"Shin! What happened?! Are you okay?!" After being dropped into the dungeon portal, Rose was the very first to notice the sizzling wounds on Haruki's body.
Barely escaping the attack from Michael and even protecting Asuka, half of Haruki's body was burning like a furnace. Noticing the burns on her master, Asuka who'd been pushed away from the attack rushed right over to him and clasped onto his burning hand.
"Heal-Ahh!" The flames on his body forced her to retreat before she could finish using the ability.
"Ughhhh!" His teeth clenched tight, Haruki was trying to power through the pain. However, the laser beam from the archangel was perhaps the worst attack for a demon like him to be hit with. It not only hurt his body, but also stripped him of all mana, and even incinerated part of his soul. Which left him nothing but the tyranny of sheer will to survive the aftermath of the attack.
'Shit! Shit! Shit! I underestimated that fucking bastard!' Keeping his thoughts confined to himself, he was brought tumbling down to his knees. 'Fuck, we lost silver storm, and Nue's eye too!'
"Let me take care of the flames," moving Asuka to the side, Rose grabbed Haruki's burning hand.
Taking a few seconds to feel the flames around her palm, Rose tried to assess exactly what kind of magic was behind the continuous burning of the flame. When she was finally able to figure out the magic affinity of the attack, she closed her eyes and began draining the mana out of the magic flames.
"It's working!" As soon as the flames began to die down, Asuka too grabbed Haruki's arm and began healing him while Rose continued to diminish the flames.
"Dammit, it's true holy magic, only angels and gods can use it," gulping her worries, she shot Haruki a troubled glance. "Only a demon lord or someone with Atlas's blessing could've survived a hit from such attacks. Consider yourself lucky that you're not a bundle of ash by now."
"What about you? Will you have survived?" Still groaning in pain, Haruki couldn't help but ask.
Consuming the last of the true holy flames, Rose gulped down the mana and just took a moment to let it dissolve through her system.
"No flame can hurt a fire dragon," she muttered, looking right into his eyes.
Scoffing at her boast, Haruki used rejuvenation on himself to hasten the healing process. In the meantime, as he was being healed, he looked over Rose's shoulders and saw Riley lying unconscious with her back leaning against the dungeon walls.
'She hasn't recovered?' He thought, wondering if she would even wake up before the battle ended.
Once his body had fully recovered thanks to the rejuvenation ability, Haruki propped himself up and racked his brain to figure out his next move. Having left the battlefield in such a rush, he had no clue what had happened so far, and even when he tried to see through the eyes of a demonic spy he saw nothing at all since they'd all been destroyed by the clashes between two legends.
"Rose, boost me up with your mana," he demanded, extending his hand toward her.
"Wait…" Knowing exactly what was going on in his mind, Rose decided to question him first before doing anything he said. "You're not planning to go back, are you?"
Shocked by her words, Asuka rushed beside her master and grabbed him by the arms.
"Master, we can just go back to Laria, Michael will take care of the demon lord!" Even though Asuka's suggestion was possibly the safer option, Haruki had already made up his mind to head back over to the battlefield.
"She's right, with Michael out there fighting the warlock and Arian duchy destroyed, there's no reason for you to go back!" Moving right in front of him, Rose tried to convince him some more. "You have Margarette who can keep pretending to be the Darian ruler, and you, well you're Duke Frost in everyone's eyes."
With every Arian city destroyed, the king was bound to be presumed dead, and nobody from the other duchies would snitch on Haruki's identity; he had little reason to risk his life by heading back into battle. However, for him, that little reason was more than enough.
"Ahaha…" His head hung low, a light chuckle left Haruki's lips.
Surprised, the other two glanced at each other, hoping to find some explanation for Haruki's behavior from the other person. Noticing more confusion on their faces, however, they once again turned back to their master.
"Ahaha…Ahaha…You two," grabbing Rose's arm by the side, Haruki continued to chuckle some more. "Forgot about Mistress of Darkness, didn't you?"
The very name of the ability gave them both flashbacks to the time when Rose was trying to kill Snow by the dragon seal door. At that time, at the brink of death, the ability Mistress of Darkness gave Haruki not only Asmodia's skills but also a substantial amount of her stats.
"But master, didn't the skill escapist keep teleporting you away before Mistress of Darkness activated?!" Suspecting that Haruki was lying about the skill's activation, Asuka kept her hands clutched tight over his shoulder.
"Michael's attack was too fast for escapist to trigger, and the moment my body registered the pain, Mistress of Darkness finally activated," bringing out his screen of stats, he scanned through the curses to figure out one abnormality after the activation. "And it seems like since I had no mana the healing abilities didn't take effect on their own."
"Even so!" Grabbing him by both arms, Rose yelled right into his face. "You think you can defeat two of the most powerful creatures in this world, just because you have some borrowed abilities?!"
Putting up a smile, Haruki glanced up at Rose. With his mana slowly recovering, his mind was already beginning to use Asmodia's passive ability to accelerate thoughts, and with it, he'd come up with the perfect plan to steal the abilities of the alleged strongest creatures in the world.
'Do you really need me to tell you everything?' His gaze paired with a devious smile, relayed that message over to Rose.
"You're insane…" She muttered, she was right.
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