"Let's keep moving."

Jumping down from Ebonique's head, Erik spoke in a serious tone and rushed into the temple with hurried steps. The others quickly nodded and followed, gripping their weapons tightly, fully ready for the slaughter they were about to carry out.

Together with Zoe, Erik sprinted through the tunnel holding his machetes, with Ebonique on his head and the wolves—now in puppy form—on his shoulders. Upon reaching the middle of the tunnel, Erik sensed the presence of more hunters, so he quickly gave a firm order.

"Frank, Elara, two hunters are approaching the tunnel—send a combined attack."

""Understood.""

Elara and Frank answered with grave expressions, then leveled their staves forward and conjured a magic circle and several runes, respectively. Extending her Ethereal Projection, Elara fixed her attention on the far end of the tunnel, where after a few moments she could indeed feel two people entering.

At that instant, a massive spear of fire formed in the air before Elara's magic circle. Frank quickly made the runes surround the spear and begin gathering large amounts of air to "feed" it, causing it to grow greatly. Without losing a single second, Elara moved all her mana and announced in a serious voice as the circle and the spear began to spin.

"Pyrospear!!"

With the cue, the giant fire spear shot forward at great speed, avoiding Zoe and Erik at the front before resuming its original trajectory. Shrouded in "mantles of air," Zoe and Erik raced behind the spear, soon reaching the alarmed hunters who had just entered.

As the spinning fire spear passed through the pair of hunters—who barely managed to dodge by jumping but suffered severe burns in the process—Zoe and Erik drew their weapons and leapt after them. With white fire around the guard of her katana, Zoe quickly formed four hand signs, then unsheathed at extreme speed.

At the same time, Erik, wreathed in dark electricity, flipped in the air while sending an invisible flying slash toward his enemy. In a rush, the pair of hunters tried to draw their weapons, but because of their severe burns, they were a step too slow, which caused them to be cleanly split in two.

"We'll go out the windows in the same groups and regroup in front of the door."

As he landed and created a Myst barrier to shield himself and Zoe from the blood raining down, Erik ordered in a grave tone. The others nodded, gripping their weapons even tighter. Soon, the group reached the temple again, where Kaiser leapt from Erik's shoulder to Elara's side; together with Zoe and Hiyori, she jumped toward the left window.

Leaping through the right window, Erik found himself right in front of a hunter running for the door, so he quickly formed several Myst arrows with a magic circle and sent them at him. At the same time, Frank exited through the window and extended his Ethereal Projection, quickly identifying a mage about a hundred meters away.

While Erik kicked off a Myst platform to pursue the hunter who had jumped to dodge the Myst arrows, Frank noticed the distant hunter creating an ice barrier in front of himself. So, he swiftly conjured a new set of runes and aimed at the mage.

"Hurricane Spear!"

A spear of compressed air quickly formed before Frank and shot toward the ice barrier, striking it squarely and piercing through. Upon impact, the air spear "exploded" into a small hurricane of cutting wind, shredding the barrier and revealing the hunter behind it. The hunter was aiming his staff at Erik, with two magic circles on the verge of fully forming.

With a focused expression, Frank created two sets of runes—one formed a greenish sphere of compressed cutting air, while the second set surrounded the sphere and released a propelling air cannon.

The second spell sent the air sphere flying so fast that the hunter had no time to create a second barrier before being hit. With a look of despair, the hunter was sent flying by the impact, but mid-air the sphere "exploded," creating a cyclone of invisible wind blades that ended his life.

"You're pretty good to be able to combine two spells like that."

Landing wreathed in a wake of air, Frank heard the voice of the direct disciple Erik, which made him turn his head. The star-haired youth was running back, wreathed in dark electricity, leaving behind him a corpse without arms and riddled with horrible holes. Conjuring runes to increase his speed, Frank sent a sound transmission.

"I'm not that good, boss—it took me decades to master it."

"That doesn't make it any less impressive."

Erik replied via sound transmission in a calm tone as he pointed to the sky with his right machete, which was surrounded by conjured runes. Curious, Frank looked up only to see a black cloud appear out of nowhere and drop a thick bolt of lightning to the ground several hundred meters to the left of the temple.

"I'm sure the boss could do something much better if he tried…"

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Imagining where the lightning had struck, Frank sent a somewhat restrained sound transmission. Frank's words gave the star-haired youth something to ponder. Shortly after, he replied as they rounded the temple, catching sight of Elara and Zoe fighting three hunters.

"I haven't tried it until now, but it wouldn't hurt to give it a shot…"

Looking off into the distance, Frank saw one of Elara's fireballs slam squarely into the chest of a hunter who seemed to convulse slightly in the air, with a black scorch mark on the ground beneath him. This told Frank that he was the victim of the lightning the star-haired youth had called down.

As the charred corpse of the hunter flew away, Frank began conjuring runes to join the fray. At that moment, out of the corner of his vision, Frank saw Erik conjuring two different sets of runes and a magic circle. Astonished by the exaggerated level of mana control the star-haired youth was displaying, Frank turned to look at him with eyes wide open.

Thanks to that, Frank witnessed an astonishing scene from the front row. While little Tiberius's fur released a dark "mist," Erik used the magic circle to create a spear of electricity, while the other two rune sets created a sphere of darkness and a fireball, respectively. The lightning spear shot out first, closely followed by the fireball and the sphere of darkness.

On the girls' battlefield, the two remaining hunters managed to regroup while dodging the compact, swift fireballs Elara and Hiyori hurled and doing what they could to fend off Kaiser and Zoe. Though they escaped by a hair each time, terrible burns and cuts covered the hunters, who displayed excellent, coordinated teamwork that let them survive the ruthless onslaught.

A bit frustrated by the slippery hunters—who, despite not being conventionally strong, clearly had centuries of experience in real combat—Zoe sheathed her katana again and prepared to use her full strength in a single strike to break their coordination and defeat them. But just then, a sound transmission reached Zoe's ears.

"Fall back."

Hearing Erik's voice, Zoe quickly sprang back hard; at the same instant, one of the hunters hurriedly moved to the side, letting a lightning spear pass by. Unfortunately for the pair, the spear struck the ground and exploded, and thick electric arcs shot out in all directions, creating an electrical field a few meters across.

Although the electric field didn't inflict much damage, it managed to immobilize the hunters for a moment—more than enough time for two slower spheres, one of fire and one of darkness, to arrive. Held by the electricity, the pair of hunters could only watch with desperate expressions as the two spheres collided, triggering a brutal explosion that made the whole place tremble.

In that instant, several barriers of Myst, Air, and Fire formed in front of Zoe, and the explosion released a savage shockwave that smashed the barriers as if they were paper, flinging the girl and the wolf through the air. Soon after, Zoe was grabbed by the collar of her armor and yanked back at high speed as multiple layers of prismatic Myst barriers formed around her.

Zoe quickly managed to recover a bit from the damage and wiped a thread of blood from her lips as she looked over the burns the explosion had left on different parts of her body. Startled by the absurd power, Zoe pulled a recovery potion from her belt and looked up, where she saw the silver wolf setting her down, completely unscathed.

"Sorry—I never thought something like that would happen."

As she finished her potion, Zoe heard Erik's voice in her ear as the barriers around her vanished. Seeing Erik wearing an expression between guilty and surprised, Zoe replied in a serious tone while watching an ominous black mushroom-shaped cloud of smoke rise into the air.

"We'll talk about it later. For now, move—we made too much noise, and the hunters from the nearby temples won't take long to arrive."

"I'll grab the crates. Head to the temple ahead of me." Erik returned to his serious expression and issued a firm order. Seeing Kaiser leap to Erik's shoulder, Zoe quickly nodded and replied as she started running toward Elara and Frank.

"Don't take long!"

Reaching Elara and Frank, Zoe noticed a somewhat strange look on the young air mage's face. It caught her attention and led her to ask.

"What happened? Why that look?"

"Direct disciple Erik is a monster…" Frank could only reply in a strange voice as he ran after Zoe toward the temple. Elara quickly asked while catching sight of the black smoke cloud from the corner of her vision.

"Why do you say that now?"

"That explosion came from the direct disciple Erik's first attempt at combining spells… He saw me do it, wanted to try, and made that with basic spells alone…"

"""…"""

Frank's words brought unanimous silence to the group of youths plus the white fox spirit. With a grave expression, Elara turned her head to look over her shoulder, fixing her gaze on the black dragon flying close to the ground with a young man on its head. The more time she spent with that star-haired youth, the more she realized the differences between people.

A "disabled" person with no magical affinities had easily created things that would take her months or years. Someone who shouldn't be able to be a mage had achieved an effect equivalent to a higher-level spell with basic spells on his first attempt. But the worst part was that this "great feat" was just a small cherry on the big cake of his multifaceted talent.

"Watching Erik, I can't help but wonder why we're so different if we're all human…" Entering the temple, Elara couldn't help but speak in a contemplative, heavy voice, to which Zoe only nodded with a small sigh.

For his part, Frank couldn't help but look at the pair of direct disciples with a blank expression, not quite sure how to feel about those words. Those women, who were capable of demoralizing even a "common genius" like him to the point of self-contempt, were experiencing "suppression" for the first time.

…

Riding back atop Ebonique to retrieve the crates he had buried before entering the temple, Erik quickly recovered them and wrapped them in Myst barriers, then hurried back to the temple. Before Ebonique reached the temple door, Erik sent her a message through their contract in a serious voice.

[Wait a moment, Ebonique—I have an idea.]

[The enemies will arrive at any moment…] The dragoness replied in a serious voice, which made Erik smile slightly as he answered.

[Don't worry. It won't take long, and if it works, it'll buy us a lot of time. I just need you to circle the temple.]

[It will be just one lap.]

Ebonique let out a sigh and changed course as she replied. Erik nodded, satisfied, and answered calmly as he slipped his hand into the storage pouch at his waist, while one of the crates floated closer.

[That's all I need.]

As he took mana crystals from the storage pouch and some materials from one of the crates, Erik noticed something out of the corner of his eye that caught his attention powerfully. Turning his head to look toward the place where his spells had exploded, Erik asked in a voice laden with incredulity.

[Are those black flames…?]

***

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