'This can't be, right?'

Taking another quick look at the Supreme Sword who was already down to one opponent, the Elemental Blade grit his teeth as he still stared at the tri-horned demon whose elemental aura was rising by the second.

Why now? Why wait for the battle to reach this point before unleashing a hidden ability to power up and possibly wipe them all out?

If everything was like the demon said, then they would have simply stood no chance from the beginning, but looking at the current situation of the battlefield which was already tilting towards the humans' favor, that was nothing but bullshit!

'Right, there has to be something…'

Nothing but doubt filled his eyes as his stare turned into a glare, the only possible reason for his sudden rise in power should be due to something that he has planned for at the very start. Some sort of a special requirement that he needed to fulfill to gain this power must have been fulfilled at the very least.

If that was the case, then they could have possibly been played over and maybe even that young Lan could have been a traitor who sided with the demons to achieve this…

'No! I'm being led over my head once again…'

Once again, his train of thoughts reached the point where he believed Lan to be a traitor. The demon's words seemed to be so intent on leading him that way, and these thoughts easily took root thanks to the recent reveal of Crane' betrayal…

However, though he no longer wanted to trust anyone, his rational line of thought that was unaffected by his emotions which were suppressed by his mental energy told him otherwise!

At this moment, pointing hands towards Lan wouldn't salvage the situation, in fact, it would only make it worse. On the other hand, if Lan really did have a solution for this which was supposed to be one of the things that he said he would 'handle', then there would still be a chance to win this!

When being subjected to these odds while disregarding personal emotions, the Elemental Blade found no other solution other than to 'trust' Lan for the time being.

'Otherwise, if you really turned out to be another traitor. I will make sure to take your life before going down!'

In this quick-thinking session that took no more than a few seconds, the Elemental Blade finally steeled his resolve as he decided on his line of action, he no longer hesitated as he repeated the small chant he said earlier.

His grip on the longsword tightened as it grew longer and wider after the two faded rings in his finger crumbled into sand… the sword's two edges sparkled in scarlet and white lights as two other virtual edges appeared in the middle, the Elemental Blade pulled the large sword back.

The two purple and blue virtual edges started spinning around, starting to resonate with the other two edges as he completely performed a simple thrust towards the smiling tri-horned demon.

As simple as the thrust was and as far as the two were by a few meters, it didn't matter, the thrust still reached its target!

Unlike its simple starting motion, the technique performed was nothing like that, it was one of the lost elemental combination techniques!

An attack of this caliber couldn't be used casually, and its result was disastrous on both the user and target, yet… the expression of the tri-horned demon… didn't change.

"Alright, it seems like my little trick failed. I guess I have to do it myself, playtime is over!"

The ray of mixed lights immediately stopped the moment it was about to hit the tri-horned demon as a pitch-black barrier came visible turning the 'lights' off as soon as they came into contact with it…

"Hey, give me a little more, won't you? We are in this current situation since I followed your orders, it's about time that we wrap this up, right?"

Although the tri-horned demon seemed to be looking at the human to his front, he kept speaking words that made no sense…

'This…'

One of his most powerful attacks had been just extinguished like a little candle, and his enemy was standing there talking to something invisible which absolutely didn't spell like something good. However, the determined face of the Elemental Blade didn't waver as he pulled his blade back once more!

"Alright, Alright, I will only take that much, just release the restriction, what I have with me is about to run out…"

The attack ray launched one again, only to vanish all the same. However, this time, a small part of the pitch-black barrier decomposed… only to recover again in a moment's time, but it wasn't completely in vain, thanks to that small opening, the Elemental Blade managed to notice something!

The thing that supplemented the barrier appeared to be a very thin thread of sinister light that seemed to be rising from the midst of the near battlefield…

'So bloodshed was the requirement for this rise in power?'

Though it was only a guess, everything so far proved it was likely to be the case. But even then, the Elemental Blade still didn't believe the situation to be as desperate as it seemed to be…

After all, even though the aura of the tri-horned demon was still rising as he even appeared to be preparing to fight back, his attack was still able to damage that barrier! If his 'power' was indeed still rising, then that wouldn't make sense.

'Did he really…'

If this second guess was correct, then it all matched out! All he had to do was to continue as planned!

"Ok, let's first get rid of you…"

The smile on the tri-horned demon's face grew wider as he looked at the third mixed ray that was sent towards him break into nothing, the halberd in his hand grew darker and darker as he threw it like a glaive towards the sender of the ray…

However, his opponent didn't give up before throwing his fourth ray as the lights emitting from his sword went out.

"So you have finally run out of juice? What a great timing."

The tri-horned demon only managed to finish his speech before he was sent flying into the face of the demon nest which had already turned into stone!