'There was a third one in the territory?!' Carlo shouted out in his head as he stared at the hooded figure that was in front of him.
The light was shrouding the man and made it hard to even see him clearly as the latter approached Marco's dead body.
A stream of light fell on Marco's body, healing the wound, but the man was already dead, and bringing him back was impossible.
'Sorry, I never expected them to actually have another Tier IV with them, I thought in the worst-case scenario, someone would be injured before I made it here.' Reign thought as he closed Marco's eyes before staring at Carlo with hatred in his eyes.
He had given Carlo and his people shelter and took care of them, he never even suspected the man as not only was he one of the rare people that had known his father, but he was the leader of an organization that was fighting against the enemy before they even met.
He had heard what Carlo had told Marco, and it came as a shock to Reign that he and his people had actually been members of the organization for so long, hiding, sacrificing the ones loyal to them just so that nobody would suspect them.
Carlo on the other hand was looking at the enemy in front of him with suspicion. He had never heard of another powerful character being in the territory. He had made sure to account for everyone that was fighting, and the man in front of him was someone he was not familiar with at all.
His powers were also something he had never seen before. Nobody in the territory had an ability that allowed them to manipulate light itself, not to mention one that had already reached Tier IV.
His men were dead, and those that had been attacked by them were healed by the mysterious figure in front of him. He was shocked to see that even Marco's wound was completely healed in a matter of seconds.
"A healer, huh?" Carlo asked mockingly as he stared at Reign, completely unaware of who he truly was.
"To think a healer would have the guts to come to the frontlines and fight, that's commendable," Carlo said as he used his ability and multiple gray spikes shot out from the ground and attacked Reign, only for him to disappear from the spot and appear to Carlo's left.
Carlo quickly moved to the side, evading Reign's fist before kicking at him and using the power of the kick to push himself back before forcing multiple rocks to rise out from the ground.
The rocks were quickly dyed black from his mana before being hurled at Reign with incredible speed. Each of the rocks was incredibly tough thanks to them being coated in Carlo's mana, which allowed them to easily crush the bones of Tier III beings and even deal heavy damage to a Tier IV one.
Reign quickly extended his hands in front of him as a sword of light suddenly appeared. He grasped the sword before using it to cut through the rocks. The sword was incredibly sharp and the parts of the rocks that were cut started melting thanks to the incredible power it possessed.
Carlo slammed his feet on the ground as the area about one hundred meters around Reign suddenly shook before spikes started rising with incredible speed. That attack, coupled with the rocks that were still being hurled at Reign, made it incredibly hard for one to fully evade them.
Reign jumped high in the air before staring at Carlo and using his soul manipulation. Even though he was unable to use the full power of any of his three abilities, attacks that were directed at the soul were incredibly hard to block and most people still had no means to defend against them fully.
The attack was successful and Carlo immediately felt a sharp pain assaulting his head. That made his focus drop and the giant rocks that were floating around him suddenly all fell to the ground as Reign was able to easily charge at him and evade the spikes that were still on the ground.
The attack only worked for 2 seconds, but thanks to Reign using mana to boost himself, that was enough for him to get close to Carlo.
In his normal state, Reign only had limited skills he could use from his abilities. The light manipulation, for example, only allowed him three things without him transforming.
He could heal others by spending mana and showering them in the light, he could concentrate light in order to shoot a ray of light at an enemy, and finally, he could manipulate the light in order to create a weapon as he did now.
Of course, the last two were versatile in use and one could create a lot of things by manipulating light, not to mention that he could also control the ray of light and even make it curve and come back, it was just that his experience with using the ability was extremely low and the best thing he could do was simply shoot it out.
He was only able to create a sword out of light thanks to him being so used to swords and wielding them, he tried creating other things, and failed quickly.
The power and boost he would get from any of his three abilities was also not close to what he would gain from using his lightning, but thanks to his incredibly high stats and great power, it was still enough to deal with an average Tier IV combatant.
Carlo was not average, to be honest, but Reign was using not one but two abilities at once, which made it hard for the man to do anything to him. Reign was, however, also unable to kill the man quickly as he was not some cannon fodder that would simply roll over and die.
His charge was blocked by a giant wall of rocks that Carlo had summoned before trying to reduce the distance between them.
That, however, worked against him as Reign had to shoot out another ray of light at him from behind the wall. Thanks to Carlo moving back, the ray didn't hit him as it was intended to, but merely grazed his shoulder and took a small chunk of his flesh, disintegrating it and burning the wound immediately.
"Damn it, who the hell is this guy, even Laura is not able to fight like this!" Carlo shouted out in anger as he summoned staff from the mark on the back of his hand. The staff was made out of a black bone while a bright red gem was visible at the very top, coiled around by a couple of smaller bones.
Multiple skulls could be seen on the staff, each one having small jewels embedded where the eyes were supposed to be. The jewels shone each one a different color and shape.
The moment Carlo took out the staff, the atmosphere around him changed. The staff had an eerie feeling to it, and it was quickly shrouded in black as Carlo's entire body started changing.
"Let me show you, let me show you my full power, you bastard!" Carlo shouted with a crazed expression on his face as blood started splurting out of his body. His entire body was soon fully red, coated by his own blood.
Two arms suddenly extended out from his body, rising a couple of inches below his original two arms.
As if that was not enough, two more pairs of arms appeared from his back as well. Carlo's body suddenly enlarged by about half a meter, but his musculature barely changed and he was still as slim as before.
Before Reign could do anything, Carlo suddenly summoned multiple weapons out of his spatial ring. Each of his hands held one weapon, and they were either a wand or staff.
"See this?!"
"With my transformation, I can break the limit of how many weapons one can wield, and now, now I can use 8 weapons which will increase my stats astronomically!" Carlo bellowed as he smiled ferociously at Reign before pointing all of his weapons at Reign.
Spikes once again showed up below him, but this time, they were different.
Each of the spikes was blood-red in color, and not only were they faster and more powerful than before, but they could actually move and extend, chasing Reign as he jumped up.
"Tch." Reign clicked his tongue in frustration as he kicked the wall that was next to him and charged at Carlo at full speed.
He knew that without using his full strength, he was going to be in trouble with the man, but he still could not do so.
The plan the queen had given him was that he should put on a disguise and fight only using his light manipulation and soul manipulation. If he was to use his darkness manipulation, the enemy might think he was Shadow, which could lead to them thinking that the others were nearby, waiting to attack them.
Before the enemy leader showed himself, Reign was not going to use his lightning or transformation.
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om