Lone immediately used his most powerful skill, Mental Destruction, on the closest Orge, spending five thousand of his remaining MP on the attempt.

A split-second later, the creature grabbed its head and violently thrashed around, alarming the other Orges. It took no more than five seconds for the beast to stop moving completely. It was dead.

The other thirty-nine creatures didn't even bat an eye at the death of their comrade and continued to madly stampede towards Lone, Breena and Sophie.

"Fuck! I only have enough mana for a few more Mental Destructions... do I need to use my mana orbs?" Lone mumbled as he ran away from the rampaging A-Ranked monsters with Sophie and Breena.

"I have an idea. I might be able to deal with a few of them," Sophie suddenly said from Lone's side. Lone was hesitant since he valued Sophie's safety above all else, but he nodded his head. He couldn't coddle her forever, and if she said she had an idea, then Lone simply had to trust her.

Immediately afterwards, Sophie created a barrier below her feet and flew up into the air. 'I can only launch a few since I don't have nearly enough mana to kill them all... ' Sophie thought before grinding to a halt mid-air.

"I've been practising for months, and now, finally, my efforts have paid off," Sophie said to herself as she closed her eyes and concentrated on using a new skill that she had self-taught herself.

Unique Barrier Magic Skill: Barrier Blade A skill unique to the host, Sophie Vladimirovich, and it cannot be used or learnt by any other existences other than herself. By consuming the host's mana, it creates a unique barrier that is infused with the host's sword intent, creating a powerful and deadly weapon. Cost: 10,000 MP Mastery: Beginner Level 4

This was an upgraded version of what Sophie had used on the Weaselkin Adventurers, so naturally, it was far more powerful. Sophie opened her emerald-green eyes, and they were shining brightly in the night as her magic was channelled through her small body and gathered in her hands, creating a barrier blade in each one.

"Barrier Blade!" Sophie yelled.

The two light-green and transparent blades whizzed through the air before finding purchase in two Ogres' necks. The creatures screeched in pain and blood started to trickle out of the cut skin, but otherwise, the Ogres were unharmed.

Sophie frowned and looked like she was on the verge of crying. Bitterly biting her lip, she muttered, "Is this it? Even with the strongest skill I have... this is all I can do? NO! I can do better than this!"

Sophie grit her teeth and did something fairly stupid. Using almost all of her remaining mana, Sophie created twenty more barrier blades. Even if she knew Lone would take care of everything if the situation got out of hand, she wanted to do this. She needed to do this. Sophie had to prove herself, or at least she thought she did.

Struggling to stay conscious due to the immense backlash caused by using so much of her mana all at once, Sophie bellowed out the name of a new skill. "BARRIER BLADE BARRAGE!"

Her emotions had allowed her to create a brand new sub-skill from her Barrier Blade skill. If Eolande were here, she would most definitely point out how absurdly talented Sophie was since creating skills was such a difficult thing to do, even for her.

Unique Barrier Magic Skill: Barrier Blade Barrage A skill unique to the host, Sophie Vladimirovich, and it cannot be used or learnt by any other existences other than herself. By consuming the host's mana, it creates ten or more unique barriers that are infused with the host's sword intent, creating a powerful and deadly set of weapons. For each blade added to the barrage, the damage of each blade is multiplied by 1 fold. Cost: Minimum of 100,000 MP. Additional 10,000 MP per extra Barrier Blade created. Mastery: Beginner Level 1

With twenty blades, each one held the power of eleven blades! That was the equivalent of just over two-hundred barrier blades. It had to be known that these blades could injure an Orge slightly, which was an impressive feat considering their absurdly high vigour and vitality stats.

Lone watched from below as he evaded the Ogres with Breena in shock. 'To think that Soph had grown this much... It's almost hard to remember the shy girl she once was when we first met... '

Lone was proud. Very proud. He watched in awe as the twenty barrier blades cut through the air like scythes of death towards the flailing Ogres. None of the dumb creatures seemed to notice the looming threat and they were trying their best to squash Lone and Breena with their enormous iron and wooden clubs.

Normally, Lone and Breena would have easily been able to outrun a few Ogres, but since they were A-Ranked in strength, their base speed was slightly higher than Lone's abnormally high agility. There was nothing that Lone could do about this except try his best to dodge the clumsy attacks of the Ogres.

A sharp cutting noise filled Lone and Breena's ears and before Lone could look up to identify the sound, twenty large and ugly heads fell to the ground with thunderous booms before their bodies followed suit.

Sophie couldn't endure the mental pain from using almost all of her mana in one go so the barrier supporting her disappeared and her small body fell through the air. An enraged Orge saw her and immediately raised its club to smack her out of the air like a baseball.

Just as the blasphemous creation unfit to be called an actual weapon was about to hit Sophie's frail frame, she disappeared. The Ogre looked around in confusion before it's two bloodshot eyes finally landed on a nine-tailed Foxkin standing not too far away. He was holding the nearly unconscious Sophie.

"You did amazingly, Soph. I'm very proud of you," Lone mumbled before gently kissing her on the forehead. She smiled weakly before getting unsummoned by Lone.

Dodging the incoming attacks of the Ogres, Lone was lost in thought. 'To think that Sophie could kill twenty strength-based A-Rank monsters by herself... I've really been underestimating her lately... hell, she might even be stronger than me. How much mana do I have left?'

Checking his status quickly, Lone saw that he had enough mana left for two more Mental Destructions. Swiftly decided on his targets, he used his trump card to obliterate their minds, making his mana almost hit rock bottom and successfully killing two more of the beasts.

"Thank God I have such a high level of mastery in Mental Pain Resistance or I'd end up like Soph..." Lone mumbled while wondering just how he and Breena would handle the seventeen remaining Ogres without wasting any mana orbs since they were required for Eolande's illusions.