Chapter 47: This is life!

The sky lit up with a silver flash that branched out among the clouds like a living vein… and then everything went dark again.

Lucas couldn’t afford to look at the Rank III monster yet.

First, he had to clear the field.

His sword descended with impeccable precision. Each slash cut through air, bone, and flesh without resistance. There were no wasted movements.

The lesser lightning wolves fell one after another, unable even to follow the trail of steel that pierced them. The shadows of their cuts were barely distinguishable in the rain.

When the last rank II monster collapsed, Lucas stopped.

Rain slid off his armor.

Then he looked up.

In front of him, the rank III lightning wolf watched him.

Four meters of muscle, fangs, and crackling electricity.

The beast roared, and bright plasma spheres began to condense from its jaws, pulsing with unstable energy.

He threw them.

The ground exploded in a chain of detonations.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

But Lucas was no longer there.

He moved with pinpoint accuracy, dodging each explosion with measured steps, as if walking between raindrops.

Then he felt it.

The air changed.

The wolf disappeared in an electric flash.

He reappeared at his side.

The claws, elongated and wrapped in lightning, descended with the intention of splitting him in two.

However…

Lucas’ sword was already in motion.

His perception, amplified by the Knight’s Hymn, picked up the distortion in the air a fraction of a second before the attack.

And that was enough.

With a delicate, almost elegant movement, Lucas deflected the power of the claw toward the ground. The electrical explosion sank into the earth rather than pierce him.

But he didn’t stop.

He spun around and, taking advantage of his momentum, climbed up one of the beast’s legs at breakneck speed.

The sword sank into one of the wolf’s eyes.

The creature howled.

The pain drove it wild. With a brutal swipe of its hind leg, it struck Lucas squarely.

The knight was thrown off and crashed into what remained of the wall.

BOOM!

The impact shattered stone and metal.

A stream of blood spurted from inside his helmet. Something cracked on his side. Ribs, probably.

Lucas leaned on his sword and forced himself to stand up, staggering. And then he laughed—a hoarse, vibrant, almost youthful laugh.

“HAHAHA! This is life! Defending with my blood the city that gave me everything!”

He looked up at the wounded wolf, now one-eyed and consumed by rage.

It was time.

Lucas advanced without hesitation.

He ran between smoking corpses, jumped over a makeshift mound of mangled bodies, and propelled himself toward the beast’s back.

The wolf roared, blind with rage after losing an eye.

But…

Something changed.

A chill ran down his spine. He spun in the air out of pure instinct.

A sphere of plasma flew through the space where his torso would have been and exploded against the wounded wolf.

The detonation engulfed him in blue flames.

The howl that followed was not one of rage.

It was one of agony.

In mid-descent, Lucas looked up.

And he saw it.

Another rank III lightning wolf emerged from the rain, its body surrounded by live electricity.

…

BOOM!

The clash between magic and stone shook the area.

The battle between Alaric and the rank IV silver troll was already in full swing. The wizard moved through the air like an invisible current, propelled by concentrated bursts beneath his feet.

Every gesture of his hand released blades of compressed wind.

But the troll was no ordinary opponent.

With his gigantic stone club, he deflected or pulverized every attack before it could reach him. The blades struck… and disintegrated into scattered whirlwinds.

Rank IV was not something that could be overcome with simple cuts from a distance.

The troll roared and slammed its fist into the ground.

The shockwave lifted already damaged buildings and sent debris flying into the sky like improvised projectiles.

Alaric frowned.

He spun in the air, creating an updraft that deflected the stone fragments before they could reach him. The wind around him began to swirl more intensely.

He was assessing the situation.

The troll had brutal defense, visible regeneration from minor hits, and enough strength to alter the terrain with every movement.

One mistake would be fatal.

The wind around Alaric began to change.

It was no longer just blades.

It was atmospheric pressure building up.

The air itself was beginning to grow heavy.

The troll looked up.

He sensed it.

And then Alaric lowered his hand.

“[Spear of Boreas.]”

A gigantic spear of compressed wind descended from a magic circle at devastating speed, dragging rain and debris in a spiral.

When it struck the troll’s chest, the crash shook the earth. The ground is split into radial lines.

Alaric descended slowly, breathing heavily, his brow furrowed with tension. He knew he had hit his mark.

An attack of that level would cause great damage to any rank IV creature.

Then the dust began to clear.

The troll was still standing.

A grotesque wound gaped in its torso where the spear had pierced, exposing shattered ribs and blackened tissue. Silver blood poured out in thick streams… but not for long.

Before Alaric’s eyes, muscles began to contract and expand like a living mass, broken bones creaked back into place with wet cracks, and the wound began to close at an incredible speed.

That was one of the unique abilities of rank IV silver trolls. They had absurd regeneration abilities.

Alaric gritted his teeth.

The troll pulled the club from the ground and raised it above his head with both hands. The air around him began to distort due to the pressure. Then he took a step forward.

The ground gave way beneath him.

And in the next instant, it disappeared.

Alaric barely had time to notice the disturbance in the wind before the club descended from an impossible angle.

The impact didn’t hit him directly, but the shockwave struck him like an invisible wall, throwing him across the street and smashing him through the facade of a ruined building.

The structure collapsed on top of him in a shower of stone and shattered wood.

The troll advanced, each step leaving craters.

Among the rubble, a sharp blast sent dust and debris flying.

Alaric emerged from the destruction, floating again, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, his breathing now irregular.

Ah, this is going to be complicated.

He knows that to defeat this rank IV monster, he has to decapitate it with a single attack, something very difficult to do.

The troll roared again, completely regenerated, and this time its aura was even denser than before.

Alaric wiped the blood from his lip as several magic circles appeared behind him.

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