Stygian Mage

Garlon was a Warrior type Initiator who focused mainly on defense. And this point was further complemented by the fact that his Soul Form was the ‘Animate Type: Spiked Turtle’. With his Bloodline from the Spiked Turtle combining with his Soul Form, he could transform himself into the said Beast and obtain all its abilities. Of course, he was still not at the level of complete transformation, so he had to do with partial transformation for now. But even so, given all these factors, he boasted having one of the highest defensive powers amongst all the Rogue Initiators currently present in Bellfalls. Even Ashby’s defense was not much higher than this man who had just focused on this aspect and had walked on this path.

Soren already knew a little about what type of Initiator Garlon was; he had seen him go down the wall multiple times and fight the Beasts. The same was true for Garlon; he also knew what path Soren walked on. Both had some ideas about each other’s fighting style but at the same time, they also knew that they could not use that information to properly judge the other party’s full capacity.

And thus, none of them underestimated each other as they took their first step.

Ice Barrage

Ice Barrage

Ice Barrage

But before Garlon could even move towards him, Soren took out his staff and cast <Ice Barrage> multiple times; spreading that huge number of ice arrows around the area.

Explode

BANG!!!

Then, without any hesitation, Soren exploded all the ice arrows and created a field of dense icy mist that prevented anyone outside from seeing what was going inside.

This act really surprised Garlon but he didn’t do anything to remove this mist. In truth, this mist helped him too as he also didn’t want anyone else to interfere in their fight; both Soren and Garlon had their sensing spell and skill so the mist didn’t really hinder their fighting abilities either.

Now that the field had been covered, the two Initiators truly started their battle.

Dark Gravity!

Without wasting any time, Soren cast one of his most powerful spells, <Dark Gravity>, and trapped Garlon in its area of effect. The sudden increase in gravity stunned Garlon as he was forced to halt his charge once again and had to use all his physical power to resist the increased attractive force. Understanding that this might not be the end of this spell, Garlon then quickly used his partial transformation and turned his back into that of a Spiked Turtle’s; it was a dark green turtle shell covered in sharp spikes. Of course, the effect of this transformation was not just that; after this, Garlon was able to use some of the Spiked Turtle’s abilities. And so, with his Bloodline in effect, he quickly used the skill <Turtle’s Defense> and created a defensive shield shaped like a turtle shell around him to defend against the effect of the <Dark Gravity>.

As soon as Garlon finished using his skill, the second phase of the spell took effect. The dark tendrils came out of the black ground and started attacking Garlon’s defensive shield. A scared expression finally appeared on Garlon’s face at this point as he saw the tendrils coming at him unceasingly. 

While Garlon was dealing with the effect of <Dark Gravity>, Soren had already started using his skill <Shadow Steps> and was now rushing towards Garlon in the mist form.

Soren had actually found an amazing use of this skill <Shadow Steps> while he was practicing and increasing its mastery level before. Although this skill was a stealth movement skill that allowed Soren to move by turning into mist, it did not prevent him from getting hurt. If anyone were to attack Soren while he was in that mist form, he would still get hurt as he would normally do. But Soren had found out that while that was true for the most part, he was actually able to turn intangible for a moment when he was using this skill. This meant that no physical attack could touch him at the moment that he would turn intangible; of course, the time duration of that was extremely short so it had to be used tactfully.

And that was what he used here. He rushed towards Garlon in the mist form and swiftly turned intangible before getting into the range of Garlon’s attack. As Soren had expected, although Garlon seemed like he was unable to do anything against the effect of <Dark Gravity>, it was all a show. Garlon was faking the scared expression to bait Soren into taking action prematurely; he was actually able to handle the attacks from the dark tendrils just fine.

As Soren got close to him, Garlon quickly used <Earth Spikes> in front of Soren and angled it so that Soren would run into the sharp spikes himself. This was the moment that Soren had chosen to turn intangible. As a result, the spikes had no effect on him as he crossed through them and then moved to the other side of the alley by side-stepping Garlon.

Of course, he didn’t stop his actions once he reached there. With ‘Moonshard’ in his right hand, Soren aimed his left hand at various spots around Garlon and cast <Ice Wall> to surround him. After making sure that Garlon was completely surrounded by walls, Soren then started casting <Ice Wall> around the alley and covered the whole area.

To any observer, this action from Soren might seem like he was making sure that Garlon could not escape. But, in truth, Soren was creating another screen to prevent anyone outside from seeing what was happening inside.

All of this was to prevent others from seeing his spell <Create Undead>.

It might seem like he was overdoing it because Soren didn’t even care much if others found out that he was Zero; but, to him, if a lot of hassle and annoyance could be prevented by doing just this, it was worth it.

And so, after making sure that no one was able to peek inside, Soren faced Garlon and cast his <Create Undead>; creating a Forsaken Knight. By this time, the effect of <Dark Gravity> had already ended and Garlon was now attacking the ice wall that was facing Soren. He had thought that Soren had used this spell to surround him and then would use this time to run away; he wasn’t willing to see such a result so he used his most powerful attack, <Crushing Palm>, to destroy the wall in the direction that Soren was in.

BANG!!

Just as Garlon destroyed the ice wall with his skill, a large black sword suddenly came crashing down towards his head. Such a sudden turn of events truly stunned Garlon this time as he did his best to back off from the range of this sword. He could clearly feel the threat from the attack and knew that not even his best defensive skill could stop it.

Dark Gravity!!

Shadow Prison!!

But how could Soren let this chance go?

Seeing the Forsaken Knight get close to Garlon, Soren immediately cast <Dark Gravity> together with <Shadow Prison> and trapped Garlon in that area. Although the chains from <Shadow Prison> could not penetrate Garlon’s defense, they could at least bind him and trap him in place.

A true nightmare descended upon Garlon as he realized that under the effect of the two spells, he could do nothing but watch as the sword came for his head.

BAM!!

And so, with a loud dull sound, the large black sword smashed on top of Garlon’s head and cut his skull into half; ending Garlon’s life in a moment. Blood, gore, and brain matter splattered all over the sword and the Forsaken Knight’s body, creating a savage scene. Seeing the effect of the attack, Soren truly had to commend Garlon’s defense as even with the Forsaken Knight’s prowess and brute force, the sword was barely able to cut his head in half; if it was anyone else, the sword would have chopped their whole body into pieces.

……

It took Soren less than a minute to get the Storage Pearl from Garlon; absorb the Quintessence; keep the corpse in his own Storage Pearl; disperse the Forsaken Knight; pick up Argus; then leave for his hotel. He knew that while many Rogue Initiators from the meeting truly did not want to get involved in this, there were many that were planning on using the situation to finally get the last laugh. According to everyone who knew about this matter, although it wouldn’t be an easy win, Garlon definitely had a higher chance of killing Soren. But even if that wasn’t the case and Soren was able to somehow kill Garlon, it would definitely not be an easy fight for him either. So, there were quite a few amongst the Rogue Initiators who were planning on taking advantage of that.

They were planning on sweeping in at the last moment and then killing the tired party.

While Soren stayed in a close to perfect condition even after killing Garlon, he didn’t want to publicize that fact. And so, he made a quick decision and left as fast as he could; he even made it seem like he was running because he had no power left to fight anymore.

Fifteen minutes after Soren left the area with a sleepy Argus, two shadows arrived near the alley. They looked at the mist field with clear surprise in their eyes as they used their sensing spells and skills to scan the area again and again. But no matter how much they did it, they found no one around. Not only that, but they didn’t even find a dead body.

Unable to find anything or do anything, these two shadows left with a frustrated expression.

Soon after these two shadows left, a few more shadows arrived one after another. And same as the previous two shadows, they also left with frustrated expressions when they were unable to find anything in the mist field.

While this was happening in that battle area, Soren had already reached his comfortable hotel room and was now lying on his bed with his eye closed and relaxed expression on his face; it was clear that he was satisfied with the result today. He had dared to initiate the conflict, so it was obvious that he was confident about killing Garlon. But no matter how confident he was, there was still a sliver of doubt in his mind that made him worry about something going wrong. And it was not without reason because if he hadn’t dealt with everything as carefully as he did, many things would have gone wrong and he wouldn’t have been here right now, smiling at his victory; after all, Garlon was not the only enemy he was fighting tonight.

In the end, though, he won and that was all that mattered.

As for the prize of his victory, he had yet to check them out. So, without being able to control his excitement, Soren swiftly sat up on the bed and took out Garlon’s Storage Pearl from his pocket; Storage Pearls could not be stored in other Storage Pearls, so he had kept it in his pocket. He then took some time to remove Garlon’s Mana Lock that was placed on it, and then added it to his own Soul Form; the addition of this Storage Pearl increased the size of Soren’s Storage Pearl to about sixty cubic meters.

After he was done with that, he immediately closed his eye and focused on the inside of his Storage Pearl. Apart from the obvious increase in space, it was now also filled with various stuff that came from Garlon. Just from one look, Soren could tell that his Storage Pearl now contained various potions, various pills, a large number of books, Memory Spheres, wooden boxes that were used to keep the ingredients fresh, two vials containing blood, two Automatons similar to the one that Soren had, four Enhancement Artifacts that Garlon was previously wearing, some Beast Cores, and even a few Spell Vessels; there were also a bunch of Mana Crystals and a few glowing Mana Cards in one corner.

An obvious expression of surprise appeared on Soren’s face when he realized just how wealthy Garlon was. Soren had killed and looted five Rank 1 Initiators before in Eastwood, and yet, he hadn’t gained this much from all of them combined. Maybe this Garlon was not from a backwater area like Eastwood and had traveled to many places, gathering all his wealth slowly; or maybe he had just killed and looted other Rank 1 Initiators like Soren and had gained his wealth that way. Soren didn’t know and neither did he care. What mattered to him was that all of this was now his. With just this loot, he had now graduated from being a newly advanced Rank 1 Initiator with no capital.

Of course, having this much wealth didn’t matter much if he could not utilize it. Now that he was unable to increase his cultivation level, he had to find other means to get stronger.

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