“Where’s your beloved sword, Rourke?!”
“Silence!”
Irritated by Gareth’s words, Rourke swung his arm and activated another spiritual technique.
“Hah!!”
Facing the incoming gravitational wave that kicked up a cloud of dust, Gareth stomped the ground firmly and raised his magic sword overhead. Then, with a powerful swing, he directly countered Rourke’s spiritual technique.
“Oooh!!”
With a thunderous clash, Gareth, with a roar, sliced through Rourke’s spiritual technique in a single, vertical strike.
“!?”
Shocked that his spiritual technique had been directly shattered, Rourke was momentarily stunned as purple lightning crackled past him.
“Beo!”
“Gahh!!”
As Beowulf, now able to move thanks to Gareth weakening the spiritual restraints, let out a roar, he activated his own spiritual technique, releasing a freezing cold to encase both the evil spirit and Rourke in ice.
“You mere humans!”
Unfazed by the cold, Rourke swung his arm down. The ice encasing him and the evil spirit shattered, and a heavy pressure immobilized Gareth and Beowulf.
“Die!”
A section of the ground, lifted by Rourke’s spiritual technique, soared into the air before accelerating and crashing down towards Gareth and Beowulf.
“Guh……Damn it!”
“Groar!!”
Gareth and Beowulf struggled to escape but couldn’t break free from the powerful spiritual restraints. All Gareth could do was glare at the incoming boulders, but at the edge of his vision, he caught sight of a spirit with green wings.
“Kiiiiii!!”
With a roar, Sigrum folded his wings and spun, crashing into the boulders.
Amid the sound of shattering rock, Sigrum broke through the boulders, spread his wings to blow away the debris, and then grabbed Gareth and Beowulf with his front legs, swiftly retreating.
“Sigrum, protect Gareth.”
After retrieving Gareth and the others, Sigrum was ordered to stay back as Owen stepped forward, exhaling slightly.
On the other hand, Rourke glared at Owen, who was approaching with evident displeasure at having his finishing blow interrupted.
“Really…… Is it okay to hurt such important friends like this, Rourke? Even if it’s not a degree battle?”
“…………”
“Moreover, directing such murderous intent at me. Is that the attitude you should have towards your master?”
Rourke still didn’t answer, but the sharpness in his eyes intensified as he glared at Owen.
Owen sighed deeply under the gaze filled with hostility and killing intent from his disciple.
“Good grief, have you completely forgotten?”
Muttering with a look of exasperation, Owen’s back was illuminated by a pillar of purple flames, accompanied by an immense surge of spiritual energy.
“……!”
“Then I have no choice. Let me carve it into your body once more.”
From within the pillar of flames, a black shadow emerged leisurely.
The humanoid shadow walked calmly through the purple flames, eventually revealing itself before Rourke.
Clad in a black robe, the tall figure held a lantern with purple flames in its left hand, adorned with white gloves.
But what was most distinctive was the pumpkin head. From the hollowed-out eyes, golden pupils stared at Rourke, who instinctively took a step back under the pressure.
“Fear me.”
As Owen declared, the pumpkin-headed spirit behind him grinned mischievously.
“Jack, I’m counting on you.”
“Long time no see…… and you call me at such a troublesome time.”
Jack-o’-Lantern, Owen’s contracted spirit, appeared, surveying Rourke with a twisted expression on his pumpkin face.
“Is that your disciple, Rourke was it? He’s changed for the worse.”
“That much?”
At least outwardly, Rourke didn’t seem any different……
“The aura, the presence, so to speak. He was always a bit eerie, but now he seems like a completely different person.”
“I see……”
Owen nodded, seemingly convinced by Jack’s words.
Indeed, Owen himself had felt it too. However, considering the connection with the evil spirit, it was somewhat explainable, and he didn’t feel the need to be overly concerned.
“In any case, he doesn’t seem to be in his right mind. Just don’t kill him, Jack.”
“Adding troublesome requests, are we……?”
Grumbling as he followed his master’s orders, Jack slowly raised the lantern with the purple flames.
“What is this?!”
Rourke’s feet heated up, and he leaped back just as a pillar of flames erupted from where he had been standing.
Without a moment to fear the immense spiritual energy in the flames, purple fire rose again from under his feet, forcing Rourke to flee from the pursuing flames.
“He’s quite good at dodging.”
“Yeah.”
Rourke’s agility was troublesome. Without a contracted spirit, he had trained his body to fight on his own. Capturing him would be extremely difficult.
Thus, it was necessary to reduce Rourke’s mobility.
Owen slowly aimed his finger at Rourke, who continued to dodge Jack’s flames. Infusing his fingertip with spiritual energy, he waited for the moment Rourke’s stance faltered from dodging, then fired a lightning strike aimed at his leg.
“Gah!?”
The lightning strike, shaped like a spear, pierced Rourke’s right ankle with pinpoint accuracy.
As Rourke instinctively knelt in pain, Jack wasted no time in enveloping him with purple flames once more.
“You’re keeping it under control, right……?”
“More or less.”
Watching the roaring purple flames ahead, Owen felt uneasy and confirmed with Jack, but the response only deepened his concern.
“Wait, what do you mean ‘more or less’? That’s too vague.”
“Given who we’re dealing with, holding back would be pointless. Besides, look.”
Jack directed Owen’s attention to the purple flames ahead.
From within the flames, Rourke released gravitational waves in all directions, completely dispersing the purple flames that had enveloped him.
“If I hold back too much, I’ll be the one in trouble. Surely, you don’t want to lose to your disciple after all that posturing?”
“I wasn’t posturing.”
Though he actually was, Owen ignored Jack’s words and turned his gaze back to Rourke. Emerging from the purple flames, Rourke was covered in smoke but seemed to have defended himself well, with no major injuries apart from the wound on his right ankle.
“How dare you……!!”
Seeing the blood flowing from his foot, Rourke’s anger flared. Manipulating gravity, he uprooted nearby trees and hurled them towards Owen and Jack, but Jack raised his lantern, causing the trees to instantly burst into flames and turn to ash.
“Annoying!”
While the flames obscured his vision, Rourke extended his hand towards Owen and unleashed a spiritual technique.
“Whoa!?”
Owen floated up suddenly, then was swung around and slammed headfirst into a nearby rock.
“So I’m the target now.”
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As if affirming Jack’s muttering, his entire body was struck by an intense gravitational force, temporarily pinning him in place.
“Well, well…… this is quite something……!”
Unable to stand under the immense pressure, Jack instinctively dropped to one knee. Rourke, forming a hand blade with his right hand, began to infuse it with spiritual energy.
From the amount of spiritual energy gathering in the hand blade, Jack knew that taking this attack head-on would be disastrous. But it would take some time to break free from this restraint. There was no time to dodge.
“First, you……”
“Shyaaaah!!”
Just as Rourke was about to swing his hand blade, the dragon spirit Wyrm descended from above with a roar, lunging at him.
“Don’t interfere!”
“Gyah!?”
Rourke opened his left hand towards the approaching Wyrm and clenched it into a fist. In an instant, Wyrm’s body was compressed from head to tail into a sphere, then disintegrated into particles and sent away.
But in that brief moment, Jack broke free from the spiritual technique and breathed purple flames at Rourke. While Rourke was momentarily immobilized by the flames, Jack quickly retreated.
“Pumpkin bastard……”
Rourke clicked his tongue in annoyance as Jack stepped back beside Owen, muttering curses under his breath.
“One hit to take down a dragonkin…?”
Owen, holding his throbbing head as he stood up, quietly shuddered at the sight of Wyrm being taken down in an instant. No matter how low Wyrm’s rank was, could Rourke really possess the strength to send a dragonkin back with a single strike?
“……My disciple’s growth is impressive, isn’t it?”
“Are you seriously saying that now?”
Owen muttered, only to be scolded by Jack, who was standing beside him with a mix of exasperation. Owen wasn’t trying to be nonchalant, but he knew that if things continued like this, they wouldn’t even be able to buy time.
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