Luke’s defenses had increased considerably, but he couldn’t get carried away. That female in dark armor passed to him a troublesome vibe, and even with a surprise attack and with his best card, Luke wasn’t so sure if he could take her out in a single moment.

Luke opened an exit right behind the mage, but the dark armored woman suddenly appeared in front of Luke and tried to split his two halves. That speed... It was almost like Teleport, but at the same time, it wasn’t. His plans to take her down for the last probably won’t work...

"Where is he?" The female archer asked while shouting.

She sure looked nervous, probably because the guy Luke killed was important to her. Still, he couldn’t care less about it. Unfortunately, Luke wasn’t nasty enough to say some cruel things and make the group lose their focus. In any case, the archer fired a single one of the usual barrage of arrows that suddenly appeared in front of Luke. The projectile flew so fast, and it was so powerful that Luke thought that rocket was being fired at him. He didn’t have time to dodge, and he imagined that it would chase him if he did that, so Luke decided to block it, but in the end, it pushed him backward with the weight of a massive meteor.

When Luke stopped, another one was already coming, and the dark armored woman was right above him, ready to swing her sword. In the end, Luke blocked the strike with his katana, even though he felt his bones cracking. That level of strength was almost supernatural... Still, before she could move away and let Luke be hit by the next arrow, he threw a small bottle of poison at her eyes. They began to burn, but the women still jumped despite that. Luke jumped as well and tried to attack and send her to the arrow, but then her dark armor began to move like a spear and stabbed Luke downward.

"What the fuck..." Luke thought.

Before Luke could think of what had happened, the arrow hit his sword and punched him backward. Soon after, another annoying lightning bolt fell from the sky and hit him. Thanks to his increased Resistance and shield, the damage decreased by half, but he still felt like shit. To make things worse, the spearman attacked him from behind, and his spear cut the side of Luke’s neck. At the same time, he felt his neck burning. This wasn’t going to do... at that rate. Luke truly will die. The mana of a single clone wasn’t enough, not when the dark armored woman was there, and she could move even faster than Luke. She was getting rid of the poison, and she looked pretty pissed.

In the end, Luke uses all his remaining mana and channels it into the sword before he lets the energy explode and freezes everything around. Unfortunately, those guys felt the danger to their lives and escaped... It would have been different if Luke had hit them directly. Nevertheless, he made them move away from him.

"My body has gotten stronger... So perhaps I can endure this now," Luke thought.

Luke had to test that sooner or later, so he might as well do it now when he needed some extra power to defeat those guys. In the end, he canceled his other dimension and received the mana from three clones. As soon as that happened, Luke felt that his consciousness was being taken away by something, or he was just about to faint since his whole body began to crack. Either way, he couldn’t tell. The only thing he could tell was the fact that his enemies noticed his power boost. The red aura was back, and it seemed a lot denser than before. Probably because Luke’s flesh was being damaged, and blood was joining it.

The skill Rage has leveled up.

You obtained 45 status points.

The skill Berserker has leveled up.

You obtained 45 status points.

...

Some unexpected skills began to level up, and that only made things more complicated. The first response to the pain is usually fear and shock, but over time, when one gets used to it, the last response is anger... Using that anger to boost himself, Luke dashed toward the dark armored woman even more. She used her sword to block Luke’s charge, but her armor also moved to attack him in the gut. At that point in time, Luke knew what that armor was, but there was no point in thinking about it. He just had to cut down his enemies and then proceed to the next stage.

Luke’s strike pushed back the dark armored woman, and she clenched her teeth in annoyance since it was the first time she felt that level of pressure from a single attack. Luke used Stinger even though he was so closer to her and pushed her back even more. Then he tried to grab her neck with his left hand, but then numerous arrows surrounded his body after appearing out of nowhere. Still, his aura prevented them from touching him.

Luke swung his katana again, and then the dark armored woman fixed her stance to parry the attack. She barely succeeded since the swing had been enough to rend the ground close to them, destroying everything on its path for around five hundred meters. She knew that she couldn’t let that kind of attack reach her friends, or they would be doomed.

"What is wrong?" Luke asked in a cold and rough voice that almost sounded demon-like from his enemy’s perspective. "Where is all that energy? What about you, shadow? Is this the best your chosen ones can do?"

Before the dark armored woman could do anything, the spearman attacked Luke from his left side, and the archer fired a powerful arrow from the other. In the end, Luke kicked the dark armored woman and then swung his sword to repel the arrow and the spear. While he did that, he also gave a chance to the mage to use his lightning. Luke didn’t try to dodge it. Instead of that, he summoned a new sword and then raised it to block some of the attacks. When the attack ended, the enemies frowned when they saw that Luke didn’t suffer much damage. His aura almost nullified the entire attack while the sword drained some mana of the lightning.

Soul Eater Sword.

It grants you the power to drain some mana of magic attacks.

When Luke was messing with Transmute, he decided to use the Soul Eater Ring as well, and that was the result. A sword that was pretty good against mages and their annoying Mana Shield, a sword that probably would become even more powerful against powerful mages, the perfect tool to cut Aivern’s head. Still, in his current situation, Luke only used it to make sure that he won’t be paralyzed by the magic attack.

Luke jumped toward the mage, and then the dark armored armor suddenly materialized between them with her shield, ready to block the attack. In the end, Luke just kicked her shield with all her might and used it to propel himself toward the archer. The spearman tried to do the same and moved to protect her, but there was a difference in power and equipment that he couldn’t make up for it. In the middle of his charge, Luke used Stinger, and even though the spearman blocked the attack, he was pushed backward for hundreds of meters and eventually collided against the archer. Luke charged to take them out faster than they could recover, but he once again found himself being blocked by the dark armored woman.

"You want to go down first, then you will go down first," Luke said.

Luke used Stinger on the woman, and then she tried to parry the attack, but then Luke used Sonic Blade as well, and her shield was almost knocked out away from her due to the boost in power. Luke decided to ignore the others and chased the dark armored woman. She couldn’t do anything else aside from raising her shield, and Luke didn’t shy away from that. He attacked the shield and then used Sonic Blade, causing an explosion that created several cracks on the shield and made the air around them vibrate.

The dark armored woman was thrown to the distance after the impact, but Luke chased her and attacked from above. Instead of her moving the shield to block the attack, the armor did that for her. Still, the same thing happened again, and this time, she collided against the ground, raising a massive curtain of dust and opening a crater in the place she landed.

Luke approached to finish her off, but then he felt that something was off. It wouldn’t be weird if she had lost consciousness after such attacks, but it was something else that was bothering him, and he couldn’t say what it was... it was better to proceed with caution, but Luke had a time limit with his supply of mana, so he headed there Anyway.

As soon as he approached, Luke suddenly felt a shiver, and in the next moment, the dark sword approached his neck. Luke stepped backward and dodged the attack by a really small margin. Thanks to that, he noticed something weird happening when the sword cut the air in front of him. The space distorted, and Luke saw a hole pulling him in for a short amount of time. That was enough shocking to make him stop, even though he didn’t have time to waste...

"It is time for round two," The dark armored woman said, but Luke also heard a Male voice alongside hers.

Luke had realized that the armor and shield that the woman was using were similar to Richter’s equipment. She also had a partner like him... Luke always thought that such a creature knew more than he had told them, and it was time to confirm that.

The dark armored woman dashed toward Luke, and her speed was much higher than before. To the point that Luke decided to take a complete defensive stance, but then he realized her sword was no good now... who knows what might happen if he decides to block it. Luke began to move away, and she chased him with extreme ease.

She swung her sword at Luke’s neck, and he felt the blade pulling him in again... After seeing it from up close two times, Luke clearly saw a small aura on the blade that wasn’t there before. It didn’t seem like gravity... and considering the holes that the weapon left in place at times, it certainly wasn’t an ordinary buff.

As if she wanted to show what was going to happen to him, the woman stopped running and just began to walk while her sword was touching the ground. It didn’t even damage the ground that it touched. It disappeared without leaving anything behind.

"Woah... Scary..." Luke said. "This is the first time I have been so close to death... What am I going to do?"

The woman clicked her tongue at Luke’s mocking words and then swung her Blade. Although it didn’t get close to Luke, she still fired a beam of dark energy that ate everything in its path. Luke wondered if the Soul Eater Sword would work against that, but he didn’t have time to test it, and the cost of failure was too high. Still, he projected that weapon and jumped as the mage launched another lightning bolt. He sure had too few tricks up his sleeve...