Chapter 266 One Hour Later

Osto Western Plains.

Hobha

March 21st

Year 1052

11:25 am

**BOOOOMMMM!!!

A loud explosion rang out, with its impact blasting apart a dozen monsters with tough exoskeletons, and releasing shockwaves that spread out and knocked many more off their feet.

Before the monsters could get back up, a fair arm guard-wearing hand waved through the air, drawing an array of fiery red magic circles where it passed.

**BOOOOMM!!

Another lesser explosion rang out, sending more monsters to their deaths, seconds before large shadows were suddenly cast on the ground.

"Earthen Rain."

Dozens of brown two-ringed magic circles glowed in the air, before raining down rock spears onto the monsters below.

Everything that the rock shower fell upon was destroyed. Even the monsters with the toughest exoskeletons were blasted to smithereens. All that was left behind were bits and pieces, as well as a large number of craters on the ground.

"Disgusting bugs."

The one responsible for the explosions, the young hero Evan, turned to the high demon Greed who had just rained down rocks on a group of insect-type monsters before speaking.

"Give me a heads-up next time, the blood got on me."

As soon as he was done talking, he kicked off the ground and dashed forward, releasing aura slashes and blade cannons that wounded and killed dozens of monsters as he moved.

With his other hand, he fired out multiple energy blasts, targeting the obvious weak points of the humanoid monsters in the fray, while occasionally blinking to another area and repeating the same.

In the distance, one could see a giant golden pearl of lightning that rained down lighting bolts on everything below, charring them instantly, with walls of lightning bricks appearing and folding into a 'clapping' motion on the monsters in front of them.

Waves of flames spread out from another area, where Evan could see a small fair-skinned red-haired young girl floating in the air and torching dozens of monsters with each wave of her hand.

On another side, he could see dozens of C-rank adventurers, teaming up to take on the C-rank monsters that were having levels within the ranges of 195 to 200.

The overall strength of all the combatants present had seen an increase due to the number of level-ups that were flowing in with each monster that perished.

Suddenly, there was a screech from behind him, but the young hero didn't even flinch. He calmly waved his aura-engulfed sword and swatted away the insect monster behind him with it.

However, the monster rolled on the floor for a while, before getting up back to its feet like nothing happened, despite having an obvious bleeding slash wound across its chest.

Evan clicked his tongue as a thin layer of white light encased his body as he thrust his sword forward at a speed that the monster could not react to, activating a skill along with it.

"Vortex."

The whirling spiral-shaped mass of aura slammed into the monster's unguarded head, with the blade piercing into its skill right before the aura shredded its head to pieces.

As the level 200 monster's body dropped to the ground, Evan flicked the blood off his sword, his pupils darting around rapidly as he took analysed the current situation.

Close to an hour after the battle had begun, and about ten minutes after they had discovered that there were about a few hundred more monsters than the initial estimate, the number of combatants from both sides had decreased in number.

More than half of the attacking monsters had been killed, but the speed with which this was happening was reducing as fatigue, injuries and casualties slowly built up on the side of the resistance force.

As for the biggest threat yet, the wyvern and its demon rider, they had descended to the ground behind the sea of monsters right after the battle had begun, and hadn't taken any move since then.

Evan dashed towards an area that was concentrated with monsters, dodging the magic launched by a few orc wizards and hobgoblin shamans, however, vines shot out from the earth and grabbed onto his legs, keeping him in place long enough for a combination attack spell to hit.

**BOOOMM!!

"Got him!"

"Kekekekeke!!"

"Human who kill brethren, dead!"

The monsters let out cries of joy upon seeing their attacks hit, however, when the flames of the explosion disappeared, Evan's uninjured body was revealed for them to see.

A cracked ice-type elemental shield surrounded his body as he calmly downed a magic potion, much to the shock of the previously celebrating monsters.

"H-how?"!

"Impossible!"

The monsters who had used their strongest combination attack were stunned upon seeing Evan remain unscathed. However, they quickly returned to their senses and attributed it to the broken shield surrounding the boy.

Sadly, before they could take action to shatter the shield completely, Evan rose his finger and pointed towards one of them.

"Chain Lightning."

**SIZZLE!

He manipulated his magic power while activating the skill simultaneously, infusing shadow magic elements into the lightning that burst out from his fingertip in the next moment.

The air crackled, and a black bolt of lightning burst from Evan's fingertip. The lightning left a twisted light trail in the air and hit one of the Orc wizards in the blink of an eye!

In the next second, all the water in the orc wizard's body instantly evaporated under high energy and black lightning.

Its entire body was instantly turned into charred carbon particles and collapsed under gravity, causing the air pressing against the ground to emit a soft 'puff' sound.

However, the bolt of lightning wasn't done yet, as it had already jumped to the nearest orc wizard that was beside it, charring that one black in a shorter time.

"Chain Lightning. X5"

Evan then went on to spam the skill, releasing multiple bolts of black lightning that shot through the air, torching the monsters around him and going on to hit an airborne monster that swooped in to attack him, causing it to crash on the ground and turn a dozen other monsters to meat paste with its large body.

The boy instantly shot forward with his sword and released an aura slash that lopped off the monster's head, with a familiar notification ringing out right after.

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

'Two? Just how high level was that thing?'

He didn't dwell much on the monster, with his gaze turning towards his contracted demon who was battling against one of the weaker B-ranked monsters of about level 210 in the distance.

A thin translucent barrier of light manifested beside him, a moment before a giant troll's punch thundered towards his head.

'Thanks, Liz.'

He cancelled the blink he was about to activate and dashed towards the monster, sliding under its body and launching an energy blast at the 'thing' asserting its presence on its uncovered body!

**BAMM!!

"GUOOHHH?!"

The troll let out a cry of pain as its hands reflexively went towards its groin, dropping onto its knees and curling up on the floor.

Evan, however, just stood up and activated vortex on its head, blasting it to bits before charging towards the monster Pride was fighting.

On the way, he saw Kuro hacking and slashing at monsters with claws of dark shadow, while having a sphere of black light hovering above his body and launching out beams of light and shadows at monsters in his surroundings.

"Vortex."

Evan blinked and appeared behind the monster, instantly activating two unique skills, and releasing a large spiral-shaped mass of golden-coloured magic power, tinged with a bit of the Blessing of Destruction's red.

The monster that was caught off guard by Evan's sudden appearance, took the full brunt of the soul-damaging vortex that hoisted its body into the air.

Right after, Eliza's flower cannon came through with a beam of concentrated magic power that blasted off the monster's arm, with Pride jumping into the air for the finish.

"Aura of Pride: Flames of Hubris."

Black flames engulfed the sword of the high demon that slashed down on the monster's neck, facing a momentary resistance before going on to lop the creature's head off its shoulders.

[Level Up]

As the large body of the creature dropped to the ground, Evan sensed a gaze on him and turned to the sky, locking eyes with a man dressed in leather armour that was floating in the air.

The man's gaze then moved to Pride, with the high demon flaring her aura in response.

Immediately after, the wyvern that had been silent on the ground since the beginning of the battle, cried out and flew towards the man, with a large amount of condensed magic power building up in its mouth.

Evan saw two humanoid figures jump off the wyvern's back right before it opened its mouth to launch its breath of flames towards the floating man.

However, the man moved at a speed that Evan's eyes, even with his enhanced visual prowess, could not even trace his afterimage.

By the time Evan's brain could compute the fact that the man had moved, the man had already grabbed the wyvern's head and forcefully snapped its jaws shut, before going on to spin its large body around in the air and fling it towards the ground.

The earth trembled as the large monster crashed on the ground, with an explosion ringing out a beat later, accompanied by a cloud of flames shooting up into the sky.

Seeing this, Evan sighed and stabbed his sword into the ground before saying.

"I don't even need to appraise him to know that he's the adventurer's guild master. The fact that he easily flung an over level 250 monster to the ground, even if it was injured, is enough to tell me who he is."

Of course, Evan still appraised him right after just to confirm that he was indeed the adventurers guild master, and indeed he was.

The next moment the airborne guild master held up two fingers in front of his lips and muttered something, with nearly a hundred swords of darkness manifesting behind him.

The swords pointed down towards the wyvern that was flapping its wings to get back into the air, before shooting downwards at breakneck speeds.

Naturally, the wyvern didn't just stay there and take the attacks, releasing a breath of flames towards the swords while using spears of earth to counter some of them.

**BOOOOMMM!!!!

Evan tuned out the explosions behind him, before turning to Pride and asking.

"Let's leave that to him. How about we go after our own targets?"

"...The demon?"

"And his contractor."

The young hero replied and took a deep breath, activating limit break right after and kicking off the ground.

Pride activated her own unique skill, boosting her base parameters to a whole new level as she shot in the same direction as Evan.

The guild master who was clashing against the wyvern momentarily gazed at them, before commanding his floating swords to shred apart the wyvern's already injured wing.

The wounds he gave it the day before also reopened, causing the wyvern to scream out with pain and rage, its eyes turning bloodshot as it shot out a breath of flames.

Meanwhile, the other B-ranked adventurers finally caught up to the guild master, instantly targeting the remaining B-rank monsters that were about to wipe out another C-ranked party.