'Pride, can you help me check if there's any other monster around? This thing's armour was restored by some weird means and I can't seem to figure it out.'
[Got it.]
Evan sent a mental message to Pride through their connection, turning his attention back to the exhausted blade wraith upon hearing the high demon's reply.
'Well, my state is not far off from its own.'
He checked himself and realized that he only had little magic power left, clicking his tongue in annoyance at his earlier actions.
'I really should have stayed hidden to take a magic potion. But he wanted to attack Eliza, I couldn't let that happen.'
[There's nothing else in the room.]
He received a reply from Pride, confirming that there was no other existence in the monster room beside them.
'So how...?'
Evan glanced at the blade wraith that had just grabbed and thrown aside what remained of its damaged armour, attempting to understand the circumstances under which Elecrus' armour had miraculously been rebuilt in the midst of the fight.
'Let's kill it first and see...'
The young hero began deliberating on whether to allow himself to recover a bit before attacking or not when a green ring of light appeared around his wrist.
He felt the pain coming from his injury lessen considerably as a familiar magic power covered his wound.
"Thanks."
With a small smile, he gave his thanks to the girl who healed him even in her exhausted state and kicked off the ground, dashing towards the blade wraith glaring at him.
"HAA!"
"..."
In response to the monster's spirited shout, Evan only silently brought his blade up to meet Elecrus' weapon.
**CCLANGG!!
At the sound of the clanging blades, Evan dropped his sword and splayed his right leg wide, placing his hands on the ground and partially activating his paladin skill on his outstretched leg.
"?!"
He didn't wait for Elecrus to compute his actions, spinning 360 degrees and delivering a sweeping kick to the monster's feet, sending it tumbling backwards.
He then shifted his body to the side to avoid his falling sword and got up slightly, lunging forward and driving his right palm into the monster's chest.
And then, with the last of his magic power...
"Energy Blast."
**BAMM!
There was a loud noise as a point-blank range energy blast hit the blade wraith, tearing a hole right through its heart before going on to create a small crater in the ground.
Elecrus' body landed on the floor as the light in its eyes dimmed, glaring at Evan one last time before it died.
Evan dropped to his knees, heaving an exhausted sigh as he collapsed right beside the blade wraith's corpse.
'No more monster rooms.'
Those were his last thoughts as the adrenaline rush that he was experiencing ran out and his eyelids closed as he passed out from exhaustion and slight anaemia.
◇ ◇ ◇
After seeing both Eliza and Evan's take on the battle, it's only natural that we get to see Pride's side of things.
Among the three of them, Pride was undisputedly the strongest.
Even if her level was tied to Evan's and she still hadn't unlocked all of her skills and magic from her prime, she was still capable of dealing with both Evan and Eliza together if they ever fought.
The moment after Evan downed his magic potion and called out the levels of the blade wraiths, Pride made the decision to use Glavore as a training dummy.
"I see what they are doing. Attacking the person whom they have the most resistance towards, huh?
How cheeky of them..."
A small smile crept onto her face as she spoke, while she went through the levels of the opponents, gauged them and then matched them according to Evan and Eliza's levels.
'Eliza would lose if she fights head-on, as for Evan, it might be a bit tough for him.'
The moment she thought that, her blood-red eyes glowed as she activated one of her skills that could be considered a crowd control skill.
"Contempt of the Many."
A wave of demonic energy spread out from her body called out softly, taking a stance with her right leg pulled backwards and her left leg stretched forward.
|Contempt of the Many;
Type: Rare Active Skill
It is futile to attempt to use number to overwhelm the user of this skill as the more adversaries they face, the stronger they become.
For daring to be hostile against the Deadly Sin of Pride, those under the effect of this skill experience a reduction in strength that scales of how many hostiles are present.
The more hostiles there are, the greater the weakening effect, but this in turn increases the energy cost for the skill and reduces the duration exponentially. |
Although she was not the one who was going to be battling Leviron and Elecrus, they were still considered hostiles by her, as such the effects of the skill applied.
Even if they weren't hostile to her, as far as she considered them to be hostile, then her skill's effects would apply.
It might sound unreasonable but this was the embodiment of the sin of Pride we're talking about, she needs not the opinion of others on who she considered hostile.
If she said you were a 'hostile', then that was what you were, your views and opinion on her decision, really didn't matter to her.
Her Pride Embodiment skill was always active, granting her the power of hubris to face the enemy that was higher levelled than she was.
And then there was her aura of pride that buffed those that she considered to be allies; Evan and Eliza in this case.
After taking action to make sure the two kids survived, Pride gripped her blade with both hands and pulled it backwards.
An aura of sinister black flames surrounded her sword as she locked gazes with the Flame Sword Master, Glavore.
"Leviron, the one with the hazy sword is the weakest among the three, and it is not at full power so, Eliza, you should take him."
Pride heard Evan's words to Eliza, mere seconds before she abruptly kicked off the ground the same time Evan blinked away, as if planned beforehand.
"Aura of Pride: Flames of Hubris."
Even if she could not teleport like Evan, it was not much different to Glavore as it could barely see her coming, raising its flaming sword just in time to block her attack.
A small explosion rang out, releasing omnidirectional shockwaves as the two blades clashed with each other.
"?!"
Glavore was surprised to see it was unable to push Pride back as it did earlier, instead, it was now incapable of withstanding the force driving her attack, having no other option but to make an attempt at retreating a few feet.
Nevertheless, the demon of Pride wasn't done with him as the black flames on her sword went on to devour its own flames, before corrupting them and turning them against him.
It watched its bright red flames turn black in an instant, going on to melt a section of its armour and scorch its skin, forcing the blade wraith to cry out in pain.
Pride took advantage of its momentary pause due to pain and grabbed the blade wraith's neck with her arm.
"hup."
She flung the monster that was at least 3 heads taller than she was with more ease than taking candy from a baby.
*BAM!
Glavore fell to the ground and rolled a bit before stopping and struggling to get back to its feet.
As if to mock the monster's efforts, Pride casually kicked the air, sending a gust of wind at the monster's feet and making it tumble forwards.
"Now then, Glavore, was it?"
The blade wraith instinctively flinched when it heard the humanoid opponent in front of it call out its name, forcing itself up to its feet and jumping backwards to take distance as it stared at her warily.
"Let's use you to test out my fire magic since you seem to have resistance to that.
As you are taking distance on your own accord, I'd start with the ranged spells."
She stabbed her sword into the ground before cupping her palms in front of her chest, a two-ringed magic circle appearing underneath her palms as she called out.
"Fire Splash."
She opened her palms to reveal a small ball of flames, similar to the ones Evan usually created when using flame grenades.
Pride smashed the ball of flames into the ground, creating a fire wave. It then travelled the ground all the way to where Glavore was standing.
Naturally, there was no way the blade wraith would let itself get hit, however, it's not like Pride only intended to cast one spell from the start.
She snapped her fingers and conjured a dozen fiery red magic circles in the air behind her, snapping her fingers again as each one began firing multiple flame magic spears, forcing Glavore to move around in order to dodge.
It tried to ignore the spears and dash toward her, intending on landing an attack when it saw three balls of flames manifesting about a metre away from her.
"Flame Grenade...was it?"
The 𝘮ost uptodat𝑒 novels are pub𝙡ished on fre(e)webno(v)el.𝒸𝑜𝘮