“Edward, don’t act rashly against that guy,” the man standing in front of a big door, accompanied by the remaining dozen of early EPIC Rankers, glanced at the young man beside him.
‘….’ Yet, looking at his unresponsive demeanor, the man turned his gaze towards the huge metallic door, understanding that it was inevitable.
And the most he could do was protect this young man until he could, causing him to glance towards other individuals who nodded, understanding his commands.
SCREEEEEEEEEK….CLANG!
A sharp sound reverberated inside the surroundings as the huge metallic gate started to slide down, revealing a vast expanse of land, appearing as if hit by an earthquake.
The broken architectures, buildings fallen on the ground with five huge battleships, appearing large enough to make them look like ants, yet ignoring all this, the young man’s eyes turned towards the distance of five miles.
‘I will kill you, bastard,’ Edward’s frustration was visible on his face, everything kept breaking apart the moment that man in front of him came into his life.
A good life, luck in all places, growth in strength until suddenly someone cut off his hand, adding a full stop into his success.
And today that someone was in front of him, only he knew the anger burning inside him.
When you’re about to reach the peak but suddenly see a shackle bound on your leg, which instead of just stopping kept pulling you down—a feeling of helplessness, anger, and frustration.
“Phew~,” Edward exhaled his breath, looking towards the direction from where he could feel the enormous mana density, causing him to weigh the pros and cons, consoling himself, ‘Max, it’s not time.’
He was angry but decided not to attack from the front this time.
“..I will control myself,” Edward said to the man, while his eyes observed several individuals standing around the Mansion, each emitting a sharp intent, proving their strength to be at his own level or higher.
Some of them were standing on the battleships, a clear situation where his defeat was fixed.
So, controlling his frustration by gritting his teeth, he decided to use a different approach to kill that individual who messed with him.
‘I will give you the most painful death, you bastard,’ Edward glanced at the ring in his hand, appearing as a dimensional ring carrying something he had saved to kill someone stronger than him, yet decided to never use it due to it being one-time use.
But today was the time and the right person for him to use it upon.
“W-what? Really?” The man hearing words from Edward for the first time about retreating from any battle made him slightly surprised, while other individuals also looked at each other in surprise.
“…yes,” Edward’s frustration was rising as the moments were passing.
Initially, his plan was to kill Ryuk Devereaux directly, but after firsthand experiencing the strength of the woman known as Drishti Devereaux, he understood his situation very well.
Drishti Devereaux was strong enough to make him become helpless even with his ability to adapt to outside energy, and here, he needed to kill someone who had defeated her once.
‘Damn it,’ indeed, it was the first time for him to retreat from any battle, but knowing that the opponent would kill him instantly, he couldn’t let himself get blinded and take some rash action.
“Let’s go,” Edward said with his cold gaze looking in the direction where stood a large mansion, yet his eyes were gazing at two amber ones, eyes which seemed to look down on him.
SWISH
Instantly, all of their bodies turned into glowing light with only the remaining after image of both Edward and the man, while others’ bodies shot towards the direction by turning into light streaks.
.
.
.
.
“Interesting”
“Me?” Ryuk inquired with a side-eye to the woman standing beside him, wearing a black and red attire, enhanced by her small smile and deep amber eyes fixed on the sword in his hand.
“…Yes, you are too,” Hearing the man’s words, Drishti, even though understanding that he had intentionally taken his name even after knowing about her referring to the changes in the Sword, still wasn’t enough to make her retreat.
‘He had an 8-star sword fragment,’ Drishti’s narrowed eyes revealed the reflection of the Sword, which was indeed one of the things she had never expected this young man to know much about.
Simply because it was not known to others that the ability of this sword was devouring other swords.
But even if someone knew, the mind corruption this sword caused kept increasing as its level/strength rose.
Simply meaning, the more you feed it, the stronger it becomes, the farther it will push its owner towards darkness.
Which was also why this sword was renowned among the ancient monsters, carried by one among them, the Sword Maiden.
The first time she saw it in this young man’s hand, she knew he would never be able to use its full strength, because until one reaches that level, this sword would have already devoured his soul.
“Are you going to use it?” Drishti inquired, causing Regina and Esme standing nearby to glance at the man, who ignoring all of them looked far away towards the man gazing at him in frustration.
A visible smile formed on his face with eyes mocking that man’s presence, as if looking down—all being a part of chain reactions to cause that guy to snap and take wrong actions.
“No, at least until I break through my strength stat,” He replied, the sword starting to dematerialize inside his hand.
SWOOSH
Even while vanishing, it was glimmering in dense aura with visible retaliation against his move to place it back in the inventory.
‘….’ Drishti glanced at the man before informing, “Edward is at Early EPIC in strength, meaning he will not be any help to you.”
Naturally, the principle behind breaking through any definite power level, either energy or physical, was to face the opponent of that same level to push to a limit, but Edward wasn’t physically strong enough to be of any help.
WHOOSH
“There is no one more perfect than him for this,” Ryuk stated, his body slowly getting shrouded in an Amber aura, covering his body as it moved from lower to upper body, eyes observing Edward and the others approaching figure.
[Yes, nothing is better than a Sand bag for strength building.]
‘He will definitely have something on him which could act as plot armor.’ Already aware of Edward’s luck, strong enough to protect him from everything, Ryuk further added, ‘System, search for any artifact or thing on him.’
[ Scanning…]
WHOOOSH
“Liege, shouldn’t we let them take the first move?” Regina inquired, slightly feeling confused as her eyes reflected a now burning masked man in an Amber aura, completely shrouded in an orange shine.
Her intentions were simple: first let the other side take some steps which could give them an excuse to annihilate, though it doesn’t matter whose fault it was in the end if no one is left alive to tell the tale.
So, her mind had thought of two sides: first was to either provoke them and let them make the first move, and second was to just kill all of them and make some excuse.
In the lack of evidence, no one would doubt even if she blamed all this on the demon queen’s invasion.
“Indeed, but, Regina, shouldn’t we first greet them?” Ryuk said with a small smile formed on his face, causing Regina’s eyes to first meet his before turning towards the arriving figure half a mile away.
Her hand grips the sword hilt at her waist, appearing like a dark black sword with a plain wooden black design, with several inscriptions etched on the sheath, “You just need to order, Liege, there will not be anyone of them left alive.”
