However, Orion's face didn't change, and instead, he nodded to him with a smile. "You are correct, and you are very smart too." I rarely meet smart people these days." He shook his head in pity.
"But you again forget one thing," Ethan said, smiling and commending Orion's courage to stay calm even after he told him that he saw through his plans.
Orion became interested and asked, "And what would that be?"
"Your strength. No matter what attack you planned—what conspiracy you schemed—all that becomes useless in front of the absolute strength that I have in the platinum rank compared to you, who is only at the iron rank," Ethan slowly said, looking at Orion.
Orion nodded as if he understood something and asked with a smile, "I see, so that's why you've been so cocky?"
Ethan didn't get angry with Orion's rude words and nodded. For him, what he said were facts and there wasn't a need to get angry over someone he would soon kill.
Orion smiled and felt that guy was too arrogant for his own good. Initially, when he started talking to him, he gave him a feeling of a calm and composed person, but now he understood that behind that mask was a very arrogant person.
He felt that the difference between Carl, Evans, and many other arrogant people and Ethan was that the latter could hide his arrogance behind a calm mask, while the former could only bark like dogs when getting humiliated. This made people like Ethan more dangerous than those arrogant dogs, and currently, he was facing one such guy.
"So, what are you going to do?" Ethan asked, seeing Orion silent. "Are you going to leave her alone here, or are you going to die with her?"
"None of these." Orion smiled and brought his hand in front of him—a dark purple sphere the size of his fist was hovering atop his palm. It cast a purple glow on Orion's face as he turned to look at Ethan. "Do you know what this is?"
Ethan raised his brows and a frown appeared on his face for the first time since he started talking to Orion. "Is that the attack you have been wasting my time for?"
Orion nodded and smiled, looking at his frowning face. "You can feel it, can't you? The energy stored in this small thing? If it were to detonate, I estimate anything within a 2 km radius of this gorge would disappear from this world, leaving behind only the remnants of ashes flying around as dust."
Ethan's face darkened as he heard Orion. As Orion said, he could feel a huge amount of energy stored in that small sphere, to the point that it made him wonder where Orion got that much energy considering his strength at the iron rank.
Ethan nodded before turning around. "You are naive if you were to do that, which I believe you aren't."
With that, he walked back to his friends and muttered something to them. The heavy-built guy carried Carl on his back and started climbing the gorge, followed by Damian and Ethan.
"May we meet next time as allies," Ethan said before vanishing from the gorge, leaving Orion and the masked girl alone.
Orion immediately sighed in relief, seeing they were gone. It had been mentally taxing while Ethan was there, as he doubted Ethan might not care about his friend and sneak attack him. Now that he was gone, Orion finally calmed his nerves.
The masked girl kneeled on both legs, exhausted both physically and mentally.
"Why didn't you move and stood there like an idiot when that guy's attack was approaching you?" Orion asked with a frown when he saw her sitting down.
At that moment, he also let go of the energy supply to the purple sphere, and it vanished into thin air.
The masked girl shook her head, saying, "It's not that I didn't want to move; it's just that I can't move from my position when I use that skill."
"There are skills like that?" Orion wondered aloud before shaking his head and saying, "Let's leave this place first."
The masked girl nodded, and they headed in the opposite direction of Ethan's group. Orion definitely didn't want to encounter him again in a situation where he had someone to protect.
After traveling in one direction for a long time, they found a cave belonging to a wolf pack. Orion easily killed the wolves and entered the cave.
However, as soon as they went inside, the masked girl fainted, falling onto Orion, who caught her and didn't let her fall.
'She really fainted at the right place,' Orion thought, shaking his head.
He laid her down on the ground and then sat leaning against the wall of the cave, waiting for her to wake up.