‎Rasmus was sparring with Aris in the open field, away from everyone. They had been sparring for the past five days while waiting for the remaining forces to come. They fought without hesitation, and every slash they did was intended to kill, and Rasmus always got badly injured after each session. The amount of blood and lives they took with the black swords made them stronger and fiercer.

‎”Do you feel the difference now?” Aris smirked as she clashed her sword with Rasmus’s.

‎”Yeah…” Rasmus said with gritted teeth as he tried to push Aris’s sword away. “But it drains my stamina a lot!” He grunted and pushed Aris’s sword to the side, and swung his sword instantly at her head.

‎Aris used the pommel of the sword to block Rasmus’s sword, and then pushed him away. She readied her stance and threw a slash wave at him with immense Aura.

‎Rasmus pointed his left hand at the slash wave and flicked his hand to the side, deflecting the slash wave away from him. He then swung his sword rapidly, releasing a dozen slashing waves at Aris.

‎Aris swung her sword, creating a greater slash wave enough to disperse all of Rasmus’s slash waves. She was taken by surprise when Rasmus already used his secret technique, imbuing his body with lightning, and appeared in front of her.

‎The two of them clashed their swords once again, releasing powerful shockwaves that were enough to crack the ground around them. They didn’t care about their surroundings or their swords since they had become unbreakable.

‎”My goodness, so this is how strong Rasmus is in swordsmanship?” Lenin watched the battle from a distance with Uriel, Thalior, and Novia.

‎”He has grown a lot because he has mastered the Primal Force. However, that’s not the only thing,” Uriel followed their movements that the naked eye couldn’t follow. “His growth seems to be limitless, and his appearance has changed a lot as well,” she continued with her arms crossed.

‎Lenin was shocked when she met Rasmus for the first time a few days ago. She didn’t expect him to grow taller and a bit more muscular. One thing that took her interest was the fact that his hair had grown whiter to the point it almost became silver.

‎”The reason Lady Aris is agreeing to my suggestion to meet with Rasmus, she might have found a way to unleash his potential. He’s half Orthias, and I believe what we are seeing right now is his growth to completely unleash his blood as an Orthias,” Lenin said as she watched Rasmus move from one side to another in the blink of an eye.

“But Master, are you really fine that he imitated you and made you the target for the demons because he disguised himself as you back then?” Novia looked at Lenin with her brows furrowed.

“No, but what makes it different since I’m going to fight those demons anyway? Those masked beings had seen how strong I was back then beyond the Blackcliffs, so that won’t change anything,” Lenin answered as she smiled softly at Novia. “I’m more surprised and impressed that he could pull that off, pretending to be me, a Great Sage. He had shown how capable he was in magic, and how his single spell was enough to annihilate thousands of Corrupted and even harmed that powerful demon that you guys fought back then,” she continued as she widened her smile and stared at Rasmus.

“Great Sage, he’s not someone that we can leave alone. His growth, his personality, his unknown goal, and the people that are following him, they’re not someone we can ignore,” Thalior looked at Lenin with his brows furrowed and arms crossed. “He’s dangerous, and we don’t know what he’s after. He’s not sided with humanity, and he said that he wasn’t with the demons as well, that alone is enough to say that he will become the enemy of humanity in the future,” he continued.

Lenin had a serious conversation with Rasmus back when he was still an instructor at her academy. She had known him long before anyone else, and he had always shown his true colors from the moment she saw him for the first time.

“Tell me, Your Grace, is it wrong for a young boy who got banished and abandoned by humanity to seek nothing but destruction for humankind? Rather than trying to stop him from doing so, why don’t we try to understand him? Purely, just wanting to know what he really feels and what he really wants. Have you even considered that, Your Grace?” Lenin asked, staring Thalior in the eye with a serious expression.

Thalior took his time to think and find the right answer, but he realized that he had never tried to purely understand him. All he did was try to understand Rasmus so he could place Rasmus in a specific box where he should be treated as an enemy or an ally. He had never considered what Rasmus had been through, and how humanity and society treated him as the disgrace of humankind, treating him like the incarnation of evil because of what his parents did.

“Well, he never asked you to understand, right?” Lenin chuckled softly. “He doesn’t care, but that’s the point. If he doesn’t care, that means we can try to guide him to a different direction, slowly and subtly, once we understand him completely,” she continued.

“What if that didn’t work, Great Sage? What if we could have prevented him before he grew stronger, before it was too late? There’s no place for failure in dealing with that kind of person,” Uriel asked, her eyes focused on the battle.

“Trying to stop something that we don’t even know is more dangerous than waiting. He has Lady Aris on his side, an Orthias, an Aristoria, the highest breed of an Orthias that is said to be the champion and the ultimate protector of Neva. What can we do against her? Tell me, Commander? Tell me, how many lives were wasted before you realized it was pointless?” Lenin asked with her brows arched.

Everyone went silent, unable to argue with Lenin’s view, after all, she was a Great Sage who was said to be the wisest person in Neva. She was burdened by the responsibility to protect humanity from any kind of threat, so she understood exactly when to make a move or wait. She knew when to sacrifice lives and when to avoid unnecessary deaths.

When they were deep in thought, they got chills down their spines when Rasmus and Aris had done the fighting and were staring at them from a distance. The way they kept staring at them from a distance felt like they could understand and hear what they were conversing about.

“Don’t look at the stepping stone ahead of you before you even land your foot on the stepping stone below you. That’s what you should do now, not the other way around,” Lenin stared at Thalior and the others with a serious expression. “Don’t make an enemy out of someone who’s not trying to pick a fight with you,” she said, and then left since the battle was over.

Novia followed Lenin while the others watched them walk into the distance. They then turned around and looked at Rasmus and Aris for one last time before they decided to leave as well.

Rasmus stored the sword in his spatial ring as he wiped off the sweat on his neck and watched the spectators leave. He knew they were talking about him, and they might think of him as a threat that needed to be taken care of. He had known that from the very beginning, since he was against humanity that had abandoned him. He had known that his enemies were the ones who walked on the same and different paths as him.

“We are done?” Aris asked as she swung her sword around, releasing a gush of wind with each swing she did.

“Yes, tomorrow we will be dealing with demons, only demons,” Rasmus answered, nodding as he rubbed his face with the towel. “Javi, how many have arrived?” He asked.

Javi appeared behind him and began to tell Rasmus about the forces that had come to join the fight against the demons. So far, there were thirty thousand armies that had set up their camps near the capital city. He also heard there would be another ten thousand armies that would arrive before the sun went down.

“That’s a big number to be a fodder for the masked beings,” Aris muttered and stared at the edges of the blade, clean without a single chip or brittle on them.

“You’re not wrong…” Rasmus put the towel over his shoulder and stared into the distance. “But Videl will be here as well, with that body of Saint that we found,” he muttered and stared at the bright blue sky where the snow fell.

“You’re curious about the soul that will fill that empty shell of a Saint?” Aris asked as she sheathed her sword.

“Aren’t you?” Rasmus asked back with his brows raised.

“As long as they’re nothing like Videl, I’m fine with it,” Aris answered.

“We can agree to that,” Rasmus chuckled as he nodded in agreement.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep