Chapter 42

BAM! There was a loud crashing sound.

Then, a moment of silence.

“...”

A moment later, the governor suddenly opened his eyes. ‘...huh? I’m alright?’

His eyes widened. The hammer had stopped midway through the swing, blocked by a clear, glass-like barrier suspended above him.

The barrier, even after taking the hit, appeared to be completely undamaged.

“What?!” The hammer-wielding woman was stunned still. Her hammer resting on the barrier, she hurriedly looked around. “Who’s there?”

Storan, Naire, and Gonar were all completely stunned as well and all immediately went on full alert.

Mouths gaping open, Alivia, Finn, and Grandpa Dinran felt their tightened hearts relieve a bit as they watched and realized that the governor had not been touched.

“Sorry I’m late,” a gruff-sounding voice sounded out. Although it was a deep voice, it sounded unnatural and strained.

Everyone turned towards the source of the voice. Standing next to Alivia, Finn, and Grandpa Dinran was a short black-cloaked figure, who was surrounded by an eerie aura. He was postured a bit awkwardly, his hand rigidly sticking out, and breathing a bit heavily.

“MASTER!!!” As soon as he saw the figure, Finn became ecstatic, and he screamed out. “You’re here!!!”

Both Alivia and Grandpa Dinran immediately stood up in shock. Zairen had shown up? Where had he come from?

They had never seen this side of Zairen before. This was… Zairen?

‘What?!’ The masked fighters were all flabbergasted. Where had this person come from? No one had seen him enter the circle.

Seeing the newly arrived person, the hammer-wielding woman hurriedly raised her hammer up off the barrier and backed up.

Although she only seemed mildly stunned, in reality, she was absolutely flabbergasted. She knew better than anyone how powerful her full-force spirit energy charged hammer strike was. That powerful strike was unable to even put a crack into that clear barrier this short new black cloaked expert had created?! How was that possible?! How powerful was this new person?

She couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous.

‘So you’ve come after all, Zairen,’ the governor’s eyes lazily trailed toward Zairen’s figure as he lay underneath the barrier, inwardly smiling to himself. ‘Looks like in this short period of time, you’ve become even stronger… what a monster.’

The governor was equally as amazed that the barrier that Zairen had created wasn’t damaged. He recalled that just two weeks ago, when he had mistakenly fought Zairen, he had been able to blast through the barrier he had created with a charged punch. Although Zairen had created that barrier hurriedly on the fly, it was still in clear disparity to Zairen’s current barrier, which hadn’t even been cracked by the hammer-wielding woman’s full-forced blast.

Yet not only that; just by sensing Zairen’s general aura and ‘presence,’ he wasn’t sure exactly how, but he could just tell that even in this short period of time, Zairen had made drastic improvements. He almost seemed like an entirely different person!

“So you’ve come,” Naire spoke out, instantly recognizing who Zairen was. He gripped his knife tightly in anticipation. “You’re here to fight us? I won’t forget that you were the reason my brother got imprisoned.”

Ever since he had been heavily injured by Zairen last time, he had been incredibly anxious to get revenge.

Zairen stayed silent and wobbly walked forward towards the governor’s beaten body. It was enough to speak once; he didn’t want the masked fighters to get suspicious of his obviously fake voice. Furthermore, he was heavily focusing on controlling his body so it would move normally.

“You’re the famous mysterious cloaked expert?” Storan spoke. “No matter how strong you are, I don’t know why you would come and throw yourself into a 1v4 scenario. Don’t you see how the governor ended up?”

Zairen ignored him and slowly bent down to check on the governor.

“Idiots!” Finn, picking up on Zairen’s reluctance to talk, decided to respond in his stead: “Don’t you see that you all are the ones who are done for?! Reap what you sow!!!”

“What…?!” Storan couldn’t help but exclaim, turning toward Finn. He was becoming annoyed at this arrogant little child.

“He’s giving you a little time before he crushes you,” Finn chortled. “You should be grateful.”

“You little…!” Storan couldn’t help but ball his fists as he began to see red. Previously, he had dismissed Finn’s words as idiotic talk, but now that the black cloaked expert had actually showed up, he was starting to get angry.

As Finn talked, Zairen conducted a quick examination of the governor. After seeing that although the governor was beaten down, injured, and drained, he seemed to be in no life-threatening danger, he took out a few pills from the interdimensional space and held them out, whispering to the governor to take them.

Nodding, the governor received the pills and immediately swallowed them. He trusted that Zairen was giving him something good.

Seeing that the governor had taken the pills, Zairen let out a breath. He slowly slung his arm over his shoulder and helped him to his feet.

Aided by Zairen, the governor was able to stagger back to Alivia, Finn, and Grandpa Dinran, who all immediately crowded around him.

“I’m going to enjoy turning you into a slave!” Storan growled at Finn. “I’m going to make sure you-”

“Enough, Storan,” Gonar held up a hand and interrupted a fuming Storan, turning towards Zairen instead. “Are you ignoring us, Mr. Black Cloak? Despite this delusional child’s words, don’t you know your situation?” He was a bit annoyed at how calm Zairen was.

“Yes, don’t you?” Storan added on, fueled by an angry energy from listening to Finn. “So you didn’t abandon the governor after all, and you were able to save his life by creating a strong spirit energy barrier. However, you only delayed the inevitable. The governor has already been incapacitated. Do you really think you can defeat all of us on your own?”

Zairen merely stood there silently, not giving any sort of response.

“Alright then…” Storan snickered angrily. “I guess we should see how strong you really are then.” Without delay, he raised his hands once again, prepared to send out more spirit bullets.

In response, Naire, Gonar, and the hammer-wielding all got into aggressive battle-ready positions as well, all facing Zairen in a surrounding semicircle.