Moments slowly passed as tense atmosphere calmed down, the fear which haunted Jian Si for a short period of time vanished and all she could see now is a dying man. She cautiously inspected the gold ring but found nothing special about it, she couldn't understand why would Arthur get worked up about this instead of the other one.

She looked closer only to see a very minuscule engraving, it was none other than Lucy's name being written there yet its significance is higher than all the treasures Arthur has in Zodiak's ring.

Jian Si also understood the meaning of ring once she read the name, she didn't know who exactly this Lucy was to Arthur, but it was definitely an important person for him to get so angry.

Having followed the way of the murdering, most of her emotions if not all of them were abandoned as it the only way to reach the peak mastery of the sword.

Surprisingly, Cold Sword didn't argue back, she simply threw the two rings near Arthur without saying a word. He was startled by her actions as he didn't expect the spoiled and an easily angered brat to act like this, nonetheless, he didn't say anything and merely watched her, waiting to see what's she going to do.

The girl, as eccentric as before, stared at Arthur without saying anything for more than three minutes, which made him feel uncomfortable as every time she's around, the atmosphere becomes awkward and a bit gloomy.

"… I can spare your life, if you accept a request of mine."

Listening to her, Arthur couldn't help but roll his eyes in annoyance, this girl doesn't understand that he's not willing to cooperate with her.

Fortunately, four minutes or so were enough for much of his Nether Energy and Health to recover. His torn off limbs have started regrowing and were almost halfway to complete recovery. The chains also followed, wrapping around the arms tightly, suppressing his physical body.

Jian Si noticed such changes but didn't seem to care at all as if everything was within her grasp. Arthur had recovered enough Health and Energy to deal with her, that's what made him unafraid of her.

"Are you deaf or what? I'm not accepting any requests."

Jian Si was still not angry, she sheathed her sword and put it on her back then replied

"I wish to let you live but you are being uncooperative, it's just a request."

"And I wish I could give you a proper beating to teach you proper manners… is wish time over now?"

Cold Sword couldn't handle the 'verbal abuse' she was suffering, with a flushed face and a shaky finger that was pointed at him, she retorted

"Y-"

Before she could finish, a shadowy figure emerged from the clustered trees that were piled up on each other.

It had a skeletal body and a creepy appearance, with a dark armor and a woman's body on its back, it dashed near Arthur, awaiting for his next orders.

This was none other than the Death Knight he sent earlier to retrieve the Dryad's corpse. It is pretty strong but it was lacking compared to Jian Si, so Arthur didn't bother sending it to its demise.

Jian Si was momentarily alerted so her attention shifted from Arthur to Death Knight for a short moment, Arthur made use of this distraction to use his threads and try to immobilize her.

His Enigma Abilities didn't require any form of Energy to be used but they do require focus, which he was lacking for the time being, which is why the speed of threads was not what he expected.

Cold Sword swiftly dodged the thin threads and used her hand to slash at the Death Knight. Her hand was strengthened with sharp Sword Energy so the slash wasn't a simple one, it was similar to a wind blade, invisible and deadly.

Being only at the Heavenly Realm, the Death Knight would not survive an attack from a Divine Peak being, however, before it struck the undead, the slash struck the Dark Barrier that Arthur conjured the moment he regained some of his focus.

Jian Si knew how strong her previous attack was so she started regretting not killing him or at least immobilizing him in some way, however, it's too late for that and all she could do was glare at him with dagger-eyes.

"Ignorant, foolish… I have told you several times to kill me yet you hesitated for a reason that I don't know of, neither do I want to know it. A request, was it? I'm quite curious right now, why don't you tell me that request?"

Just as he finished talking, one of his hands, the one which started growing first, was forcefully lifted then clenched.

This caused a dark cube to appear, trapping both of them inside. This further damaged Arthur's declining Mental Health, making him cough more blood and his face turn paler than it already was. He purposely used this out of all the abilities so that she can't escape and with the dark cube here, he was safe and sound even for her.

The only way she'll be able to harm him right now is going all out, which she probably wouldn't do.

"Now now, we have all the time of the world, why don't we continue our conversation?"

Jian Si looked around her, only seeing the darkness of the cube, she begrudgingly withdrew her raging Sword Energy, which cut all the area around her due to her surfacing rage.

She knew that he didn't mean to harm her else he would have killed her and not just trapped her inside, yet despite all of that, she couldn't see him in a positive way, something about him annoyed her and made her usually calm self really angry and frustrated.

"Y-you backstabbing bastard!"

With her lacking knowledge in insults and her rising anger, Jian Si couldn't even insult him in a proper way, which made the heavily breathing Arthur burst out in laughter, causing aching pain to surface yet again.

"Hahahah I'm beginning to doubt the rumors I heard. You've traveled a lot and seen many things, as I said, it's kill or be killed. It's like the law of the jungle, the strong prevail while the weak suffer and die, there's no backstabbing in fights, no unfairness or no honor, as far as I'm concerned."

"Y-you should be ashamed, for a sword-practicer to resort to such underhanded means!"

Still not giving up on her badmouthing, she continued spouting nonsense that Arthur didn't give a rat's ass about.

"Ah? I never said I was a sword-practicer. It's not because I wield a sword that I'm one, it just so happens that my strongest weapon is a sword and that my mastery in swordsmanship is decent."

Not all that Arthur said was true, but half of it was. He considers himself a sword user but doesn't the follow the rules of these users, the code of honor or whatsoever.

Totally different from her usually expressionless face, Jian Si seemed to be out of it as if she was about to pounce at him and rip him to shreds but held herself back. Recklessly attacking would do her no good and she knew that she can't win in a battle of words, he was way more experienced than her, which made her feel kind of helpless.

Arthur tried moving his new hands but an agonizing headache assaulted him, his body was recovering at a fast speed and his Health would be back to full soon enough, however, to recover from the Mental injuries would take several days, if not more.

Furthermore, his usage of the Mini Heavenly Arrow and the Dark Cube further deepened his mental wounds, however, he was forced to act as such lest he would have perished, if not by the old man's hand then it would certainly have been due to this crazy girl's doing.