Silith fidgeted slightly at the feeling of warmth she felt from her master's touch.

She parted the hair covering her face with her small hands and looked up at him---the being who was her creator, she felt as if she could just melt in his arms.

As they flew through the sky, the recent events flashed in Silith's head, and to her, it almost seemed like a wild fever dream she'd hope to never wake up from.

Although she pledged to serve her creator's wishes until death without question, she really felt relieved and happy that the creator was the person he was.

In the short span of a few hours, she interacted with the creator more than she ever did in the last 126 years of her life's history. He seemed very different from the stoic and brooding overlord he used to be, but he still possessed the same deep wisdom and infallible strength he always had. Likewise, he still possessed the same aura---an aura that exuded a feeling of gentle warmth, yet with a cold swirling darkness just hiding underneath. Although among everything else, the most pronounced change she'd noticed was the new brightness that was visible in his eyes... he seemed a lot happier and much livelier than she'd ever seen him before, he almost seemed to glow in her eyes and it made her feel happy too.

"Hm?" Her master seemed to have noticed her gaze on his face as they were flying and looked at her with a smile, his eyes seemed to ask the question "what's wrong?"

She quickly closed her hair back up in embarrassment and shook her head, Xero made an amused chuckle and replied to her gesture with a simple nod before he turned his attention back forwards.

Silith let out a breath of relief... if she had a heart, it would have probably popped already.

It was a curious thing for her as to why she had been the one chosen to accompany him, there was certainly a lot more people qualified for the job, and in all honesty she felt like she'd just be a burden... even now she was being carried by her master because of her lack in mobility-related abilities.

She was the youngest among a specialized group of maids. Since created, they were tasked with being both maids serving directly under the creator and at the same time, a task force trained mainly for infiltration missions, and although in terms of raw power, she and most her other sisters were more or less equally matched, there was still a big gap between them when it came to experience.

Silith had never been good with maid work and was inexperienced in real combat situations, the main reason she was here right now was because today had been chosen as her first time tending to the creator... there was supposed to be a second and more experienced maid with her that would ensure she didn't mess up and shame their entire group, but everyone else was preoccupied with the system damage dealt to the Shadowspire and were sent to support in the repairs.

In all honesty... she had often felt like a failure, but then... "I think that it'll do you good to be a bit more confident in yourself," the memory of her master's words played in her head.

She blushed, shaking her head to expel the voice in her mind.

= 0 = 0 = 0 =

Xero found flying quite enjoyable, especially at such high speeds.

The sky was a light blue and was cloudless for the most part---it was beautiful, something that was quite a rare sight back in Earth after how much the atmosphere there had been polluted. This sight was another thing the was thankful for, among the many others.

Moving his thoughts away from the sky, with his enhanced sight that was now far beyond human capabilities, Xero scanned the horizon. The desert-like landscape that he'd seen for miles was now slowly changing back into the forest that it once was, and the further away it got from the areas dense mana, the more life there was.

There was also a mountain range much further beyond---it was in a distance that the dense mana wasn't able to reach, and so, its creatures and fauna were left intact, but that wasn't important at the moment.

Right now his attention was on a structure that looked like something resembling a temple but was now something closer to a giant glorified pile of rubble.

Xero started to descend and felt several very weak mana signatures somewhere in the structure.

His feet touched the ground and he dispelled the wings on his back, then gently placed Silith who had been quiet the entire flight back on her feet.

Focusing his mana in his palm, he held an image of a simple longsword in his mind, then his mana started twisting as it shaped itself into the image. There was a flash of bright light in his hand, and in the next moment, he found himself gripping a non-ornate longsword.

Xero inspected it...

The sword was around 110 cm, the blade itself, together with both the crossguard and the hilt seemed to be formed from a type of silvery metal, though in reality, it was just a simple mana construct, it was nothing special in appearance but was very sharp, sturdy and unnaturally lightweight.

He casually swung the sword at the air and it whistled sharply---the unbelievable speed of the motion leaving an afterimage to linger in its wake. The air around the blade was warped and displaced as it moved, creating an invisible force that despite not hitting the ground itself, had enough power to cut a deep line in the earth that stretched for several meters.

After a short pause Xero swung again, then a third, a fourth, a fifth... he simply continued to swing at the space in front of him, with a delay in-between swings that shortened as the number of swings increased.

Although his movements were undeniably refined, fluid and precise to say the least, he had no form or stance at all and simply looked like he was lashing out against the air, and was somehow... winning.

After his 20'th swing, the delay in Xero's movements seemed to disappear, and like a whirlwind holding a blade, he was able to do hundreds of swings in a second, with each one leaving their an independent mark on the earth. It was quite the bizarre and awe-inspiring sight, especially because of the several afterimages that followed Xero's movements, this was proved by Silith who was staring at him from a short distance away with sparkling eyes.

Xero suddenly stopped, seeing as how brutalized the ground already was. 'The sword feels just like an extension of my hands...' he thought as he viewed his reflection from the longsword's blade.

Just then.. the mana signatures he felt earlier rushed forward towards his direction. They came out of the ruined temple, most likely becoming aware of his existence because of the racket he was making.

They seemed to be golems made mostly of something that had a similar appearance to sandstone. It stood at roughly 3 meters, with a vaguely humanoid shape, two small black stones that acted as eyes and a blue glowing core at the center of its chest. Apart from its size, it really wasn't menacing in any way, though Xero could sense the hostility coming from all of the 13 mana signatures and simply waited for their first move.

The golems to his surprise had suddenly started casting spells---something not that common as golems were usually made with the purpose of tanking with overpowering physical abilities. Still... a spell of the level it was casting wouldn't have even been able to dirty his clothes.

Xero stood silently and waited to see just what it was going to cast to sate his curiosity, but before the golems could even finish spellcasting, he caught a glimpse of Silith in the corner of his eyes as she rushed forward and within a blink of an eye, closed the 200 meter distance between herself and the golems and proceeded to reduce them to dust in a ruthless manner.

It happened quickly, but every moment was clear in Xero's eyes. Silith's hair suddenly grew quintuple in length as she charged forward, her grey locks seemed like they became a part of her limbs as it floated off the ground, hardened to an incredible degree and started to come together to form something similar to a spear tip. With movements reminiscent to a striking viper, her hair lashed out and started making holes in the bodies of the golems, always starting her barrage on their cores.

It didn't take longer than several seconds for all of it to finish, leaving Silith standing over a small hill of blue golem core fragments and sandstone-like rubble with her form completely pristine and dirt-free, there was also the angle of sunlight and the dust that added to the dramatic effect.

Xero smiled, although mildly disappointed he wasn't able to see what spell the golems were about to cast, he was able to see a cool scene and found it a much better outcome.

= 0 = 0 = 0 =

A girl was kneeling before him, her sky blue eyes that looked up at him had long lost their life. Six men surround her with their swords drawn and pointed at her neck, but he knew that those blades would be nothing more than a nuisance to her if she'd wanted to kill the men here, even the chains that held her legs and arms might as well be decorations. The only thing that was keeping her from slaughtering all the men here was the seal carved on the flesh of her back.

He felt nothing but disgust at the sight of her... a monster hiding in the skin of a human. It was utterly shameful for him to rely on something such as this---a witch.

"You shall be tasked with the retrieval of the holy artifact, you are given eight days to complete your task, and if you don't return by then with the artifact or try to do something stupid... I think you would know what would happen to you next..." he told her with disdain clear in both his words and his expression. He held a small circular device in his hand and activated the spell placed on it, a bright red magic circle glowed brightly as a sign of his success.

The girl held no readable expression on her face as she simply nodded, the back of the white shirt she was wearing started to blacken as it became soaked in her blood.

= 0 = 0 = 0 =

Xero stood in front of the ruined temple with Silith beside him. It was actually quite massive now that he got close enough to witness it in its entirety.

'Judging from the state of these walls... this must've been standing for at least eight centuries now, there are also several spells etched into the bricks, but most of it has been eroded or destroyed, most likely by the passage of time, still... not bad...' he thought as he inspected the structure.

'Well, time to take it down...' That was his next thought, as the idea of going inside and searching for an artifact in some old dusty ruin just really didn't appeal to him, especially with Silith here with him. The thing was obviously a health and safety hazard. Even if none of them would get hurt if the entire thing collapsed on their heads, it was simply not a desirable prospect.

Utilizing a form of telekinetic magic, Xero lifted what was nearly the entire temple from its foundations, the floating rubble then started to clump up into a giant ball in the air.

With all the rubble now formed into a sphere, Xero snapped his fingers and a purple flame flared to life, it blazed brightly and engulfed the entirety of the sphere, creating a purple sun in the sky that emanated no heat, then almost instantaneously, it disappeared and the light show was gone, together with all the white bricks that used to form the massive clump of rubble which was simply reduced to nothing---not even ash.

With barely any structure remaining from the original temple, a single item was laid bare---a beautiful ornate sword that seemed to have been untouched by the ages laid stabbed into a pedestal. The presence of fragmented divine power could clearly be felt just from being near it, and the golden blade itself glowed a soft white as holy energies leaked out from the runes inscribed on its surface.

Xero stepped closer and felt several barriers surrounding the sword activate in attempts to stop him from proceeding. To him, it simply felt like a really thin piece of stretched plastic trying to hold him at bay.

He took a single step forward and the barriers shattered.

Finally faced with the sword itself, Xero took hold of the blade with no ceremony and pulled it out of its pedestal with almost no effort.

As it was freed, the runes on the blade lit up brightly, and as if being pulled into a dream, the entire surrounding area was swallowed and turned into a blank white.