...

BOOM!

A huge crater was left behind on the spot where he was standing when the attacks of the group landed on him.

There was no trace of him left in that place, signifying that he either got obliterated by those attacks or fled with some unknown method.

From the other people's perspective, they would surely think that it was the former given how powerful those attacks were.

Those attacks were not only strong enough to destroy everything on their path, but their speed was so fast to the point their target would not have enough time to dodge such attacks. Especially the skills that came from Hanzo that pierced through space.

But despite that being the case, the group was still knitting their eyebrows while staring at the huge crater created by their attacks.

"Did he manage to get away?" muttered Hanzo while wearing a deep frown on his face.

After that, the Elemental Spirits regroup with each other before looking at the place where Shin and Immortal were having their final battle. And from the looks of it, the victor was about to be determined.

...…

Bang!

On the other side, Shin managed to force Immortal to take a couple of steps backward with one of his sword strikes.

Seeing that, he immediately grabbed the opportunity and quickly threw a pair of consecutive slash with each of his swords.

Immortal tried to regain his balance as fast as he could before positioning his bone scepter in front of his chest to block the incoming attacks.

Clang! Clang!

Then Immortal immediately felt the strong vibration on his scepter the moment it collided with the swords of his opponent consecutively. And before his hands could even recover from those strikes, Shin immediately followed it with another swing of his sword which was much stronger than the previous attacks.

Clang!

Since Immortal was still experiencing the strong vibration on both of his arms, Immortal was unable to withstand the final strike and was forced to let go of his bone scepter.

Immortal was planning to take advantage of the brief pause on Shin's movements to immediately move away from his opponent and create some space between them.

But Immortal just hopped away from his previous location when Shin suddenly kicked the ground and launched himself forward, chasing after his opponent.

Shing!

Then Immortal suddenly stopped moving when his feet landed back on the ground because Shin was currently pointing his sword in front of his neck.

"Looks like you lose once again," said Shin with his eyes locked at Immortal to make sure that he was not going to use any kind of sudden movement.

But Immortal didn't get intimidated and just sneered at him. "Heh! So, why are you still wasting your time? Just and end this now."

Hearing that, Shin started chuckling a little before replying. "Well, I really loved to kill you right now if not because of that strange curse you cast on me earlier."

He then took a brief pause before continuing. "So, how about you remove it now and I'll spare your life. After all, both of us know how important a single level is for players like us."

"What's more, I'm pretty sure that you have a couple of precious items in your inventory that is going to drop once you die," he added while pressing the tip of his sword on Immortal's neck.

"Hehe… Do you think that you have the advantage on this transaction?" replied Immortal with a mocking tone.

Shin knew that this was not going to be easy. If it was just him, then he was going to kill Immortal right away. But based on what Arthur and Leonard had said earlier, the cursed mark that Immortal put on his body was not simple.

Not only was it able to track his location, but it also had a special ability to corrupt his mana over the course of time. And that corruption was going to slow down his progress little by little to the point where he couldn't improve anymore.

Given that, Shin consulted the two about that matter and also asked if their respective organizations could lift it. Unfortunately, they said that they couldn't help him with that matter since it was not the specialty of their organizations.

They said that Cloe might be able to help him since she was the Holy Maiden of her church. But the problem was the quality of the curse that Immortal cast at him. From what they could see, it was going to cost Cloe a lot of merits if ever he asked her to help him lift that curse.

Given Cloe's nature, she would surely help him if he asked her for some favor. But Shin didn't want to trouble her with such a trivial matter, so it was better for him to deal with this situation using his own method.

Shin transformed his left-hand sword back to its sheath form before hanging it on his waist. After, he took a strange cube from his inventory bag before showing it to Immortal. "Then how about we change the conditions a little?"

Seeing that strange cube floating above Shin's palm, Immortal immediately understood what he was trying to say. Shin was planning to capture him and hand him to one of the Righteous Churches of the game.

Immortal suddenly wore a solemn expression on his face the moment he realized what Shin was trying to do. Then he quickly swept his gaze on his surroundings, trying to see if he could find a way to escape his current predicament.

When he saw that Haowin was nowhere to find and he was now currently being surrounded by a group of Elemental Spirits, he knew for himself that there was no other way to escape his current predicament. "D*mn that guy! After all that talk, he is just going to be defeated by a bunch of Elementals."

Left with no other choice, Immortal could only agree with Shin's demands and signed a contract with him.

Shin was originally planning to rob Immortal for more rare items. Unfortunately, the system didn't let him do such a thing as it was only allowing a fair exchange when it came to these kinds of agreements.

After watching Immortal disappear in front of him with an unwilling gaze, Shin took a deep sigh before turning around and walking towards his clone who was now an Eclipse Clone.

Earlier, Shin fused the Sun and Moon clone together before he fought Immortal in a one-on-one duel. It was deceit that he prepared to make sure that he was not going to expose his identity accidentally if ever there was someone watching his fight from a distance.

After all, he had already seen enough battle videos of expert players that were captured from a distance, so it was better to be careful than blow up his cover.

Given that, Shin 'shook' his hands the Eclipse Clone, showing as if they just finished the end of their deal. Then the latter suddenly disappeared after using one of its stealth skills before Shin unsummoned it.

After that, Shin swept his gaze at his surroundings to make sure that he didn't miss anything before signaling Hanzo to teleport the group out of his place.

*********

Meanwhile, in a place not far from the place where that battle took place, a spatial tear suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Then Haowin came out from that spatial tear and fell on the ground in an awkward manner. Based on his current appearance, he seemed to suffer a devastating blow.

But the strange thing was the injuries that he currently had seemed to be unrelated to the attacks that he received earlier from the group of Elemental Spirits. There were some frost flakes on different parts of his body as if he was just frozen earlier.

"D*mn it! Why is that witch in this place?" cursed Haowin as he was trying to recall what just happened earlier.

During the last moment of his battle against Shin's Elementals, he was getting ready to cast a powerful spell that could counter all of the attacks that were sent towards him earlier.

But before he could even fully prepare himself to use such a spell, he was suddenly interrupted by the sudden appearance of frost elemental mana that came out from the ground and was spreading rapidly on his legs and trying to consume him whole.

Seeing that, Haowin immediately abandoned the idea of using the spell that he was preparing earlier and instead focused on freeing himself from the sudden appearance of strange frost.

With that, he was able to free himself from being locked down by the spreading frost. But right after he did that, the frost fragments that were created from freeing himself suddenly gathered together and transformed into a group of frost swords that were pointing at Haowin.

And before Haowin could even respond with that situation, the swords were already piercing his body and preventing him from moving.

Then it was the time when the attacks of the Elemental Spirits landed at him briefly as Haowin immediately used a sacrificial skill that consumed a certain amount of his HP before sending him out of that place.

Everything happened a little too fast which was why no one was able to notice such a brief exchange between Haowin and his unknown assailant. But with that kind of casting speed to execute such a dangerous spell combination was more than enough for the 'God of Carnage' to identify who that person was.

Having that in mind, Haowin started grinning from ear to ear before muttering to himself. "Heh! Now, this is becoming more and more interesting. Looks like there are a lot of things surrounding this Nameless Swordsman. I guess keeping an eye on him is going to be worthwhile."

After that, he stared at Ancient Ruins for a moment before turning around and disappearing in the shadows of the night.

...…