If Rhode were a large wheel that braved the waves, Canary would be the elegant elf who flew along with the wind with her long mage robe. She appeared behind the lion-headed devils gracefully, the sword coalesced from flames piercing toward the lion-headed devil. The lion-headed devil turned around as soon as it realized the danger, deflecting the blade with its dagger. The smile on Canary’s face remained unchanged. She swiftly drew a circle with the sword, which sucked in the dagger like a magnet, forcefully changing its trajectory. Then, her sword suddenly transformed into a lightning bolt that struck at the devil.
But contrary to her movements, the powerful gust of wind that erupted from the blade sucked in everything in its path. The lion-headed devil couldn’t resist the powerful force and lost its balance. At the same time, the mysterious wind suddenly vanished, while Canary increased her speed and punctured the scarlet blade into the lion-headed devil’s throat. But…
————!
She failed to penetrate the throat. Instead, the loud sound of friction rasped and sparks scattered. The scarlet blade in her hand was deflected. The lion-headed devil let out a wry laughter, extending its claws forward to shred the human into bits.
Canary didn’t flee in a panic. Instead after, realizing that her attack failed to deal the lethal blow, she charged into the embrace of the lion-headed devil in a green airstream. Then, she extended her left hand and clenched the air. All of a sudden, powerful gusts of wind erupted, blasting the lion-headed devil away.
Pow!
The powerful airflow threw the defenseless lion-headed devil away, crashing to the wall. Meanwhile, the metal guards were thankful to have this prey falling into their territory. They released dazzling light beams at the pathetic lion-headed devil, but the lion-headed devil snarled and dodged the attack nimbly. At the same time, another red brilliance shone in its face and penetrated its right eye.
“Oooooh!”
The tremendous pain left the lion-headed devil screeching in agony. It extended its claws, slashing at the human in vain. Suddenly, its entire world was smeared in red as an unprecedented heat and violent storm erupted in its skull, blasting its brain into rotten chunks of flesh.
“Oh, my goodness…”
Richard gaped. He didn’t even know what he was muttering under his breath. He knew that Canary’s spell casting abilities were formidable after personally witnessing her strength in the Enchanted Forest when she dealt with the elf hunters. Not only could she manipulate others’ magical powers, but she could also turn them into hers. But now, looking at her shifting her positions agilely among the devils, Richard was completely speechless. He had never expected that a mage could attain such a high level of mastery and skill in swordsmanship. Canary’s every move had a hint of the uniqueness in spell casting. It could also be said that she had perfectly blended the casting of spells and swordsmanship altogether. Although many mages also learned close-combat skills in the Mage Tower, the reason behind that was to make up for their shortcoming of being unable to battle in close encounters. They had never thought that a mage would look so confident and graceful in close-combat battles! The apprentices felt as though a new window of hope had opened in their hearts. If they could survive and return home in one piece, they would surely want to pick up some swordsmanship.
Four lion-headed devils remained after Rhode and Canary took out two of them. The lion-headed devils also seemed to realize that these opponents weren’t easy to deal with and started defending themselves instead of attacking, coordinating with the other devils and six-armed snake devils to stop their advance.
But this still wasn’t enough to stop Rhode and Canary.
“Canary.”
“Got it.”
Canary quickly retreated from her battle against a lion-headed devil. She threw and punctured the flame sword into the ground and began drawing bewildering patterns in midair with both hands. Everything took less than five seconds. The flame sword that she threw aside landed around the devils ‘coincidentally’. She extended her arm forward. Boom! The flame sword exploded instantly at her command.
The scorching heat wave and blaze expanded in an enormous ring of fire. If they were ordinary flames, the devils wouldn’t have any reactions since the purgatory, where they came from, was covered in a sea of flames. If they didn’t have any resistance to fire, they weren’t even fit to call themselves ‘devils’. On the contrary, the flames might even increase their strength.
But Canary’s flames were extraordinary. As a master of the wind and fire elements, the flames she grasped were the purest in their form and not what the devils could withstand. As the ring of fire proliferated, the devils with steel-like bodies screeched in agony and melted due to the immense heat. At the same time, a cloud of flames appeared above the middle of the ring, shrouding the remaining lion-headed devils and miscellaneous devils.
“———!”
The lion-headed devils instinctively sensed danger. The instant they were enfolded in the fire clouds, they tried to escape outside of the ring of fire. But what they didn’t realize was that Canary was already standing outside the perimeter with her arms down. Suddenly, glowing green runes appeared over the location where her flame sword had struck. Then, powerful gusts of wind pinned the lion-headed devils to the ground. This instantly raised fear in their minds. But it was all too late.
Three illusory figures appeared around the lion-headed devils. Slaughter slashed through their bodies ruthlessly, while Celestina brandished her chain sword like a deadly viper, bounding one of them who had slipped through the net. In the blink of an eye, the pitch-black flames on her blade burned the devils into nothingness.
When the flames dissipated, the lion-headed devils were nowhere to be seen anymore.
Sh*t…
Gabe froze to the spot. He knew that these people were powerful and had been certain that their strength would be weakened by the aura of purgatory. But it didn’t seem like it affected them at all. The lion-headed devils were Grazite’s direct subjects and definitely stronger than the Balor Devil, and yet they couldn’t last more than 10 minutes against these three.
If this continues…
“Arghhhhhh!”
Before Gabe came up with a solution, his master seemed to have made his decision. Shortly after, Gabe sensed a burst of energy of the abyss recklessly running into his body and tearing his soul apart. The agony left him trembling in fear because he knew what exactly his master was doing!
“Master!! No…! I beg you… Please don’t do that… I am your most loyal servant!”
Although Gabe pleaded pitifully, his body started changing shape on its own. At this moment, Karin lifted her head and gazed at Gabe.
“Master, we’ve caught him!”
“Great, activate it!”
Rhode commanded, leading Celestina and Canary away. Meanwhile, Karin extended her right hand and pressed the buttons on her hilt.
“#&DWD)JP(E)VR#@HE”
Along with a spell that was as strange as an electronic sound, the entire teleportation ritual suddenly transformed.
