, ready to slaughter any approaching beast.

But at that exact moment, they sensed something different. They raised their heads to the sky, the half moon was still there but now it was lit up on the right side by a glacial blue light.

The darkness melted down like steel under fire, the shadows beneath them disappeared, swallowed by the previous snow.

Instead, something far more dreadful — at least to Kaden and Sora — took place.

The temperature suddenly plunged to apocalyptic levels. Icy storms started to emerge all around the blue expanse, looking like the wrath of a god had struck upon this land. Shards of ice flew all over them, slicing down their skin with harrowing ease.

Their blood flowed out, and froze.

Kaden took a shaky step back,

"Bloody hell…" he said, his very breath froze into ice midair.

—End of chapter 209—

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