As Alexander's group was finishing up the Vermillion Kobolds and the henchmen, Lucen's fight with Zehn was reaching its climax.

Unlike Gared, who had his body bursting after eating the irregular pill, Zehn seemed to be in a similar state to Lucen's RELEASE.

His body had bulged a little, veins could be seen all over, and Lucen could pretty much hear Zehn's heartbeat, which was like an engine.

Not only that, but Zehn's mana supply had increased, and his mana output became even more refined. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Lucen's eyes narrowed slightly as he observed the change. This was not like Gared's transformation, which had been violent, ugly, and unstable from the very start.

That one had felt like watching a body force itself apart just to imitate strength it had no right to possess.

Zehn was different. The power flowing through him was still unnatural, still clearly borrowed, but he was handling it with far more control. Not to mention, there was little to no trace of madness like with Gared.

'Since handguns don't work anymore, let's try something with a little more kick.' Lucen let go of the two handguns in his hand and created a trench gun.

"Let's see if you handle this one as well." Lucen used bullet creation and then elemental bullet to imbue the bullets with the elements of lightning and flame.

Zehn's eyes shifted toward the new weapon in Lucen's hands.

Even without knowing exactly what it was, he could immediately tell that it was different from the two strange pistols from before. This one was longer, heavier, and far more brutal in shape.

He might not know what it was, but if it was something the ruby-eyed monster took out, it meant it was dangerous.

While Zehn hesitated for a brief second, Lucen tossed several small ball-shaped objects. Smoke started coming out of the small balls. This was one of the new things Lucen and Robert created: smoke bombs.

Smoke spread through the narrow alley almost instantly, thick and choking, swallowing both of them from sight. Zehn did not retreat; instead, his lips curled into a grin.

"So you hide?" he said, his voice echoing faintly through the smoke. "I thought the Ever-Victorious would face me head-on."

Lucen's voice came calmly from somewhere within the haze. "Who said I'm hiding?"

The next instant, Zehn's body moved. The ground beneath his feet cracked as he lunged forward, his enhanced muscles driving him like a launched projectile.

He tore through the smoke blindly, relying on his heightened senses.

His hearing had sharpened. His sense of mana had become far more refined. Even the changes in the air as the smoke shifted around moving bodies became something he could read.

'There!'

He felt the faintest disturbance to his left. A small magic circle flared beside him at once, and a black spear of mana shot through the smoke.

It hit nothing. At almost the same instant, a deafening blast erupted from the haze behind him.

Boom!

The trench gun roared like thunder in the narrow alley. Flame and lightning burst outward together from the muzzle, turning the smoke bright orange and blue for a brief, violent instant.

Zehn twisted mid-motion, faster than any normal mage had any right to move. Even so, he was not fast enough to avoid it completely.

The shot tore through the side of his mana barrier, shattered what remained of it, and slammed several pellets into his shoulder and upper arm.

The pellets penetrated his muscles with a sharp jolt of electricity, and then they exploded. It was not enough to destroy the arm outright, but it was more than enough to tear flesh, rip through part of the muscle, and send Zehn skidding across the alley stones.

Zehn, who stopped himself from flying, had his mask cracked and started coughing up blood. Still, the slight smile on his face never disappeared.

"Heh," Zehn stood up, his left arm mangled as he wiped the blood on his mouth. "I guess my meager skill cannot defeat the Ruby-Eyed Monster."

Smoke still drifted through the alley in thick rolling clouds, lit now and then by the scattered glow of fading magic circles and the occasional spark of residual lightning from the last shot. Through that haze, Lucen's red eyes stayed fixed on Zehn.

"So are you going to surrender now?" Lucen asked as he pumped his trench gun.

Zehn let out a low laugh as he straightened, blood still dripping from the corner of his mouth.

"Surrender?" he repeated. "No. If anything, this only confirms it. To bring down a monster, one must become something worse."

The moment those words left him, the mana around his body surged.

Unlike before, when he had used magic circles with precision and care, this time Zehn simply forced mana outward with brute intensity.

The air around him warped. Smoke was blown away in ragged spirals. The muscles across his body swelled further, and the veins beneath his skin darkened as though something black was crawling through them.

Then dozens of magic circles flared at once. They did not appear neatly at a distance. They bloomed all around Lucen at close range, layered over one another in a violent lattice of black light.

Spears, blades, and jagged bursts of mana came from every direction at once, as if Zehn had decided to drown him in magic through sheer volume.

Lucen quickly used RELEASE the second his battle instincts sent warning signals. Lucen's body tightened as his heart started beating faster, the muscles in his body grew a little, and his mana and aura flowed better.

The world around him seemed to slow down, as not only did his physical and spiritual abilities increase, but even his cognitive power had increased as well. This was the intermediate version of RELEASE.

Lucen saw that despite the attacks coming from all sides, the timing of each attack was different. He could use his agility to evade most of the attacks, but why waste stamina when he had a better option?

The Unbound Demonic Stride, the powerful movement technique he gained from the Heavenly Demon.

Lucen's body blurred. The moment the first spear reached him, his figure split into overlapping afterimages

One step forward. A blade of mana passed through empty air.

One step to the side. A spear tore into stone where his chest had been a heartbeat ago.

Lucen moved through the storm as if he had already seen it happen. Each step was placed in the narrowest gaps between attacks, his body twisting, shifting, advancing.

The synergy between his skills, battle instincts, Unbound Demonic Stride, and RELEASE made the impossible look effortless.

Everything happened in a second, as he weaved through the torrent of attacks, but to the untrained eye, he simply looked like he moved forward and phased through the attacks.

Lucen stepped out of the storm of magic and closed the distance.

"How intriguing. To think you learned to activate a state similar to mine without taking anything."

Despite sounding calm and curious, inside Zehn was panicking a little as he was running out of options. He had quickly assessed that a direct confrontation with Lucen was no longer possible.

Even though he still had one more trump card prepared, he was unsure if Lucen was also keeping a hidden hand.

'So this is why he's called the Ever-Victorious.'

Zehn's thoughts raced. There was no longer any doubt. He could not win.

Lucen stepped forward, trench gun raised, his movements steady, unhurried, as though the storm of magic just moments ago had meant nothing.

"So, anything more to show me?" Lucen said calmly as he showed a confident smile.

Zehn stared at Lucen for a single breath, then laughed quietly, though there was no joy in it. "You really are quite absurd."

Lucen pointed his trench gun at Zehn's legs. "I guess that means there's nothing else."

Zehn's smile widened as he replied. "Sorry, not quite."

The second those words left Zehn's mouth, Lucen's battle instinct screamed. Lucen no longer hesitated and fired at once.

Boom!

The trench gun roared, and the lightning-and-flame-imbued blast tore toward Zehn's legs with enough force to rip them apart. Yet at that very instant, Zehn moved in a way that made even Lucen's eyes narrow.

He did not dodge. Instead, Zehn thrust his already mangled left arm downward and forced it directly into the path of the shot.

The blast struck. His arm exploded in blood, bone, and burning flesh, but the impact also twisted his body sideways just enough to throw off Lucen's aim by a fraction.

At the same time, a magic circle no bigger than an eye appeared right in front of Zehn's face. Lucen already had a guess at what kind of spell Zehn was going to use.

"Damn it."

He lunged forward, but it was too late. Zehn drove two fingers into his own left eye without the slightest hesitation.

Blood burst down his face. The eye vanished into the waiting magic circle as though swallowed by darkness itself.

Then the circle flared violently. A much larger one opened behind Zehn in an instant, unstable and grotesque, as if forced open by sacrifice rather than proper casting. Black light swallowed his body from the waist up.

Lucen fired at once. Zehn reacted instantly, casting a defensive barrier that slowed the blast a little, giving Zehn enough time to cast Earth Wall, blocking the majority of the blast.

Any pellets that slipped through failed to reach him; the portal had already swallowed him whole.

At that moment, Lucen flicked out another of his and Robert's inventions. It was something imbued with a certain mana frequency that could be traced if you knew what you were looking for.

It was a small stone-like object that he tossed towards Zehn. The object was absorbed by the portal, and Zehn was unaware of it.

For one final moment, Zehn's blood-covered face remained visible inside the collapsing black light. His remaining eye locked onto Lucen, and a hideous smile split his face.

"Until next time," he rasped.

Then he was gone, and the portal collapsed in front of Lucen. Despite allowing Zehn to escape, Lucen smiled.

"Yeah, next time is closer than you think."