Marcus could tell that his personal weapon had become even more powerful after absorbing Gronex's magic core.

He could tell that its fire-based abilities had become nearly as strong as its light and darkness elements.

Some of the excess energy was also now flowing into him, and with the new stats that he had gained from leveling up, he felt the extreme exhaustion built up from the battle easing a little bit.

Still, he would have to wait until the charges of his Ultimate Refresh Supreme Skill returned to make a full recovery.

"I'd like to collect Gronex's corpse, but I don't have the mana to open my item box that wide. And there's no telling what sort of attention that this battle might have attracted." Marcus said, looking at the vast swaths of destruction the battle had caused.

They had started out in the depths of the Darklands, but the battle was unable to be contained down there.

A giant hole had been blown out from below that had several giant chasms snaking out from it. The only time that Marcus had seen anything worse was during the battle against the Doomsday Worm.

'I just hope not too many people were killed. There's no telling how far the shockwaves of our attacks traveled.'

All around Marcus was scorched and shattered landscape for as far as he could see.

The collateral damage easily could have spread out for dozens of kilometers in every direction. Considering that they were somewhere in Tralenstein, there were bound to be settlements around. It was possible that even the southern border of Borealia had been affected.

Marcus was not saint by any means, but he could not help feeling bad about the ruin he had helped cause. Even if he was just defending himself.

Still, he did not have time to swell on these thoughts and let them slow him down.

He had left Quillon to Lyra, but Roxene was heavily injured and would need healing soon or she might die.

When Marcus reached her, he found that she had managed to pull Gronex's fangs out of her side and had shrunk back down to her regular size.

Despite how tough and haughty she usually was, she looked very small and weak right now.

There was blood staining her fur, and Marcus could tell that her breathing was weak and that her life force was fading.

"Don't worry, I'm here now. I'll heal you right away." Marcus said, rushing over with a slight hint of panic in his voice.

He did not have much mana or spiritual energy left, so he was unable to cast a very strong healing spell or use his Spiritual Healing specter power.

Marcus hated feeling so powerless, but this was the best he could do for now.

Every potion that would have been worth using had already been expended in the battle with Gronex, so all he could rely on was what little mana he had recovered.

"Don't worry, this isn't going to be enough to do me in." Roxene said confidently, even as blood flowed out of her lips.

"It better not be. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure that your parents will kill me."

He said this a bit jokingly. Yet Marcus was fairly certain that Roxene's parents actually might erase his existence if he let their daughter die.

When he had formed a mutual seal while she was still trapped in an egg, a great pillar of light and dark energy had fallen down on him and given him an immense amount of power. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

That had changed him into a Great Spirit of Light and Darkness and sealed his fate as Roxene's guardian.

Honestly, he only knew little bits and pieces about her parents and their connection to Mirrion's administrator. Nevertheless, he understood that they were immensely powerful beings that he probably could not even fathom as he was now.

"Marcus, Quillon, needs help! He's not breathing!"

As he was busying himself with healing Roxene, Lyra frantically came running with Quillon in her arms.

His assimilation with Aerial had taken a massive toll on him and now he was in critical condition.

Marcus could sense that Aerial was hovering around Quillon in an immaterial form, but her presence felt faint. She had expended practically all of her power as well and there was nothing she could do to help now.

"Damn it! Bring him over here!"

Once she had set Quillon down, Marcus immediately went about assessing his condition.

Fortunately, he was not dead yet.

While he was not breathing, his heart was still beating.

Unfortunately, he had a lot of internal bleeding, and his lungs seemed to have burst like overfilled balloons.

As bad as this all was, it normally would not be much of an issue.

Quillon had the high-speed regeneration skill, and Marcus was capable of incredible healing magic.

Except, both of them were tapped out right now.

Marcus was already having a hard enough time just keeping Roxene alive with what little bit of strength he had managed to recover.

His stats were also cut in half right now due to the backlash of using Soul Burst.

'Fu*k! What can I do?! His lungs are in too bad of a shape for me to fix him, and his blood is filling his body where it shouldn't be. I can tell that his heartbeat is getting weaker every second that goes by. At this rate, he's really going to die.' Marcus thought as he frantically searched for a solution.

Eventually, what he came upon was unbelievably drastic.

He was considering ripping out Quillon's soul and turning him into a spirit.

Whether he could actually do something like that was still a mystery. Especially in his current weakened state. It would be difficult to even attempt at full power. Let alone as he was right now.

'His body is too damaged though; I won't be able to save him. After death, I know that the soul remains for a minute before being dragged off into the cycle of rebirth. I'll turn him into a spirit during that window of time.'

Unable to think of anything else, Marcus prepared to enact his desperate plan.

However, before he did, a voice from behind him spoke up.

"Would you be bothered if I proved some assistance?"